Note 32 — THE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD (1098–1180)
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It is not enough to suppose with some of her biographers that the visions were dictated by Hildegard and were latinized by a secretary. The visions imply a good deal of study and considerable book-learning. Among many reasons for believing that she had a very serviceable knowledge of Latin are the following:
(a) She was well acquainted with the Biblical writings and quotes them aptly and frequently.
(b) She was regarded by her contemporaries as an authority on scriptural interpretation and on Church discipline, and was frequently consulted by them on these subjects.
(c) She pleaded in person before clerical tribunals.
(d) One of the least remarkable and most credible of her ‘miracles’, the expounding of certain letters found upon an altar-cloth (Migne, col. 121), depends entirely on a knowledge of Latin.
(e) In the Liber divinorum operum (Migne, col. 922) she writes ‘firmamentum celum nominavit quoniam omnia excellit’, a derivation taken from Isidore and incomprehensible to one ignorant of Latin. There are many other passages in her works in which the sense depends on the Latin usage of a word.
(f) No mention of this ignorance is made by Guibert in the short sketch of her life that he wrote almost immediately after her death (1180; see Pitra, p. 407). On the contrary, he suggests that she had been an industrious student.
(g) The Liber divinorum operum may especially be pointed out among her works as betraying a very considerable degree of learning. Notably her elaborate doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm must have involved extensive reading.
The general question of Hildegard’s knowledge of Latin has also been discussed by Pitra and by Albert Battandier in the Revue des questions historiques, vol. xxxiii, p. 395, Paris, 1883.