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| Scivias II.2: The Trinity. Rupertsberg MS, fol. 47r. |
| Laus Trinitati que sonus et vita ac creatrix omnium in vita ipsorum est, et que laus angelice turbe et mirus splendor archanorum, que hominibus ignota sunt, est, et que in omnibus vita est. |
Praise to the Trinity— the sound and life and creativity of all within their life; the praise of the angelic host and wondrous, brilliant splendor hidden, unknown to human minds, and yet its mystery is life within all things. |
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| Scivias II.4: Tower of the Holy Spirit. Rupertsberg MS, fol. 60r. |
| 1. O ignee Spiritus, laus tibi sit, qui in timpanis et citharis operaris. 2. Mentes hominum de te flagrant et tabernacula animarum eorum vires ipsarum continent. 3. Inde voluntas ascendit et gustum anime tribuit, et eius lucerna est desiderium. 4. Intellectus te in dulcissimo sono advocat ac edificia tibi cum racionalitate parat, que in aureis operibus sudat. |
1. O fiery Spirit, praise to you, who on the tympana and lyre play! 2. By you the human mind is set ablaze, the tabernacle of its soul contains its strength. 3. So mounts the will and grants the soul to taste— desire is its lamp. 4. In sweetest sound the intellect upon you calls, a dwelling-place prepares for you, with reason sweating in the golden labor. |
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| Caritas (Divine Love) Liber Divinorum Operum I.1 (Lucca MS 1942) |
| Karitas habundat in omnia, de imis excellentissima super sidera atque amantissima in omnia, quia summo regi osculum pacis dedit. |
Love abounds in all, from the depths exalted and excelling over every star, and most beloved of all, for to the highest King she gave the kiss of peace. |
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| Scivias II.4: Confirmation. Rupertsberg MS, fol. 60r. |
| Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita movens omnia, et radix est in omni creatura ac omnia de inmunditia abluit, tergens crimina, ac ungit vulnera, et sic est fulgens ac laudabilis vita, suscitans et resuscitans omnia. |
The Holy Spirit: living and life-giving, all things moving, the root of all created being: of filth and muck it washes all things clean— no guilty stains remaining, its balm our wounds constraining— and so its life with praise is shining, rousing and reviving all. |
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| Imago expandit splendorem suum... Scivias II.3: The Church and Baptism. Rupertsberg MS, fol. 51r. |
Update: The full article on which this presentation was based has now been published in Eikón / Imago 4 (2013:2), pp. 1-68, available electronically here.
A major point of contention within Hildegard studies is the question of her role in the production of the illuminated Scivias manuscript known as the Rupertsberg Codex.[1] Much current German scholarship has tended to preclude Hildegard’s hand by dating the manuscript’s production after her death in 1179, based on stylistic comparisons to firmly dateable contemporary manuscripts or on the many places where the images in the manuscript diverge from or even contradict the text of the visions. Pre-war German scholars, however, who had access to the original manuscript before it was lost, and most modern Anglophone scholars have argued more or less strongly for Hildegard’s influence on the design. Today, I argue for Hildegard’s direction of the images based on their function as a theological discourse refracting the text. I propose that the manuscript was produced in the late 1160’s or early 1170’s, at about the same time Hildegard was writing the Liber Divinorum Operum; and that she designed the images specifically to offer a visual record of the work’s theology.
