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Updated 05-14-08
Herrad of Hohenbourg /Hohenburg
/Landsberg (d. aft.1196)
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"MAY THIS BOOK BE USEFUL AND DELIGHTFUL TO YOU."
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In 1147 Frederick Barbarossa appointed a relative, Relinda, to be abbess and to institute needed reforms at the women's monastery of St. Odile at Hohenbourg, near Strausbourg in Alsace, a monastery that had been founded perhaps as early as the 600s. After he became emperor in 1155, Barbarossa continued to support Relinda and her canonesses. Adopting the Augustinian Rule, St. Odile became a rich and powerful monastery, a center of learning, and a school for the daughters of the area nobility.
At Relinda's death in the mid-1170s, another abbess was named, Herrad. At one time historians believed her to be from a powerful family of Landsberg, but that is now questioned, so we are sure of nothing about her background or education. We do know that her education was broad, because she was able to produce an encyclopedic compilation of sources concerning all of salvation history, from the creation to the end of the world and beyond.
Herrad's canonesses already had access to Scripture; what she did was present them with the latest interpretations on the meaning of that Scripture. Therefore, she used not only the older theological authorities but also the work of scholars of the 1100s, such as Anselm and Bernard of Clairvaux, as well as her own contemporaries, Peter Lombard and Peter Comestor, whose works now formed part of the core curriculum of the new all-male schools. She emphasized those texts that reflected the newest thought on theology, biblical history and canon law.
Herrad's goal seems to have been to bring together the best of the old and the new theology in a teaching manual --- of both words and pictures --- that would provide an advanced theological education to her learned canonesses, and that would also be an aid to meditation for the less learned, especially the novices, and perhaps also the lay students. Besides the theological texts, the book also contained poetry and hymns (some accompanied by musical notation).
The result of all this was the Hortus deliciarum (Garden of delight). It consisted of over 300 parchment leaves of folio size. In addition to the Latin texts, over 344 illustrations were used: at least 130 of these were brightly colored full-page illuminations, while smaller ones were put on the same pages as text; there were also drawings and tables. Many of the illustrations were given explanatory rubrics and in some cases detailed captions placed around the figures. In case the Latin terms weren't clear to the younger readers, German was frequently added. The effect was to allow text and image to gloss each other.
Work on the Hortus had begun before 1175; the major part of the work may have been completed by 1185, although additions appear to have been made until Herrad's death. The manuscript (and one complete copy) survived fires and suppression of monasteries, only to be destroyed in an 1870 bombardment during a siege of the city of Strausbourg. All that exists now are copies of part of the text and some tracings and engravings that were made before 1870.
According to scholars who studied the manuscript before its destruction, both the the text and the illustrations were the work of several different hands. The drawings and the copying of the text (at least three copyists were involved) were almost surely done in the scriptorium at Hohenbourg; the coloring of the drawings may have been done there or elsewhere, but apparently under the supervision of a single artist. What is clear is that text and illustration were conceived together; in some cases it appears that a text was chosen to fit a specific drawing.
Herrad was without question the editor of Hortus deliciarum, so the work reflects her organization and her integration of text and illustration. Until the 1900s all of the 67 poems contained in the work were also attributed to her (or to Relinda). Research has now reduced that number to a probable seven, but in those we can hear the same voice that put together the whole.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information about secondary sources.
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1. For the text:
(a) At Lina Eckenstein's book, Woman Under Monasticism (1896), link to the chapter, "Herrad and the 'Garden of Delights.'" There, after Eckenstein's detailed description of the whole work, you will find her prose translation of Herrad's 24-stanza poem, "Salve, cohors virginum" and of her dedicatory letter to the women of Hohenbourg. Then, at the bottom of the whole book's table of contents, click on "Appendix" for the original Latin of the poem. (For alternate versions of parts of the poem and the letter, see below, under "In print.")
(b) Translations and illustrations from the opening of Hortus, on the angels and on Lucifer's rebellion, as well as the rubrics and captions of the illustrations (two via links); all translations are by Gary A. Anderson.
2. The place to start for Hortus deliciarum illustrations is a French site that gives twelve colored copperplate engravings based on tracings made from the original manuscript. For each, you can link to enlargement and detail, and to a French translation of the rubrics and captions. Here are the last two plates, which show the halves of a single two-page illustration at the end of Hortus:
(a) The foundation of Hohenbourg: At the top, Christ in front of the monastery's church (for a translation of the verses on Christ's scroll, see below, under "In print"). To the right is the founder Duke Eticho being drawn up to Christ by Peter and Mary; to the left, John the Baptist and Eticho's daughter, Odile. Below, at right: Eticho gives the keys to his daughter and her companions. At left, the late abbess, Relinda, described here as one who "carefully repaired all the damages to the monastery which she found in her time and with great wisdom reinstituted there the religious spirit which was then almost destroyed" (Caratzas, p.248).
(b) The women of Hohenbourg, described in the superscript as a"religious congregation united in charity, for the service of God, at the monastery of Hohenburg, at the time of the abbesses Relinda and Herrad" (Caratzas, p.250). In addition to Herrad, 60 women are shown; all are named except the first and last, who perhaps represent those who came before and those who would come later. The caption next to Herrad describes her as "installed as abbess after Relinda, who had instructed her by her lessons and examples" (Caratzas, p.250). (For a translation of the verses on Herrad's scroll, see under "In print.")
Note also the other full-page illustrations at the site:
(a) The ladder to heaven: Only Charity has reached the top, to receive the crown from the hand of God; according to the caption, she represents the saints and all the elect who, helped by the angels, reach eternal reward. The woman religious ("le moniale") who is chatting with a priest represents those "seduced by worldly pleasure and the wealth of their families." However, we are told at the bottom that all those who have fallen from the ladder are allowed, through penitence, to start again to climb the ladder.
(b) Philosophy and the seven liberal arts: The eight female figures are dressed as Herrad's contemporaries. While Socrates and Plato, worthy teachers, are seated near Philosophy, the four men at the bottom, instructed by evil spirits, are those write only "frivolous tales or fables or poems." The circle that encloses the whole says that Philosophy "studies the secrets of the element and of all things. What she discovers, she retains in her memory. And she puts it all in writing, in order to transmit it to her students."
3. From a different site, eight plates (two of which are double-page spreads). Some are given above, but here note especially the first (the Last Judgment), the last (war between the Vices on the left and the Virtues on the right, all represented as women), as well as that whale depositing Jonah rather unceremoniously at the gate of Ninevah.
4. At other sites, in the general order in which they appeared in the original manuscript (a few are given above in #2 & 3, but are repeated here to show greater detail or to allow comment on the scene):
(a) From the account of the creation of the world, an angel unrolling the firmament.
(b) The Trinity in human form; the banner reads, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
(c) At left, God forming the body of Adam and then, at right, breathing life into him.
(d) In the bottom half of the page, the story of Judith: first she beheads Holofernes; then she returns to her city with his head; finally, the head is shown mounted on the city wall.
(e) The queen of Sheba on her way to visit King Solomon.
(f) Jesus' "family tree": his ancestors within the tree's trunk; the people of the Hebrew Bible on the branches; and at the top, on either side of Jesus, the Christian community (note the woman at the far left, with the same veil as that of the canonesses of Hohenbourg).
(g) God capturing Leviathan (in the Hebrew Bible a symbol of chaos and evil) with a fishing line: the line is made up of the seven major prophets; the hook is Jesus on the cross.
(h) Three images (click each to enlarge it): in the center, the annunciation to Mary; at left, the parable of a sower distributing seed; at right (from later in the series), part of a story about a saint.
(i) Jesus baptized in the Jordan river by John the Baptist.
(j) Jesus at a well with a rather good-looking Samaritan woman.
(k) Two of these three scenes of the story of the Good Samaritan are also at #2, but can be seen more clearly here: the stranger on the road and then attacked; two religious officials passing by; the Samaritan carrying the stranger to safety.
(l) Two women grinding grain, to illustrate the second coming of Jesus, when "two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Matthew 24:41).
(m) The second illustration on the left shows Jesus' crucifixion; all of the figures shown are facing the cross, except one veiled woman at the right, identified as "Synagogue," who represents the "Old Law" of the Hebrew Bible.
(n) The wheel of Fortune, with the goddess Fortuna controlling human material success and failure.
(o) The Church, containing all levels of society (but with battle still going on between good and evil).
(p) Hell, which includes one woman devouring a child and another breastfeeding a serpent (click to enlarge the picture).
(q) The fourth illustration shows the Woman of the Apocalypse, representing the Church, "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (Revelations 12:1). The page also shows how other artists have treated the same subject.
5. Reviews (for excerpts from Griffiths, see under "In print"; for information on Bynum's treatment of Hortus deliciarum, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Henrietta Leyser on Fiona J. Griffiths' 2007 study /translation, The Garden of Delights: Reform and Renaissance for Women in the Twelfth Century.
(b) Robert L. Wilken on Caroline Walker Bynum's 1995 study, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336.
6. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia entries on "Herrad of Landsberg" and on "Hohenburg"; note that the authors believed Herrad to have been the sole illuminator and the author of all of the unassigned poems. And from the "Monastic Matrix" site, a vita of Herrad, with more up-to-date information.
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[Fiona J. Griffiths' study of Hortus deliciarum includes in an appendix the original Latin and her translation of the prose dedication and the seven poems currently attributed to Herrad. Of these, Griffiths sees the dedication and first poem certainly Herrad's, four poems near the end of the work "likely," and two others that "may be attributed on stylistic grounds" (p. 83). The main part of the book is a detailed study of the historical and ecclesiastical background that led to the work's creation; Griffiths analyzes Herrad's certain contributions and discusses the manuscript's organization and the ways in which its purpose is achieved. The book's notes are thorough, as is the bibliography. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Griffiths, Fiona J. The Garden of Delights: Reform and renaissance
for women in the twelfth century (The Middle Ages series). Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, c2007. (381 p., 18 p. of plates:
ill.)
LC#: BX4210 .G75 2007; ISBN: 9870812239607
Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-368) and index
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"Herrad... sings songs for you."
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[From the 24-stanza "Salve cohors virginum," which begins the work:]
Hail, virgin band
Of Hohenbourg
Who, white as the lily,
Love the Son of God.
Herrad,
Your most devoted and faithful
Mother and little handmaid,
Sings songs for you.
She greets you a thousand times
And prays each day
That, in happy victory,
You shall overcome all things that pass....
You who are living without deceit
Be admonished by my praises,
That you may complete the best works
Of your rank..
But lest you should waver with uncertain faith
Amidst the streams of this world,
A truthful God pledges rewards
After the dangers are past.
Suffer bitterness now
Despising the fortunes of the world
Be now a partner in Christ's cross,
And thereafter sharer in his kingdom.
Navigate through this sea
Pregnant with holiness,
When you leave this mortal vessel
May you attain holy Syon....
And may you never cease to pull me with you
By your prayers
To Christ, the sweetest Bridegroom,
The Son of the virgin.
So that I may be found a sharer
In your victory and great glory,
Let me be rescued
From earthly peril.
Farewell chaste assembly,
My joy,
May you live without reproach
And always cherish Christ.
May this book be useful
And delightful to you
May you never cease to study it
In your thoughts and memory.
Lest like an ostrich
Forgetfulness should steal upon you
And you should forsake the way
Before you have reached Christ. [stanzas
1-3, 12-15, 20-24; pp. 229-32]
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"I collected... and I brought it together."
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[From "Herrat gratia Dei," the prose dedication to the Hohenbourg canonesses that follows the above poem, a letter "composed for the sake of their encouragement." (The bee was the classical symbol of the gathering and organizing of knowledge.):]
I make it known to your holiness, that, like a little bee inspired by God, I collected from the various flowers of sacred Scripture and philosophic writings this book, which is called the Hortus deliciarum, and I brought it together to the praise and honor of Christ and the church and for the sake of your love as if into a single sweet honeycomb. Therefore, in this very book, you ought diligently to seek pleasing food and to refresh your exhausted soul with its honeyed dewdrops....
And now as I pass dangerously through the various pathways of the sea, I ask that you may redeem me with your fruitful prayers from earthly passions and draw me upwards, together with you, into the affection of your beloved. [p. 233]
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"The omnipotent one gave free will."
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[From the 23-stanza "Primus parens hominum," the only one of the songs that may be Herrad's for which musical notation still exists. The poem (like the entire Hortus) reviews salvation history, from the creation of man and his fall, through the coming of Christ, to the final heavenly Jerusalem:]
Man's first parent
As he gazed upon the heavenly light
Was created
Just like the company of angels,
He was to be the consort of angels
And to live forever.
The serpent deceived that wretched man
The apple that he tasted
Was the forbidden one,
And so that serpent conquered him
And immediately, expelled from paradise,
He left those heavenly courts....
God came seeking the sheep
That he had lost,
And he who had given the law
Put himself under it,
So that for those whom he created
He suffered a most horrible death.
Suffering in this way with us,
The omnipotent one
Gave free will,
To avoid hell,
If we scorn vices
And if we do good.
Nothing will harm our soul;
It will come into glory,
And so we ought to love God
And our neighbor.
These twin precepts
Lead to heaven. [stanzas
1-2, 16-19; pp. 245-49]
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"Make us thirst for you and know you."
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[From the 8-stanza ""O Rex pie," another poem that can be attributed to Herrad:]
O gracious King,
O leader of the way,
Supreme Jesus Christ,
Teach our choir
To praise you
By our way of life....
You are the fount of life,
Duly flowing
Into purified hearts;
Through your holy gifts of grace
You moisten
The parched spirit....
Make us thirst for you
And know you
In this mist.
Thus let us hasten
To scorn
The blasts of this world.... [stanzas
1, 4, 7; pp. 251-52]
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"Know me as your homeland."
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[The words of the scroll held by Christ in the illustration of the foundation of the monastery at Hohenbourg (you can see the scroll online):]
O
You whom prison confines,
Sorrow breaks,
Labor burdens,
Exile and grief wear down,
And passion burns here on earth;
Seek me as light,
Hope for me as rest,
Know me as your homeland,
Hold me as balm,
Call me as cooling shade
In heaven. ["O
vas quas includit"; p.234]
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"...the Bridegroom, who is now hidden."
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[The words of the scroll held by Herrad in the illustration of the canonesses of Hohenbourg (you can see the scroll online). The last two pages of the manuscript contain poems by men praising the canonesses, so Herrad's words here are the manuscript's last from Hohenbourg itself:]
O snow-white flowers, giving forth the scent of virtue,
Always resting in divine contemplation,
Hasten to heaven, after despising earthly dust
That you may be able to see the Bridegroom, who is now hidden. ["O
nevei flores"; p.235-36]
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[Rosalie Green and her colleagues were able to reconstruct about three-fourths of the text and a little over one-half of the miniatures of Hortus deliciarum. Volume 1 contains seven essays presenting what known about the manuscript. (One of these essays is also available elsewhere; see below, under "Secondary sources.") Volume 1 also includes a "Catalogue of Miniatures" by Green which describes the miniatures shown in Volume 2 and discusses their similarity to earlier works (and their more extensive treatment of women as compared to other extant works). Volume 2 is the "reconstruction" of both text and miniatures:]
Hortus deliciarum / Herrad of Hohenbourg; [edited by] Rosalie
Green, Michael Evans, Christine Bischoff, Michael Curschmann;
with contributions by T. Julian Brown & Kenneth Levy; under
the direction of Rosalie Green (Studies of the Warburg Institute;
v.36). London: Warburg Institute, 1979. (2 v.: ill.(some col.);
36 cm.)
LC#: ND3385.H5 H47 1979; ISBN: 0854810552 (set)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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[This is an English-language translation by Aristide D. Caratzas, of a 1901 French collection of the extant tracings of the illustrations of Hortus deliciarum. The book is far less complete than the Green edition above, and the introduction is based on older research (e.g., it appears to assume that Herrad was the sole artist as well as the compiler), but the commentary (on pages facing the illustrations and so easier to follow) is often more detailed:]
Hortus deliciarum = Garden of delights / Herrad of Landsberg;
commentary and notes by A. Straub and G. Keller; edited and translated
by Aristide D. Caratzas. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Caratzas Bros.,
1977. (xxxii, 250 p., [1] leaf of plates: ill.; 41 cm.)
LC#: ND3385.H5 S813; ISBN: 0892410027
Includes bibliographical references.
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Fiona J. Griffiths' 2007 study is the place to start (see above, under "In print"), but here are a few other worthwhile sources:
[One essay in this collection is Judith Collard's "Herrad of Hohenbourg's Hortus Deliciarum (The Garden of Delights) and the Creation of Images for Medieval Nuns." Collard situates Hortus among other manuscripts of the period and discusses (and illustrates) Herrad's views of women as revealed in her work's words and illuminations. In the process Collard gives a useful summary of earlier non-English-language studies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Communities of women: historical perspectives / edited by
Barbara Brookes and Dorothy Page. Dunedin, N.Z.: Otago, 2002.
(229 p.: ill.)
LC#: HQ1122 .C666 2002; ISBN: 1877276316
Includes bibliographical references (p. [182]-222) and index
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[This collection of Rosalie Green's essays includes a reprint
of "The Miniatures," one of her contributions to Volume
1 of the 1979 reconstruction of Hortus deliciarum. Although
Green does not provide here all of the illustrations she describes
(as the 1979 Volume 2 does), she provides several; if you cannot
look at the 1979 work, this essay alone provides useful background.
(See
the book's table of contents online):]
Green, Rosalie B. Studies in Ottonian, Romanesque and
Gothic art. London: Pindar Press, 1994. (xi, 224 p.: ill.)
LC#: N6280 .G73 1994; ISBN: 0907132839
Includes bibliographical references and index
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[This collection contains an essay by Carolyn Muessig, "Learning and Mentoring in the Twelfth Century: Hildegard of Bingen and Herrad of Landsberg," which compares the two abbesses' method of teaching. Muessig sees Hildegard representing the traditional Benedictine method of studying under a charismatic mentor who would draw out internal virtue, while Herrad represents the new Augustinian method of using texts --- classical and Christian --- as well as art and poetry, in order to educate her students. Muessig provides her own translations of some quoted passages. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Medieval monastic education / edited by George Ferzoco and
Carolyn Muessig. London; New York: Leicester University Press,
2000. (xi, 237 p.: ill.)
LC#: BX2462 .M43 2000; ISBN: 0718502469
Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-230) and index
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[In her study Rosemary Muir Wright briefly discusses those Hortus illustrations that are relevant to the idea of the Antichrist (pp.78-89):]
Wright, Rosemary Muir. Art and antichrist in medieval Europe.
Manchester, UK; New York: Manchester University Press; New York:
Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's
Press, c1995. (xii, 244 p.: ill.)
LC#: ND3338 .W75 1995; ISBN: 0719041589, 0719041597
Includes bibliographical references (p. 216-229) and indexes.
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[Prudence Allen's study includes a section on Herrad (pp.315-328), which points out those passages and illustrations that reveal a woman's view. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Allen, Prudence. The concept of woman: the Aristotelian revolution,
750 BC-AD 1250. Montreal: Eden Press, c1985. (xxiv, 583 p.: ill.)
LC#: BD450 .A4725 1997; ISBN: 0802842704
Includes bibliographical references (p. 544-568) and index
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[Caroline Walker Bynum's study briefly discusses (pp.117-121) Hortus' illustrations of bodily resurrection:]
Bynum, Caroline Walker. The Resurrection of the body in Western
Christianity, 200-1336 (Lectures on the history of religion;
new ser., no. 15). New York: Columbia University Press, c1995.
(xx, 368 p.: ill.)
LC#: BT872 .B96 1995 ; ISBN: 023108126X
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
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[Volume 1 of this two-volume collection includes a 1939 lecture
by the art historian Fritz Saxl. "Illustrated Mediaeval
Encyclopedias: The Christian Transformation," which discusses
20 illustrations from Hortus deliciarum (the illustrations
are given in Volume 2). Saxl sees the work's visual representations
as its central focus, with the texts chosen to explain them:]
Saxl, Fritz. Lectures. London, Warburg Institute, University
of London, 1957. (2 v. plates. 27 cm)
LC#: N7445 .S34
Bibliography: v.1., p.359-365
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Updated 05-14-08
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