Chapter VII: Macrocosm and Microcosm

The winds and elements of the outer universe, the macrocosm, become in Hildegard’s later schemes intimately related to structures and events within the body of man himself, the microcosm, the being around whom the universe centres. The terms _macrocosm_ and _microcosm_ are not employed by her, but in her last great work, the _Liber Divinorum Operum_, she succeeds in most eloquent and able fashion in synthesizing into one great whole, centred around this doctrine, her theological beliefs and her physiological knowledge, together with her conceptions of the working of the human mind and of the structure of the universe. The work is thus an epitome of the science of the time viewed through the distorting medium of this theory. In studying it the modern reader is necessarily hampered by the bizarre and visionary form into which the whole subject is cast. Nevertheless the scheme, though complex and difficult, is neither incoherent nor insane, as at first sight it may seem. On the contrary, it is a highly systematic and skilful presentment of a cosmic theory which for centuries dominated scientific thought.

As an explanation of the complexity of existence which thinkers of all ages have sought to bring within the range of some simple formula, this theory of the essential similarity of macrocosm and microcosm held in the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance, and even into quite modern times, a position comparable to that of the theory of evolution in our own age. If at times it passed into folly and fantasy, it should be remembered that it also fulfilled a high purpose. It gave a meaning to the facts of nature and a formula to the naturalist, it unified philosophic systems, it exercised the ingenuity of theologians, and gave a convenient framework to prophecy, while it seemed to illumine history and to provide a key and meaning to life itself. Even now it is not perhaps wholly devoid of message, but as a phenomenon in the history of human thought, a theory which appealed to such diverse scientific writers as Seneca, Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, Gilbert, Harvey, Boyle, and Leibnitz, is surely worthy of attention.

In essaying to interpret the views of our authoress on this difficult subject, we rely mainly on the text of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_, supplemented by the beautiful illuminations of that work which adorn the Lucca MS. The book opens with a truly remarkable vision (Plate VI):

‘I saw a fair human form and the countenance thereof was of such
beauty and brightness that it had been easier to gaze upon the
sun. The head thereof was girt with a golden circlet through which
appeared another face as of an aged man. From the neck of the
figure on either side sprang a pinion which swept upward above the
circlet and joined its fellow on high. And where on the right the
wing turned upward, was portrayed an eagle’s head with eyes of
flame, wherein appeared as in a mirror the lightning of the angels,
while from a man’s head in the other wing the lightning of the
stars did radiate. From either shoulder another wing reached to the
knees. The figure was robed in brightness as of the sun, while the
hands held a lamb shining with light. Beneath, the feet trampled a
horrible black monster of revolting shape, upon the right ear of
which a writhing serpent fixed itself.’[71]

Plate XI. THE STRUCTURE OF THE MUNDANE SPHERE]

The image declares its identity in words reminiscent of the Wisdom literature or of passages in the hermetic writings, but which seem in fact to be partly borrowed from Bernard Sylvestris.

‘I am that supreme and fiery force that sends forth all the sparks
of life. Death hath no part in me, yet do I allot it, wherefore I
am girt about with wisdom as with wings. I am that living and fiery
essence of the divine substance that glows in the beauty of the
fields. I shine in the water, I burn in the sun and the moon and
the stars. Mine is that mysterious force of the invisible wind. I
sustain the breath of all living. I breathe in the verdure and in
the flowers, and when the waters flow like living things, it is I.
I formed those columns that support the whole earth.... I am the
force that lies hid in the winds, from me they take their source,
and as a man may move because he breathes so doth a fire burn but
by my blast. All these live because I am in them and am of their
life. I am wisdom. Mine is the blast of the thundered word by which
all things were made. I permeate all things that they may not die.
I am life.’[72]

Plate XIIa. MAN’S FALL AND THE DISTURBANCE OF THE ELEMENTAL HARMONY]

Plate XIIb. THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH]

Hildegard thus supposes that the whole universe is permeated by a single living spirit, the figure of the vision. This spirit of the macrocosm, the _Nous_ or ‘world spirit’ of the hermetic and Neoplatonic literature, the impersonated _Nature_, as we may perhaps render it, is in its turn controlled by the Godhead that pervades the form and is represented rising from its vertex as a second human face. Nature, the spirit of the cosmic order, controls and holds in subjection the hideous monster, the principle of death and dissolution, the _Hyle_ or primordial matter of the Neoplatonists, whose chaotic and anarchic force would shatter and destroy this fair world unless fettered by a higher power.

With the details of the visionary figure we need not delay,[73] but we pass to the description of the structure of the macrocosm itself, to which the second vision is devoted (Plate VII). Here appears the same figure of the macrocosmic spirit. But now the head and feet only are visible, and the arms are outstretched to enclose the disk of the universe which conceals the body. Although the macrocosm now described is considerably altered from Hildegard’s original scheme of the universe, she yet declares, ‘I saw in the bosom of the form the appearance of a disk of like sort to that which twenty-eight years before I had seen in the third vision, set forth in my book of _Scivias_’.[74] The zones of this disk are then described (Plates VII, VIII, and XI and Fig. 2). They are from without inwards:

(_a_) The _lucidus ignis_, containing the three outer planets, the
sixteen principal fixed stars, and the south wind.

(_b_) The _ignis niger_, containing the sun, the north wind, and the
materials of thunder, lightning, and hail.

(_c_) The _purus aether_, containing the west wind, the moon, the two
inner planets, and certain fixed stars.

(_d_) The _aer aquosus_, containing the east wind.

(_e_) The _fortis et albus lucidusque aer_, where certain other fixed
stars are placed.

(_f_) The _aer tenuis_, or atmosphere, in the outer part of which is
the zone of the clouds.

From all these objects, from the spheres of the elements, from the sun, moon, and other planets, from the four winds each with their two collaterals, from the fixed stars, and from the clouds, descend influences, indicated by lines, towards the figure of the macrocosm.

The microcosm is then introduced.

‘And again I heard the voice from heaven saying, “God, who created
all things, wrought also man in his own image and similitude, and
in him he traced [_signavit_] all created things, and he held him
in such love that he destined him for the place from which the
fallen angel had been cast.”’[75]

The various characters of the winds are expounded in a set of curious passages in which the doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm is further mystically elaborated. An endeavour is made to attribute to the winds derived from the different quarters of heaven qualities associated with a number of animals.[76] The conception is illustrated and made comprehensible by the miniatures in the Lucca MS. (Plates VII and VIII).

‘In the middle of the disk [of the universe] there appeared the
form of a man, the crown of whose head and the soles of whose feet
extended to the _fortis et albus lucidusque aer_, and his hands
were outstretched right and left to the same circle.... Towards
these parts was an appearance as of four heads; a leopard, a wolf,
a lion, and a bear. Above the head of the figure in the zone of the
_purus aether_, I saw the head of the leopard emitting a blast from
its mouth, and on the right side of the mouth the blast, curving
itself somewhat backwards, was formed into a crab’s head ... with
two chelae; while on the left side of the mouth a blast similarly
curved ended in a stag’s head. From the mouth of the crab’s head,
another blast went to the middle of the space between the leopard
and the lion; and from the stag’s head a similar blast to the
middle of the space between the leopard and the bear ... and all
the heads were breathing towards the figure of the man. Under his
feet in the _aer aquosus_ there appeared as it were the head of a
wolf, sending forth to the right a blast extending to the middle
of the half space between its head and that of the bear, where it
assumed the form of the stag’s head; and from the stag’s mouth
there came, as it were, another breath which ended in the middle
line. From the left of the wolf’s mouth arose a breath which went
to the midst of the half space between the wolf and the lion, where
was depicted another crab’s head ... from whose mouth another
breath ended in the same middle line.... And the breath of all the
heads extended sideways from one to another.... Moreover on the
right hand of the figure in the _lucidus ignis_, from the head of
the lion, issued a breath which passed laterally on the right into
a serpent’s head and on the left into a lamb’s head ... similarly
on the figure’s left in the _ignis niger_ there issued a breath
from the bear’s head ending on its right in the head of [another]
lamb, and on its left in another serpent’s head.... And above the
head of the figure the seven planets were ranged in order, three
in the _lucidus ignis_, one projecting into the _ignis niger_ and
three into the _purus aether_.... And in the circumference of the
circle of the _lucidus ignis_ there appeared the sixteen principal
stars, four in each quadrant between the heads.... Also the _purus
aether_ and _the fortis et albus lucidusque aer_ seemed to be full
of stars which sent forth their rays towards the clouds, whence ...
tongues like rivers descended to the disk and towards the figure,
which was thus surrounded and influenced by these signs.’[77]

The third vision is devoted to an account of the human body, the microcosm (Plate VIII), with a comparison of its organs to the parts of the macrocosmic scheme, together with a detailed account of the effects of the heavenly bodies on the humours in man, the whole brought into a strongly theological setting. Some of these views are set forth below in the chapter on anatomy and physiology.

The fourth vision explains the influence of the heavenly bodies and of the superior elements on the power of nature as exhibited on the surface of the earth. It is illustrated by a charming miniature in the Lucca MS. (Plate IX).

‘I saw that the upper fiery firmament was stirred, so that as it were ashes were cast therefrom to earth, and they produced rashes and ulcers in men and animals and fruits.’ These effects are shown in the left upper quadrant of Plate IX, where the ashes are seen proceeding from the _lucidus ignis_, the ‘upper fiery firmament’. Two figures are seen, a female semi-recumbent, who lifts a fruit to her mouth, and a male figure fully recumbent, on whose legs a rash is displayed. The trees also in this quadrant show the effects of the ashes, two of them being denuded of fruit and foliage.

‘Then I saw that from the _ignis niger_ certain vapours (_nebulae_) descended, which withered the verdure and dried up the moisture of the fields. The _purus aether_, however, resisted these ashes and vapours, seeking to hold back these plagues.’ These vapours may be seen in the right upper quadrant of Plate IX. They descend from the _ignis niger_, attenuate for a space in the _purus aether_, and then descend through the other zones on to an arid and parched land. Here are two husbandmen; one sits forlornly clasping his axe, while the other leans disconsolately upon his hoe. On the legs of the latter a rash may be distinguished.

‘And looking again I saw that from the _fortis et albus lucidusque aer_ certain other clouds reached the earth and infected men and beasts with sore pestilence, so that they were subjected to many ills even to the death, but the _aer aquosus_ opposed that influence so that they were not hurt beyond measure.’ This scene is portrayed in the right lower quadrant of Plate IX. Here is a husbandman in mortal anguish. He has gathered his basket of fruit and now lies stricken with the pestilence. His left hand is laid on his heart, while his right hangs listless on his thigh, pointing to tokens of plague upon his legs. Beyond lies the dead body of a beast on which a carrion bird has settled.

‘Again I saw that the moisture in the _aer tenuis_ was as it were boiling above the surface of the earth, awakening the force of the earth and making fruits to grow.’[78] This happier scene is represented in the left lower quadrant of Plate IX. Here the beneficent fertilizing influence is falling on trees and herbs and the happy husbandmen are reaping its results.

Plate XIII. THE LAST JUDGEMENT AND FATE OF THE ELEMENTS]

The main outline of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ is, we believe, borrowed from the work of Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, _De mundi universitate libri duo sive megacosmus et microcosmus_.[79] In this composition by a teacher at the cathedral school of Chartres,[80] the gods and goddesses of the classical pantheon flit across the stage, for all the world as though the writer were a pagan, and the work might be thought to be the last one from which our pious authoress would borrow. The _De mundi universitate_ is alternately in prose and verse and betrays an acquaintance with the classics very rare at its date. ‘The rhythm of the hexameters is clearly that of Lucan, while the vocabulary is mainly of Ovid.’[81] The mythology is founded mainly on the _Timaeus_. The eternal _seminaria_ of created things are mentioned, and it has been conjectured that the work exhibits traces of the influence of Lucretius,[82] but the general line of thought is clearly related to Neoplatonic literature. Thus the _anima universalis_ of Neoplatonic writings can be identified with the _Nous_ or _Noys_ of Bernard. This principle is contrasted with primordial matter or _Hyle_. The parallel character of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ and the _De mundi universitate_ can be illustrated by a few extracts from the latter. It will be seen that although the general setting is changed, yet Hildegard’s figure of the spirit of the macrocosm is to be identified with Bernard’s _Noys_. _Hyle_, on the other hand, becomes in Hildegard’s plan the monstrous form, the emblem of brute matter, on which the spirit of the universe tramples.

Plate XIV. DIAGRAM OF THE RELATION OF HUMAN AND COSMIC PHENOMENA IXth Century]

‘In huius operis primo libro qui Megacosmus dicitur, id est
maior mundus, Natura ad Noym, id est Dei providentiam, de primae
materiae, id est hyles, confusione querimoniam quasi cum lacrimis
agit et ut mundus pulchrius petit. Noys igitur eius mota precibus
petitioni libenter annuit et ita quatuor elementa ab invicem
seiungit. Novem ierarchias angelorum in coelo ponit. stellas
in firmamento figit. signa disponit. sub signis orbes septem
planetarum currere facit. quatuor ventos cardinales sibi invicem
opponit. Sequitur genesis animantium et terrae situs medius....

‘In secundo libro qui Microcosmus dicitur, id est minor mundus,
Noys ad Naturam loquitur et de mundi expolitione gloriatur et in
operis sui completione se hominem plasmaturam pollicetur. Iubet
igitur Uraniam, quae siderum regina est, et Physin, quae rerum
omnium est peritissima, sollicite perquirat. Natura protinus
iubenti obsequitur et per caelestes circulos Uraniam quaeritans eam
sideribus inhiantem reperit. eiusque itineris causa praecognita
se operis et itineris comitem Urania pollicetur.... Subitoque ibi
Noys affuit suoque velle eis ostenso trinas speculationes tribus
assignando tribuit & ad hominis plasmationem eas impellit. Physis
igitur de quatuor elementorum reliquiis hominem format et a capite
incipiens membratim operando opus suum in pedibus consummat....

‘Noys ego scientia et divinae voluntatis arbitraria ad
dispositionem rerum, quem ad modum de consensu eius accipio, sic
meae administrationis officia circumduco....

‘(Noys) erat fons luminis, seminarium vitae, bonum bonitatis
divinae, plenitude scientiae quae mens altissimi nominatur. Ea
igitur noys summi & exsuperantissimi Dei est intellectus et ex
eius divinitate nata natura.... Erat igitur videre velut in
speculo tersiore quicquid generationi quicquid operi Dei secretior
destinarat affectus.’[83]

Hildegard’s conception of macrocosm and microcosm, which was thus probably borrowed from Bernard Sylvestris, has analogies also to those well-known figures illustrating the supposed influence of the signs of the zodiac on the different parts of the body.[84] Such figures, with the zodiacal symbols arranged around a figure of Christ, may be seen in certain MSS. anterior to Hildegard,[85] while the influence of the ‘Melothesia’, to give it the name assigned by Porphyry, has been traced through its period of efflorescence at the Renaissance (Plates XV,[86] XVI,[87] and XVII,[88] compare with Plates VII and VIII) right down to our own age and country, where it still appeals to the ignorant and foolish.[89]

Hildegard often interprets natural events by means of a peculiarly crude form of the doctrine, as when she describes how ‘if the excess of waters below are drawn up to the clouds (by the just judgment of God in the requital of sinners), then the moisture from the _aer aquosus_ transudes through the _fortis et albus lucidusque aer_ as a draught drunk into the urinary bladder; and the same waters descend in an inundation’.[90]

Again, events in the body of man are most naively explained on the basis of the nature of the external world as she has pictured it.

‘The humours at times rage fiercely as a leopard and again they are
softened, going backwards as a crab;[91] or they may show their
diversity by leaping and goring as a stag, or they may be as a
wolf in their ravening, and yet again they may invade the body of
man after the manner of both wolf and crab. Or else they may show
forth their strength unceasingly as a lion, or as a serpent they
may go now softly, now violently, and at times they may be gentle
as a lamb and at times again they may growl as an angered bear,
and at times they may partake of the nature of the lamb and of the
serpent.’[92]

Having completed her general survey of the macrocosm (Vision II), and having investigated in detail the structure of man’s body, the microcosm, in terms of the greater universe (Vision III), and discussed the influence of the heavenly bodies on terrestrial events (Vision IV), Hildegard turns to the internal structure of the terrestrial sphere (Vision V). This vision is illustrated by the figure in the Lucca MS. reproduced in Plate XI.

Upon the surface of the earth towards the east stands the building which symbolizes the _aedificium_ of the church, a favourite conception of our authoress. This church is surmounted by a halo, whence proceed a pair of pinions which extend their shelter over a full half of the earth’s circumference. As for the rest of the earth’s surface, part is within the wide-opened jaws of a monster, the Destroyer, and the remainder is beneath the surface of the ocean. Within the earth are five parts analogous, as she would have us believe, to the five senses. An eastern clear arc and a western clouded one signify respectively the excellence of the orient where Zion is situated, and the Cimmerian darkness of the occidental regions over which the shadow of the dragon is cast. Centrally is a quadrate area divided into three zones where the qualities of heat and cold and of a third intermediate ‘temperateness’ (_temperies_) are stored. North and south of this are two areas where purgatory is situate. Each is shaped like a truncated cone and composed also of three sectors. Souls are seen suffering in one sector the torment of flame, in another the torment of water, while in the third or intermediate sector lurk monsters and creeping things which add to the miseries of purgatory or at times come forth to earth’s surface to plague mankind. These northern and southern sections exhibit dimly by their identically reversed arrangement the belief in the antipodean inversion of climate, an idea hinted several times in Hildegard’s writings, but more definitely illustrated by a figure of Herrade de Landsberg (Fig. 5).

Plate XV. AN XIth CENTURY FRENCH MELOTHESIA]

Plate XVI. A MELOTHESIA OF ABOUT 1400]

Plate XVII. A GERMAN BLOCK BOOK

First Half of XVth Century. Heidelberg University Library]

Plate XVIII. AN ANATOMICAL DIAGRAM OF ABOUT 1298

From the Five-Figure Series. Cp. Plate XXXIII]

MELOTHESIAE

From R. Fludd, _Historia utriusque cosmi_, Oppenheim, 1619, pp. 112 and 113.]

From R. Fludd, _Philosophia sacra seu astrologia cosmica_, Frankfurt, 1628, p. 52.]

Macrocosmic schemes of the type illustrated by the text of Hildegard and by the figures of the Lucca MS. had a great vogue in mediaeval times, and were passed on to later ages. Some passages in Hildegard’s work read curiously like Paracelsus (1491-1541),[93] and it is not hard to find a link between these two difficult and mystical writers. Trithemius, the teacher of Paracelsus, was abbot of Sponheim, an important settlement almost within sight of Hildegard’s convents on the Rupertsberg and Disibodenberg. Trithemius studied Hildegard’s writings with great care and attached much importance to them, so that they may well have influenced his pupil. The influence of mediaeval theories of the relation of macrocosm and microcosm is encountered among numerous Renaissance writers besides Paracelsus, and is presented to us, for instance, by such a cautious, balanced, and scientifically-minded humanist as Fracastor. But as the years went on, the difficulty in applying the details of the theory became ever greater and greater. Facts were strained and mutilated more and more to make them fit the Procrustean bed of an outworn theory, which at length became untenable when the heliocentric system of Copernicus and Galileo replaced the geocentric and anthropocentric systems of an earlier age. The idea of a close parallelism between the structure of man and of the wider universe was gradually abandoned by the scientific, while among the unscientific it degenerated and became little better than an insane obsession. As such it appears in the ingenious ravings of the English follower of Paracelsus, the Rosicrucian, Robert Fludd, who reproduced, often with fidelity, the systems which had some novelty five centuries before his time (Figs. 6, 7, and 8). As a similar fantastic obsession this once fruitful hypothesis still occasionally appears even in modern works of learning and industry.[94]