ABSTRACT
Hildegard's Physica is far less studied than it deserves. Moreover when it has been studied, the work has largely been characterized as a parochial or local work, interesting for its magical spells and herbal cures but largely unaffected by the influx of new knowledge that would soon overtake the medieval intellectual world. As Singer puts it so eloquently, “Hildegard lived at rather too early a date to drink from the broad stream of new knowledge that was soon to flow into Europe through Paris from its reservoir in Moslem Spain” (“Scientific Views” 17). We can thus expect little influence in her works from Averroës and Avicenna or from the soon-to-be translated Aristotelian Historia animalium, de partibus animalium, and De generatione animalium. Instead, these works would soon come together in Albertus Magnus' vast De animalibus, a work which integrates all previous threads of animal lore into what might be termed the medieval Summa zoological (Kitchell and Resnick). This 1,598 page tome, incorporating and commenting upon all the new knowledge available on animals serves as an interesting touchstone for Hildegard's natural investigations. While there is debate over exactly when Albertus was born (Weisheipl 17; Entrich; Mandonnet 253), his birth can safely be put within twenty years of Hildegard's death, and thus his work, heralded as the champion of an emerging “modern” science, appeared but one generation after Hildegard's life. As a result, Singer says, Hildegard's “intellectual field was far more patristic than would have been the case had her life-course been even a quarter of a century later” (“Scientific Views” 17). Yet such chronological factors should not rule out our study of Hildegard as an important contributor to the body of knowledge that forms medieval natural science and animal lore. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to refocus study on the Physica, with special emphasis on studying the place this work should be accorded in the canon of medieval works of natural history, especially those which deal with animals and animal lore.
