A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

158 kienzle and stevens
the Rhineland.108 While the murals at Schwarzrheindorf attest to the
importance of E zekiel’s visions in Hildegard’s contemporary visual culture,
no clear conceptual links emerge between her work and the paintings.
Images of Ezekiel in Illuminated Bibles
Does the visual exegesis of the book of Ezekiel in illuminated manuscripts
offfer any signifijicant parallels with Hildegard’s interpretations? A survey of
several Bibles will address this question. Medieval illuminators captured
the force of the Et, the fijirst letter of the prophet’s Latin name and the
fijirst word of his book,109 creating initials that represent key passages:
the dream, the dry bones, the wheel, and the four creatures. Particularly
noteworthy examples from the mid to the late 12th century include the
Frankenthaler Bible, also known as the Worms Bible, and the Bible of
Souvigny.
The Frankenthaler Bible was produced at the monastery of St Mary
Magdalene in Frankenthal, outside Worms, in 1148.110 It portrays the
prophet Ezekiel holding the letter “E” of the prophetic Et that begins his
book.111 He bears a banner with the words from Ezekiel 1:1b: “When I was in
the middle of the captives next to the river Chobar, the skies were opened
and I saw visions of God” (cum essem in medio captivorum iuxta fluvium
Chobar aperti sunt caeli et vidi visiones Dei). The prophetic Et seems to
be associated with Ezekiel because the book of Ezekiel, unlike the other
major prophetic books in the Vulgate, begins with Et. The iconographic
program followed by medieval illuminators reflects knowledge of Gregory
the Great’s Homilies on Ezekiel, and the Et provided prime real estate for an
inhabited or historiated initial, as is the case for the Frankenthaler Bible.112
108 See also Anne Derbes, “The Frescoes of Schwarzrheindorf, Arnold of Wied, and the
Second Crusade,” in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. Michael Gervers (New
York, 1992), pp. 141–54. On the visionary link between Rupert and Ezekiel, see McGinn,
The Growth of Mysticism, p. 329.
109 The prophetic “Et” which Gregory interprets is based on a narrative past Hebrew verb
form known as wayyiqtol or converted imperfect, which is formed with the Hebrew conjunction
“waw,” meaning “and.”
110 The Frankenthaler Bible, also known as the Worms Bible: London, British Library,
Harley 2803–2804. Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, The Making of a Manuscript: The Worms Bible of
1148 (Wiesbaden, 1983).
111 British Library, Harley 2803–2804, fol. 229.
112 Other Old Testament books beginning with “Et” in the Vulgate include Joshua,
1 Kings, 1 Maccabees, Baruch, and Jonah. The initial “Et” of Joshua in the Frankenthaler
Bible was illuminated but not historiated. In other Bibles of this time period, the initial
“Et” of Joshua was sometimes historiated, as in London, British Library, Harley 2833,