A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the medical, the magical, and the miraculous 257
et cure represent versions of the texts compiled after Hildegard’s death.36
Such a circumstance accounts for the diffferent style in these two works
compared to the rest of her writings; it also explains the overlap in content
between the two medical-scientifijic works as well as the unusual—for
Hildegard—organization of material in the sole Cause et cure manuscript.
Undisputed, however, is the Hildegardian core of both texts.
As transmitted in the manuscripts, the Physica is composed of nine
books, each of which describes the characteristics of selected things in the
following categories of nature: plants, elements, trees, stones, fijish, birds,
animals, reptiles, and metals. The diseases that can be treated using the
particular plant or tree are noted frequently as well, and in some cases
specifijic remedies are suggested—the qualities of hot or cold, dry or moist
play a signifijicant role in almost every case.
Books 1 and 2 of the Cause et cure offfer a description of the creation of
the universe and of humankind from a scientifijic as well as a theological
perspective. Book 2 focuses considerable attention on the elements and
the humors, but also references an extensive catalogue of conditions and
maladies, each of which is explained in considerable detail. This inventory
continues in books 3 and 4, where remedies are offfered; recent scholarship
has identifijied substantial overlap with parts of the Physica.37 Books 5
and 6 return to the theme of the cosmos, with an emphasis on astrology
and prognostications.
In many ways the Physica and the Cause et cure are typical of their day.
Their content draws upon diverse sources: the folk medicine tradition as
well as the writings of scholars such as Pedanius Dioscorides (40–90), Galen
of Pergamon (c.130–c.200), and Constantine the African (c.1015–c.1087).
The basis for Hildegard’s characterization of disease is the concept of the
humors, which are discussed at greatest length in book 2 of the Cause et
cure. Cannon suggests that Hildegard prefers to follow Isidore of Seville by
relating corporeal qualities and elements—heat and fijire, breath and air,
blood and water, flesh and earth—as opposed to the more typical alignment
of humors with elements, as found in the writings of Hippocrates—
yellow bile with fijire, blood with air, phlegm with water, and black bile
with earth.38 She portrays Hildegard’s humoral associations as “a theory
36 See Laurence Moulinier, “Hildegard ou Pseudo-Hildegard? Réflexions sur l’authenticité
du traité ‘Cause et cure,’” in Angesicht, pp. 115–46; and Moulinier, Cause, pp. LVII–LXIII.
37 Moulinier, Cause, pp. XXX–XLII.
38 Cannon, “The Medicine of Hildegard of Bingen,” p. 88. Her assessment is based on
Cause, 2, pp. 66–74.