A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

290 michael embach
cannot be considered standard editions or even partial editions of these
works. The texts from the 16th century in particular appear to be caught
between the priorities of Humanism and the Reformation. It is signifijicant
that Hildegard’s criticism of the papacy and the Church, written in the
12th century, was transferred to the early modern period. The adaptations
by Lutheran theologians go so far as to present Hildegard as a spiritual
antecedent to Luther. I am thinking here of Matthias Flacius Illyricus
(1520–1575) and Andreas Osiander (1498–1552).
John Tortsch (c.1400–1445), a theologian from Leipzig, compiled a text
that included a reworking of various texts by Birgitta of Sweden (1303–1373).
The Latin text was titled Onus mundi and only appeared in a print edition
four years after the German edition, Bürde der Welt, which was translated
in 1434 and was printed in 1481 in Nuremberg and 1482 in Augsburg. The
fact that a text consisting of revelations, admonitions, and suggestions for
reform was translated so early into German indicates that there was a
strong lay reception for such works. The earliest version appears in manuscript
521 held by the library of Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. The
Bürde der Welt is signifijicant for scholarship on the history of Hildegard’s
influence because the text includes references to several authorities who
precede Birgitta of Sweden, including Hildegard. Together with Sybille,
Gregory the Great, and Joachim of Fiore, Hildegard’s visions are claimed
to support Birgitta’s statements. The Hildegard material includes the letter
to Werner of Kirchheim as well as selections from the Liber diuinorum
operum (2.1.9).
In the wake of the Onus mundi, Berthold Pirstinger (Puerstinger),
bishop of Chiemsee and sufffragan bishop of Salzburg, published the Onus
ecclesiae in 1524. In addition to other authors, he also cited Hildegard of
Bingen.
In 1527, the print shop of Hieronymus Andreae published a German text
by the former Augustinian hermit turned Protestant preacher Andreas
Osiander titled Sant Hildegardten Weissagung uber die Papisten und
genanten Geystlichen. Osiander reported that he had found Hildegard’s
prophecies in the Carthusian monastery in Nuremberg. Indeed, in the
15th century, several monasteries in Nuremberg owned various works by
Hildegard: from the catalogue of the Dominican nunnery of St Katherina,
“Item, ein puch, das helt in sant Hiltgarten weißsagung”; the Benedictine
nuns of St Aegidien held the “Revelacio Hildegardis de malis pastoribus”;
and the church library at the St Sebaldus church included a text titled
“De prophecia Hildegardis multa.” The content of Osiander’s text deals
with prophetic-ascetic exhortations to the “popish” clergy, whom Osian-