A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard of bingen: a history of reception 295
adventum Christi, Harclay declares that if the apostles and prophets had
been unable to predict the return of Christ, then it was even less likely
that mere poets would succeed in this endeavor. He counts Joachim of
Fiore, the Erythraean Sibyl, Hildegard of Bingen, and Ovid among these
poets. He further characterizes Hildegard as a monialis teutonica who had
written many books and letters, and who had engaged with the entire
world in epistolary discourse. He explicitly cites the Scivias as a work that
Bernard of Clairvaux had esteemed and which he had kept in his library.
By citing Scivias (3.11), Harclay emphasizes that the poets were correct in
their reticence to defijine a time frame for the end times.
A French Franciscan, John of Rupescissa, also cites Hildegard as a prophetic
authority. In his Vademecum in tribulatione, composed in 1356 and
later translated into German, he prophesied the persecution and reform
of the debauched clergy, the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome,
a Last Emperor of France, and also a thousand-year empire of peace.
Similar to Joachim of Fiore, John of Rupescissa did not want to be considered
a prophet, but instead preferred to be understood as a scientist and
exegete. His deep respect for Hildegard appears in his text: he calls her
sancta . . . prophetissa and describes her as a contemporanea S. Bernardi
Clarevallensi & eius amica. In addition, he claims that Pope Eugene III
canonized (canonizavit) Hildegard’s books at the Provincial Council in
Trier.
Henry the Dove (d. 1364), who would ultimately become the head of
the episcopal chancellery in Eichstätt, appears to have been directly influenced
by John of Rupescissa. Henry had studied law in Bologna, and he
appears to have spent quite some time in Avignon following a visit to
Rome in the Jubilee year of 1350. As a chronicler, Henry continued the
Flores temporum, a text that links papal and imperial histories. Henry had
learned of John of Rupescissa’s Vademecum while the former was in Avignon,
and he transferred large portions of the latter’s prophecies about
the last days into his chronicle. While he never explicitly names Hildegard,
his work appears to be at least indirectly based on her visions. In the
mid 15th century, Henry’s writings were used by two Nuremberg chroniclers,
John Plattenberger (d. after 1479) and Theoderich (Dietrich) Truchsess
(d. 1467) within their universal history, the Excerpta chronicarum.
They subsequently exerted an indirect influence on Sigmund Meisterlin
(c.1435–1497) and his Nürnberger Chronik, as well as Hartmann Schedel
(1440–1514), whose universal history, the Nuremberg Chronicle, appeared
in 1493. The latter included his own entry about Hildegard of Bingen,
which contained a stereotyped pictorial image: Hildegard appears with a