Hildegard of Bingen and Encyclopaedism. The Case of the Books on Animals from the Physica.

Hildegard von Bingen, the German nun of the twelfth century, is nowadays known for her theological works as well as her musical writings or the lingua ignota. However, Hildegard is also the author of a scientific writing : a primary Liber subtilitatum, today known as the Physica, due to the 1533 edition by Jean Schott, in Strasbourg, focuses on the presentation of the natural world, according to the elemental theory. The Physica is an eight books composition dealing with plants, herbs, rocks and animals by series of short notices focusing on peculiar species. In spite of this formal composition, this organization and the thematic subject, the hildegardian opus has been very little linked with the encyclopaedic texts of the twelfth and thirteen centuries and never described according to the problematical features of this medieval genre, in Latin or in vernacular languages. The zoological section of the Physica, from book VI to VIII, will be the medium through which we want to describe this text as concerned in natural philosophy. Dealing with encyclopaedic goals, topics and literary organization, the Physica could actually be considered as a new spot to study how medieval texts could write knowledge. How then the Physica manages to order, classify and name the diversity of the living animals in a determinate section of the nun’s project?

Language: French

HALId: hal-02067259; DOI: 10.4000/medievales.7736