A Space of Convergence: Hildegard of Bingen's Multivalent Understanding of the Body

In this way human beings carry everything because the entire creation is within them1In Causes and Cures, Hildegard characterized the human being as a container within which all of creation was held together. All of the elements that humans carried within the physical body were a reflection of Hildegard's own intellectual and spiritual context. Causes and Cures is a textual space where Hildegard's monastic spirituality and scientific knowledge intersect. These two epistemological categories were not markedly distinct but rather existed in a more fluid state than is sometimes understood by scholars.2 The continuity of monastic spirituality and scientific interpretations of the natural world are apparent in Hildegard's medical writings and particularly manifest in her conceptualization of the human body. Several places in Causes and Cures are indicative of Hildegard's monastic background. While the effect of monasticism on Hildegard's writing is discernible, she gave equal weight to scientific explanations. Hildegard participated in the burgeoning scientific culture of the twelfth century; the new Latin translations of ancient texts were being rediscovered and studied. This article argues that even though Hildegard placed Causes and Cures within the context of the ancient medical tradition, she presents an innovative theory of the body as a space of convergence of natural philosophy and spirituality.Hildegard's Interpretations of the Medical BodyHildegard's medical thought evinces her active participation in the scientific culture of the twelfth century. Due to the proliferation of ancient texts on medicine and natural philosophy in Latin translations, a more methodical view of the natural world began to coexist alongside religious interpretations.3 Disibodenberg was no exception to the growing adoption of scientific interpretations; in fact, it was within the religious environment of monasteries that scientific scholarship really took hold. Hildegard was among the inheritors of newly available ancient texts and, despite her claim to ignorance, was knowledgeable of their contents.4 In many places in Causes and Cures, Hildegard reiterates accepted medical theories and methods of practice.Hildegard adopted the humoral theory of ancient medicine as a key concept in her medical thought. In Causes and Cures, Hildegard presents a multilayered interpretation of the body's significant fluids. According to Hildegard, the humors were the traditional four fluids of blood, phlegm, bile, and melancholia, which corresponded to the four qualities of hot and cold, wet and dry, in addition to the essence or "juice" of anything, especially the medicinal juice of plants.5 Hildegard defined the qualities of the humors as dry, wet, tepid, and foamy.6 Hildegard accepted the ancient theory that the cause of disease emerged from the wrong proportion of humors.7 For example, Hildegard wrote, "But the humors that come out of the heart, liver, lung, stomach and other organs, if sometimes they turn into a wrongful difference or superfluity, then they become sticky, slippery, and tepid, and if they stay inside, will cause illness. "8Hildegard made it clear that a wrong balance of humors from any organ will cause disease if no therapy is pursued to correct the proportion. Treatment was centered on amending the wrong proportion to restore a proper balance. Thus, Hildegard's understanding of the humors represents a synthesis of ancient humoral theory where the "humors were bodily fluids, a cosmological system where the humors were the carriers of the four qualities, and a horticultural system, where the humors were the essences of plants. "9In the beginning of Book Two, Hildegard explains the significance of the four humors for bodily health:But humans could only have been made from the four humors - not from one or two or even three - so that each may temper one another, just as the universe is made of the four elements in harmony with one another. …