A History of the Germanic Empire by S.A. Dunham

Author:S.A. Dunham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jovian Press

What the abbé evidently perceived, but did not choose to express, we, who are no Roman catholics, need not suppress. Elizabeth was an impostor; her brother Egbert was an impostor; the abbot Helduin was an impostor. Of the three, however, we believe that the jade herself was the least guilty. She was clearly in the worst stage of craziness; nobody ever deserved Bedlam so richly. They had a purpose to gain,—to accredit the legend of the eleven thousand virgins, (eleven thousand virgins! all from Cornwall!! all princesses, or of noble birth!!!) for they well knew that the vile imposture would bring offerings to St. Verena’s shrine. But enough of them and their sister, half knave, half dupe; we only add, that some years before her death she was made prioress of Schonau, and that she died in 1165.

On St. Hildegard, abbess of Mount St. Rupert, near Mentz, whose revelations are equally celebrated, and somewhat less absurd, than those of her contemporary, we cannot pass a favourable judgment. The events of her life are few and unimportant. From her infancy she is said to have seen extraordinary things,—which means, that from her infancy she was of unsound mind. At eighteen, she and another holy female were shut up as recluses at Disemberg; and here she remained more than forty years. But from her frequent visions, from her prophecies, and from her explanations of Scripture, she became so celebrated, that by the archbishop of Mentz she was appointed the first abbess of Mount St. Rupert. Her celestial communications appear to have commenced in her forty-third year; no unnatural effect of her secluded life, especially when we add that her constitution was exceedingly delicate, that she was generally indisposed. She saw, it is said, heaven opened, and from it issued a luminous fire, which entered her head, her heart, and her whole breast, yet did not injure her: on the contrary, it gave her a sweet animation. With it she received the gift, not only of interpreting the most recondite passages of Scripture, but of explaining the hidden councils of heaven. As she did not understand Latin grammar, her comments, if they may be so called, were written by a clerical associate,—no doubt, the chief hand in the imposture. Her fame spread so widely, that many of the neighbouring abbots, bishops, and clergy at length solicited her advice, both as to the government of their flocks, and as to the care of their own souls; and some proposed questions which would have puzzled the most profound theologian. After the approbation of her writings by pope Eugenius III.—an approbation obtained through the entreaties of the archbishop of Mentz and the celebrated St. Bernard,—her decisions were regarded as sacred, as inspired by the Holy Ghost. Nothing, indeed, can exceed the number of such applications; nor the reverence with which they were made. But, in general, her answers are not definite; in many, far from satisfactory. Some subjects she dexterously evades; some she partially notices; and on others she recurs to a mystical interpretation, unintelligible even to herself.

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