There is no complete edition of the works of Hildegard. For the majority of readers the most convenient collection will doubtless be vol. 197 of Migne, _Patrologia Latina_. This can be supplemented from Cardinal J. B. Pitra’s well-edited _Analecta sacra_, the eighth volume of which contains certain otherwise inaccessible works of Hildegard,[9] and is the only available edition of the _Liber vitae meritorum per simplicem hominem a vivente luce, revelatorum_. Manuscripts of the writings of our abbess are numerous and are widely scattered over Europe. Four of them are of special importance for our purpose, and are here briefly described. (A) is a vast parchment of 480 folios in the Nassauische Landesbibliothek at Wiesbaden. This much-thumbed volume, still bearing the chain that once tethered it to some monastic desk, is written in a thirteenth-century script. There is evidence that it was prepared in the neighbourhood of Hildegard’s convent, if not in that convent itself. It is interesting as a collection of those works that the immediate local tradition attributed to her, and is thus useful as a standard of genuineness.[10] Reference will be made to it in the following pages as the _Wiesbaden Codex A._ Its contents are as follows: 1. Liber Scivias. 2. Liber _vitae_ meritorum. 3. Liber divinorum operum. 4. Ad praelatos moguntienses. 5. Vita sanctae Hildegardis. By Godefrid and Theodoric. 6. Liber epistolarum et orationum. This collection contains 292 items, and includes the Explanatio symboli Athanasii, the Exposition of the Rule of St. Benedict, and the Lives of St. Disibode and St. Rupert. 7. Expositiones evangeliorum. 8. Ignota lingua and Ignotae litterae. 9. Litterae villarenses. 10. Symphonia harmoniae celestum revelationum. (B) is also at Wiesbaden, and will be cited here as the _Wiesbaden Codex B_. It contains the _Scivias_ only, and is a truly noble volume of 235 folios, beautifully illuminated, in excellent preservation, and of the highest value for the history of mediaeval art. It has been thoroughly investigated by the late Dom Louis Baillet,[11] who concluded that it was written in or near Bingen between the dates 1160 and 1180. Its miniatures help greatly in the interpretation of the visions, illustrating them often in the minutest and most unexpected details. In view of the great difficulty of visualizing much of her narrative, these miniatures afford to our mind strong evidence that the MS. was supervised by the prophetess herself, or was at least prepared under her immediate tradition. This view is confirmed by comparing the miniatures with those of the somewhat similar but inferior Heidelberg MS. (C).