The Alsatian Herrade de Landsberg (died 1195), a contemporary of Hildegard, developed the microcosm theory along lines similar to those of our abbess, and it is probable that the theory, in the form in which these writers present it, reached the Upper Rhineland somewhere about the middle or latter half of the twelfth century. [Illustration: From the LUCCA MS. fo. 1 v Plate VI. NOUS PERVADED BY THE GODHEAD AND CONTROLLING HYLE] Apart from the Biblical books, the work which made the deepest impression on Hildegard was probably Augustine’s _De Civitate Dei_, which seems to form the background of a large part of the _Scivias_. The books of Ezekiel and of Daniel, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse, all contain a lurid type of vision which her own spiritual experiences would enable her to utilize, and which fit in well with her microcosmic doctrines. Ideas on the harmony and disharmony of the elements she may have picked up from such works as the Wisdom of Solomon and the Pauline writings, though it is obvious that Isidore of Seville and the _Regimen Sanitatis Salerni_ were also drawn upon by her. [Illustration: From the LUCCA MS. fo. 9 r Plate VII. NOUS PERVADED BY THE GODHEAD EMBRACING THE MACROCOSM WITH THE MICROCOSM] Her figure of the Church in the _Scivias_ reminds us irresistibly of Boethius’ vision of the gracious feminine form of Philosophy. Again, the visions of the punishments of Hell which Hildegard recounts in the _Liber Vitae Meritorum_[48] bear resemblance to the work of her contemporary Benedictine, the monk Alberic the younger of Monte Cassino, to whom Dante also became indebted.[49] Hildegard repeatedly assures us that most of her knowledge was revealed to her in waking visions. Some of these we shall seek to show had a pathological basis, probably of a migrainous character, and she was a sufferer from a condition that would nowadays probably be classified as hystero-epilepsy. Too much stress, however, can easily be laid on the ecstatic presentment of her scientific views. Visions, it must be remembered, were ‘the fashion’ at the period, and were a common literary device. Her contemporary Benedictine sister, Elizabeth of Schönau, as well as numerous successors, as for example Gertrude of Robersdorf, adopted the same mechanism. The use of the vision for this purpose remained popular for centuries, and we may say of these writers, as Ampère says of Dante, that ‘the visions gave not the genius nor the poetic inspiration, but the form merely in which they were realized’.