[29] An exception must be made for the _lingua ignota_, which is presumably hers. The absence of Germanisms in her other writings may be partly due to the work of an editor. See the _Vita_ by Theodoric, Migne, col. 101. Also the birth scene (see chapter ix below) is perhaps adapted from a German folk-tale. [30] Johannes Trithemius, _Chronicon insigne Monasterii Hirsaugensis, Ordinis St. Benedicti_, Basel, 1559, p. 174. [31] Migne, col. 384. [32] It is not enough to suppose with some of her biographers that the visions were dictated by Hildegard and were latinized by a secretary. The visions imply a good deal of study and considerable book-learning. Among many reasons for believing that she had a very serviceable knowledge of Latin are the following: (_a_) She was well acquainted with the Biblical writings and quotes them aptly and frequently. (_b_) She was regarded by her contemporaries as an authority on scriptural interpretation and on Church discipline, and was frequently consulted by them on these subjects. (_c_) She pleaded in person before clerical tribunals. (_d_) One of the least remarkable and most credible of her ‘miracles’, the expounding of certain letters found upon an altar-cloth (Migne, col. 121), depends entirely on a knowledge of Latin. (_e_) In the _Liber divinorum operum_ (Migne, col. 922) she writes ‘firmamentum _celum_ nominavit quoniam omnia _excellit_’, a derivation taken from Isidore and incomprehensible to one ignorant of Latin. There are many other passages in her works in which the sense depends on the Latin usage of a word. (_f_) No mention of this ignorance is made by Guibert in the short sketch of her life that he wrote almost immediately after her death (1180; see Pitra, p. 407). On the contrary, he suggests that she had been an industrious student. (_g_) The _Liber divinorum operum_ may especially be pointed out among her works as betraying a very considerable degree of learning. Notably her elaborate doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm must have involved extensive reading. The general question of Hildegard’s knowledge of Latin has also been discussed by Pitra and by Albert Battandier in the _Revue des questions historiques_, vol. xxxiii, p. 395, Paris, 1883. [33] See chapter viii. [34] It is, however, just possible that she had consulted the astrological work that had been translated from the Arabic by Hermann the Dalmatian for Bernard Sylvestris, and is represented in the Bodleian MSS. Digby 46 and Ashmole 304. [35] See Baldassare Boncompagni, _Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese, Traduttore del secolo duodecimo, e di Gherardo di Sabbionetta, Astronomo del secolo decimoterzo_, Rome, 1851; also K. Sudhoff, ‘Die kurze “Vita” und das Verzeichnis der Arbeiten Gerhards von Cremona, von seinen Schülern und Studiengenossen kurz nach dem Tode des Meisters (1187) zu Toledo verabfasst’, in _Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin_, Bd. viii, p. 73, November 1914.