- Hortus deliciarum
"Hortus deliciarum" (Latin: "Garden of Delights") is a
medieval manuscript compiled byHerrad of Landsberg at theHohenburg Abbey inAlsace . It was an illuminatedencyclopedia , begun in 1167 as a pedagogical tool for youngnovice s at the convent. It was finished in 1185, and was one of the most celebrated illuminated manuscripts of the period.Grove] The majority of the work is in Latin, withgloss es in German.Most of the manuscript was not original, but was a
compendium of 12th century knowledge. The manuscript contained poems, illustrations, and music, and drew from texts by classical andArab writers. Interspersed with writings from other sources werepoem s by Herrad, addressed to thenun s, almost all of which were set to music. [Yardley, pg. 19] The most famous portion of the manuscript is the illustrations, of which there were 336, which symbolised various themes, including theosophical, philosophical, and literary themes. These works are well regarded.In 1870 the manuscript was burnt and destroyed when the owning library in
Strasbourg was bombed during theSiege of Strasbourg . It is possible to reconstruct parts of the manuscript because portions of it had been copied in various sources; Christian Maurice Engelhardt copied the miniatures in 1818, and the text was copied and published by Straub and Keller between 1879 and 1899. [Catholic Encyclopedia]"Hortus deliciarum" is one of the first sources of
polyphony originating from anunnery . The manuscript contained at least 20 song texts, all of which were originally notated with music. Those which can be recognized now are from theconductus repertory, and are mainly note against note in texture. The notation was in semi-quadraticneume s with pairs of four-line staves. Two songs survive with music intact: "Primus parens hominum", a monophonic song, and a two part work, "Sol oritur occasus". [Yardley, pg. 19]References
*Nicky Losseff. "Herrad of Landsberg", "Grove Music Online", ed. L. Macy (accessed
January 17 2006 ), [http://www.grovemusic.com/ grovemusic.com] (subscription access).
*CathEncy | wstitle = Herrad of Landsberg | author = William Turner
*"Women Making Music: the Western Musical Tradition, 1150-1950" ed. J. Bowers and J. Tick. "'Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne': The Cloistered Musician in the Middle Ages" by Anne Bagnall Yardley. Urbana, IL. 1986. ISBN 0-252-01470-7Bibliography
*GREEN, R., (ED.) "The Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Hohenbourg" "(Landsberg, 1176-96)". (Studies of the Warburg Institute, volume 36 ) A Reconstruction by Rosalie Green, Michael Evans, Christine Bischoff, and Michael Curschmann. With contributions by T. Julian Brown and Kenneth Levy. Under the direction of Rosalie Green. 2 folio-sized vols. Warburg Institute /E.J. Brill, 1979, Volume 1 360 illustrations on plates; Volume 2 : texts and many more illustrations of which several full-page plates in fine colours, in addition to 168 facsimile plates of the original manuscript.
Notes
External links
*fr [http://bacm.creditmutuel.fr/HORTUS_DELICIARUM.html The 1818 Engelhardt facsimile]
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