Herrad of Landsberg
Selfportrait from Hortus deliciarum, ca. 1180

Herrad of Landsberg (c.1130 - July 25, 1195) was a 12th century Alsatian nun and abbess of Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains. She is known as the author of the pictorial encyclopedia Hortus deliciarum (The Garden of Delights). Hell, as illustrated in Hortus deliciarum. ... July 25 is the 206th day (207th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 159 days remaining. ... Events Priory of St Marys, Bushmead, founded. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... (New région flag) (Region logo) Location Administration Capital Strasbourg Regional President Adrien Zeller (UMP) (since 1996) Departments Bas-Rhin Haut-Rhin Arrondissements 13 Cantons 75 Communes 903 Statistics Land area1 8,280 km² Population (Ranked 14th)  - January 1, 2006 est. ... Nun in cloister, 1930; photograph by Doris Ulmann A nun is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. ... An Abbess (Latin abbatissa, fem. ... The Vosges mountains are range of mountains in central-western Europe, stretching along the west side of the Rhine valley in a NNE direction, from Basel to Mainz, for a distance of 250 km (150 miles). ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... Hell, as illustrated in Hortus deliciarum. ...

Herrad of Landsberg was born about 1130 at the castle of Landsberg, the seat of a noble Alsatian family. She entered the Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains, about fifteen miles from Strasbourg, at an early age. She became abbess there in 1167 and continued in that office until her death. Nobility is a traditional hereditary status (see hereditary titles) that exists today in many countries (mainly present or former monarchies). ... City flag City coat of arms Location Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country France Region Alsace Department Bas-Rhin (67) Intercommunality Urban Community of Strasbourg Mayor Fabienne Keller  (UMP) City Statistics Land area¹ 78. ...

Hortus Deliciarum

As early as 1165 Herrad had begun within the cloister walls the work for which she is best known, the Hortus Deliciarum, a compendium of all the sciences studied at that time, including theology. In it, Harrade delves into the battle of Virtue and Vice with vivid visual imagery preceding the text. Cloister of Saint Trophimus, in Arles, France A cloister (from latin claustrum) is a part of cathedral, monastic and abbey architecture. ... A compendium is a concise yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge. ...

The work, as one would expect from what we know of the literary activity of the twelfth century, while not highly original, shows a wide range of reading. Its chief claim to distinction is the three hundred and thirty-six illustrations which adorn the text. Many of these are symbolical representations of theological, philosophical, and literary themes; some are historical, some represent scenes from the actual experience of the artist, and one is a collection of portraits of her sisters in religion. The technique of some of them has been very much admired and in almost every instance they show an artistic imagination which is rare in Herrad's contemporaries. The poetry which accompanies the excerpts from the writers of antiquity and from pagan authors is not the least of Herrad's titles to fame. Theology (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογια, logia, words, sayings, or discourse) is reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... This article is 58 kilobytes or more in size. ... Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ...

It has the defects peculiar to the twelfth century, faults of quantity, words and constructions not sanctioned by classical usage, and peculiar turns of phrase which would hardly pass muster in a school of Latin poetry at the present time. However, the sentiment is sincere, the lines are musical, and above all admirably adapted to the purpose for which they were intended, namely, the service of God by song. Herrad, indeed, tells us that she considers her community to be a congregation gathered together to serve God by singing the divine praises.

The fate of the manuscript

After having been preserved for centuries at the Hohenburg Abbey, the manuscript of Hortus Deliciarum passed into the municipal Library of Strasbourg about the time of the French Revolution. There the miniatures were copied in 1818 by Christian Moritz (or Maurice) Engelhardt; the text was copied and published by Straub and Keller, 1879-1899 [1]. Thus, although the original perished in the burning of the Library of Strasbourg during the siege of 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War, we can still form an estimate of the artistic and literary value of Herrad's work. A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... The French Revolution (1789–1815) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on... The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment. ... Combatants Second French Empire North German Confederation allied with south German states (later German Empire) Commanders Napoleon III Otto Von Bismarck Helmuth von Moltke the Elder Strength 400,000 at the beginning of the war 1,200,000 Casualties 150,000 dead or wounded 284,000 captured 350,000 civilian...

Related links

Women Artists // Professor and art historian Linda Nochlin began her deliberately provocative 1971 Artnews article with the question Why are there no great women artists? This question was, in essence, a challenge to traditional art history and to feminist art history. ...

References

• Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art, and Society, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990
• Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976
• Herrad of Landsberg - article in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.