My favorite image of Christ. Christ sends Christ as bait, killing himself—his avatar, the bait—in the process, but not really.

The most striking upshot of this image is what it says about what the Evil World really wants. The answer is: the evil people of world wants suffering—the suffering of others. If the evil people crave other-suffering, then the Evil World as totalizing abstraction wants massive suffering to be felt by the most innocent, massive suffering concentrated in a single point. This is the greatest good of the Evil World, and so is used as bait to overcome it and save the world.

Philosophy, the Queen, sits in the center of the circle. The three heads extending from her crown represent Ethics, Logic and Physics, the three parts of the teaching of philosophy. The streamer held by Philosophy reads:

All wisdom comes from God; only the wise can achieve what they desire.

Below Philosophy, seated at desks, are Socrates and Plato. The texts which surround them state that they taught first ethics, then physics, then rhetoric; that they were wise teachers; and that they inquired into nature of all things.

From Philosophy emerge seven streams, three on the right and four on the left. According to the text these are the seven liberal arts, inspired by the Holy Spirit: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The ring containing the inner circle reads:

I, Godlike Philosophy, control all things with wisdom; I lay out seven arts which are subordinate to me.

(Or, alternatively: Art guiding philosophy, all of which are subject to my skills into seven parts.)

Arrayed around the circle are the liberal arts. Three correspond to the rivers which emerge from Philosophy on the right and are concerned with language and letters: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. Together they comprise the trivium. The four others form the quadrivium, arts which are concerned with the various kinds of harmony: music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Each of the seven arts holds something symbolic, and each is accompanied by a text displayed on the arch above it.

1. Grammar (at 12 o’clock) holds a book and a whip. The text reads: Through me all can learn what are the words, the syllables, and the letters.
2. Rhetoric (at 2 o’clock) holds a tablet and stylus. The text reads: Thanks to me, proud speaker, your speeches will be able to take strength.
3. Dialectic (at 4 o’clock) points with a one hand and holds a barking dog’s head in the other. The text reads: My arguments are followed with speed, just like the dog’s barking.
4. Music (at 5 o’clock) holds a harp, and other instruments are nearby. The text reads: I teach my art using a variety of instruments.
5. Arithmetic (at 7 o’clock) holds a cord with threaded beads, like a rudimentary abacus. The text reads: I base myself on the numbers and show the proportions between them.
6. Geometry (at 9 o’clock) holds a staff and compass. The text reads: It is with exactness that I survey the ground.
7. Astronomy (at 11 o’clock) points heavenward and holds in hand a magnifying lens or mirror. The text reads: I hold the names of the celestial bodies and predict the future.

The large ring around the whole scene contains four aphorisms:

What it discovers is remembered; Philosophy investigates the secrets of the elements and all things; Philosophy teaches arts by seven branches; It puts it in writing, in order to convey it to the students.

Below the circle are four men seated at desks, poets or magicians, outside the pale and beyond the influence of Philosophy. According to the text they are guided and taught by impure spirits and they produce is only tales or fables, frivolous poetry, or magic spells. Notice the black birds speaking to them (the antithesis of the white dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit).

The border of the image is irregular and is a part of the image rather than a simple mediator between page and illumination. The outlines in the image are thick and bold and draw attention to the brilliant color scheme that is predominated by a black background and accented by red tongues of fire and rivers of red flame that separate the registers of the picture, which also serve to denote the different levels of hell. The image’s solid black background is unique and startling, and is rarely, if ever, found in other medieval images. The demons, or devils, found in this visualization of hell are a dark charcoal color; they are probably only as lightly colored as they are to separate them from their surroundings. The humans that inhabit the image are flesh colored; some are completely naked while others wear nondescript white or gray garments. Only one human is clothed in a color other than white, and he dons a bright red cloak, the same color as the flames that engulf the whole scene.

Moving past the formal elements we can now look more closely at both our environment and the inhabitants of this dark, dismal place. If we look only at what is presented to us, and do not use our own knowledge of and ideas about hell to inform us, we might imagine that we are in a cave, which might also be called a pit. The border of the image has a color reminiscent of rock, and the holes in this border and its jagged shape reinforce the cave, or pit, reading. The inhabitants of this dark and fiery pit are both human and demon, and while the humans suffer various torments the devils smile, some with their mouths wide as if mid-speech. The people that inhabit the border of the image are naked, twisted, and burning, and in areas the flame that torments them even exits the bold border. The people on the topmost register, or level, of hell are all nude, but they do not all suffer the same punishment. The four on the left are surrounded by flame, as is every character in the image in one way or another. The figure that is farthest right in this group breast-feeds a serpent with a strange expression reminiscent of happiness on her face.

The other group of damned souls on the top register, which consists of three men, has been strung up by four demons, which pull their hair and prod them with spikes.

Proceeding down into the deeper reaches of hell we encounter another soul that has been strung up by two demons. Different than those above her she is clothed in a long plain dress and her hands are bound not by rope, but by the river of flame that separates the top two levels of hell. The devils that have bound her smile as they torment her with flames and spikes. The other woman on this level of hell is neither bound nor is she tortured by demons, but in her mouth is a small, bloody, naked human body, which Fiona Griffiths suggests is her child. Cannibalism, especially of ones own offspring, if we can believe that the canonesses of Hohenberg would have recognized this image as such, is an interesting punishment, and the viewer is driven not only to ask themselves what the sin of the cannibal was, but also what the sin of the consumed possibly could have been. Last on this second register are three naked men, each tormented by one demon. One is beaten with a club, another is prodded with what we today would call a pitchfork, but which those from Herrad’s time would have called a flesh hook while at the same time something resembling a skeleton is being forced into his mouth, and the last is attacked by a demon, forced to his knees, and holds out his hands to receive some fiery looking substance, which is believed by Fiona Griffiths to be coins.

Traveling lower still we encounter five more demons and nine more humans. Both sets of humans on this level are being boiled in large cauldrons, and both still retain some form of clothing from their earthly lives that easily identifies them to the viewer. Those on the left are identified as Jews by both their clothing and their titulus, while those on right are identified as knights. Finally, we descend into the lowest level of hell, and we are confronted by Satan himself, seated upon his throne of beasts. On Satan’s lap sits the antichrist, depicted not as a monster but as a human, which is consistent with how the antichrist is depicted elsewhere in the Hortus. Satan looks triumphant and has what appears to be a smile on his face, but he is chained at the neck, which is consistent with a description of him given in the book of revelation. There are also three other devils on this level and two damned souls; one of these souls is naked and burning coins are being poured into his mouth; the other individual is fully clothed, and he is the only figure in the image that is clothed in a color which is not a muted grey. He was most certainly a member of the clergy in life, as his clothing, his tonsure, and a titulus can easily identify him, yet before our eyes he is being led into the depths of hell by a devil, which has him by the wrist. He has not yet fully entered into the tortures of his new home, as he is still unharmed and has not yet even fully passed through the border of the illumination. The devil that leads this man toward his damnation has a smile across his face, and Satan himself reaches out with an open hand and outstretched arm to welcome the new resident. While some of the inhabitants of Herrad’s vision of hell may be easily identifiable, Herrad left nothing to chance; if there was any doubt after reading the visual clues that pointed toward the profession or ethnic group of one individual or another, the nuns of Hohenberg could read the inscriptions that were included in the illumination as well.

Top:

Omnipotens Dominus divina gerens bonus exstat.

Bottom:

Lucifer signaculum similitudinis Dei plenus sapiencia et perfectus decore in deliciis paradisi Dei fuit inferior Deo.