and Henry the Proud, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, one of the principal feudatories of the empire, who had been dispossessed of his dominions and deposed from his dignities. Though not quite relevant here, it may not be altogether out of place briefly to allude to the origin of that quarrel. Henry the Proud was opposed to the election of Conrad; and Conrad, on attaining power, deprived him of the Duchy of Saxony, under the pretext that the German law allowed no individual to be seised of two principal feoffs of the empire; giving it to his friend and follower, Albert the Bear, landgrave of Thuringia. Henry, wroth at this proceeding of the emperor, rose in arms against him; on which Conrad deposed and dispossessed him of the Duchy of Bavaria also, conferring it on another of his friends, Leopold, markgraf of Austria. Henry was still possessed of the property derived from the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, in Italy; but these successive disgraces and deprivations broke his spirit and ended his life. He died within a year; and left the inheritance of vengeance to his celebrated son, Henry the Lion. On his death, his brother, Welf, or Guelph, laid claim to the Duchy of Bavaria, and a fierce contest ensued; but it terminated in his defeat. This was the beginning of that fearful strife which, under the name of the feud of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, for more than three centuries desolated the fairest portion of Europe, and deluged Italy with the best blood of her worthiest sons. * The names of Guelf and Ghibelline were derived, the first from the opponent of Conrad, Welf (Italian, Guelph); the second from the war-cry of the emperor's partizans, Waiblingen (Italian, Ghibelline), the name of a family estate of the noble house of Hohenstaufen, of which Conrad was the chief.

In the midst of this unholy strife the celebrated St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, set on foot the project of a third crusade; and then traversed central Europe to preach it to the people and princes of the respective countries. At that period the Rhine was the centre of civilization-the seat of the German empireand the main highway of the known world. Thither the pious abbot first directed his steps; and there he preached with a success which exceeded his most sanguine expectations. Aware that he

* Hermann, " Allgemeine Geschichte," p. 225.

could effect little towards the accomplishment of his great object while discord reigned in the empire, he set about the task of reconciling the contending parties; but aware also that other influences besides his own were necessary, he determined on enlisting in his aid the piety of the Abbess Hildegard. To this end he paid her a visit at St. Rupertsberg; and the result was, a most awful prophecy in denunciation of those who should neglect the cry of God's people in Palestine, and permit the Holy Sepulchre to remain any longer in possession of the heathen. It must have been a singularly interesting interview-the first meeting between these two extraordinary beings; he exercising a power over the minds of mankind by the simple gift of eloquence, unheard of and unknown since the days of Peter the Hermit : she, a power equally great, through the influence of an ardent imagination, and an enthusiastic manner of communicating her fanciful impressions. The excellent historian of the Rhine* has preserved this prophecy entire; but it would be only a waste of space to quote it in a work of this nature. One remark, however, may be made on the subject: it is an impartial denunciation; for it not alone includes the clergy, together with the civilians, the emperor, the electors, and the nobles of the land; but it is even more severe upon their notorious vices than upon those equally notorious of the others. It should also, in strict justice, be added, that it vaguely foretells the dismemberment of the Germanic empire, and the downfall of the universal dominion of the papal supremacy.+

* Vogt,

"Rheinische Sagen und Geschichten."

† The passages in which they chiefly occur are as follows. They were written in the 12th century, and offer rather an extraordinary coincidence :—

"In this time also will be the power, and dominion, and dignity, wherewith is ruled this empire, much diminished; and the empire itself brought to great decay and narrow compass: which will be the result of the guilt and neglect of its rulers."

Many kings, and princes, and potentates, and people, will withdraw themselves from their allegiance to the empire; and each people—yea, each province will choose its own lord and master, saying, 'What get we by the empire? We get more loss than profit-more disgrace than honour.'

*

豪

"Then also will decline the honour and greatness of the apostolic chair. Then will princes and people seek their faith in that quarter no more. Then

The success of St. Bernard in preaching this crusade is well known; but it is not so generally known that Hildegard's prophecies greatly contributed to it. Of the result of the crusade itself it is not within the province of this sketch to speak; but that it was as disastrous as those which preceded it, is a fact within the cognizance of every reader of history. In imitation of Moses on the mountain of Horeb, the abbess of Rupertsberg went to the top of the highest peak of the Taunus ;* and there, with outstretched arms, remained so long in prayer to God for the success of her pious friend's mission, that she fell senseless to the earth. She also abandoned the solitude of her cloister, it is said, and alone and a-foot, preached the crusade, not only in all the towns and cities on the Rhine; but even crossed the Alps, and reached Rome itself, in the fervour of her zeal and enthusiasm.+ But this is merely a rumour, not as sufficiently authenticated as the history of all the rest of her actions happens to be. However, it is pleasing to believe it, even if an error; for what can be more beautiful to contemplate than such earnestness in behalf of the ignorant and the vicious-and such heroism and devotion on the part of a woman; who, brought up from infancy in the peace of a convent, was as necessarily innocent of the world and its tortuous ways as a sinless child? Her reward from St. Bernard consisted of advice, a knife, and a ring, with the legend, "I suffer willingly," engraven on it: the advice was, to place her nunnery under the rule of St. Benedict, and found a monastery of the same order contiguous to it: the meaning of the others may have been a mystery, obscured, or altogether forgotten, in the lapse of intervening ages.

Hildegard's fame and glory grew greater with her increasing years; so much so, indeed, that additional thousands visited her humble cell annually until her death; and her visions and prophecies became more and more celebrated in proportion to their mystic nature and their enlarged number. To the poor she

will the papal power be bounded and cramped. Then will other bishops and teachers of religion be set up in opposition to the pope and the pope possess no longer any control, except over Rome and its immediate vicinity." * Known as the "Brunhildstein."

+ Neumont. Rheinland's " Sagen, Geschichten und Legenden." Köln und Aachen, 1837.

administered consolation-to the rich and the great she gave good counsel; and the most powerful princes in Europe were among the countless crowd of her visitants. Besides these works of mercy and outpourings of the prophetic spirit, she also gave occasional license to the spirit of poetry, with the essence of which her nature was strongly impregnated; composing several church hymns, psalms, and other pieces of sacred song, some of which are still in existence. She died, in the fulness of years and honour, beloved and venerated by all her contemporaries, on the 17th September, 1179; and, after lying several days in state, an object of almost divine worship, to tens of thousands of spectators, who flocked from all parts of Germany merely to touch her corpse, she was buried in the chancel of the convent of Ruppertsberg.

This celebrated and extraordinary woman left behind her several devotional and theological works, her own compositions, which evince a degree of intellectual cultivation far in advance of the ordinary enlightenment of the age in which she lived; she also busied herself in physic, among many others, there being found in her remains a complete treatise on the healing art, consisting of several curious receipts, and many notions, quite as curious, of the human system. Her prophetic homilies are too numerous only to mention. Most of them were dedicated to the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, or Pope Eugene the Third, or various prelates and abbots of the period; and very many are still preserved in the nunnery of Eubingen, near Rudesheim, on the opposite shore of the Rhine.*

* An extract from one entitled “Scivias,” or “ Scientiæ vias simplicis hominis," may afford the best idea of the nature of her mind. The sources of her inspiration were, evidently, the Revelations of St. John

:

“In the sixty-first year of my age I heard a voice from Heaven, which spake unto me: 'Thou who, from thy earliest infancy, wert imbued with the Spirit of God, and the knowledge of the history of his works, rather than with the vain desires and ignorant learning of this world, listen to the words which thou shalt hear, and tell them to mankind.'"

Again :

*

"I had begun to write-when, behold! I heard a voice from Heaven, and saw a man of such surpassing beauty and heighth, that his head touched the clouds, while his feet were on the earth; and his loveliness dazzled the eyes to look on."

*

And so on.

The convent and abbey of Ruppertsberg flourished, and put forth many branches from the parent stock, until the time of the Thirty Years' War, when it was burned by the Swedes, under Gustavus Adolphus (A.D. 1632). The mortal remains of Hildegard were then transferred to Eubingen, already mentioned; and her followers found protection there from the Archbishop of Mainz.

Ruppertsberg appears to have been, as it were, the prescriptive abode of prophets, or rather the prescriptive focus of prophecy or imposture, as the case may be considered; for we find that Bartholemew Holzhausen, the well-known interpreter of the future, there predicted the restoration of Charles the Second to the English throne, when that monarch was a fugitive in Bingen. That prediction was, however, accompanied by a caveat, which, if not an interpretation subsequent to the event, must be certainly looked on as an extraordinary coincidence, or wondrous knowledge of future events. After stating substantially the circumstance of the restoration of the royal exile, it adds, "Cave ne Catholicam Romanam religionem restaures;--But take heed you restore not the Roman Catholic religion."

A fountain is shewn in the ruins of the convent, which is said to have been one of the pious labours of Hildegard: miraclemongers tell that it was excavated by her own hands.

BINGEN.

Bingen, situated at the mouth of the Nahe, where that river pours its tributary waters into the Rhine, lays a well-founded claim to a very high antiquity. The present town, however, does not stand on the site of the more ancient city, the origin of which is attributed to Drusus Germanicus; but on the opposite side of the Nahe, whither the population had transferred itself in the early part of the middle ages. In all literary remains of the classical period the place is termed Bingium. It is generally believed that the Roman hero, Drusus, first opened the passage through the ledge of rocks which runs across the Rhine, a little below the Mouse Tower, long known as the Binger Loch.