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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Hugh of St Victor’s two treatises on Noah’s Ark, De arca Noe morali and De arca Noe mystìca, are major twelfth-century writings on the contemplative life with a significant relationship to the medieval iconographie tradition. Both refer to a drawing that symbolically presents the spiritual teaching of the treatises. Unfortunately this drawing no longer exists, but De arca Noe mystica describes it in detail. That description and passages in De arca Noe morali show that the drawing had three major iconographie elements:
(1) a figure of Christ ‘seated in majesty’ as seen in a vision by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6);
(2) a symbolic cosmos, with the earth at the centre, surrounded by the regions of aer and aether; and
(3) a schematized drawing of Noah’s Ark, depicting it as a three-storeyed, pyramidal vessel viewed from above.
These three ‘units’ were arranged so that the figure of Christ held the symbolic cosmos in front of his body (with only his head, hands, and feet visible), while the diagram of the Ark was placed in the centre of the symbolic cosmos so that the earth surrounded the Ark.
1 Texts in PL 176. De arca Noe morali [hereafter A. mor], cols 617-80 (chapter divisions will follow the GSAtV. translation [see below], not Migne); De arca Noe mystica [hereafter A. mysL], cols 681-794. A. mor. a. in Hugh of St Victor, Selected Writings on Contemplation, a. by a Religious of GS.M.V., intro. by Aelred Squire (London, 1062) [hereafter C.S.M.V.]. A critical edition of both works is being prepared for Corpus christianorum, continuatici medievalis by Patrice Sicard.
2 For a description of the drawing, which was probably painted on a wall or on a large surface produced by sewing many parchment sheets together, see Grover A Zinn, Jr., ‘De gradibus ascensionum: the stages of contemplative ascent in two treatises on Noah’s Ark by Hugh of St. Victor’, Studies in Medieval Culture, 5 (1975), pp. 61–79, and ‘Mandala use and symbolism in the mysticism of Hugh of St. Victor’, History of Religions, 12 (1972-3), pp. 317–41. Partial reconstruction of drawing in J. Ehlers, ‘Arca significai ecclesiam. Ein theologisches weltmodell aus der ersten Halfte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Frühmittelalterlichen Studien, 6 (1972), pp. 171–87. The relation of the drawing to a mappa mundi text now identified as being by Hugh is dis cussed by Patrick Gautier Dalché, La ‘Descriplio mappe mundi’ de Hugues de Saint-Victor: Texte inédit avec introduction et commentaire (Paris, 1988).
3 See A. myst., iii-iv, cols 685A-8A.
4 See Hugh’s description of drawing the floors and central column of the Ark, ibid., ii, col. 684BC.
5 For the four stages of the spiritual quest, the twelve ladders, and associated iconography, see A. myst., vii-viii, cols 692B-7D, and my articles cited in n. 2, above.
6 Lucca, Bibl. Governativa, MS 1942, fol. 38r. For a consideration of the manuscript, dating, and title (the tide in Migne is Liber divinorum operum), see B. Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hille-gard’s Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1987), pp. 11,19–22.
7 See A. myst., xiv, cols 700D–1A. Hildegard’s aer and aether are subdivided into ‘layers’ in a way Hugh’s are not.
8 For the earth (orbis terrae) surrounding the Ark, see ibid., 700C; Hugh says that in the area of the earth in the drawing, a mappa mundi is to be depicted. In ibid., 702C the earth (and hence the mappa) is said to show ‘loca, montes, (lumina, castella et oppida constituta’. For the location of Egypt and Babylon, see ibid., 699D. The correlation of ‘places’ (on the mappa) and ‘rimes’ (on the time-line of the Ark) was important to Hugh; see comment ibid., 700CD: ‘ut mirabili disposinone ab eodem principe decurrac situs locorum cum ordine temporum, et idem sit finis mundi, qui est finis saeculi.’
9 See A. mysl., xiv, col. 700D for ‘circulus oblongus’. A few sentences later the ‘circulus’ bounding aer is described as ‘paulo laxior’ with no reference to being ‘oblongus’.
10 For the Ebsdorf world map (now destroyed), see fig. 80a in Anna C. Esmeijer, Divina Qmtemitas: a Preliminary Study in the Method and Application of Visual Exegesis (Amsterdam, 1978); brief discussion, p. 99. The miniature from Hildegard is Lucca,Bibl. Governativa, MS 1942, fol. or.
11 Ehlers, Arca significai, p. 176, mentions the seraphs but says no more. In Hugo von St. Viktor. Studien zum Geschichtsdenken und zur Ceschichtsschreibung des 12.Jahrhunderts - Frankfurter Historische Ahhandlungen,7 (Wiesbaden, 1973), Ehlers mentions the seraphs briefly, pp. 121-2, when discussing Hugh’s exegesis of Isaiah’s vision, but he omits any reference to them when discussing the drawing of Christ and the cosmos, pp. 131-2. Baron, R., Science et sagesse chez Hugues de Saint-Victor (Paris, 1957), p. 185 Google Scholar, does not discuss the seraphs. My earlier work (see n. 2 above) includes the seraphs, but this present paper develops the significance of Isaiah’s vision in more detail.
12 A. mor., I, vii, col. 622C; GS.M.V., p. 52.
13 On speculative cosmologies and the symbolic cosmos, sec B. McGinn, The Golden Chain: a Study in the Theological Anthropology of Isaac of Stella - Cistercian Studies Seríes, is (Washington, DC, 1972); Dronke, P., Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism (Leiden, 1974)Google Scholar; Wetherbee, W., Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: the Literary Influence of the School of Chartres (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar; Stock, B., Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century, a Study of Bernard Silvester (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar; and d’Alveray, M.-T., ‘Lc cosmos symbolique du xiie siècle’, AHDL, 20 (1954), pp. 31–81 Google Scholar.
14 A. mor., I, vii, col. 622C; C.S.M.V., p. 52; ‘to make the illustration clearer for you I have depicted Christ’s whole person, the Head with the members, in-a form that you can see;… And I want to represent this Person to you in such wise as Isaiah testifies that he beheld Him.’
15 Paris, BN, MS nouvelle acquisition lat. 1203, fol. 3..
16 The text reads; ‘Seraphim stabant super illud …’: col. 623D. The interpretation presented here takes ‘super illud’ to mean ‘upon that (- the throne)’, in parallel with Isa. 6. 1: ‘vidi Dominum sedentem super solium excelsum et elevatum …’ (‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up …’). Translating Isa. 6. 2, C.S.M.V. follows the AV, as elsewhere. ‘Upon it’ is more accurate in preserving the parallelism between the phrases for the seraphs and for God. When translating the phrase in Hugh’s text, C.S.M.V. uses ‘stand on the throne’; see A. mor., I, ix, col. 624B; GS.M.V., p. 55.
17 See A. mor., I, ix, col. 624AB; CSM.V., p. 5 5.
18 Ibid., I, x, col. 624C; C.S.M.V., p. 56.
19 Jerome, Tr. horn. Origenis in visione Isaiae, PL 24, col. 903A
20 Jerome, Ep. XVIII, iv, PL 22, col. 365.
21 See ibid., col. 363, where Jerome adduces a passage from the Gospel of John as proof that the person on the throne is the Son, not the Father.
22 For a general discussion of angels, including seraphs, in artistic representation, see £. Kirschbaum, ed., Lexikon der christìichen Iconographie, 8 vols (Rome, Fribourg, Basle, and Vienna, (1968-76), 1, pp. 626-42.
23 Metz Coronation Sacramentary, BN, MS lat. 1141, fol. ór; Drogo Sacramentary, BN, MS lat. 9428, fol. 15r. For these MSS see Calkins, R., Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1983), pp. 162–77 Google Scholar.
24 On the Greek tradition, see Weitzmann, K., Illustrations in Roll and Codex: a Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration-Studies in Manuscript Illumination, 2 (Princeton, 1947), pp. 88–91, 148–9 Google Scholar, with illus 138,139.
25 A. mor., I, x, col. 625AB; GS.M.V., p. 57. See also ibid., col. 624BC; CSM.V. p. 57, and A. myst., xv, col. 702C, where Hugh remarked that the wings cover the head, not the face of Christ (‘vêlant caput majestaris et pedes, facie tamen intecta manente’).
26 See A. mor., I, x, col. 625A; C.S.M.V., p. 57. For a discussion of the possibility of seeing God in this life see Hugh’s De sacramentis christianaefidei [hereafter De sac], I, xviii, 16–22, PL 176, cols 613A-18B, rr. Roy J. Deferrari, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis) [hereafter Deferrari] - Mediaeval Academy of America Publications, 58 (Cambridge, Mass.,
27 A. mor., I, x, col. 62sB; GSJvLV., p. 57.
28 A. myst., xiv, col. 702CD: “Sub alis autem seraphim desuper in eo spano, quod est inter scapulas majescaris et alas ex utraque parte ordines angelorum consiruunrur novem, ad con-templandam faciem majestatis conversi.’
29 Horn, in evang., PL 76, cols 1246A–59A, esp. sections 3-6, cols 1247B–9D. This homily also contains Gregory’s only reference to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite—and the reference is to his theory of angelic orders.
30 A. mor., 1, x, cols 625C-6A; CSM.V., p. 58.
31 See Jerome, Comm. in Isaiah, iii, PL 24, col. 94A.
32 A. mor., I, x, col. 625D; CSM.V., p. 58.
33 Ibid., vii, col. 622C; GS.M.V., p. 52: ‘And because the ark denotes the Church, and the Church is the body of Christ, to make the illustration clearer for you I have depicted Christ’s whole Person, the Head with the members, in a form that you can see…’
34 See Ezek. 1.10, Rev. 4. 7, and Matt. 25. 31-46, esp. w. 33-4 and 41.
35 mysl., iii-iv, cols 685A-8A.
36 Ibid., col. 686D.
37 The lamb in the square is mentioned in the description of the complex diagram inscribed in the square, in ibid., i, col. 681C.
38 Ibid., iv, col. 687A: ‘… ut ex una parte columnae duodecim patriarchae, et ex altera parte duodecim apostoli sint constituo ad similitudinem viginti quatuor seniorum in Apocalypsi in circuitu throne sedentium.’
39 See A. mor., 1, x, col. 625D; C.S.M.V., p. 58, where Hugh speaks of the Church, ‘which began with the beginning of the world and lasts until the end of the age.’ The most moving instance of the unity of the ‘two peoples’ occurs in the prologue to De sacramenti*, which describes the Incarnate Word as a king who has come into the world to do battle with th-e Devil (cum diabolo). The Word is accompanied by the holy ones (sanai)—those who lived before his advent are soldiers who go before their king; those who live after the advent, and up to the end of the world, follow their king into battle. See De sac, prol., ii, col. 183B, Deferrari, pp. 3-4. In describing the square at the centre of the Ark drawing, Hugh repeatedly stresses the ‘two people’; see A. myst., i, cols 681 A–2B.
40 Ibid., viii, col. 696AB. The figures are from Rev. 4. 7; see the four faces of the four winged beings in Ezek. 1. 10.
41 See esp. A. mor., IV, ix, cols 669A-70C; C.S.M.V., pp. 132-4.
42 A. myst., viii, cols 605D-6A.
43 Ibid., xiv, xv, cols 700D, 702AB.
44 The material that follows expands on comments in my article, ‘Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition’, in Paula Lieber Gerson, ed., Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: A Symposium (New York, 1986), p. 37. The development of sculptural programmes for Roman esque tympani has been studied by Hearn, M. F., Romanesque Sculpture: the Revival of Monu mental Stone Sculpture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Ithaca, NY, 1981)Google Scholar. For Saint-Denis see Lieber Gerson, ed., Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis; Sumer McK. Crosby, ed. Pamela Z. Blum, The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis:from its Beginnings to the Death of Suger 471–1151 (New Haven, 1987), and Rudolf, Conrad, Artistic Change at Saint-Denis: Abbot Suger’s Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art (Princeton, 1990)Google Scholar.
45 Louis Grodecki, ‘Le problème des sources iconographiques du tympan Moissac’, Moissac et l’Occident au xi’siècle: Actes du Colloque international de Moissac, 1963 (Toulouse, 1964), pp. 59ff.: cited by Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, p. 174, n. 5.
46 The west façade of Saint-Denis has been examined in detail by Paula Lieber Gerson, ‘The West Façade of Saint-Denis: an Iconographie Study’ (Columbia University Ph.D. thesis, 1970). This study stresses the importance of the Matthean judgement text for the iconography.
47 See Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, ch. 5, examining the rebirth of monumental stone sculpture in church portals with close attention to theophanic themes,
48 For an example of difficulties, see Hearn’s discussion of the dating of the central portal of Vezelay and the Moissac portal, ibid., pp. 169-70, with references to literature, p. 170, n. 1.
49 A. myst. dates before 1130, and most likely from 1128 or 1129; see Damien van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la Jate Jes écrits de Hugues Je Saint-Victor - Spicilegium Pontifìcii Athenaei Antoniani, 13 (Rome, 1960), p. 80. The west facade of Saint-Denis was dedicated in 1140; M. F. Hearn dates the work as c.1137—40; see Romanesque Sculpture, pp. 191-2,11. 44.
50 See n. 47 above. The author wishes to thank Jeffrey Hamburger and Joseph Romano (Oberlin College) and Patricia Stirnemann (Bibliothèque nationale, Paris) for generous assistance.