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Written Comments Hildegards Cosmos The interconnectedness with which Hildegard perceives the natural world is fascinating in the way she draws parallels between man, his environment, and God. In a way, this makes sense from a rhetoric standpoint because she ties everything together in a coherent manner: God surrounds the whole cosmos while man fills the centre of the cosmos from within. This illustrates her view of the universe while leaving as few holes in her argument as possible which is convenient especially since Physica and Causae et curae not only do not correspond to or build upon any contemporary scientific cosmological writings, but appear to be the only two works of Hildegards in which she does not assert authority on her or the Living Lights behalf. With this in mind, it would have been interesting to know the reactions of her contemporaries given these two works are unlike the others in her whole bibliography. The issue of authorship is of course recurring, though Flanagan is convinced that esoteric references to things which were quintessentially part of Hildegards physical environment (e.g. certain rivers) is enough evidence of her stamp. I personally think this is a rather faulty argument as editors of her works could have physically been among the things she was around and therefore could have just as easily demonstrated knowledge of these things too. I believe an analysis of writing style and form would support or disprove this thesis more convincingly (which is what I will be doing in my final paper), though I appreciate that these works are not like her visions or are in any way prophetic, meaning it could be akin to comparing apples to oranges. Lastly, I find Hildegards deterministic view of conception and the way she makes this the very interface of humans and the environment noteworthy; she believed

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that the determination of a childs sex and character was influenced by the air which was influenced by the climate which was in turn influenced by the planets. Again, this demonstrates Hildegards belief of the interconnectedness of the universe