The Hortus Deliciarum

Made at the Hohenburg Abbey, France, 1185
by Herrad of Landsberg (c.1130 - July 25, 1195)

folio 204r - Mercy/Charity

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). 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.

These illustrations are from a reproduction by Christian Maurice Engelhardt, 1818. The original perished in the burning of the Library of Strasbourg during the siege of 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War. The text was copied and published by Straub and Keller, 1879-1899.



Prudentius (born in 348 in northern Spain, died after 405) spent most of his life following worldly pursuits, but later turned to writing, in which he aimed to glorify God and atone for his earlier sins. One of his most popular works is a poem called Psychomachia (Conflict of the Soul), which describes the battles between female personifications of human virtues and vices. Instead of being a dry theological treatise, the poem has the qualities of an exciting narrative filled with high drama, with lots of bloodshed and violence.