Encounter on the Rhine
Marion Pitman
On the Thursday after the second Sunday of Lent, I left the abbey at Mount St Rupert after Matins, and before the hour of Lauds, it being still dark, but wishing to continue my journey. It was a clear night with some moonlight, and I had no difficulty seeing my way. I had not gone far from the convent when a shaft of light struck the ground before me, which was not the dawn, but more like a bolt of lightning, which nevertheless remained steady: not like sunlight, but a strong, white light, in a steady beam. It was broad, about twenty or thirty cubits, and came with a warmth, like the warmth of a lamp. I stopped, and looked up, as I think any man must have done, to see where the light came from.
I could not see the origin of the light, for it seemed to come straight from the height of Heaven, as if it had been the sun at noon, yet it was still two hours before dawn. But there was something more wonderful yet than this, for descending along this shaft of light I saw a great silver vessel, of the shape of an egg, almost the width of the beam of light, which dropped down marvellously slowly, until it lay on the ground before me. I was struck with fear such that I could not move or speak, and trembled in all my limbs. After some minutes, an opening appeared in the egg, about five cubits high, and a number of beings, of the shape of men or women, but exceedingly tall, descended from the egg, and stood on the ground beside me.
They seemed to address me, their voices being very high and clear, like the voices of women, and their speech a kind of singing, soaring up and down like a piece of music, and not as human speech. The language was neither Latin nor German, and I did not understand their speech. However, after some few minutes, when they perceived that I did not understand them, I heard another voice, which seemed to come from the air, rather than from the mouth of a particular being, which spoke in Latin, and it said, ‘Do not be afraid. We are visitors from another world, and we wish to speak to you.’ Upon hearing this I was struck with great terror, and fell down on the ground, and my eyes were darkened. The beings continued to speak in their high, silvery voices, and then I felt them lift me, and they carried me into the vessel. There they laid me on a couch, and strapped me down, so that I thought, These are devils, and have brought me to a place of torment, and I cried out upon God to rescue me, and to save me from these devils. But they did not torment me, only left me for a time on the couch, and when some time had passed I was able to open my eyes, and I looked around me.
I was in a large room, almost as big as the nave of a church, but the structure of it I cannot describe, for the angles of the walls were not what I have ever seen nor what I could imagine, and I cannot say how they fitted together. Neither my eyes nor my mind were able to comprehend them. But everywhere were bright lights, sparkling like jewels or stars of many colours, and the walls shone white as silver, or as ivory, and in that it was most beautiful, surpassing all but the greatest cathedral.
Then there was a great movement and shaking, as of a ship when it casts off from land and sets out upon the sea, and it seemed that the vessel was moving, though whether across the land or through the air I could not tell. But as I had seen it descend through the air, I thought it might well be that it was now ascending in a like manner. Then for a while I was subject to strange sensations, of dizziness, and of great weight pressing me down on to the couch, and was not able to take note of anything that happened; but when I came to myself again, I found that I was no longer tied or fastened to the couch, but could move freely and sit up; so when they saw that I was sitting up, one of the tall demons came to me, and spoke in that strange high, soaring voice, and then when I did not answer, I heard the other voice, from the air, or inside my head, which said, ‘Do not be afraid, but tell us who you are, and what is your place upon the Earth?’
Then I found my voice had returned and the power of speech, and I told the being that I was a monk in holy orders, and dedicated to the service of God, and I would not answer questions of devils. Then they did not ask any more at that time.
They brought to me vessels of silver, and others that were clear like crystal or glass, with meat and bread and wine, but I thought that to eat and drink in Hell, or in that other place that we hear of where dwell those who are neither men nor angels, might condemn my soul to remain there for ever, so I would not eat nor drink.
Then they left me for a time, and I prayed earnestly again for the Holy Spirit to deliver me from this place, wheresoever it might be. Then I looked up, and it seemed that one side of the vessel was all one great window, filled with crystal or clear glass; and beyond it I saw things I cannot name, but they were like flaming stars in great showers, and again great wheels turning slowly, and burning. And I wondered again what place I might be in, and whether the vessel wherein I travelled had passed beyond the sphere of the moon, and we were now in the immutable heavens; but it seemed against reason that these devils, which they must surely be, could pass into the heavens. Then I thought and asked myself if they might be holy angels, but surely angels would fly with their own wings, and not require a vessel such as this. And besides which, if they were angels, they would have spoken to me in Latin, or even in German, and not in the strange tongue which I did not understand, for surely in the Holy Scriptures, when angels speak to men they do so to be understood.
Then I reasoned that the stars and burning fire which I saw outside the vessel, as it seemed, were a glamour and an illusion with which the devils were seeking to deceive me, so that I should believe we were in the heavens. The fiery wheel then drew nearer, and it seemed we should be engulfed thereby, and I thought perhaps it was indeed the mouth of Hell, and I prayed the more fervently in my terror, that God might save me from this doom. There was a great noise of roaring, and many voices speaking in that strange language, and the vessel was violently shaken; and then all was still, and the roaring ceased and the voices were quiet; and the great window turned black, as if a shutter had closed across it.
After a little time, one of the beings came to me again; and although it was greater by a cubit than the height of a man, yet it seemed to me that it was a woman, from its voice, and its face, which was very beautiful, and also from the hair, that shone like silver or gold, and hung down its back, very long and unbound. She again offered me food and drink, and again I refused. The voice in my head then asked, would I write down answers to the questions they wished to ask; and the being held out to me a book, with blank pages of something like parchment but more coarse, and what I took to be a pen, though it seemed to be made of some metal. It seemed to me then that I might answer them, if the questions were not such as to imperil my soul, and I asked, if I wrote down what they wanted to know, would they let me go, and return me to the place I came from; they said they would return me to Earth when they had accomplished their purpose.
Knowing, then, that I was either in the heavens or in Hell, and that only by their goodwill might I return home, I determined to answer their questions, so that I might by some means return to the brothers and to the life of worship and service to which I am devoted. I found that the pen wrote well without ink, having, it seemed, ink or a kindred substance in and of itself, and the flow did not cease all the while I wrote according to their demand.
So the voice put questions to me, and I began to write the answers, and as I did so the being beside me wrote also, upon a tablet that was not of wax but a glazed surface; and as she wrote there appeared not the letters of Latin writing, but other symbols of some strange tongue which I did not know, but took to be that singing language with which the beings spoke with their mouths; for they did not speak Latin with their mouths, but only that voice in the air or inside my head spoke to me in Latin. And I saw that there were symbols like these also written upon the walls of the vessel, and upon the tables and chests with which it was furnished.
The questions that the voice asked me were many, concerning the lives of men, and the properties of beasts and flowers and stones, and the oceans, and all the nature of thing
s beneath the moon, so much that I could not answer them all, and I wondered at their asking, for whether they were angels or devils it seemed to me that they would have no need to know these things, supposing that they did not know them. And they did not ask me anything concerning God or the spiritual life, which confirmed my belief that they were devils, for else why would this not concern them, and in questioning a man of God this should surely have been their concern. But they did ask me of my life in the monastery, and what was the purpose of living the devout life, and in what manner we conducted our day; and so I was able to speak of the Rule of our Order, and the holy Saint Benedict, and also of the Holy Spirit, and all the ways to seek salvation of the soul, for I thought, if these be not devils, but some other creatures which have not heard the Holy Scriptures, then it is my duty to preach the Gospel to them as well as I may. And all these things I wrote, and the being wrote all the time also on her tablet, looking back and forth at me as she did so.
I cannot tell how long this continued; it felt like many hours, but since there was no natural light in the vessel, nor any candles – for the walls seemed to shine with light of themselves – it was not in my power to judge the passing of time. At last the voice finished its questions, and said that it was now time for them to leave, and they would return me to the Earth. I scarcely dared to hope that they would do this, for if they were devils, why would they give me up when they had me in their power? But I hoped that my earnest entreaties to God had elicited His divine mercy, and I might yet be delivered from the Evil One. For although Satan’s power is great in this world, still he is under the foot of the Most High, and must yield the soul even of a sinner if he be truly penitent.
Then once more they offered me drink, and I was tempted, for by now I felt great thirst and hunger, but again I refused, for the pious man will not shrink from bodily discomfort, but rather embrace it as a purging of the soul, and especially in the season of Lent is fasting and abstinence to be observed, more even than at other times.
Then once again came the great roaring sound, and I was more afraid, and trembled; and the being that had been with me while I was writing left me, and she and her companions were busy about the tables that stood at one side of the room; and the shutter was withdrawn from the window, and once more I saw the great burning fiery wheel, and beyond it the flaming stars. And then I covered my eyes, for the light was dazzling, and also I was afraid to see Hell and Satan before my eyes, for a sinful man may not bear that sight.
But the mercy of God was great, for I survived, though my soul was in great turmoil, for I thought, what shall become of me now? And where next shall I be taken? But after some time all was quiet again, and the tall women (or whatever manner of being they were) went about the room talking in soft voices, so that it seemed most peaceful, and almost blessed, and I was tempted to believe that they were not devils, but beings of some other kind, created like men, but not like any I had seen or read of; but I am not a scholar, and there may be things in creation that I know nothing of.
This was another snare, I soon saw, for I fell to thinking about the things I had seen and heard, and I recalled the things I had heard about the visions which are claimed by Hildegard, mistress of the sisters at Mount St Rupert, and it seemed to me that there is a great likeness between the things that I saw and the subjects of her visions, the great light and the warmth, and the burning stars, and many other things; also the women with flowing hair, and the strangely angled buildings, all resembled the visions of Hildegard (who is called Abbess, though in truth she is not, but subject to the abbot). And I remembered the singing of the sisters, which is not like any chant I have heard in any other church, and it is very like the strange speech of the tall women. And so it seemed to me that the Spirit was leading me into truth, and showing me that the visions of Hildegard were nothing but accounts of a meeting with these devils, or whatever kind of beings they are, and not from God at all, as I had always suspected.
I beseech you, my lord, to consider what I write, for in truth these are female evil spirits, and since it is an abomination for a woman to preach or to teach, or to set herself up in authority over a man, it is shown how these demons have corrupted the so-called abbess to flout the laws of God and the Rule of St Benedict, using these supposed visions to delude her nuns and even the abbot. For it is well known and attested in scripture that ever since God made Eve, and she caused the downfall of Adam and of all mankind, from the light and peace and blessing of paradise into filth and darkness, women have been the especial tools of Satan in his plots and snares to capture the souls of men, their minds being weak and unable to withstand temptation as well as the mind of a man, and therefore being easily used for temptation and deceit.
But after I had pondered these things, I found that much time had passed, and I felt again the dizziness and the sense of great force pressing me down; and then the vessel was shaken and rocked like a boat coming to its mooring, and I saw that the side of the room, or of the vessel, was opened, and before me were the rocks and grass about the road where I had walked from the convent, and it seemed to me that no time had passed since I had come here, for it was still not yet dawn. Which is yet another proof that these were not natural beings, since they were not subject to the usual passing of time. Then, having one more time offered me meat and drink, which I again refused, they led me forth out of the vessel, and set my feet once more on the path of my journey, and away from the convent that by now I regarded as accursed.
I have set out these things, my Lord Bishop, so that you may know what deception is practised upon the godly, and may uphold all truth against the falsehoods of Satan and his angels.
Ω
Attached to this account is a note from the papal office to the effect that the Abbess Hildegard has the papal approval and blessing, and that it is therefore not appropriate to cast doubts on the holy origin of her visions, and indeed to do so is to flirt with heresy.
The suggestion is made that the brother has been reading or hearing much of Hildegard’s visions, and has subsequently either over-indulged in wine to fortify him for his journey, or fallen asleep during the divine office, and has dreamed or imagined the entirety of the experience recounted in the letter. Furthermore, it is suggested that if the brother wishes to discredit Hildegard, he would do better to come up with a more plausible story.
It ends: ‘Deal with this matter as you see fit; but I know that you too honour this saintly lady, who is indeed favoured by God, and I am certain you will explain well to this brother the error into which he has fallen. For it is well if the malice of men is not permitted to cloud the clear light of divine truth.’
Whether this note was dictated by the Pope himself or written by another on his behalf is not known, but its dismissive tone and the relegation of this account to the Vaults are a clear indication of the Church’s stance at the time. How we today might interpret this report is another matter. It is as clear a description of a close encounter of the fourth kind as one might wish for, from a time when such reports could not be inspired by (and in evidential terms, contaminated by) popular depictions in the media.
And so we must add to the existing explanations of the visions of Hildegard von Bingen – that they were from God, or from migraine auras or temporal lobe epilepsy – the possibility that she was interpreting in her own spiritual way her meeting with ‘visitors from another world’.
c. 1189
This account was found among the private papers of Eleanor, former Queen of England and before that Queen of France, on her death. The abbess at Fontevrault, where Eleanor had retired from the world four years earlier, aged nearly 80, read it and had it sent, sealed, straight to Rome.
It was written by a maid called Alis who was clearly close to Eleanor. In our translation from the Languedoc language we have retained the writer’s idiosyncrasy of writing of herself sometimes in the third person and sometimes in the first person.
In the main we have followed her spelling o
f names and place-names, largely in the Languedoc (or as she would say, lenga d’oc) style, though for clarity we have substituted Poitiers for her home city of Peitieus and have added accents where they might aid the modern reader. Some pronunciations will be unfamiliar. Giraut, for example, has a hard G, and the final consonant is sounded.
From internal evidence this account was written some time after 1189, when Eleanor was released from captivity on the death of her second husband, the Plantagenet King Henry II; its content wanders backwards and forwards over the years of both of her marriages.
Much of it follows the accepted version of history, though the constant criticism of well-respected clergy would not endear it to the Church. But the revelation that caused the abbess at Fontevrault to send this straight to Pope Innocent III, rather than via either her bishop or the superior of her Order, paints the troubadours and trobairitz of Queen Eleanor’s homeland in a new light, and claims a startling new reason why her second husband – as pious as her first in some ways, but as Alis writes, ‘a man of rages’ – locked her up for so many years.
Songs of Love
J.-M. Brugée
Always, in her memory, the walls of tufa reflected the sun; the château on the hilltop could dazzle the eye. Alis leaned on her stick, looked up at the château and felt more at home than anywhere else she had lived in her long life: Poitiers, Paris, London and so many other places.
England was grey, cold, even in summer. But if the sun was in the sky, Chinon was bright from its white walls, light, clean.
Alis had prepared the house for tonight’s visitor. She would not be going to hear him sing in the château – the long climb up the steep steps was getting to be too much for her – but she would make him welcome tonight.
Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more Page 9
