Who is the nun from Heidenheim? A study of Hugeburc's Vita Willibaldi

Medium Aevum, Spring, 2002 by Pauline Head

This kind of description, beyond the conventions of hagiography, serves her biographical purpose well in that it conveys something of Willibald's character. At the same rime, it reflects the similar interests of Hugeburc as a writer; like the potter who leaves her handprints on the clay vessel, Hugeburc leaves traces of her subjectivity--in this case, her curiosity--in her composition. Willibald's impulsive curiosity is visible and vivid in the image Hugeburc creates of his visit to the Aeolian Islands:

   Et inde navigaverunt ad insulam Vulcana; ibi est infernus Theodrichi.
   Cumque illic veniebant ascendebant de nave, ut viderent, qualis esset
   infernus. Statimque Willibaldus curiosius et volens videre, qualis esset
   intus ille infernus, et volebat ascendere in montis cacumen, ubi infernus
   subtus erat, et non poterat, qui faville de tetro tartaro usque ad marginem
   ascendentes glomerati illic iacebant et ad instar nivis, quando de caelo
   nivans canditas nivalesque cadentes catervas de aereis etherum arcibus acis
   coacervareque solet, ita faville coacervati in apice montis iacebant, ut
   ascensum Willibaldo prohibebant. Sed tamen tetrum atque terribilem
   horrendumque eructuantem de puteo flammam erumpere videbat, ad instar
   tonitrui tonantis sic flammam magnum et fumi vaporem valde supblime in alto
   ascendentem terribiliter intuebat. Ille fomix, quem scriptores habere
   soient, illum videbat de inferno ascendentem et cum flamma proiectum atque
   in mare arcitum et tunc iterum de mare proiectum in aridam, et homines
   tollent eum et inde ducent. (p. 101, line 30-p. 102, line 7)

   (And from there they sailed to the island Vulcana; the hell of Theodoric is
   there. And when they arrived there, they ascended from the boat so that
   they might see the nature of the hell. And Willibald, very curious and
   wishing to see what the inside of the inferno was like, wanted to climb at
   once to the peak of the mountain, beneath which was the hell, and he could
   not because ashes from the foul inferno lay heaped there all the way up to
   the edge, just like snow, when it snows white flakes from the sky and is
   accustomed to heap up in pointed mounds, [like] fallen troops, from the
   ethereal regions; thus the ash lay heaped on the peak of the mountain so
   that Willibald's ascent was blocked. But nevertheless he saw the foul and
   terrible and horrid flame erupt, belching from the pit like the crash of
   thunder; thus he looked with awe upon the great flame and the spume of
   smoke rising forcefully into the sky. He saw the pumice stone, which
   writers describe, rising from the inferno and thrown with a flame, and
   hurled into the sea and then again thrown up from the sea onto dry land,
   and men picked it up and took it away.)

Willibald's curiosity leads him literally and dramatically to the very limits of possible experience. In her preface, Hugeburc said that Willibald's memories were important to preserve because of what he had seen with his own eyes. The account of his ascent of the volcano stresses Willibald's activity as a witness; the verb `videre' is repeated four times in this passage, and `intueor' describes his observation of the enormous flame. Pilgrimage involves Willibald in a very physical experience of distant places; through her writing, Hugeburc aligns her vision with Willibald's and shares his perspective on unfamiliar lands.