The frame in which the long existence of the Rhenish abbess Hildegard of Bingen ( 1098-1179 ) took place was doubtless convenient to her study of the Nature, in particular the convent where she lived her last thirty years: at the end of 1140s, Hildegard left the oasis of Disibodenberg, her first monastery, to establish another cloister, little taken away, but in the middle of a still uncultivated and wild nature, and her installation on the Rupertsberg coincided with the beginning of her works of natural science : according to her, such writings occupied her during eight years, approximately from 1150 till 1158. The Rhenish flora and fauna are represented in the natural encyclopedia of Hildegard, which is not however held in the local environment: known as Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum or Physica, this work dedicates four of its nine books to the description and to the inventory of the animal kingdom generally. These four books sections reflect a categorization, and their internal economy obeys principles which, for lack of explicit indications of the author, we try here to bring to light. What place is in particular devolved to domestic animals in this organization, as far as the domesticated species can be considered as a whole ? And do the divisions introduced by the zoological sections really report the profusion of the living world and the unity of the Creation in which the man also has to find his place ? - [Abstract]

Language: French

Locators: HALId: halshs-00608976