Autumn appears to have come early: russet leaves have been blowing from the trees since the start of September. But it is a false autumn, with the heat and the stress of drought causing the summer foliage to wither.

Hildegard of Bingen frequently described ecological catastrophe as the result of human misdeeds. “The elements are, in fact, subject to humans, and as they are touched by the humans’ deeds so they perform their tasks,” she writes in her medical handbook Causes and Cures (trans. Margaret Berger, published by D.S. Brewer, 1999). “For when people confront one another in battle, in terrifying situations, in hatred, envy, or contrary transgressions, then the elements turn into a different and contrary mode, into heat or cold, or downpours and flooding. This derives from God’s primal ordinance because God established that the elements should work according to humans’ deeds.”

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