Hildegard von Bingen-visionary, poet, composer, naturalist, healer, and theologian-founded convents; corresponded with secular and ecclesiastical leaders, as well as a vast range of people of lesser rank; and ventured forth as a monastic troubleshooter, consultant exorcist, and visiting preacher. Even more remarkable for a woman of her time was the body of written work she produced. Its range-from natural history and medicine to cosmology, music, poetry, and theology-surpasses that of most of her male contemporaries; it also possesses great beauty and witnesses to Hildegard's intellectual power.

Born at Bermersheim in Rheinhesse in 1098, the tenth and last child of noble parents, Hildegard showed early signs of exceptional spiritual gifts. Looking back, she placed the onset of her visionary experiences in early childhood, although at that stage she did not understand their significance. As the monk Godfrey wrote in his and the monk Theodoric's Vita Sanctae Hildegardis (Life of Saint...