Born in 1098 in Bermersheim von der Höhe, in Hesse, the youngest of 10 children to the knight Hildeberth. As the last-born, and of fragile health, she was destined to a life of study, which in the 12th century meant a path toward monastic life: universities were still a recent development and located far away, like Bologna and Salerno in Italy — not along the Rhine, where the cold and remoteness supported the spread of small, self-sufficient monasteries. Hildegard entered one such monastery at Disibodenberg at the age of 8, becoming a Benedictine nun devoted to prayer and intellectual work. Her pursuits leaned towards intellectual labor; she became deeply engaged in all branches of medieval science, and by 1136, she began publishing her works, which she described as the product of mystical visions. These included medical texts like *Causae et curae infirmitates* as well as writings such as *Scivias* (1151). Hildegard was also a musician; between 1151 and 1158, she composed *Symphonia harmoniae celestium revelationum*, a collection of lyric poetry.

It was a time of significant upheaval within the Church: the contentious period of the Investiture Conflict had concluded, and from many areas, the faithful were demanding reform in a Church increasingly seen as a power hungry institution. In Rome, following the wave of communal revolution, the pope, Eugene III, was expelled as the city embraced a republic based on a poverty-centered ethos inspired by the preaching of the heretic monk Arnold of Brescia. In 1147, after negotiating his return to the city with the revolutionaries, Eugene publicly read Hildegard’s writings at the Council of Trier, drawn to the innovative theological perspectives of the abbess of Bingen. Then, the political influence of the mystic and scholar would spread across Christian Europe, as she preached in the leading cathedrals of the German Empire and exchanged letters, at times confrontational, with the most prominent political figures of the time, from the Count of Flanders to Emperor Barbarossa. All this while enduring chronic, intense migraines — the condition that had long before inspired the visions that fueled her extensive literary output.