e other.
We have known much less of the Benedictine nuns until now the study of
their books shows that they provided exactly the same opportunities for
women and furnished a vocation, a home, an occupation of mind, and a
satisfaction of spirit for the women who, in every generation, do not
feel themselves called to be wives and mothers, but who want to live
their lives for others rather than for themselves and their kin, seeking
such development of mind and of spirit as may come with the leisure and
peace of celibacy.

Hildegarde was born of noble parents at Boeckelheim, in the county of
Sponheim, about the end of the eleventh century (probably 1098). In her
eighth year she went for her education to the Benedictine cloister of
Disibodenberg. When her education was finished, she entered the
cloister, of which, at the age of about fifty, she became abbess. Her
writings, reputation for sanctity, and her wise saintly rule attracted
so many new members to the community that the convent became
overcrowded. Accordingly, with eighteen of her nuns, Hildegarde withdrew
to a new convent at Rupertsberg, which English and American travellers
will remember because it is not far from Bingen on the Rhine. Here she
came to be a centre of attraction for most of the world of her time. She
was in active correspondence with nearly every important man of her
generation. She was an intimate friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, who was
himself, perhaps, the most influential man in Europe in this century.
She was in correspondence with four Popes, and with the Emperors Conrad
and Frederick I, and with many distinguished archbishops, abbots, and
abbesses, and teachers and teaching bodies of various kinds. These
correspondences were usually begun by her correspondents, who consulted
her because her advice in difficult problems was considered so valuable.

In spite of all this time-taking correspondence, she found leisure to
write a series of books, most of them on mystical subjects, but two of
them on medical subjects. The first is called "Liber Simplicis
Medicinae," and the second "Liber Compositae Medicinae." These books were
written in order to provide information mainly for the nuns who had
charge of the infirmaries of the monasteries of the Benedictines. Almost
constantly someone in the large communities, which always contained aged
religious, was ailing, and then, besides, there were other calls on the
time and the skill of the sister infirmari