Today marks the death of Hildegard von Bingen, one of the greatest women of history. Receiving next to no formal education in her youth, she became a polymath and the author of books on herbal medicine, the natural sciences, theology, and music. Hildegard invented her own alphabet. She composed what is arguably the first opera and certainly the first morality play, the Ordo Virtutum , as well as countless other pieces of liturgical music and poetry.
Hildegard also dictated three books of visions, of which the first is the most famous. Called the Scivias (short for scito vias Domini , know the ways of the Lord), the book is 150,000 words long and contains 35 miniature illustrations. She traveled as a preacher, a feat unparalleled for a woman of her time. She corresponded with and counseled popes, emperors, and other theologians like Bernard of Clairvaux. And while doing all this she was the abbess of a thriving convent in Germany.
Much of Hildegard’s theological work, especially as expressed in her music and poetry, speaks of viriditas . Literally meaning greenness , Hildegard used the term as a way of describing the fruitfulness of a soul growing in God, particularly the fruitfulness that comes from virginity. Her music, visions, and art are filled with strange beauty and deep orthodox faith.
For those interested in Hildegard’s music, I highly recommend the impresssive recordings 
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