Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was the abbess of a German Benedictine monastery. She used her wide range of learning to make advances in the fields of theology, philosophy, natural history, and music. She also wrote the first Christian morality play, Ordo virtutum, invented her own language, and supervised the illustrations in the illuminated manuscript of her writings. In her time, she was known for having religious visions and corresponding with kings and popes on liturgical matters, despite being banned from traditional religious study because of her gender. Today, however, she’s best known for her monophonic vocal religious music, which is among the largest surviving body of work from the medieval period. Numerous popes and branches of the Catholic church have declared her a saint, and she was officially named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.