Hildegard von Bingen, one of the most important women of the Middle Ages, was a writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, and German Benedictine abbess. Hildegard was born into a noble family as the youngest of ten children in Bermersheim, Germany, in 1098. She was 15 years old when she began wearing the Benedictine habit and pursuing a religious life. Hildegard was educated at the Benedictine cloister of Disibodenberg. In Hildegard’s time, the monasteries were providing a high quality education as, a constituent part of Benedictine life. She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as, letters, liturgical songs, and poems. Hildegard known as “Sybil of the Rhine”, produced her major works on theology and her visions. She used the curative powers of natural objects for healing, and wrote treatises about medicinal uses of trees, stones, animals and plants. Hildegard also wrote two texts on the natural sciences: Physica and Causae et Curae. The nine books of Physica describe about 500 herbs, plants, animal, precious stones, and metals. Hildegard of Bingen describes the characteristic of four-footed land animals and reptiles in the 7th and 8th books of Physica, respectively. Physica is the first book in which a woman discusses plants, trees, animals and herbs in relation to their medicinal properties. It is also the earliest book on natural history written in German. - [Abstract]

Language: Turkish