Hildegard von Bingen - visionary, poet, composer, naturalist, healer, and theologian - founded convents; corresponded with secular and ecclesiastical leaders, as well as a vast range of people of lesser rank; and ventured forth as a monastic trouble-shooter, consultant exorcist, and visiting preacher. Even more remarkable for a woman of her time was the body of written work she produced. Its range - from natural history and medicine to cosmology, music, poetry, and theology - surpasses that of most other male contemporaries; it also possesses great beauty and witnesses to Hildegard's intellectual power.