N T RO D U C T I O N nity were ensconced in a dilapidated church and unfinished buildings near Bingen. Hildegard saw to the building of a large and convenient convent that continued to attract increasing numbers. She lived at Bingen, except during her extensive travels in western Europe, accomplished most of her writing there, and continued as abbess until her death on 17 September 1179. She was buried in her convent church, where her relics remained until 1632, when the convent was destroyed by the Swedes and her relics moved to Eibingen. A woman of an extraordinarily energetic and independent mind, Hildegard wrote voluminously. Scivias is the first of Hildegard’s three mystical works, and develops her views on the universe, on the theory of macrocosm and microcosm, the structure of humans, birth, death, and the nature of the soul. They also treat the relations between God and humans in creation, the Redemption, and the Church. The last of the twenty-six visions of Scivias contains Ordo Virtutum, which is the earliest liturgical-morality play yet to be discovered. Liber Vitae Meritorum ( The Book of the Rewards of Life), written between 1158 and 1163, is a study of the weaknesses that separate us from God, and is one of the most subtle, psychologically fascinating, and intense works ever written on the relationship of the various sins to their corresponding virtues. Liber Divinorum Operum Simplicis Hominis ( The Book of the Divine Works of a Simple Man), the third of Hildegard’s mystical books, which was written between 1163 and 1173, concerns
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