Hildegard of Bingen's contemporaries called her "prophetissa teutonica," honoring her philosophical writings and interpretation of the cosmos. Medievalists still consider her one of the leading mystics, and point to her active spiritual and artistic life in the twelfth century as the finest example of what a woman can achieve. She was praised for her natural gifts, her prophetic charisma, and her dynamic reforming disposition. The abbess Hildegard...