Sketches of the humble, hence poorly documented position of women and the legacy of mighty monasteries in the Middle Ages serve as prelude to Hildegard's biography. She was an aristocratic novice in the subservient female component of the now ruined Wisigodenberg double cloister. After her magistra died from excessive asceticism, she succeed her, became a medicinal and mystic author like many monks and ultimately broke off the women as a separate nunnery. Her arrogance and unconventional mysticism, based on carnal love, nearly ended in a heresy condemnation, but pope Eugenius spared her.