The Edge of the World

"Take away the idea of dark times and ruin and you begin to hear other voices. Women were not always silent, or without power to make choices - we may just have been listening in the wrong places; the erudite and holy Hildegard of Bingen lived out most the twelfth century as a nun, had visions, was a mystic, wrote music appropriate for her convent life, but she also wrote letters all around Europe at the heart of a learned conversation. She knew how to contraception work, and she wrote about that, too."

The Edge of the World - How the North Sea made us who we are
Michael Pye 
page 11