Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky (Studies in Medieval History and Culture)

Reader's who have read and enjoyed "God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine" also by Victoria Sweet will enjoy this book as a deeper exploration of Hildegard von Bingen's pre-modern medicine described and practiced throughput "God's Hotel". This 326 volume is most likely a re-written version of Victoria Sweet's Doctoral Dissertation. You can find my Amazon Customer Review of God'd Hotel athttps://www.amazon.com/review/R1VZT4Y5CJ3JEC/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm.In this volume , author Victoria Sweet essays to describe who Hildegard von Bingen was. Was she actually completely cloistered? If not completely cloistered, how did she manage in an all-male Benedictine monastery to make the practical observation and gain the clinical practice to developed a successful medical practice?Hildegard claimed she learned about the human body (male and female) and was successful at writing because of "visions". Were her claims of visions really migraines, or were they also an attempt by her and those women in her religious community to cloak a medical practice what would otherwise be forbidden a Benedictine Nun as the "life of a saint".In her fascinating history, Sweet describes Hildegard as "politically astute" in the male-dominated medieval church to establish her own all-woman religious community in a separate monastery in which she grew and sustained her learning about the human body and it's afflictions. This study of von Bingen also proves that many of the natural remedies she used and understanding of how the human body works mirrored also many of the pre-modern medical concepts found in Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions.