Speak and write what you see and hear: the world is God’s living work.
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
These records present three works: the Scivias, the Physica and the Ordo Virtutum. The Book of Life’s Merits, the Book of Divine Works, Causae et curae, the songs of the Symphonia, the letters and the Lingua ignota are not indexed separately; this is a selection, not a complete bibliography.
011141–1151
Written between 1141 and 1151 with the help of the monk Volmar and the nun Richardis of Stade, the work was examined by a papal commission and read before Pope Eugenius III at the synod of Trier in 1147–1148. A richly illuminated copy made at the Rupertsberg disappeared in 1945; its pictures are known today through photographs and a hand-painted copy made by the nuns of Eibingen.
02written c. 1150–1158
Written around 1150–1158, the Physica formed together with Causae et curae a single book on the subtleties of the natures of created things, later divided in the course of transmission. The surviving manuscripts are all later than her lifetime and differ in content and order; the first printed edition appeared at Strasbourg in 1533, and many of the plants remain hard to identify.
03written c. 1151
Probably composed around 1151, perhaps for the new community at the Rupertsberg or for the consecration of its church in 1152, the play survives with its melodies in the great Wiesbaden manuscript of her works, while a shorter text closes the Scivias. It is often described as the earliest known morality play, and its staging by a community of nuns remains a matter of reconstruction.