[a] She was an abbess at the Schönau Abbey in the Duchy of Nassau, and reportedly experienced numerous religious visions, for which she became widely sought after by many powerful men as far away as France and England.

[2] Her hagiography describes her as given to works of piety from her youth, much afflicted with bodily and mental suffering, a zealous observer of the Rule of Saint Benedict and of the regulation of her convent, and devoted to practices of mortification.

[3] Christ, the Virgin Mary, an angel, or the special saint of the day would appear to her and instruct her; or she would see quite realistic representations of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, or other scenes of the Old and New Testaments.

Her abbot, Hildelin, told her to relate these things to her brother Eckebert, then a cleric at Saint Cassius in Bonn, who acted as an editor.

Eckebert (who became a monk of Schönau in 1155 and eventually succeeded Hildelin as second abbot) put everything in writing, later arranged the material at leisure, and then published all under his sister's name.

Aside from her Books of Visions, her works include: In 1106, an old Roman cemetery was discovered outside Cologne, and was believed to contain the remains of Ursula and her eleven thousand legendary companions.

The discovery that the cemetery contained the bodies of men and children, as well as various inscriptions on the headstones, raised questions about inconsistencies with the story of St. Ursula as laid out in the well-known Regnante domino.

In the hope of resolving these questions, the abbot Gerlach von Deutz asked Elisabeth to consult her visions about the provenance of the bodies.

On one occasion of religious frustration and fear, she wrote down an experience she supposedly had at a mass on a Saturday when the Blessed Virgin was being celebrated, when she saw in the heavens "an image of a regal woman, standing on high, clothed in white vestments and wrapped with a purple mantle".

After receiving communion at the mass, she then went into an ecstatic trance and had another vision, declaring "I saw my Lady standing beside the altar, in a garment like a priestly chasuble and she had on her head a glorious crown".

[6] The Liber viarum dei (Book of the Ways of God) seems to be an imitation of the Scivias (scire vias Domini) of Hildegarde of Bingen, her friend and correspondent.

She utters prophetic threats of judgment against priests who are unfaithful shepherds of the flock of Christ, against the avarice and worldliness of the monks who only wear the garb of poverty and self-denial, against the vices of the laity, and against bishops and superiors delinquent in their duty; she urges all to combat earnestly the heresy of the Cathari; she declares Victor IV, the antipope supported by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I against Pope Alexander III, as the one chosen of God.

Johannes Trithemius considers them genuine; Eusebius Amort (De revelationibus visionibus et apparitionibus privatis regulae tutae, etc., Augsburg, 1744) holds them to be nothing more than Elizabeth's own imagination, or illusions of the devil, since in some things they disagree with history and with other revelations (Acta SS., Oct, IX, 81).

He considers her a susceptible individual, living in a cloistered environment under a strict rule, and focus on prayer and contemplation developed into fanatical devotion.

Elisabeth fulfilled his request and wrote the abbot of Busendorf a letter that provided him and his monks with spiritual advice through the grace of God.

The letter is filled with anger and shows great disappointment in the archbishop of Trier, for God has taken notice of his failure to carry out his episcopal duties.

[11] Again, as in her letter to the abbot of Busendorf, her authority and belief in herself of a vessel of God is evident, and she has clearly gone above and beyond the limits of the traditional female gender role.