By the year 821, Rudolf was made subdeacon of the monastery ("... a cleric in the lowest of the former major orders of the Roman Catholic Church").
It is probable that, after the elevation of Rhabanus to the Archiepiscopal See of Mainz, Rudolf followed him thence, and only towards the close of his life took up his permanent residence once more at Fulda.
Under the orders of Rhabanus Maurus, Rudolf of Fulda was given the task of composing the hagiography of St. Leoba (b.710 - d. 28 September 782), a Saxon nun whom achieved sainthood.
In the Life of Leoba, Rudolf of Fulda clearly addresses what he believes to be the appropriate role of women in the ninth century.
As Cotter-Lynch states, “Rudolf’s ideals concerning religious women’s behavior seem to align with the official positions of the ninth-century Carolingian church after the Benedictine reforms: religious women are to be strictly cloistered, focused on internal piety and prayer, with very limited if any engagement with either the ecclesiastical or secular worlds beyond the covent’s walls”.