Using the name MONASTERY BAKED GOODS, the community of Benedictine nuns in Ferdinand, Indiana, produce and package an interesting line of traditional German style cookies. The nuns arrived in the U.S. in 1852 from the Benedictine abbey of St. Walburga, in Eichstätt, Germany to minister to the German speakers in the Midwest. In 1867, they established another foundation in Ferdinand, Indiana. They carried on the German tradition of baking, Using the traditional recipe for a spice cookie given by St. Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval Benedictine nun poetess, mystic, and writer, the sisters produce HILDEGARD cookies. Recently, this new shape has been introduced as a mini round cookie rather than the traditional rectangular one.