Saint Aldegund

Aldegund was born in Hainaut, in what is now Belgium. ¹² The dates vary: Herbert Thurston, in the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, gives about 639; the Norwegian bishops' saints database (katolsk.no) and Nominis, the French bishops' saints site, give about 630; and Catholic.net's Spanish santoral says between 630 and 635. ¹²⁴⁶ Nominis names her birthplace as Cousolre. ⁴ Thurston says she was "nearly related to the Merovingian royal family." ¹

Her father and mother were Walbert and Bertilia, both afterward honored as saints. ¹²⁶ katolsk.no says her father was a duke and count of Hainaut, and that the family was as devout as it was distinguished: her sister Waldetrude, Waldetrude's husband Vincent Madelgarius and their four children are all counted among the saints. ² Georges Goyau, in the encyclopedia's article on Cambrai, calls Aldegund "a descendant of Clovis and the kings of Thuringia." ⁵

katolsk.no describes her as an unusually serious girl who disliked the elegant social life her parents kept, so much that she made a vow of perpetual virginity. ² Nominis says instead that she consecrated her virginity to God under the influence of her sister Waldetrude, who became abbess at Mons. ⁴

Her parents wanted her married. ¹⁴⁶ katolsk.no says that when she was thirteen an English prince named Eudo asked for her hand and her parents agreed at once; Catholic.net also says she refused a prince of England, while Nominis speaks only of a rich lord. ²⁴⁶ She pleaded her vow in vain, katolsk.no says, and after her father's death her mother pressed her harder, until she prayed God to intervene; soon afterward her mother died too, and Aldegund felt both relief and anguish that she had been the cause. ²

Eudo then came with armed men to carry her off by force. ² She fled toward Hautmont and the bishop Amandus. ² Thurston tells what follows in two sentences: she "received the veil from Amandus, Bishop of Maastricht. Then she walked dry-shod over the Sambre, and built on its banks a small nunnery." ¹ katolsk.no gives the crossing of the river as legend, and adds that at her clothing a dove was said to have laid the veil on her head. ² Catholic.net reports another story from what it calls her golden legend: that Christ, to celebrate the marriage of his chaste bride, changed into wine the water she had touched. ⁶

She settled as a hermit at a lonely place on the Sambre called Malbode, later Maubeuge, in what is now northern France near the Belgian border. ¹² Other young women came to share her life of prayer. ⁴ katolsk.no says her inheritance let her found a double monastery for monks and nuns there in 661, and that the bishop of the diocese, Germanus, blessed her as its first abbess. ² Goyau gives the same year for "the Abbey of Maubeuge." ⁵ Nominis says the hermitage quickly became an important chapter of canonesses, and Catholic.net that she founded it with her sister Waldetrude as a small infirmary. ⁴⁶

Despite her rank, katolsk.no says, she found her joy in doing the lowliest work for her sisters, and gave what remained of her fortune to the poor, so that she became like a mother to them. ² She had many visions. ²⁴ katolsk.no tells of one evening when she and Waldetrude, who had founded a house at Mons, sat talking of spiritual things: the candle fell and went out, and lit again when Aldegund took it in her hand. ²

Her last years were full of pain. katolsk.no says she had cancer of the breast and bore it with strength and patience, and Nominis and Catholic.net also name breast cancer. ²⁴⁶ katolsk.no adds that she suffered as much from a temptation to believe that she was damned. ²

She died at Maubeuge on January 30, 684, and katolsk.no says she was fifty-four. ²⁴⁶ She was buried in the abbey church. ² Her nieces Aldetrude and Madelberta succeeded her as second and third abbess, and Goyau names another niece, Amalberta, among her successors. ²⁵ katolsk.no says her body was long found fresh and fragrant. ² The Benedictine nuns of Maubeuge were later replaced by canonesses. ¹²

Thurston's judgment on the sources is short: "There are several early Lives, but none by contemporaries." ¹ Several, including the tenth-century biography by Hucbald, were printed by the Bollandists. ¹² katolsk.no says her cult spread quickly, especially in Wallonia and Flanders, and revived in the Counter-Reformation; her veil and one of her sandals are still at Maubeuge, and Catholic.net says her relics are venerated in the church there. ²⁶ She is honored above all today on the Staffelberg in Upper Franconia. ²

Her family is remembered with her. katolsk.no names Waldetrude's children as Landericus, Madelberta, Aldetrude and Dentelin, all venerated as saints. ² In art Aldegund appears as a nun holding a candle or a rosary, often with a dove bringing a veil, and sometimes walking across a river. ² Catholic.net describes her in a habit with a book in her right hand and an abbess's crozier in her left. ⁶ katolsk.no mentions a painting in the cathedral of Mons that shows her with Waldetrude putting out a fire in a convent, and says a parish church at Saint-Omer is dedicated to her under the name Orgonne. ²

Saint Aldegund is invoked by the sick, and above all by those with cancer. katolsk.no says it is because she bore her own cancer with such patience that she is called on against it. ² Nominis says she is invoked against the illnesses she suffered: headaches, fevers and breast cancer. ⁴ Catholic.net adds eye trouble, fever and the illnesses of children, and asks her for strength for those who suffer from cancer. ⁶

Saint Aldegund's feast day is January 30, the day of her death. ¹² The Roman Martyrology enters her on that day as abbess at Maubeuge, in the time of King Dagobert. ³ The French text of the Martyrology, as Nominis prints it, specifies Dagobert II. ⁴

The fullest account of her refusal is not a triumphant one. She held to her vow against both parents, and when they died she felt relief and guilt at once. ² Then she ran, with armed men behind her. ²

She came from wealth and spent it. The abbey was built from her inheritance, the rest went to the poor, and she chose the lowest work in the house. ²

Her death was hard in body and in mind: a cancer borne with patience, and a long temptation to believe she was lost. ² The people who ask her help today are mostly people in that kind of pain. ²⁴⁶