Odile
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Saint Odile (or Odilia) (Obernai, Dept. Bas-Rhin, ca 662 A.D. - ca 720 at Mount Ste. Odile) was the daughter of Etichon (Athich), Duke of Alsace. She was born blind. As her father did not want her because she was a girl, her mother Bethswinda had her brought to Palma (perhaps present day Baume-les-Dames in Burgundy) where she was raised.
When she was twelve, the itinerant bishop Erhard of Regensburg was led, by an angel it was said, to Palma where he baptised her Odile (Sol Dei), whereupon she miraculously recovered her sight.
Her younger brother Hughes had her brought home again, which enraged Etichon so much that he killed his son. Odile miraculously revived him, and left home again.
She fled across the Rhine to the Musbach valley in Breisgau (present day St. Ottilien), Germany, and hid from her father in a cavern that had opened up to her in Arlesheim near Basel. When he tried to follow her, he was hurt by falling rocks and gave up.
When Etichon fell ill, Odile returned to nurse him. He finally gave up resisting his headstrong daughter and founded the Augustine monastery of Mont Ste. Odile in the Hochwald (Hohwald), Bas-Rhin, where Odile became abbess and where Etichon was later buried. Some years later Odile was shown the site of Niedermünster at the foot of the mountain by St. John the Baptist in a vision and founded a second monastery there, including a hospital. Here, the head and an arm of St. Lazarus of Marseille were displayed but later translated to Andlau. The buildings of the Niedermünster burned down in 1542, but the local well is still said to cure eye diseases.
Ste. Odile died about 720 at the convent of Niedermünster. At the insistent prayers of her sisters she was returned to life, but after describing the beauties of the afterlife to them, she took communion all by herself and died again. She was buried at Ste. Odile.
Ste. Odile was made the Patron saint of Alsace in 1807 by pope Pius VII. Her feast day is 13 December. Odile is the patroness of ocular afflictions and ear diseases; her attribute is a pair of eyes. The larkspur is connected to St. Odile as well and is believed to cure eye diseases in popular medicine and superstition.
Mont Sainte Odile, the holy mountain of Alsace, became an important place for pilgrimages. There are remains of an Iron Age hillfort, called 'pagan wall' (Mur Païen) on the mountain as well. It is over 10 km long and in parts still up to 3 m high. The wall was rebuilt in Roman times.
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I had the church and monastery rebuilt. The Abbess Relindis established a school for the daughters of ruling families here. Herrad of Landsberg (1167-1195), another abbess at Ste. Odile, was the author of an early herbal called Hortus Deliciarum (Paradiesgarten).
