Aldegonde

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Saint Aldegonde
Born	639
Died	684
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	January 30
Patronage	Cancer, Wounds
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Saint Adelgonde, or in Latin Saint Aldegundis or Saint Adelgundis, was a Frankish virgin and abbess (c. 639–684). She was closely related to the Merovingian royal family. Her father and mother, afterwards honoured as Saint Walbert and Saint Bertilia, lived in Flanders in the province of Hainault.

Aldegundis was urged to marry, but she chose the life of the convent. Then, having allegedly walked across the waters of the Sambre, she had built on its banks a small nunnery at Malbode, which later became, under the name Maubeuge Abbey, a famous convent of Benedictine nuns. Saint Aldegundis' Catholic liturgical feast is kept on January 30.

She is the sister of St Wandru, according to the article in Archéologie mars 2003, n° 398, p. 7.

There are several early Lives about her, but none by contemporaries. Several of these, including the tenth-century biography by Hucbald, are printed by the Bollandists (Acta SS., January 11, 1034-35).