Yvette of Huy

Saint Yvette of Huy
Born 1158
Huy, Belgium
Died 13 January 1228
Huy, Belgium
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
Patronage brides, large families, and widows

Yvette of Huy (or simply Yvette) (1158 – 13 January 1228) was a venerated Christian prophet and anchoress. Born in Huy, Belgium, she was also known as Ivetta, Jufta or Jutta of Huy.[1][2]

Life

She was born into a wealthy but not particularly religious family, close to the bishop of Liège, and from an early age tried to live a religious life from her home.[1] Yvette was forced into an arranged marriage aged thirteen and had three children (one died while still an infant) before she was widowed at eighteen. She used the opportunity to retire to a leper derelict hospital in Statte, close to Huy, on the heights of the river Meuse to tend to the inmates, and more fully follow her religious calling.[1]

She left her two sons in the care of their grandfather. Ten years later, she became an anchoress and was enclosed in a chapel cell near the colony in a ceremony conducted by the abbot of Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval. From there she offered guidance to pilgrims who considered her a prophetess in the apostolic sense of having insight into the divine. She summoned priests and even the dean of the local church to her presence and confronted them about their behaviour. She was responsible for the conversion of her father and one of her two surviving sons. Yvette died on 13 January 1228 in Huy, Belgium.

Her life was recorded by the Premonstratensian Hugh of Floreffe.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Bolton, Brenda M. (1978). Derek Baker, ed. Medieval Women. Oxford: Ecclesiastical History Society.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Katharina M Wilson and Nadia Margolis, ed. (2004). Women in the Middle Ages Volume I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Additional Sources