Blogpost Seppe Snellenberg. Life and Death in the Vita Sanctae Geretrudis

In the anonymous Life of Gertrude of Nivelles, much of the narrative is devoted to the saint’s preparations for death. Her arrangements form the essence of her sanctity. The narrative culminates in a striking scene, which sees the saint dispatching a messenger to the nearby monastery of Fosses to inquire about the day she will die.[1] The resulting interaction reveals much about Merovingian ideals of sanctity, but also highlights contemporary norms of communication.

Gertrude reading so attentively mice run up her staff. Image: ‘Lantaarnsconsole’ by Kees Groeneveld (1982), Utrecht, Oudegracht 321. Reproduced from the Beeldenbank of the Utrecht Archive.

The Vita Sanctae Geretrudis is a short text.[2] Its oldest surviving manuscript is dated to the eighth century, yet the text itself may have been written as early as the 660’s, so just a few years after Gertrude’s death.[3] Its anonymous author was probably of Irish origins and worked at the monastery of Fosses. Situated in southern Belgium, ca. 40 kms from Nivelles, this Irish foundation had a close connection to Gertrude’s community. It was situated on land donated by Gertude’s mother Itta.[4]

The text provides few details on Gertrude’s pre-monastic years. She spent her early life at the court of the Merovingian king Dagobert I (d. 639), where her father Pippin of Landen (d. 640) served as mayor of the palace.[5] The Vita’s first chapter describes a royal banquet, where the young Gertrude publicly refused to enter into an arranged marriage with a ducal son. Upon Pippin’s death, Gertrude and her mother Itta founded the monastery of Nivelles, preferring the monastic life above the opportunities and duties of aristocratic marriage. The Vita alludes to the challenges they suffered on account of this choice, with Itta eventually deciding to tonsure her daughter to discourage further suitors.

Subsequent chapters offer a brief portrait of Getrude’s monastic career: her quest for relics from Rome and the Isles, becoming Nivelles’ abbess upon her mother’s death, her church foundations and charitable work.[6] The author mentions a few miraculous occurrences: Gertude once experienced a vision of divine light; a group of men was saved at sea by invoking her name. But such occurrences did not constitute the essence of Gertude’s saintly career. The truly memorable part of her life were the events leading up to her death.

After years of ceaseless prayer and copious amounts of abstinence, Gertrude became so fatigued that her ‘little body’ could not bear it anymore.[7] She already knew by divine revelation that her departure from this earthly light drew closer. She thus decided to withdraw from her remaining worldly responsibilities, focussing solely on her spiritual duties. She relinquished her position as abbess, entrusting her sisters into the care of  her  niece Wulfetrude whom she ‘had imbued and nourished at her feet … from the cradle to govern her flock and care for the poor.’[8] Evidently, choosing Wulfetrude as her successor was not an ad hoc decision, but part of a careful and deliberate plan to leave her monastery and sisters in good hands.

While Wulfetrude was taking care of the monastery’s day-to-day operations, Gertrude ‘prayed incessantly for three months’ awaiting her last day. According to her hagiographer, she was ‘joyous in hope’ and ‘patient in tribulation’,  as she was ‘hurrying from prison to the kingdom, from darkness to light, from death to life, for she was here in body only.’[9] In line with this sentiment, she started wearing  a hairshirt (cilicinam vestem), an (under)garment made of rough materials worn directly on the skin, punishing its wearer. The nun who had obtained this shirt for her also brought a cheap veil (velum vile multum). When the day of her passing neared, she instructed her sisters that instead of a proper shroud of wool or linen,  this ‘old rag’ (panno vetere) was to cover her body at her funeral. The hairshirt, which she had been wearing ‘secretly’ (occulte) up to that point, was to act as her funeral garb. Gertrude set out her reasoning clearly: ‘superfluous things could give no help to the dead’.[10]

Still, she was not done. In the Vita’s last chapter, the hagiographer recounts a final act of piety:

And when the day of her assumption drew near, she called one of the brothers and gave him instructions, saying: ‘Go in haste to that pilgrim who is far away in Fosse monastery and say to him, “The virgin of Christ, Gertrude sent me to ask you to name the day when she will migrate from this light. For she tells herself to be afraid but she rejoices at the same time”. And that one will tell you what you ought to announce. Go and have no doubts’.[11]

After her messenger got to Fosses and posed the saint’s question, the monk offered Gertrude his reply:

‘Today, is the 16th calends of April. Tomorrow, during the solemnities of the Mass, God’s virgin Gertrude will migrate from her body. And say to her that she should neither fear nor tremble because of her death but proceed with joy for the blessed Bishop Patrick with God’s elect and His angels is prepared to receive her in immense glory. Go speedily’. The brother who had been sent, asked him whether he had seen this through divine revelation that he might reveal all to her in order. And he said, ‘Go brother and hurry. You know this: Tomorrow is the day. Why ask me more?’ And, returning, he announced to Christ’s handmaid what had been said to him. And she, as though waking from slumber, gave thanks with joyous exhilaration to God that he deigned to console his handmaid through her fellow servant.[12]

The hagiographer was himself from Fosses. He went on to recall being summoned by the sisters in Nivelles upon Gertrude’s death. It is likely, therefore, that he was relating a visit about which he was well informed. All the same, the passage raises several questions from a communication standpoint. What to make, for instance, of the fact that Gertrude’s messenger instantly returns to Nivelles after asking his question? Today Nivelles abbey and Fosses are about 40 kilometres away from each other. On foot, a one-way trip would technically be possible in a day, but the return journey would take another. Clearly, the demands of the narrative can do away with infrastructural challenges.

The role of the messenger is equally striking. Gertrude’s trust in the prognostic abilities of the monk at Fosses was unwavering. She explicitly instructed her messenger not to doubt (noli dubitare).[13] Yet her messenger was less sure. Going against her instructions, he asked the monk at Fosses for the source of his knowledge. While the hagiographer suggests some impatience over this question on the part of the monk, he does not condemn the messenger’s actions all too harshly. After all, they only serve to confirm that the Fosses community was close to God. The messenger’s doubts also create a nice narrative contrast with Gertrude’s unquestioning faith in Fosses’ special status. From a practical standpoint, it could be said that the messenger was taking his role seriously. If he was going to announce to the community at Nivelles their founder’s immanent death, he needed to be sure his information was correct and came from a divine source.

A final question concerns Gertrude’s motives: why did she want to know the day of her passing? The text prompts various answers. When instructing her messenger, Gertrude stated that her impending death filled her with fear as well as joy. Upon receiving the monk’s answer, only happiness remained. For all her self-imposed hardships, Gertrude may well have looked for an end to her suffering. Of course, the text underlines that her happiness was inspired not just by the news itself, but also by what it signified: God cared for her. Being announced the day of one’s death was a sign of divine favour. For the hagiographer, this clearly was an important reason to include the story. Looking at the hagiographical image established so far, we might put forward yet another explanation: Gertrude sent her messenger because she wanted to prepare the two monastic communities in Nivelles and Fosses for her imminent passing, rather than catch them by surprise. After her prudent appointment of Wulfetrude as abbess, the secret donning of the hairshirt, and the modest funeral instructions, this was her final arrangement.

The response given by the monk from Fosses proved divinely inspired. The next day, on 17 March 659, on the feast of St Patrick, Gertrude died at Nivelles ‘giving thanks to her Maker’. She was in her thirty-third year.[14] Witnesses visiting her cell reported a sweet and pleasant smell. Gertrude had died a saintly death.

[1] Friedrich Benedict and Johann Georg Theodor Graesse, Orbis latinus: Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit / 2. E – M (Braunschweig, 1972), p. 97. Today the village is known as Fosses-la-Ville in southern Belgium.

[2] Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SS rer. Germ. 2 (1888), pp. 447-474; two English translations are Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg and E. Gordon Whatley, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (Durham, 1992), 220-234; and Paul Fouracre and Richard Gerberding, Late Merovingian France (Manchester, 1996), pp. 301-329.

[3] Krusch identifies two manuscript families, namely A and B, deeming the testimony of A more authentic. There do not seem to be significant differences between the two Latin texts, although some variant readings exist.

[4] Fouracre and Gerberding, Late Merovingian France, 314–317.

[5] Ian Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 (Abingdon, 1994), pp. 140-158.

[6] Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, cap. 2-5, pp. 457-459.

[7] Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, cap. 6, p. 459.

[8] McNamara et al., p. 226

[9] Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, cap. 7, p. 461; McNamara et al., p. 227.

[10] McNamara et al., p. 227.

[11] McNamara et al., p. 227.

[12] McNamara et al., pp. 227-228.

[13] Vita Sanctae Geretrudis, cap. 7, p. 462.

[14] McNamara et al., p. 228 hint that there may be ‘a deeper significance because Fosse was a monastery of Irish monks’. Fouracre and Gerberding, p. 314 also highlight the political significance of mentioning St. Patrick.