Hunna

Saint Hunna (also known as Huna, Una, or Hunna of Alsace) was a seventh-century noblewoman of Alsace, in the Frankish kingdom, corresponding to present-day northeastern France. Contemporary documentary evidence for her life is lacking; what is known derives from later medieval and early modern hagiographical tradition. That tradition describes her as the daughter of a duke of Alsace and as a woman of high social rank who lived in the Merovingian period. She is associated with the village of Hunnaweyer, later called Hunawihr, in the diocese of Strasbourg in the present Haut-Rhin.

She married a nobleman named Huno of Hunnaweyer, and the couple made their home in that Alsatian village. Hunna became celebrated for works of charity toward the poor. According to her legend, she personally washed the clothes of the needy and of the sick, a humble task that led later generations to call her “the holy washerwoman.” In an aristocratic context of the seventh century, such service was remembered as a striking expression of Christian humility and care for the marginalized.

Tradition links Hunna with Saint Deodatus (known in French as Saint Dié), bishop of Nevers, who was active in the Vosges region. Some accounts state that Deodatus baptized Hunna herself; others relate that he baptized her son, who received the name Deodatus and subsequently entered monastic life. Hunna is consistently presented as a married laywoman rather than as a member of a religious order. She is reported to have died in 679, in or near Hunawihr.

Veneration of Hunna remained largely local to Alsace until the early sixteenth century. In 1520 Pope Leo X canonized her, giving papal recognition to her existing cult. Her feast day is 15 April. She is regarded as a patron saint of laundry workers, washerwomen, and laundresses. The village of Hunawihr in Alsace continues to be identified with her memory and with the site of her life and death.