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Biography

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Wiborada (also recorded as Guiborat, Wiberat, or Viborada) was an Alemannic noblewoman of the later ninth and early tenth centuries in Swabia, in what is now Switzerland. Traditional accounts associate her family with the area of Klingnau in Aargau; the exact year of her birth is not securely documented. She came from a wealthy noble household. Her brother Hatto entered the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Gall and became a priest and monk. After a period spent in household management and works of charity, Wiborada turned to prayer and asceticism, received consecration as a virgin, and lived under the spiritual influence of Saint Gall before seeking a still more withdrawn form of religious life.

She was enclosed as an anchoress, or inclusa, in a cell attached to the church of Saint Magnus (Sankt Mangen) near the abbey. There she followed a rule of silence, fasting, liturgical prayer, and labor, speaking with those who came to the window of her cell for counsel. Near-contemporary monastic writers, above all Ekkehard I of Saint Gall, who composed a life of her in the later tenth century, presented her as gifted with prophecy and as a trusted adviser to the abbot and community. Local people and pilgrims sought her intercession and advice at the anchorage.

When Magyar (Hungarian) forces threatened the region in 926, Wiborada is said to have foretold the attack and to have urged Abbot Engilbert to secure the abbey’s books and valuables. The monks removed the library and treasures from Saint Gall, an action later credited with preserving an important collection of manuscripts. Wiborada herself refused to leave her cell. On 1 May 926 raiders reached the church of Saint Magnus, forced the anchorage, and killed her by a blow to the head with an axe. She was buried at the same church. Her death was at once treated as martyrdom, and a local cult arose at Saint Gall.

In 1047 Pope Clement II canonized Wiborada. She is frequently described as the first woman to receive formal papal canonization. Her liturgical feast is observed on 2 May. Because her warning is believed to have saved the library of Saint Gall, she became the patron saint of libraries and of librarians. In art she is commonly shown as a Benedictine recluse with a book and an axe, or bearing the wound of her martyrdom. Her relics and memory remained closely tied to Saint Gall and to the church of Saint Magnus.

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