Widow Begga

Saint Begga, also known as Begga of Andenne, was a seventh-century Frankish noblewoman of Austrasia and a member of the Pippinid family that later gave rise to the Carolingian dynasty. She was the daughter of Pepin of Landen, Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia under the Merovingian kings, and of Saint Itta (Iduberga) of Metz. Among her siblings were Saint Gertrude of Nivelles and Grimoald, who succeeded their father as mayor of the palace. After Pepin’s death in the mid-seventh century, Itta and Gertrude founded the monastery of Nivelles. Begga’s early adult life followed the path of a married aristocrat rather than that of a nun, though her family was already distinguished for its monastic foundations and for the later cult of several of its members.

She married Ansegisel, a son of Saint Arnulf of Metz. The marriage joined the Pippinids to the Arnulfings, two of the leading houses of Austrasia, and proved of lasting political importance. Their son Pepin of Herstal became Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia and was the father of Charles Martel, and thus the great-grandfather of Charlemagne. Ansegisel died—later narratives say he was killed—and Begga was left a widow. In widowhood she turned more fully to religious life, in keeping with the example of her mother and sister.

Tradition holds that she made a pilgrimage to Rome and, after her return, founded a monastery at Andenne on the River Meuse, in the region of present-day Belgium, in the early 690s. Later accounts say she built seven churches or oratories there in imitation of the seven principal churches of Rome, which she had visited. She governed the community as abbess. The house at Andenne endured; in the Middle Ages it developed into a chapter of noble canonesses, and the town remained the center of her cult.

Begga died at Andenne, according to the received date, in 693, and was buried at the monastery she had founded. She was venerated locally as a saint long before the age of formal papal canonization, and her feast is kept on 17 December. A medieval legend, arising largely from the resemblance of names, claimed her as foundress or patroness of the Beguines, the lay religious women who appeared in the Low Countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; historians regard that connection as unhistorical, though it attests to the strength of her local memory. She is remembered as a widow, foundress, and abbess, and as an ancestor of the Carolingian rulers. The collegiate church of Saint Begga at Andenne marks the place of her foundation and burial.