Hygeburg (''

floruit ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

'' 760–780), also Hugeburc, Hugeberc, Huneberc or Huneburc, was an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

and

hagiographer A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

at the Alemannian monastery of Heidenheim. She is "the first known Englishwoman to have written a full-length literary work" and "the only woman author of a saint's life from the Carolingian period".Huneberc of Heidenheim (C. H. Talbot, trans.), "The Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald", in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head, eds., ''Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), pp. 141–42. Heidenheim was founded as a monastery for monks in 752 by

Wynnebald Winibald (Winebald, Winnibald, Wunebald, Wynbald) (c. 702 - 18 December 761) was abbot of the Benedictine double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm. Traditionally, he is called the brother of Willibald and Walpurga. Life Winibald's father w ...

, an Anglo-Saxon from

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

. On his death in 761, his sister Walburg inherited it and converted it into a

double monastery A double monastery (also dual monastery or double house) is a monastery combining separate communities of monks and of nuns, joined in one institution to share one church and other facilities. The practice is believed to have started in the East a ...

with the introduction of nuns. Hygeburg was among those who came to Heidenheim immediately after Wynnebald's death. Probably she had already been in Germany for some time, one of the nuns summoned by

Boniface Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of ...

. Hygeburg was, in her own words, "a humble relative" of Wynnebald, Walburg and their brother,

Willibald Willibald (; c. 700 – c.787) was an 8th-century bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria. Information about his life is largely drawn from the Hodoeporicon (itinerary) of Willibald, a text written in the 8th century by Huneberc, an Anglo-Saxon nun fro ...

. On Tuesday, 23 June 778, while he was visiting Heidenheim, Willibald dictated to Hygeburg an account of his pilgrimage to the

Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...

in the 720s or 730s. She subsequently worked this account into a biography of Willibald, called the ''Hodoeporicon'' ("relation of a voyage"). (The conventional name ''Vita Willibaldi'', "Life of Willibald", was given to it by editors.Maribel Dietz, ''Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300–800'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), p. 209 n85.) From her choice of phrase and motif, she must have had access to the ''

Carmen paschale Sedulius (sometimes with the nomen Coelius or Caelius, both of doubtful authenticity) was a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century. Biography Extremely little is known about his life. Sedulius is the Latin form of the Irish name Siad ...

'', the '' Vita Bonifatii'' and the riddles of

Aldhelm Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...

. Although there was opposition to her writing within the convent, Walburg encouraged it. Hygeburg also wrote a biography of Wynnebald, the ''Vita Wynnebaldi''. Although her two works were a single project, completed by 780, they are textually distinct, indicating her use of oral reports and eyewitness testimony. She was herself a witness to some of the post-mortem miracles she attributes to Wynnebald's intervention. The name of the nun who wrote the lives of Willibald and Wynnebald was not known until in 1931

Bernhard Bischoff Bernhard Bischoff (20 December 1906 – 17 September 1991) was a German historian, paleographer, and philologist; he was born in Altendorf (administrative division of Altenburg, Thuringia), and he died in Munich. Biography He was the son of E ...

discovered it in a

cryptogram A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by ...

in the oldest manuscript (from c. 800).

References

External links

Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society __NOTOC__ The Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (PPTS) was a text publication society based in London, which specialised in publishing editions and translations of medieval texts relevant to the history of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Particular at ...

(1891):
The hodæporicon of Saint Willibald
' (ca 754 AD) by Roswida *

at the

Internet Medieval Sourcebook The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the Fordham University History Department and Center for Medieval Studies. It is a web site with modern, medieval and ancient primary source documents, maps, secondary sources, bibliographies, ...

{{Authority control Anglo-Saxon nuns Anglo-Saxon writers 8th-century women writers 8th-century English writers 8th-century English nuns 8th-century Latin writers 8th-century Frankish writers

References

Further reading

External links