Life and Vocation
Aldegund was born about 639 into a noble family of Hainault, in Flanders, and was nearly related to the Merovingian royal house. Her parents, Walbert (a count associated with Guînes) and Bertilla (also given as Bertilia), are themselves honored as saints, as is her sister Waltrude (Waudru) of Mons.
Rather than accept the marriage proposals made to her, Aldegund chose the cloistered life. She received her veil from Amandus, bishop of Maastricht, one of the leading missionary bishops of the Frankish lands.
Foundation of Maubeuge
On the banks of the Sambre, at a place called Malbode, Aldegund established a small religious house dedicated to the care of the sick. This foundation, traditionally dated to 661, grew into the abbey of Maubeuge, which took its name from the site.
Aldegund served as the community's first abbess until her death in 684 and was buried there. The house is described in early accounts as originally serving both men and women in the care of the sick before becoming a monastery of women following the Rule of Saint Benedict; in later centuries its members lived as canonesses under the Rule of Saint Augustine.
According to tradition, at the founding of the monastery Aldegund crossed the waters of the Sambre dry-shod — one of several legendary details preserved in her early lives.
Legacy
Maubeuge Abbey long outlived its foundress. By the Treaty of Meersen in 864 it was reckoned a royal abbey, and in the eleventh century its abbess wielded considerable local authority. The canonesses of a later era wore a distinctive gold medal enameled with the image of Saint Aldegund, hung from a blue cord with a gold tassel. The community was finally dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution, ending more than a millennium of religious life at the site.
Aldegund's memory is bound up with that of her family: she was succeeded as abbess of Maubeuge by two nieces, the daughters of her sister Waltrude — first Aldetrude and then Madelberta (Madalberta) — so that the office passed through three members of the same kindred.
Sources and Traditions
Several early biographies of Aldegund survive, none written by a contemporary. The Bollandists preserved multiple versions, among them a tenth-century life attributed to the monk Hucbald. Because these accounts are late and legendary in places, details such as her dry-shod crossing of the Sambre are transmitted as tradition rather than documented history.
Her final illness is described in her lives, and in later devotion she came to be invoked by those suffering from cancer and from wounds.
