Saint Aldegund, also known as Saint Aldegundis or Aldegonde, was closely related to the Merovingian royal family. Her parents, afterwards honored as St. Walbert, Count of Guînes, and St. Bertilla de Mareuil, lived in the County of Hainaut. She is the most famous of what Aline Hornaday calls the “Maubeuge Cycle” of Merovingian saints.
Saint Aldegund was urged to marry, but she chose the life of the cloister. Having allegedly walked across the waters of the Sambre, she had built on its banks a small hospital at Malbode, which later became, under the name Maubeuge Abbey, a famous abbey of Benedictine nuns, though at a later date these were replaced by canonesses.
She bore with fortitude the breast cancer that eventually killed her. She was a Frankish Benedictine abbess who is honored as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in France and Orthodox Church.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldegund
https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1220
Aline Hornaday, "Toward a Prosopography of the "Maubeuge Cycle" Saints", Prosopon Newsletter, 1996
Thurston, Herbert. "St. Aldegundis." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 30 May 2016
article in Archéologie (March 2003), n° 398, p. 7
Saint of the Day, January 30: Aldegundis of Maubeuge Archived 2020-02-25 at the Wayback Machine SaintPatrickDC.org
