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St. Begga of Andenne

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Saints and feasts

St. Begga of Andenne

Widow and Abbess

Begga, sister of Gertrude of Nivelles, founded a religious community at Andenne after becoming a widow. Butler distinguishes that foundation from the much later Beguine movement.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Family: Sister of Gertrude of Nivelles
Butler identifies their relationship and the assistance provided by the community at Nivelles.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 17, “St Begga, Widow and Abbess,” pp. 310-311.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 17, “St Begga, Widow and Abbess,” pp. 310-311.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 17, “St Begga, Widow and Abbess,” pp. 310-311.

Begga was a daughter of Pepin of Landen and the elder sister of St. Gertrude of Nivelles. She married Ansegisel, and after his death turned to a life of religious retirement. Butler also records her pilgrimage to Rome.

At Andenne on the Meuse she built seven chapels in remembrance of Rome’s principal churches and founded a community of religious women. The first members came from her sister’s house at Nivelles. Begga guided them in their common life, and the foundation remained an important part of the region’s religious history.

Butler places her death in 698. His footnote rejects the claim that she founded the Beguines, distinguishing her seventh-century community from that later movement. The similarity of names should therefore not turn a later attribution into a fact about her life.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

Butler explicitly distinguishes Begga’s foundation at Andenne from the later institution of the Beguines.

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