Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

his wife Reine (Regina?), a relative of Pippin the Short, on their estate near Lille. 52 The
monastery was built in 764, and the family’s eldest daughter, Ragenfreda, gave her name
to the foundation (Ste-Remfroye). The vita states that nine of her younger sisters formed
the remainder of the new community. After her death in 805, a blind woman named Ava
came to Ragenfrada’s tomb and stayed on as abbess, making large endowments to the
monastery.
Of more uncertain but probable eighth-century origin is the house of Auchy.
Around 700, Adalscaire, lord of Hesdin and his wife Aneglia founded a monastery at
Auchy (dép. Pas-de-Calais) for their daughter Siecheda, under the direction of Silvinus,
who was a missionary in the Thérouanne area. 53 In 717 or 718, he was buried in the
church there, as were the abbess’ parents. This type of family foundation with the
assistance (and presumably, spiritual input) of a missionary reflects on a much smaller
scale the activities of Columbanus the century before. Despite its origin as a family
foundation, the monastery existed until 881, when the nuns fled in the face of Norman
attacks. In 959, Gerard of Brogne refounded the monastery as a community of monks.
The monastery of Denain (dép. Nord) was founded along similar lines. The
foundation was made in 764 by Aldebert, count of Ostrevant and his wife Regina (a
granddaughter of Pippin the Short), whose ten daughters formed the first community. 54
The eldest daughter, Ragenfreda, who died in 805, gave her name to the community. The
community had begun to struggle economically when a woman called Ava arrived in
search of a cure for her blindness at Ragenfreda’s tomb. Remaining at the community as
a nun, she endowed it with her own resources (servos, ancillas & omnem sui juris
supellectilem), built a new church, and was therefore considered as a second founder. It is
indeed from her existence in a martyrology and in the Chronici Cameracensis that much
of the information about the original founders is recorded. 55 Pillaged by the Normans, the
52
Vita Ragenfredis AASS Oct, IV, 295-334.
53
DHGE V, 288.
54
DHGE XIV, 218. Regina’s cult appears to have been the most long-lasting at the monastery. Her relics
were translated in 1400 and the ordo from that event is extant: AASS Jul. I, 237.
55
AASS Apr. III, 635.
184