Saint Gudula was born in the pagus of Brabant. According to her 11th-century biography, written by a monk of the abbey of Hautmont between 1048 and 1051, she was the daughter of a duke of Lotharingia called Witger and Amalberga of Maubeuge. She died between 680 and 714. Her name is connected to several places:
Moorsel
Brussels
Eibingen.
In Brabant she is usually called Goedele or Goule;.
Life
The mother of Gudula, Saint Amalberga, embraced the religious life in the abbey of Maubeuge. She received the veil from the hands of St. Aubert, Bishop of Cambrai. Gudula had two sisters, St. Pharaildis and St. Reineldis, and one brother, Saint Emebertus. Gudula was educated in the abbey of Nivelles by her godmother, Gertrude of Nivelles. When Gertrude died, she moved back to her home at Moorsel, spending her time in good works and religious devotion. She frequently visited the church of Moorsel, situated about two miles from her parents' house. Gudula died and was buried at Hamme. Later her relics were removed to the church of St. Salvator in Moorsel, where the body was interred behind the altar. During the reign of Duke Charles of Lotharingia, the body of the saint was transferred to the chapel of Saint Gaugericus at Brussels. Lambert II, Count of Leuven, founded a chapter in 1047 in honour of Saint Gudula. Bishop Gerardus I of Cambrai led the translation of her relics to the church of Saint Michael in Brussels. The church later became the famous St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral. On 6 June 1579 the collegiate church was pillaged and wrecked by the Protestant Geuzen, and the relics of the saint disinterred and scattered.
Veneration
Along with St. Michael, Gudula is a patron saint of Brussels.
Charlemagne made donations to the convent of Moorsel in her honour.
The flower called tremella deliquescens, which bears fruit in the beginning of January, is known as Sinte Goedele's lampken.
The woodcarvers who produced statues of the saints born in the Holy Roman Empire, often depicted St. Gudula with a taper in her hand, but this originates probably out of confusion with the Paris Saint Geneveva tradition.
Gudula is often pictured holding a lantern. She is depicted on a seal of the Church of St. Gudula of 1446 holding in her right hand a candle, and in her left a lamp, which a demon tries to extinguish. This refers to the legend that the saint went to church before cock-crow. The demon, wishing to stray her off the right way, extinguished the candle, but the saint obtained from God that her lantern should be rekindled.
Bollandus J., Henschenius G., De S. Gudila Virgine Bruxellis in Belgio, Acta Sanctorum Januarii I 524–530.
Secondary sources
Bonenfant, P., 'La charte de foundation du chapitre de Sainte-Gudule à Bruxelles', Bulletin de la Commission Royale d'Histoire 115 17–58.
Podevijn, R., 'Hubert, l'auteur de la vita Gudulae', Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 15 489–496.
Podevijn, 'Etude critique sur la Vita Gudulae', Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 2 619–641.
Lefèvre, P., 'Une conjecture à propos de la date et de l'auteur du "Vita Gudile"', Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis 14/1 98–101.
van der Essen, L., 'Etude critique et littéraire sur les vitae des saints Mérovingiens', Recueil de travaux publiées par les membres des conférences d'histoire et de philologie 17 296–311.
Riethe, P., 'Der Schädel der heiligen Gudula aus der Pfarrkirche von Eibingen. Eine historisch-anthropologische Studie', Nassauische Annalen Jahrbuch des Vereins für nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung Band 67 233.
