Adalsinda of Hamage

Saint Adalsinda of Hamage (or Hamay) was a nun of the Columbanian rule of the seventh century, from a prominent Merovingian family. She is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church; the sources at our disposal show no Orthodox act concerning her, so hers is a Western cult, from before or outside the order of Orthodoxy. Her day is 25 December, around the date of her death, which according to tradition took place "during the solemnities of Christmas".

Family

Adalsinda's parents were Richtrudis, heiress of a Gascon-⁠Basque family, and Adalbard I of Ostrevent, Frankish duke of Douai. Her elder sister, Eusebia of Hamage (Eusebia of Douai), became an abbess and was venerated as a saint after her death in 660. Mother and father are likewise recognized as saints, as are another sister, Clotsinda, and a brother, Maurontius. They are especially venerated in northern France and Flanders.

Life

Adalsinda, the youngest child of the family, entered Marchiennes Abbey around 653, with her mother and sisters. Later she went to Hamay Abbey (also called Hamage or Hamay-⁠sur-⁠la-⁠Scarpe), where her sister Eusebia had become abbess, succeeding their great-⁠grandmother, Saint Gertrude. Gertrude's widowed daughter, Gerberta, mother of Adalbard and so grandmother of the sisters, was also a nun at Hamay. Clotsinda stayed at Marchiennes, with her mother.

Adalsinda's year of death is uncertain. Some histories say she died before her mother, who died in 688, either giving a year or saying she died very young: so reckon the authors de Ram (1866) and Dunbar (1904). Dries van den Akker, a Jesuit writer, said in 2007 that more recent sources, based on historical research, give the year 715; this is the year in the Ramsgate Benedictines' Book of Saints (1921) and in an essay by Cristiani of 1945. At least one modern work (1985) shows both years, in different places. Our summary gives 642 as birth and 673 as death; we cannot confirm these dates.

The two abbeys

After her father's death, in an attack near Périgueux, Adalsinda's mother, Richtrudis, retired to Marchiennes Abbey, which she and her husband had founded in 630. Her three daughters accompanied her there. All four became nuns, Richtrudis being abbess at Marchiennes. Since Marchiennes had been made a double monastery by Richtrudis around 647, her son Maurontius, once he became a monk, was also at the same abbey for a time. The abbey followed the Rule of Saint Columbanus from its founding until 1024, when it became Benedictine.

The earlier Hamay Abbey nearby at Wandignies-⁠Hamage was on the opposite bank of the river Scarpe and also had a link with the family, being governed by the sisters' paternal great-⁠grandmother, who had been its first abbess. The smaller Hamay Abbey was later absorbed by its larger neighbor, Marchiennes, perhaps when Marchiennes became in 1024 an exclusively male Benedictine house.