Bertha of Blangy

Saint Bertha of Blangy (also Bertha of Artois) was a Frankish and Anglo-⁠Saxon abbess of noble blood, born in the mid seventh century and reposed on 4 July 725. She was the daughter of Count Rigobert, Mayor of the Palace under King Clovis II before Ebroin; her mother, Ursana, was the daughter of the king of Kent in England. At the age of twenty she married Siegfried, a relation of the king. When her husband died in 672, after nearly twenty years of marriage and five daughters, Bertha was determined to become a religious. In 682 or 685 she founded a convent at Blangy in Artois (now Blangy-⁠sur-⁠Ternoise), where she retreated with her two eldest daughters, Deotila and Gertrude.

Later her daughter Deotila succeeded her as abbess, when Bertha retired to live as a recluse, devoted solely to prayer. She died of natural causes at an advanced age. She is commemorated on 4 July, as a saint of the West before the Great Schism (a saint of the undivided Church), by the New Calendar.