Beuve of Reims

Saint Beuve of Reims (also called Bova or Boba) was the first abbess of the abbey of Saint-⁠Pierre-⁠les-⁠Dames at Reims, which she founded together with her brother Balderic (Saint Baudry). She is venerated as a saint in the Western Church. The sources do not agree on the time: one places her in the 6th century, another in the 7th.

Canon Flodoard of Reims, writing three centuries later from an oral tradition, calls her the daughter of a king Sigebert, whom he takes to be Sigebert I of Austrasia. Recent research shows that this does not fit what is known of that king and regards Sigebert the Lame, king of Cologne, as her more likely father. She is said to have been the twin sister of Baudry and aunt of Saint Doda.

The abbey was outside the walls, and her brother built a house in the city to shelter her nuns from attacks, then devoted himself to the abbey of Montfaucon. Around 655 Saint Nivard, bishop of Reims, consecrated the abbey church, dedicated to the Virgin and to Saint Peter.