Eusebia of Hamage

Saint Eusebia, the Venerable (in French Eusébie), was abbess of the monastery of Hamage (today Wandignies-⁠Hamage), in northern France today, in the seventh century, in the time of the Frankish kingdom. Daughter of Saints Adalbald and Rictrude, great-⁠granddaughter of Saint Gertrude, she died young. She is venerated in the Western and the Orthodox Church as a saint of the time before the separation of the Churches. Her commemoration is on 16 March, sometimes 17 March. The sources do not agree on the years of her birth and death.

Family

Eusebia was the great-⁠granddaughter of Saint Gertrude, abbess of the monastery of Wandignies-⁠Hamage, to whom she was entrusted, and the eldest child of Saint Adalbald I of Ostrevent and Saint Rictrude of Marchiennes, of Vascon nobility and lords in the Low Countries. Her three siblings are likewise venerated as saints: Saint Adalsinda, Saint Maurontius of Douai and Saint Clodoswinda. According to the English source she was born in 637, at the end of the reign of Dagobert I, two years before Saint Amand of Maastricht laid the foundations of the monastery of Marchiennes. She was baptized with the Frankish queen Nanthild as godmother, who gave her "the fine estate of Verny, in the neighbourhood of Soissons". The Russian sources give other years: 640 or 649.

Childhood and abbacy

When she was eight, her father was killed by Rictrude's brothers in Vasconia, and Eusebia stayed with her mother and two sisters at Hamage. There she was taken and raised by Saint Gertrude, first abbess of Hamage, her father's grandmother. When Gertrude died, in 649 (by the Russian source, about 655), Eusebia took her place as abbess, at twelve. But a conflict arose between her and her mother, Rictrude, who wanted to give her further training before she became abbess. Rictrude, abbess at Marchiennes, resolved to take Eusebia and the other nuns of Hamage to her own monastery. Eusebia refused to leave Hamage, so her mother had to obtain a letter from King Clovis II to force her to go to Marchiennes and live a year under her mother's strict authority. At that time Eusebia longed to live at her own monastery in Hamage and went there by stealth at night to sing her prayers. When Rictrude discovered the girl's deceit, she had Eusebia beaten by her brother Maurontius until she almost died. Still rebellious, she was allowed to return to her monastery at Hamage when she turned thirteen.

She taught her community of nuns and followers more by example than by speeches, imposing abstinence and purity on herself until her death. By the Greek and English sources she died at 33, in 660, after twenty years as abbess. Other sources give her age as 23 or 27, others 49, and the Russian source gives 40 years, 16 March 680 or 689, after twenty-⁠three years as abbess. The Catholic Church concluded that she died at 33.

Veneration and relics

Eusebia was buried in her church, but because of the crowd of the faithful the building quickly became too small. Many miracles are said to have taken place at her tomb. So Gertrude, the new abbess who had succeeded her, built a new and larger church, dedicated to the Mother of God by Saint Vindicianus, bishop of Arras and Cambrai. On the day of the church's consecration the relics of Saint Eusebia were moved there. The Russian source says that about 690 a more spacious church was built, to which on 18 November the relics were moved, and this day became a feast day. Later both monasteries were burned by invading Normans. Attempts were made to rebuild them in the time of the Frankish king Charles the Simple, at the start of the tenth century, but poverty was so great in the region that the gold and silver of the shrine were sold to feed the nuns. The relics of Saint Eusebia remained two hundred years in a simple wooden coffin, until 1133, when a new shrine of gold and silver was made. The relics were moved there on 17 May 1133.

In 1537 one of the saint's ribs, together with a hand bone of Saint Rictrude, were taken and carried to Douai, to be preserved in the collegiate church of Saint Peter. According to the Russian source, on 20 September 1537 Eusebia's relics were moved to Marchiennes, where they rested together with her mother Rictrude's. In the time of the French Revolution, in 1793, the relics were confiscated by the government and taken to Paris, where they stayed until 1830, then were lost in the July Revolution. Their later fate is unknown. According to one source, the virtues recognized in Eusebia are prudence in deeds and enterprises, justice and moderation in her decisions, strength of mind and character. Her name also appears in the form Eusoye or Ysoie, which was the name of a village in the diocese of Beauvais.