Helmtrud of Heerse

Helmtrud of Heerse was born around 900 at Heerse, today Neuenheerse, and she reposed on 30 May, around 950. She was a canoness of the convent of Heerse and spent part of her life as an enclosed anchoress on the Iburg, near Bad Driburg. She is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Little is known of her life. Several sources call her a hermit at Heerse, but more recent studies find evidence of her time as an anchoress on the Iburg.

She appears in the legend of Saint Ursula. In the story of the sufferings of Saint Ursula it is told that one of her companions, Saint Cordula, appeared to a pious anchoress named Helentrud of Heerse, to make known to her her own fate as a martyr and to charge her to tell the women keeping vigil at Cologne, at the tomb of the holy virgins, to remember Cordula the day after Saint Ursula, that is on 22 October. In this way that day of remembrance was introduced, which shows Helmtrud's importance and credibility.

She is a local saint of the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.