Sigrada

Saint Sigrada of Soissons (Sigrada of Alsace) was the mother of Saints Leodegar and Warin and, left a widow, a nun at Soissons in France. She reposed around 678 or 679, shortly after the martyrdom of her sons.

She is thought to have been from Alsace, of the family of the Gallo-⁠Roman patricians Syagrii; her brother Dido (Desiderius) was bishop of Poitiers. She married Count Bodilon of Poitiers and gave birth to Warin and Leodegar at Autun in Burgundy. Through Warin, who inherited the County of Poitiers, she became the ancestor of the Franco-⁠Lombard dynasty of the Widonids. She sent Warin to be educated at the court of Chlothar II, while she arranged for Leodegar to be educated under their uncle. Her sons were drawn into the complex politics of Merovingian partition, and their stances were used as a pretext by their rival Ebroin to begin persecuting them and their family, including Sigrada. Ebroin shut her up in the monastery of Notre-⁠Dame de Soissons, took all her property, and she received a letter describing all the tortures her sons were subjected to. She died shortly after both her sons were martyred. She is commemorated on 8 August as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.