A

This holy virgin was the daughter of a Count Megingand of Gueldres, and became abbess of the convent of Villich, founded by her father and mother.

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February 5 · Virgin, Abbess

St. Adelheid of Villich

St. Adelheid of Villich

This holy virgin was the daughter of a Count Megingand of Gueldres, and became abbess of the convent of Villich, founded by her father and mother.

Traditional feast

February 5
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Virgin
Abbess

Early life

Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 88 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

This holy virgin was the daughter of a Count Megingand of Gueldres, and became abbess of the convent of Villich, founded by her father and mother.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Give to people in need. The account records care for the poor.

Build up the community you belong to. This life was lived with and for a community.

Read more

The full original · 88 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Cologne Kalendar, and additions to Usuardus. Commemorated with special office at Villich on the Rhine, opposite Bonn. She is variously called Adelheid, Alkeid, Adelaide, Alheidis, and Aleidis. Her local name at Villich is S. Alen. Her life was written by a contemporary, one Bertha, a nun in her convent.

This holy virgin was the daughter of a Count Megingand of Gueldres, and became abbess of the convent of Villich, founded by her father and mother. Her piety, charity, and gravity are celebrated by Bertha, the nun who wrote her life. She died in 1015. The church and nunnery were burnt in the war between Truchsess Gerhard, the apostate archbishop of Cologne, and the archduke Ernest of Bavaria, and again by the Swedes in the Thirty years' war. It is not known what has become of her relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor].

Feast days

Feast: February 5

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Adelheid of Villich's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on February 5
St. Agatha

St. Agatha

February 5 · Virgin, Martyr
A

St. Avitus of Vienne

February 5 · Bishop, Confessor
B

St. Bertulf

February 5 · Abbot
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.