Hathumod

Hathumod (* 840 ; † November 29, 874 in Gandersheim ) was the first abbess of the Gandersheim monastery .

Life

Hathumod was the daughter of Count Liudolf of Saxony , the ancestor of the Liudolfingers , and Odas, the daughter of an otherwise unknown princeps Billung and the Aeda. She received her training in the abbey in Herford , which was elevated to the status of imperial monastery in 823, and also attended the Latin school there. After her father returned from a pilgrimage to Rome with the relics of Popes Anastasius and Innocent I , which he had received from Pope Sergius II for a monastery foundation, he founded a women's foundation in Brunshausen in 852, which was moved to Gandersheim in 856. At the age of 12, Hathumod became the first abbess of the new monastery. She attached great importance to the passing on of her humanistic training received in Herford. She died at the age of 34 as a result of an unknown illness that she is said to have contracted while caring for her sisters who were also sick. Her sisters Gerberga and Christina followed her . A total of five of Liudolf's children entered the service of the Church.

Biographical source

Shortly after her death, her life story was recorded by a monk named Agius . He may have belonged to the nearby Lamspringe Monastery . Mostly, however, he is referred to as a member of the Corvey Monastery . The thesis that he is a brother of the Hathumod is considered refuted.

In the work entitled Vita et obitus Hathumodae ("Life and Death of Hathumod"), Agius paints with great warmth the picture of a pious and meek nun , who from childhood disdains all pomp and adornment, likes to endure all privations and goes with her devoted to caring for the abbey that is entrusted to her. She had become a victim of her devotion, as she herself was seized by the disease while caring for sick sisters and died. With the prose - Biography Agius has a dialogue in elegiac connected meter, in which he the nuns against Trost developed reasons, which he has previously put forward to them already orally.

literature

• Wilhelm Wattenbach :  Hathumoda . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 23 f.
• The life of Hathumoda. In: Life of Abbot Eigil of Fulda and abbess Hathumoda von Gandersheim, Leipzig 1888, pp. 35–62 ( UB Paderborn )
• Ekkart Sauser :  Hatumoda. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 15, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-077-8 , Sp. 692-693.
• Frederick S. Paxton: Anchoress and abbess in ninth-century Saxony. The lives of Liutbirga of Wendhausen and Hathumoda of Gandersheim. Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC 2009. ISBN 978-0-8132-1569-3 .

Web links

• Hathumod at genealogie-mittelalter.de

Remarks

1. ↑ Georg Heinrich Pertz et al. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 4: Annales, chronica et historiae aevi Carolini et Saxonici. Hahn, Hannover 1841, pp. 302–335, here p. 306  : Filia Billungi, cuiusdam principis almi, Atque bonae famae generosae scilicet Aedae.
2. ↑ Susann El-Kholi: Reading in women's convents of the East Franconian-German Empire from the 8th century to the middle of the 13th century (= Epistemata. Series Literary Studies. Vol. 203). Königshausen u. Neumann, Würzburg 1997, ISBN 3-8260-1278-X , pp. 16-18.