Anstrudis

Anstrudis (Anstrude, Austru, or Austrude) ( – 688) was a saint, virgin, and abbess of the Abbey of St. John, Laon. Her life story is recounted in a hagiography, entitled Vita Anstrudis abbatissae Laudunensis, written in the 9th century by an anonymous author. Antrudis was the daughter of Sadalberga, the first abbess of the Abbey of St. John in Laon, who succeeded Sadalberga after her death. She was reported to have performed many miracles, most of them after her death. Life was not much easier for Anstrudis; her hagiographer wrote, "the hardships foreshadowed by Sadalberga were visited upon her daughter Anstrude in her capacity as abbess". Anstrudis's abbacy coincided with the power struggle between the Pippinids and their adversaries, the Neustrians. Ebroin, an ally of Theuderic III of Neustria, sought to have Anstrudis ejected from her monastery and had her brother, Baldwin, murdered. She was able to overcome challenges to her authority as abbess by those who opposed her. Anstrudis died in 688, amidst many attributed miracles and healings. Her feast day is 17 October. She is honored as a saint in the Gallican and Benedictine calendars.

Early life Anstrudis, also known as Anstrude, Austru, or Austrude, was born . Her mother was Sadalberga, founder and abbess of the Abbey of St. John in Laon, and her father was Sadalberga's second husband, Blandius. Her life story is recounted in a hagiography, entitled Vita Anstrudis abbatissae Laudunensis, written in the 9th century by an anonymous author. Sadalberga's biographer, in her hagiography, Vita Sadalbergae , reports that Sadalberga traveled to the basilica of Saint Remigius and prayed for children, committing them to the religious life. Anstrudis was the third of five children: Saretude, named after Sadalberga's mother; Ebana; a boy named Eustasius, who died in infancy; and her youngest brother, Baldwin, who also became a saint. According to historian Jo Ann McNamara, Anstrudis's life unfolded amid the violence of a power struggle between the Frankish kingdoms Neustria and Austrasia following the death of King Clothar III. Her vita reports, "She was carefully nurtured by her parents and brought to the Christian religion with much diligence". Fox, however, states that the Vita seems to imply that they did not raise her because they took up "a monastic calling", and because Anstrudis did not join the monastery until her teens. This would have left the responsibility of her early upbringing to her remaining relatives, who probably arranged a marriage to a young noble, even though she had different plans for her future.

Around 657, at the age of 12, Anstrudis entered her mother's abbey to avoid marriage to a man named Landramnus. In 670, Sadalberga died, and at the age of 20, Anstrudis succeeded her as abbess. To ensure the monastery's stability, the bishop of Laon and the local aristocracy had advised Sadalberga to secure the nuns' agreement to Anstrudis's promotion. Royal permission was also granted, and the bishop consecrated her as abbess. According to hagiographer Alban Butler, she reluctantly and "faithfully followed in [her mother's] steps". During her lifetime, she is said to have healed many people of blindness, healed a woman of a severe headache after making the sign of the cross on her forehead, Fox stated, "[Anstrudis] had succeeded in healing chronic headaches, blindness and even reviving a comatose nun". Most of Anstrudis's reported miracles, as recounted in her vita, occurred after her death. After she died, she was reputed to have healed people, after they came or were brought to her tomb, of paralysis, blindness, muteness, demon possession, a "flow of blood", Anstrudis's vita states, "Daily benefits were given at her sepulcher by her prayers to all the petitioning faithful". Two days before she died, "an immense brilliance shone around the house" where she lay. A "brightness like a shining star lay on her breast and entered into her mouth" the hour she died, and the witnesses saw it fly to heaven. As her body was brought to burial, while the people there wept, two birds, "gleaming with ineffable splendor", landed on the roof of the monastery until her body was carried away. As the body was carried into the monastery's basilica, a woman with a wound under her armpit reverently placed Anstrudis's hand on her wound and was healed. The day after Anstrudis's body was buried, a woman possessed by a demon was healed after approaching the tomb.

Anstrudis's family did not continue into future generations; as Fox put it, "snuffed out by [Anstrudis'] commitment to her virginity and her brother [Baldwin's] untimely death". Her feast day is 17 October. She is honored as a saint in the Gallican and Benedictine calendars.