Yvette of Huy
Saint Yvette of Huy | |
|---|---|
 Yvette of Huy by Thomas de Leu | |
| Born | 1158 Huy, Belgium |
| Died | 13 January 1228 Huy, Belgium |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Feast | 13 January |
| Patronage | brides, large families, and widows |
Yvette of Huy (1158 – 13 January 1228) was a venerated Christian prophet and anchoress. Born in Huy, Belgium, she was also known as Ivette, Ivetta, Jufta or Jutta.[1][2]
Life
She was born into a wealthy but not particularly religious family, close to the bishop of Liège, and from an early age tried to live a religious life from her home.[1] Her father was a tax collector.[3] Yvette was forced into an arranged marriage aged thirteen and had three children (one died while still an infant) before she was widowed at eighteen. She used the opportunity to retire to a virtually derelict leper hospital in Statte, close to Huy, on the heights of the river Meuse to tend to the inmates, and more fully follow her religious calling.[1]
She left her two sons in the care of their grandfather. Ten years later, she became an anchoress and was enclosed in a chapel cell near the colony in a ceremony conducted by the abbot of Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval. From there she offered guidance to pilgrims who considered her a prophetess in the apostolic sense of having insight into the divine. She summoned priests and even the dean of the local church to her presence and confronted them about their behaviour. She was responsible for the conversion of her father and one of her two surviving sons. After a time, her power threatened the male clergy and canons. She was denounced.[3] Yvette died on 13 January 1228 in Huy, Belgium.
Her life was recorded by the Premonstratensian Hugh of Floreffe.[2] Although never formally canonised as a saint, she is classed as ‘blessed’ by the Catholic Church; feast day January 13th, the date of her death. One of her sons became a monk at the monastery of Orval & became its abbot, in time he too became classed as a ‘blessed, - Eustachius of Huy, commemorated on March 13th in the Cistercian calendar.
References
- ^ a b c Bolton, Brenda M. (1978). "Vitae Matrum: A Further Aspect of the Frauenfrage". In Baker, Derek (ed.). Medieval Women. Studies in Church History: Subsidia. Vol. 1. Oxford: Ecclesiastical History Society. pp. 253–273. ISBN 978-0-631-19260-2. ISBN 978-0-631-12539-6. Described in doi:10.2307/2855766.
- ^ a b Wilson, Katharina M; Margolis, Nadia, eds. (2004). Women in the Middle Ages. Vol. I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-33016-2.
- ^ a b Lawler, Jennifer (2008). Encyclopedia of Women in the Middle Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-7864-3253-0.
Additional Sources
- "Blessed Ivetta of Huy". catholicsaints.info. Retrieved 2 Jun 2016.
- Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. (2005). Lives of the Anchoresses , The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe. Translated by Myra Heerspink Scholz. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-3852-5.
- Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B., ed. (2007). Anchoresses of Thirteenth-century Europe – The Lives of Yvette of Huy by Hugh of Floreffe And Margaret the Lame of Magdeburg by John of Magdeburg. Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-52077-3. OL 8911500M. Reprinted as Living Saints of the Thirteenth Century in 2011 with same ISBN.
- Butler, Alban; Farmer, David Hugh; Burns, Paul (1998). "Bd Jutta of Huy (1158–1228)". Butler's Lives of the Saints. Vol. January (Reprinted with revisions ed.). Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-86012-250-0. LCCN 95081671.
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