ST. AMALBERGE, mother of this saint, was niece to Pepin, mayor of the
palace. Gudula was educated at Nivelle, under the care of St. Gertrude,
her cousin and god-mother; after whose death, in 664, she returned to
the house of count Witger, her father, and having by vow consecrated her
virginity to God, led there a most austere and holy life, in watching,
fasting, and prayer. By her profuse alms, in which she bestowed her
whole revenue on the poor, she was truly the mother of all the
distressed; though her father's castle was two miles from the church of
our Saviour at Morzelle, she went thither early every morning, with a
maid to carry a lantern before her; and the wax taper being once put
out, is said to have miraculously lighted again at her prayers, whence
she is usually represented in pictures with a lantern. She died on the
8th of January, not in 670, as Miraeus says, but in 712, and was buried
at Ham, near Villevord. In the reign of Charlemagne, her body was
removed to the church of our Saviour at Morzelle, and placed behind the
high altar; this emperor, out of veneration of her memory, often
resorted thither to pray, and founded there a nunnery, which soon after
changed its name of St. Saviour for that of St. Goule: this house was
destroyed in the irruptions of the Normans. The relics of St. Gudula, by
the care of Charles, duke of Lorrain, (in which Brabant was then
comprised,) were translated to Brussels, in 978, where they were first
deposited to the church of St. Gery, but in 1047, removed into the great
collegiate church of St. Michael, since called from her St. Gudula's.
See her life wrote by Hubert of Brabant, in the eleventh century, soon
after this translation of her relics to St. Michael's, who assures us
that he took the whole relation from an ancient life of this saint,
having only changed the order and style.