A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Bova
St. Bova, Aprll 24, sometimes erroneously called Bona, in French Beuve, V. Abbess at Rheims. 6th or 7th century. Sister of St. Balderic, or Baudri, founder and abbot of Montfauçon, or Fauquemont, near Rheims. Those saints are said to have been the children of a King Sigebert. If Mr. Baring-Gould is right in making him Sigebert I., who began to reign 561, their mother was the celebrated Queen Brunehaut, whose marriage is said to be the first that was solemnized with a religious ceremony in France. Butler and Baillet say Bova was a great lady at the court of King Dagobert, and edified the court by her virtues until she was about thirty years old, when, about 639, she withdrew to the monastery St. Balderic had built for her in a suburb of Rheims. Here she was soon joined by her niece, St. Doda. Balderic went to stay with his sister and niece, and died in their nunnery. Bova did not long survive him. Doda succeeded her aunt as abbess, about 673. These saints are mentioned by Flodoard, in his history of the Church of Rheims (10th century). The original history of their lives was destroyed in a great fire. In the 10th century an anonymous author compiled another, with the help of the nuns who had often heard it read. Butler, Lives. Baillet, Vies. Hugo Menard, Mart. Ben. Baring-Gould, Lives, "St. Balderic," Oct. 16.