appear in the collections of Bonquet, Pertz, Duchesne, and Bollandus, particularly in the Life of B. Pepin, the duke, Bouquet, ii. 603, and AA.SS., Feb. 21, and that of St. Ultan, May 1, AA.SS.
Modern authorities: Baronius. Pertz, Merovingischen Hausmeyer. Butler. Baillet. Lanigan. McLaughlin, Irish Saints.
St. Gertrude (6), Monday after Ascension Day, V. M. at Vauxdiuellet, or Belval, in Lorraine, where there is a legend that she was murdered by her brothers on account of her opposition to a marriage with a heathen prince, arranged for her by her family. The Bollandists consider the story fabulous, and think the saint honoured at Belval is a niece of St. Gertrude of Nivelle. AA.SS.
St. Gertrude (7), July 14. Third abbess of Blangy, succeeding her sister, St. Deotila. They are represented as nuns, standing beside their mother, St. Bertha of Blangy. The daughters are drawn on a very small scale, looking like babes or dolls in proportion to the size of the mother, to indicate their subordinate station. They were worshipped as saints in their own convent, but not throughout Christendom. AA.SS.
St. Gertrude (8), of Neustadt, built a church and monastery in honour of St. Michael, at Neustadt, in Franconia, and another at Carelburg, or Carlstadt, three miles from Würtzburg, on the Main. Her footsteps were to be seen on the road between the two places, being always green when the rest of the path was burnt up, and brown when the surrounding ground was green. The monastery of Neustadt was sacked by the mob in 1525, all the books destroyed, the altars profaned, and relics dispersed, so that the story of this saint is lost. The legend that she was a sister of Charlemagne is judged by critics and hagiographers to be untrue, and they think that St. Gertrude of Nivelle is the person commemorated at Neustadt. She is confounded with St. Hadeloga, abbess of Kitzingen, who was great-aunt of Charlemagne. Her cloak is still kept there, and in the time of Henschenius it was credited with miraculous qualities. Henschenius and Mabillon, in their notes and commentaries on the Life of St. Gertrude of Nivelle. She is mentioned in the Life of St. Burchard of Würtzburg, Mabillon, AA.SS. O.S.B., Sæc. iii. pars. I.
Ven. Gertrude (9), May 7. O.S.B. + 1160. Daughter of Boleslaus Crivousti, duke of the Poles. Nun at Zwifalt, and commemorated there. AA.SS., Præter. Bucelinus. Mabillon.
B. Gertrude (10), March 17. + 1270. Abbess of the Cistercian monastery of Trebnitz, in Silesia, founded in 1203 by her parents, Henry Barbatus, duke of Poland and Silesia, and St. Hedwig. Gertrude is called "Blessed" by Henriquez, Bucelinus, and Ferrarius. The Bollandists place her among the Prætermissi. See also Mabillon.
B. Gertrude (11), Aug. 13, V. O.S.A. + 1297. Abbess of Altenberg, or Aldenburg, on the Lahn. The sculptor of her tomb has represented her with a lion under her feet, which may be in allusion to the arms of Hesse, or Thuringia. Tradition explains it in this way. She received from God a special manner of banishing all discord from her convent; but one day, when she could not reconcile two nuns, it happened that a lion belonging to the landgrave broke its chain and escaped, to the terror of everybody. Gertrude, to put to shame "the little hearts that knew not how to forgive," called the terrible beast, and he, obedient, went and lay down at her feet. Cahier.
B. Gertrude, of Altenberg, was daughter of Lewis, margrave of Thuringia, and St. Elizabeth, of Hungary, his wife. Gertrude was dedicated to God by her parents before her birth, and sent very young to be educated at the Præmonstratensian convent of Altenberg, in the diocese of Trèves.
At the moment of St Elizabeth's death, in 1231, she appeared to her daughter. At twenty-one Gertrude was appointed Abbess of Altenberg, where she governed for twenty-four years. She and her nuns took the cross of the holy war—that is, they obliged
