page_title: Gertrude of Nivelles
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Gertrude of Nivelles / Life / Death
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Nivelles (Belgique), la statue de Sainte Gertrude de Nivelles. English: Nivelles (Belgium), the Saint Gertrude of Nivelles statue. Nederlands: Nivel (België), het standbeeld van Sint-Gertrudis van Nijvel. Walon: Nivèle (Bèljike), li statuwe di Sinte-Djèrtrude di Nivèle.
context_page_description: Gertrude of Nivelles, O.S.B. was a seventh-century abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the Abbey of Nivelles located in present-day Belgium.
context_section_description: Gertrude is portrayed as leading a devout life until her death. It was possible that after taking the veil in ca. 640, she never left the monastery cloister, thus escaping politics and local affairs. Gertrude is described as "exhausted by a life of charity, fasting and prayer" at the end of her short life. The Cambridge Medieval History says that "because of too much abstinence and keeping of vigils... her body was sorrily exhausted with serious illness."
  Gertrude's Vita describes her, after relinquishing her role as abbess, spending her time praying intensely and secretly wearing a hair shirt. According to her biographer, Gertrude felt the time of her death approaching and asked a pilgrim from the Fosses monastery when she would die. This pilgrim is commonly believed to be Ultan, Foillan's brother. Fouracre and Gerberding dispute that Ultan was Abbot of Fosses, but there is some speculation. Ultan prophesied that Gertrude would die on 17 March, the very next day, and also the feast day of Saint Patrick. Furthermore, Ultan prophesied that "she may pass joyously because blessed Bishop Patrick with the chosen angels of God... are prepared to receive her." True to the prophecy, Gertrude died the next day after praying all night and taking communion. Shortly after her death, the monk Rinchinus as well as the author of the Vita noticed a pleasant odor in cell with her body.
  Just before her death in 659, Gertrude instructed the nuns at Nivelles to bury her in an old veil left behind by a traveling pilgrim and Gertrude's own hair shirt. She died in poverty, 17 March 659, at the age, we are told, of thirty-three years.
  Gertrude's choice of burial clothing is a pattern in medieval hagiography as an expression of humility and piety. Her death and the image of her weak and humble figure is, in fact, a critical point in her biographer's narrative. Her monastery also benefitted from this portrayal because the haircloth and veil in which Gertrude was interred became relics. Bonnie Effros contends that identification with tombs like Gertrude's signaled higher privilege and prestige within the church. Tombs covered with cloths often functioned as altars for those who had access to them. At Nivelles, her relics were only publicly displayed for feast days, Easter, and other holy days.
caption: Nivelles (Belgium), the Saint Gertrude of Nivelles statue
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