Adela and Irmina

Infobox Saint
name=Saints Adela & Irmina
birth_date=unknown
death_date=735 and 716
feast_day=December 24
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Saint Adela (? - 735) and Saint Irmina (? - c. 716) were daughters of Dagobert II. Dagobert acceded to the throne of Austrasia at the age of seven, upon the death of Sigebert, but was quickly deposed. Dagobert fled to Ireland and returned to Metz in 673 and claimed the throne. During exile, he married an Anglo-Saxon princess named Matilda and had five children, with saints Adela and Irmina among them.

Both women were engaged to marriage to noblemen, but both became widows. Irmina was widowed before her marriage, and she founded a Benedictine convent at Horren in Trier. When a plague threatened her community, she gained the help of Saint Willibrord. When the pestilence passed by the convent, she gave Willibrord the lands for his abbey in Echternach.

Adela was married and had a child by her husband, Alberic. Alberic died within a few years of the marriage. Despite multiple marriage offers, she chose to take up holy orders as well. She founded the convent of Palatiolum in lands that were then undeveloped outside of Trier. The site later developed into the town of Pfalzel. She was the first abbess of this convent and died on December 24, 735.

The feast day for both convented sisters is December 24.

References

*Englebert, Omer. "The Lives of the Saints." Christopher and Anne Fremantle, trans. New York: Barns & Noble, 1998. "Nihil obstat" 1951.