Yvette of Huy

Infobox Saint
name= Saint Yvette of Huy
birth_date=1158
death_date=13 January 1228
feast_day=
venerated_in= Roman Catholic Church


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birth_place= Huy, Belgium
death_place= Huy, Belgium
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patronage=brides, large families, and widows
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Yvette of Huy , or simply Yvette (1158–13 January 1228) was a venerated Christian prophetess and anchoress. Born in Huy, Belgium, she was also known as "Ivetta, Jufta or Jutta of Huy".

Life

She was born into a wealthy but not particularly religious family and from an early age tried to live a religious life from her home. Yvette was forced into an arranged marriage aged thirteen and had three children before she was widowed at eighteen. She used the opportunity to retire to a leper colony on the river Meuse to tend to the inmates, and more fully practise a religious life.

She left her three sons in the care of their grandfather. Ten years later, she became an anchoress and was enclosed in a chapel cell near the colony in a ceremony conducted by the abbot of Orval. From there she offered guidance to pilgrims who considered her a prophetess in the apostolic sense of having insight into the divine. She summoned priests and even the dean of the local church to her presence and confronted them about their behavior. She was responsible for the conversion of her father and one of her two surviving sons. Yvette died on 13 January 1228 in Huy, Belgium.

Her life was recorded by the Premonstratensian Hugh of Floreffe.

References

* [http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/yvette.php Yvette] Brief Biography at the Brooklyn Museum Dinner Party database of notable women. Accessed December 2007
* [http://www.catholicforum.com/saints/sainti20.htm Ivetta of Huy] At Catholic Forum, Accessed December 2007
*"Lives of the Anchoresses , The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe", Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker. Myra Heerspink Scholz, Translator. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2005 [http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/14149.html Extract]
*"Anchoresses of Thirteenth-century Europe- The Lives of Yvette of Huy by Hugh of Floreffe And Margaret the Lame of Magdeburg by John of Magdeburg. Editor: A. B. Mulder-Bakker. Publisher: Brepols.
*"Butler's Lives of the Saints" By Alban Butler, David Hugh Farmer, Paul Burns. Published 1997 Continuum International Publishing Group [http://books.google.com/books?id=z6gVpEhXFhUC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=1158+1228+huy&source=web&ots=zFvAJp1pgG&sig=MkDp2U3rNYuUE1tZDKl-tgeNZXI Extract] ISBN 0860122506