Oda of Rivreulle

Born of an illustrious family of Brabant, she wanted the convent; her father refused it and arranged a marriage with a young noble named Simon. On the day, the priest questioned Simon, who consented; then he questioned her. She was silent at first, they pressed her, and she refused before the assembly — “No, not at all” —, having promised herself since childhood. Simon fled on horseback. Her parents hunted for her in fury; taking refuge in her mother's chamber, she seized a sword hanging on the wall and cut off her nose — not to bend her father, but to discourage every suitor her beauty would draw after Simon. She entered the Premonstratensian house of Rivreulle, a dependency of the abbey of Bonne-Espérance in Hainaut, and despite her youth soon became its prioress. She died after six months of a disease of the lungs, on an Easter Sunday, after vespers, surrounded by her sisters and her abbot — on 20 April 1158, which is why her feast falls then. That abbot was Philip of Harvengt, who had an epistolary quarrel with Bernard of Clairvaux; it was her sisters who asked him to write her life. The account of her ruined face therefore comes from her superior, present at her deathbed.