read to them all was never found in the book either before or after. They then gave her a teacher and had her instructed. She was afflicted with a cancer in the kidneys, and was cured by prayer. Desiring more complete withdrawal from the world, she passed through barred doors and over high walls from this monastery to that of St. Clara, and thence to the guardianship of one of her own relations, where she practised great austerity and cured one of the brethren of St. Apollinaris, of the Order of Yallombrosa, of a dangerous and painful disease. She obtained from that community the privilege of having a small cell built for her adjoining their church and furnished with one little window looking into the church, that she might see and partake of the Holy Sacraments, and another on the outside through which she might receive the necessaries of life. She then took the religious vows and dress, and was formally inducted into her narrow abode by the abbot, and here she dwelt for twelve years. During part of that time a weasel with a bell round its neck came and kept her company, eating what she gave it, and keeping quiet during her prayers. At last it deposited its bell on the window-sill, and gazing long and affectionately at its mistress, departed, and was never seen again.
And now, her husband being no longer able to endure her absence, took himself to the same monastery, making over to it all her dowry, which she had left to him on their separation. Next to the superior, he looked up to his wife as prioress, and though he never saw her, he followed her advice in all things, and after three years of this life he died in peace.
Meanwhile, the fame of her sanctity attracted imitators, each of whom would fain have her cell close by that of St. Humility; but as this could not be, she was moved by the entreaties of bishops, abbots, and other holy and eminent persons, and notably by St. Pleban, of the Order of Vallombrosa, to build a convent for women. So she left her cell, and erected, at a place called Malta, near Faenza, a convent to the honour of the Mother of God, under the rule of St. Benedict, and became its abbess, with a vow of perpetual obedience to St. Pleban and his successors. Here, her reputation for holiness, her natural strength of character, her great charity, and her increasing gift of miracles, made her rule eminently successful. She died May 22 or 23, 1310, according to her Life by Guidici, in her eighty- fourth year. Bucelinus says she lived to be ninety-nine.
Oil having been seen to exude from her tomb, her body was taken up, magnificently adorned, and buried again with great honour. Miracles attended this first elevation, and continued to be wrought at her grave.
In after years, her monastery and the Church of St. John the Evangelist, which she built at Florence, having been destroyed for the defence of the city in time of war, nothing remained of the monastery but the well of St. Humility, whose waters were of special value in cases of fever. The body of the saint was translated to the choir of the church of the Convent of St. Salvius. She was canonized by Urban VIII., and her worship was revived with renewed honour and special devotion at Faenza, 1630.
AA.SS. She is commemorated May 23 in the Martyrology of the Order of Vallombrosa. A.R.M.
St. Hunegund, V., Aug. 25, in the French Martyrology Nov. 1. 7th century. Founder and patron of Homblières, in Vermandois, dép. de l'Aisne. Sometimes represented kneeling at the feet of the Pope.
Hunegund was born at Lembais or Lembaïde, an estate belonging to her parents, near the town of St. Quentin. St. Eloy, the friend of St. Bathilde, was her godfather. Being a considerable heiress, she was betrothed in her infancy to another child, who died in his cradle. When she came to marriageable age, she was again betrothed, to Eudaldus, a nobleman of the same country. It is not certain, from the somewhat contradictory accounts, whether the marriage took place, but Hunegund persuaded Eudaldus to take her to Rome before beginning their married life, that they might secure the
