{{Short description|Anglo-Saxon nun and hagiographer}} thumb|Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 1086, folio 71v, includes the cipher with Hygeburg's name.
'''Hygeburg''' (''floruit'' 760–780), also '''Hugeburc''', '''Hugeberc''', '''Huneberc''' or '''Huneburc''', was an Anglo-Saxon nun and hagiographer at the Alemannian monastery of Heidenheim. She is "the first known Englishwoman to have written a full-length literary work"<ref name=ODNB>{{ODNB|title=Hugeburc|author=Carolyne Larrington|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/49413}}</ref> and "the only woman author of a saint's life from the Carolingian period".<ref name=SoC>Huneberc of Heidenheim (C. H. Talbot, trans.), "The Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald", in Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head, eds., ''Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), pp. 141–42.</ref>
Heidenheim was founded as a monastery for monks in 752 by Wynnebald, an Anglo-Saxon from Wessex.<ref name=ODNB/> On his death in 761, his sister Walburg inherited it and converted it into a double monastery with the introduction of nuns.<ref name=ODNB/> Hygeburg was among those who came to Heidenheim immediately after Wynnebald's death.<ref name=ODNB/> Probably she had already been in Germany for some time, one of the nuns summoned by Boniface.<ref name=ODNB/>
Hygeburg was, in her own words, "a humble relative" of Wynnebald, Walburg and their brother, Willibald.<ref name=ODNB/> On Tuesday, 23 June 778, while he was visiting Heidenheim, Willibald dictated to Hygeburg an account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 720s<ref name=SoC/> or 730s.<ref name=ODNB/> She subsequently worked this account into a biography of Willibald,<ref name=ODNB/> called the ''Hodoeporicon'' ("relation of a voyage").<ref name=SoC/> (The conventional name ''Vita Willibaldi'', "Life of Willibald", was given to it by editors.<ref>Maribel Dietz, ''Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300–800'' (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), p. 209 n85.</ref>) From her choice of phrase and motif, she must have had access to the ''Carmen paschale'', the ''Vita Bonifatii'' and the riddles of Aldhelm.<ref name=ODNB/>
Although there was opposition to her writing within the convent, Walburg encouraged it. Hygeburg also wrote a biography of Wynnebald, the ''Vita Wynnebaldi''.<ref name=ODNB/><ref>{{Cite web |last=Heidenheim |first=Hugeburc of |title=Vita Wynnebaldi |url=https://www.tha.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost08/Hugeburc/hug_wynn.html |access-date=2025-08-28 |website=Bibliotheca Augustana |language=la}}</ref> Although her two works were a single project, completed by 780, they are textually distinct, indicating her use of oral reports and eyewitness testimony.<ref name=ODNB/> She was herself a witness to some of the post-mortem miracles she attributes to Wynnebald's intervention.<ref name=ODNB/>
The name of the nun who wrote the lives of Willibald and Wynnebald was not known until in 1931 Bernhard Bischoff discovered it in a cryptogram in the oldest manuscript (from c. 800).<ref name=ODNB/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Head, Pauline. “Who Is the Nun from Heidenheim?: A Study of Hugeburc’s ‘Vita Willibaldi.’” Medium Ævum 71, no. 1 (2002): 29–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/43630387. * Lapidge, M., "Hygeburg", in M. Lapidge et al., ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England.'' Blackwell, 1999. {{ISBN|0-631-22492-0}}
== External links == *Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (1891): ''[https://archive.org/details/cu31924028534257 The hodæporicon of Saint Willibald]'' (ca 754 AD) by Roswida * {{PASE|11773|Hygeburg 1}} * [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/willibald.html Huneberc of Heidenheim: The Hodoeporican of St. Willibald, 8th Century] at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook {{Medieval travelogues of Palestine}} {{Authority control}} Category:Anglo-Saxon nuns Category:Anglo-Saxon writers Category:8th-century women writers Category:8th-century English writers Category:8th-century English nuns Category:8th-century Christian nuns Category:8th-century writers in Latin Category:8th-century Frankish writers