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188 188 ST. RICTRUDE he was in a cheerful mood and well dis- posed towards his hostess, she asked him if he would give her leave to take for her own whatever in her house she most prized. The king thought she meant himself, and was quite ready to marry the beautiful young widow, so he gladly consented to her wish. To his disgust, she took a veil which Amandus had con- socrated for her and placed it on her own head. Clovis was very angry and abruptly left the table. In 646 she built a nunnery at Mar- chiennes, beside the monastery which her husband and Amandus had already built for men. Here she lived as abbess for forty years. Like St. Amelberga's and St. Sala- beroa's, all her children were saints. She had one son, St. Maurontus, a soldier, afterwards a priest and monk, and three daughters, St. Clotsend (2), St. Euse- BiA (5), and St. Adalasenda. After ruling her nuns for forty years, Eictrude placed the business and care of the community in younger hands and gave herself entirely to preparation for her holy death. Her chief festival is May 12, the anniversary of her death ; but various translations of her relics are commemorated on different days. The nunnery was abolished in 1028, and Rictrude's body was preserved there by the monks who kept possession of the place and its revenues. The contemporary accounts of her life having perished in the devastations of the Normans, Stephen, bishop of Li6ge, a man of great age and extra- ordinary sanctity, in 907 chose Hucbald, a pious and learned monk of St. Amand*s, to write the life of Eictrude from the traditions of the elders and from sundry other documents. This life is preserved in AA.SS.O.S.B. and in AA.SS, Baillet. Martin. Wilbert. Butler. St. Rictrude (2) Eichtruda or Eectrude, April 0, + c. 790. An English nun of the Order of St. Benedict. She and her sister Gisla were nuns at Canterbury, famous for their learning and piety ; they were disciples of Alcuin, who dedicated to them his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John. They were commemorated in the north of England. Menardus. Bucelinus. Ancient BriM Piety^ supplement. Smith and Waoe, Diet of Christian Biography^ says thej were daughters of Charlemagne. St. Ricwera, Eicoveba. St Ricza, EixA. St. Rieule, Eegula. St. Rigarda, Eichabda. St. Rikscha, Eixa. St. Rinna, M. with Pinna. St. Riparia or Eispabia, patron of a church in the neighbourhood of Brescia. Stadler. St. Ripsima or Ehipsime, Sept 29, Y. M. c. 301, one of the patrons of Armenia. She belonged to a religions community under St. Gaiana, at Rome. Her beauty having attracted the atten- tion of Diocletian, they all fled from Italy, about 300, and took refuge in Armenia, in the reign of Tiridates UL, son and successor of Chosroes. They built a house for themselves outside the walls of Valarshabad, the capital of the province of Ararat. When Tiridates saw Eipsima, he was no less struck by her beauty than Diocletian had been, and he had her brought to hiis palace. She escaped, but was pursued and murdered with Gktiana and thirty-three nuns, her companions. Divine vengeance fell upon Tiridates, for he was transformed into a wild boar and his people suffered divers plagues. At length it was revealed to the king's sister that these plagues had come upon them for their wickedness in rejecting Christianity and persecuting the servants of God. Si Gregory, called '^ the Illuminator," had been the friend of Tiridates, and had endeavoured, fourteen years before this time, to dissuade him £rom wor- shipping the goddess Anahid and to influence him to receive instead the faith of Christ. Tiridates, angry and obstinate, after putting his friend to various horrible tortures, cast him into a pit full of loathsome reptiles, where malefactors were thrown and left to die. Gregory was fed in the pit by a Christian woman, and remained there alive for several years, but the king's sister an- nounced that be must be brought back and restored to favour, as a condition of