Hathumod

Hathumoda (840 – November 874) was a Saxon noblewoman who became the first abbess of Gandersheim. Her family, the Liudolfings, founded the Gandersheim Abbey, and she was cloistered since childhood. After she died in an epidemic, there was an unsuccessful attempt to promote her as a saint. ==Origin and childhood== Hathumoda was born in 840. Her parents were Count Liudolf of Saxony and the Frankish noblewoman Oda. Hathumoda's family, the Liudolfings, were rich and powerful. Their ancestors had only recently been converted to Christianity, which may explain Hathumoda's name (spelt variously as Hathamod, Hathemod, Hadamot, or Hadamout in Germanic sources), meaning "battle courage", unusual for a Christian woman. Oda's mother, Aeda, may have been the abbess of the Herford Abbey, the oldest women's monastery in Saxony. Herford Abbey followed the Benedictine rule, and Hathumoda was sent to be educated there as a child.

Liudolf and Oda decided to found a new religious community for women on their allodial lands at Gandersheim, with Hathumoda as its abbess, and they travelled to Rome to gain Pope Sergius II's permission. Sergius consented and sent the couple back to Saxony with the relics of Popes Anastasius I and Innocent I. ==Abbacy== Hathumoda was installed as Gandersheim's first abbess in 852 when she reached the canonical age of 12. The construction of the present-day Gandersheim Abbey began in 856 but was not completed in Hathumoda's lifetime. Instead, Hathumoda and her community lived near her family's seat at Brunshausen in a temporary compound next to a Benedictine monastery. Hathumoda never left her convent and was eventually joined by as many as five of her sisters.