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Ludgardis

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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(LUDGARIS, or LUTGARDIS), a celebrated thaumaturgist of the 12th century, was born about 1182. At the early age of twelve she entered the Benedictine convent of St. Trudo, and soon gave evidence of mystic tendencies. She claimed to have visions in which she held familiar converse with the Virgin Mary, the angels, John the Baptist and the apostles, St. Catharine, and a number of other saints. Once she stated she had seen St. John the evangelist in the form of a shining eagle, who, opening her mouth with his beak, filled her with divine wisdom. But Christ himself was generally the object of her ecstatic visions. After taking the veil in 1200, she was in 1205 appointed abbess of the convent. In 1206, by advice of John de Lirot and of St. Christine, she entered the convent of the Cistercians of Aquiric, near Brussels. Here her visions became still more striking and numerous: in her meditations on the sufferings of Christ her body became covered with blood, etc. She was also said to have worked a great number of miracles. She died June 16, 1246. Her biography was written by the Dominican Thomas Cantipratanus. See Alban Stolz, Legenden (Freib. 1856), volumr 2:1. c. — Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 8:511.