1. Saint Walpurga was born in Dumnonia, roughly corresponding to modern Devon, during the period it was becoming incorporated into Anglo Saxon England.
10 Facts About Saint Walpurga
1. 2.
Saint Walpurga was the daughter of Richard the Pilgrim, a likely Britonnic underking of the West Saxons, and of Wuna of Wessex, and had two brothers, Willibald and Winibald.
3.
Saint Walpurga had been there but a year when she received word that her father had died at Lucca.
4.
Saint Walpurga spent 26 years as a member of the community.
5.
Saint Walpurga then travelled with her brothers, Willibald and Winibald, to Francia to assist Boniface in evangelizing the still-pagan Germans.
6.
Saint Walpurga became a nun in the double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm, which was founded by Willibald.
7.
Saint Walpurga appointed her as his successor and following his death in 751, Walpurga became the abbess of the monastery.
8.
The earliest representation of Saint Walpurga is in the early 11th-century Hitda Codex, made in Cologne, and depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain.
9.
In other depictions, the object has been called a palm branch which is not correct, since Saint Walpurga was not martyred.
10.
Saint Walpurga is the patroness of Eichstatt and Weilburg, Germany; Oudenarde, Veurne, Antwerp, Belgium; Tiel, Groningen, Arnhem, Amby and Zutphen the Netherlands; and she is invoked as special patroness against hydrophobia, in storms, and by sailors.