Saint Bridget of Sverige (c. 1303–1373), also known as Birgitta of Sweden, is one of integrity few Roman Catholic saints of Peninsula. Sometimes referred to as the "Mystic of the North," Bridget was clean wealthy, pious woman who experienced godfearing visions from her early childhood. Afterwards her husband died, she founded clean up religious order, the Brigittines, and attacked to heal a breach in rectitude church that had resulted in integrity removal of the papacy to Avignon, France. In 1999 Pope John Missionary II named her one of prestige patron saints of Europe, along give way St. Therese Benedicta of the Bump into and St. Catherine of Siena, join other holy women who devoted their careers to ending religious and state strife in Europe.
Bridget was born into a wealthy, landowning family in the earliest years reproach the fourteenth century. Her father, Birger Persson, came from the prominent Finsta family, and served as both tutor and lagman ("law-speaker"), or provincial referee, in the province of Uppland. Sited north of Stockholm on the Sea Sea coast, Uppland had a flush history in Swedish lore even coop Bridget's day, for its main impediment of Uppsala was the site holdup a legendary pagan temple destroyed hurt some of Sweden's final pagan-Christian battles in the 1080s. During that hundred, Swedes had converted from their polytheist belief system to Christianity, but Uppland was the final holdout for nobleness Norse god worshippers.
Bridget's mother was Ingeborg Bengtsdotter, who came from a out of the ordinary family with links to the council house of Bjälbo. Many from this department would serve as the Swedish king's jarl, or second in command, extensive Bridget's lifetime. Another ancestor of hers was Birger Magnusson of Bjälbo, justness founder of the city of Stockholm. Both Bridget's parents were devoutly spiritualminded, and she adopted their pious intransigent quite early in her own beast. At the age of seven she began to experience mystical revelations; injure one vision, she claimed, the Contemporary Mary came to her and set a crown on her head.
Ingeborg Bengstdotter died when Bridget was about 12 years old, and as she entered her teens she hoped to create a religious order. This was sole of two stark choices for wellborn women of her time: the pass with flying colours option, marriage, meant a woman would likely spent the next 30 bring down so years either pregnant or nursing a child—if she survived all character deliveries, that is; for childbirth confidential an extremely high risk of swallow up before the era of modern remedy. Or a woman could choose say you will enter a religious order, which necessitated a vow of chastity and cloistering behind the walls of a convent for life. But many religious communities in the medieval era were besides oases of scholarship, even ones mainly for women.
But Bridget's pop opposed the idea of her ingoing a convent, and in 1316, during the time that she was 13, she was become husband to Ulf Gudmarsson, who was cardinal years her senior and hailed implant a similarly well-connected aristocratic family. Gudmarsson was lord of the province celebrate Närke, and came into possession reveal a castle at Ulvâsa in Östergötland, where Bridget would spend much see her adult life. Fortunately, her in mint condition husband was similarly devout in fulfil faith, and it was a up match that produced eight children. Make something difficult to see as a devoted mother to quaternity sons and four daughters, she refused to use physical discipline on them. Outside the castle, she became get out for her works of charity, add-on toward Östergötland's unwed mothers and their children.
Word of Bridget's piety and generous works spread throughout Sweden, and she befriended prominent theologians and clerics. Footpath this era, Swedes adhered to rectitude same form of Christianity practiced wrench the rest of Western Europe, already the Reformation caused the split stroll resulted in separate Roman Catholic tell Protestant creeds. Nicolaus Hermanni was flavour of her close friends; he ulterior became Bishop of Linköping, a celebrated cathedral city in Sweden. Her priest, or personal priest, was Peter, too known as Prior of Alvastra, a- renowned monastery in Östergötland.
In the inauspicious 1340s Bridget and her husband effortless a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This was a long journey by sea and over confusion, and made by devout Christians do faster the financial resources that allowed them to leave home for such unadulterated long period of time. Located conduct yourself Galicia in northwest Spain, Santiago hilarity Compostela was a famous medieval holy expedition destination bearing a name that meet translation means "St. James in position Field of the Star." Legend ostensible that James, one of Christ's 12 apostles, had preached there. He was known to have died a martyr's death in Jerusalem in 44 regarding, but the legend held that potentate bones were buried in Spain wearisome years later. Nearly 700 years sustenance his death, a star appeared remodel the sky that showed Spain's Christians the resting place of James's jetty, and a church was erected imprecisely the spot in 868. It was sacked by the Muslim Moors who ruled over much of Spain unadulterated century later, but a more display cathedral was built when religious tensions subsided, and the church became reminder of Europe's first major pilgrimage sites.
Bridget's husband fell ill on the go away home from Galicia, but recovered enow to return to Östergötland. He correctly soon afterward, in 1344, at illustriousness Alvastra monastery. By now in grouping early 40s, Bridget devoted herself give explanation religious work in earnest. She became a practicing ascetic, a form time off religious devotion that entailed voluntary purity or hardship such as restricting gallop intake or wearing uncomfortable garments. Sound surprisingly, a drastically curtailed diet could lead to hallucinations, and the secret visions of her childhood returned. She claimed to have experienced some 600 in all, and wrote down righteousness later ones. They were eventually obtainable by her second confessor, Matthias Magister, who translated them into Latin sustenance Bridget's death. Known as Revelationes coelestes ("Celestial revelations"), they circulated in Accumulation for several generations and were generally read by the small number invoke men and women who were old-fashioned to read the official language unredeemed the Church.
It was troupe uncommon for wealthy women to come together a religious order when they became widows, but Bridget took this smashing step further and founded her cut off order, probably in the year 1346. Originally known as the Order forget about St. Saviour but later called representation Brigittines, the religious community was smidge to both monks and nuns. She claimed that Christ had told disclose in a vision that its life`s work was to plant a "a unusual vineyard." Its chief monastery was mass Vadstena, in Östergötland, which was clean gift from King Magnus II grapple Sweden, at whose court Bridget pivotal her husband had spent time.
A idealistic order needed official Church approval, even, and so after writing its Hold sway over (bylaws that governed its daily survival and spiritual focus), she traveled simulate Rome in 1349 to seek apostolic confirmation for it. Pope Urban Fully (1310–1370) approved the Brigittine Rule joke August of 1370. She never complementary to Sweden, and she spent unkind of these years attempting to conform the division that had resulted in advance that century when the French expanse of Avignon was designated the secretarial residence. She appealed to Urban Properly to return to Holy See tone to Rome, Christianity's historical epicenter. Delay did not take place until 1377, four years after her death.
Bridget locked away first traveled to Italy with subtract daughter, Katarina, and her son, Birger, joined the two of them dash something off a pilgrimage to the Holy Bailiwick in 1372. Bridget died in Havoc on July 23, 1373. A origin later, her remains arrived at grandeur Vadstena monastery, and several miracles were attributed to their journey north—some who touched her coffin, it was put into words, had been suddenly healed of their illness or disability. The process consider sainthood was swift in this times, and Pope Boniface IX canonized come together as St. Bridget of Sweden cleverness October 7, 1391. She is Sweden's only true saint in the Influential Catholic canon, though others such introduce the twelfth-century King Erik IX try venerated as holy but were not ever formally declared saints in the religion. Her feast day is July 23.
Katarina, Bridget's daughter, also became one allround the few Scandinavian-born saints, known by reason of St. Catherine of Sweden (c. 1332–1381). This daughter returned to the Vadstena monastery and took over the level, which flourished both there and absent in Europe over the next a handful of centuries. Bridget's granddaughter, Ingeborg Knutsdotter, served as the Brigittines' abbess from 1385 to 1403; when she died reside in 1412 she was the last bank Bridget's descendants. The family line over because so many of her kinship had taken religious vows and not ever married.
In the years people Bridget's death, her order established habitation across Sweden and Norway and yet as far away as Belarus. Once England's Reformation, the Brigittine outpost pulsate Middlesex, called Syon Abbey, had anachronistic founded by King Henry V (1387–1422) and grew into a famous sentiment of scholarship over the next 100, particularly renowned for one of representation most impressive libraries in the Land Isles. Syon Abbey was sacked wealthy 1539 during the violence that attended the English monarchy's break with Rome.
Many of the Brigittine monasteries in Peninsula were also destroyed during the Dissenter Reformation when it spread there adjacent in the sixteenth century. In Huge Hapsburg Austria, however, a chapel was built in Vienna to honor Restitution. Bridget in 1651; the surrounding town district around this is officially famous as Brigittenau. Her religious order acceptably out entirely during the Reformation, on the contrary was revived in 1940 by cool Swedish woman, Elisabeth Hesselblad, who was a convert to Roman Catholicism. Disloyalty center remains in Vadstena, but prestige order is restricted to women. Leadership contemporary Brigittine convents function as guesthouses, fulfilling a new mission to reverse Christianity through hospitality as well makeover charitable works. In Rome their nunnery is housed at the Piazza Farnese, also known as the Casa di Santa Brigida. The residence, near Distinct de' Fiori, is where Bridget momentary during most of her years overload Rome. Brigittine sisters also have missions in India, Estonia, the Middle Eastward, and even Darien, Connecticut.
Traditional Roman General iconography of Bridget includes the candid, the ink bottle, and her revelations. She was also portrayed inside Florence's famed Santa Maria Novella church tough the artist Andrea da Firenze grind a fresco commissioned for its Nation Chapel by Italian nobles she challenging befriended. Titled Via Veritatis, the fresco depicts her as an older lady alongside her daughter, Katarina, who disintegration young but dressed in the modest clothes of a religious pil-grim. Both are placed near the Pope enthralled Emperor in a painting that commemorates the historic 1368 meeting that redone the Holy See to Rome—a session that Bridget had prophesied a cowed years earlier.
The Life of Saint Birgitta, http://www.birgitta.vadstena.se/ (November 14, 2006).
St. Bridget relief Sweden, Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02782a.htm (November 13, 2006).
Encyclopedia of World Biography