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Giving it away · TREBNITZ, Silesia, 1203 AD

Condemned men built St. Hedwig's convent instead of being executed

She also gave away about four hundred farms meant to support her if her husband died, and the new house was given enough to feed a thousand people.

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Saint Hedwig of Silesia
A medieval manuscript illumination in two scenes: at left, a haloed woman in blue points as she speaks to a crowned, bearded duke holding a shield, surrounded by attendants; at right, masons and carpenters work atop the brick walls of a church under construction, with a crane lifting materials to the roof.
Saint Hedwig of Silesia and Duke Henry I found the convent at Trebnitz, with its walls going up on the right. The picture was painted by hand in a book in the 1300s AD.

TREBNITZ, Silesia, 1203 AD — A new convent was going up at Trebnitz. While its walls rose, Saint Hedwig of Silesia let no one sentenced to death in the duke’s courts be executed. Each condemned man worked on the building instead. The worse his crime, the longer or harder he worked.

It was 1202 or 1203 AD, and this was the first convent for women in Silesia. Silesia was a land ruled by a duke, in what is now south-western Poland. Trebnitz was a short way north of its capital, Breslau.

St. Hedwig believed that saving souls was among the greatest works of mercy. So she kept urging her husband, Duke Henry, until he built the convent. Duke Henry paid for it out of his own money. He hoped that at the Last Judgment he would hear the words Christ speaks in the Gospel of Matthew: “I was a stranger, and you took me in.”

Four hundred farms

St. Hedwig was married to Henry in 1186 AD, when she was twelve. The marriage was her parents’ choice, not hers. At the wedding, land was set aside for her out of her husband’s estate. That land, her dower, was meant to give her a living if Henry died before her. In 1201 AD Henry became Duke of Silesia, and she became duchess.

St. Hedwig’s dower was an estate called Sauon. It had about four hundred farms on the best land, with the villages around them. She gave every bit of it to Trebnitz.

Duke Henry gave the nuns the town of Trebnitz and a long list of villages to keep for good. The nuns also got the payments the people there owed. St. Hedwig’s dower gave her a right to be supported by those lands too, if Henry died before her. She gave up that right as well.

All that land meant the convent had enough to feed and house a thousand people. It could also take in guests for as long as it stood. But the thousand were not all going to be nuns. At the start there were a hundred nuns. The rest were girls whose families had fallen on hard times. They were to grow up at Trebnitz and then be given money to marry. Or, if they chose, they were free to take vows as nuns.

A teacher in a new colour

St. Hedwig sent home to Germany for the nuns. Her brother, Bishop Ekbert of Bamberg, chose them from his own city and diocese. St. Hedwig agreed to his choice.

Their abbess was Petrussa, a German who had taught St. Hedwig at Kitzingen. Petrussa had been a Benedictine nun there, dressed in that order’s black habit. She changed it for the white habit of the Cistercians. That way she could lead the new nuns to a distant country none of them knew.

On January 13, 1203 AD, the bishop of Breslau gave the nuns from Bamberg their new home at Trebnitz. Petrussa led them as their abbess.

About this story

Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.

The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.

Junior Report. Written for readers ten to twelve, from the same sources and under the same rules as the rest of the paper. The words are shorter, hard terms are explained, and the question at the end is for the reader to think over.

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Image. Unknown Silesian illuminator, Saint Hedwig and the New Convent (Hedwig Codex, Ms. Ludwig XI 7, fol. 56); digital image J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles — see the original.

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Sources for this story

Listed by paragraph.

  1. Paragraph 1
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VI, p. 544 ¶5
    • attested Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hedwig, ¶10
    • attested Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, vol. 10 (October) — "St. Hetwiges, duchess of Poland, widow", 17 October, p. 493, SAINT HEDWIGES, OR AVOICE, DUCHESS, p. 496 ¶14
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, DIE DECIMASEPTIMA OCTOBRIS., p. 207 ¶18
  2. Paragraph 2
  3. Paragraph 3
  4. Paragraph 4
  5. Paragraph 5
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VI, p. 544 ¶5
    • attested Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hedwig, ¶11
  6. Paragraph 6
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, Commentarius praevius, p. 207 §41
    • attested Klemens Löffler, Catholic Encyclopedia: Trebnitz, ¶9
  7. Paragraph 7
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VI, p. 544 ¶5
    • attested Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, vol. 10 (October) — "St. Hetwiges, duchess of Poland, widow", 17 October, p. 493, SAINT HEDWIGES, OR AVOICE, DUCHESS, p. 496 ¶14
  8. Paragraph 8
  9. Paragraph 9
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, DE S. HEDWIGE VIDUA., p. 208 ¶6
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, Commentarius praevius, p. 207 §41
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VITA SANCTAE HELWIGIS, p. 516 ¶3
    • attested Klemens Löffler, Catholic Encyclopedia: Trebnitz, ¶9
    • attested Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hedwig, ¶10
  10. Paragraph 10
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VI, p. 544 ¶9
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VI, p. 544 ¶5
    • attested Johann Peter Kirsch, Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Hedwig, ¶10
    • attested Klemens Löffler, Catholic Encyclopedia: Trebnitz, ¶9
    • attested Parish of St. Bartholomew and St. Hedwig, Trzebnica (basilica parish), Historia — Parafia Św. Bartłomieja Apostoła i Św. Jadwigi w Trzebnicy, ¶36
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, DE S. HEDWIGE VIDUA., p. 208 ¶6
    • attested Societas Bollandiana; the Vita by an anonymous cleric writing about 1300 from the canonization process, Acta Sanctorum Octobris, Tomus Octavus (days 17–20 October) — "Hedwigis, vidua ducissa Silesiae", pp. 198–267: Commentarius praevius, the Vita (Legenda maior), genealogical tables, the miracles, the canonization and the translation of her body, Commentarius praevius, p. 207 §41
    • attested August Bielowski (ed.); the Vita edited by Aleksander Semkowicz, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, tom IV — "Vita sanctae Hedwigis ducissae Silesiae (Vita maior, vita minor, genealogia)", pp. 501–655, and the Silesian annals in the same volume, VITA SANCTAE HELWIGIS, p. 516 ¶3

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