A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Adelviva
St. Adelviva, Jan. 25 (Adelwiff, Adunalif, Adunaliva, Ethelvive). 1048. Mother of St. Poppo, abbot She married Tizekin, a valiant warrior of Flanders. Her son was a seven-months' child, and such a poor little specimen of humanity that he would have died as soon as he was born had not his pious grandmother, by direction of God, or at least of the common sense with which He had endowed her, wrapped him in a very soft woollen cloth, and taken great care of him until he had attained the size and strength of other babies. Towards the end of the 10th century, Tizekin was killed at Hasbain, in Brabant, in a war between Arnulf, count of Flanders, and the sons of Ragner, or Regnier, the Long-necked, count of Mons and Valenciennes. Adelviva was left a young widow. Poppo, like other lads of his rank, went to the wars as soon as he was old enough. He had not long been a soldier when he joined some monks in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After his return, he persuaded his mother to take the veil. According to Menard, she lived for some time in a nunnery at Verdun; and afterwards in a cell adjoining the monastery of St. Vitus, in the same town, for it was an ancient custom, long continued in the Order of St. Benedict, that, attached to a monastery of men, were a few cells, called clusas, or inclusoria, in which one or more nuns might live. They were under the rule of the abbot, and none but he had access to them. Her miracles began before she had retired from secular life. She relighted an extinguished candle by merely taking it in her hand while she was at her prayers. While she prayed at the tomb of St. Cyricus, he and St. Amandus of Utrecht and many other saints appeared to her. Poppo became abbot of Stavelo, a monastery founded by St. Remacle, in the 7th century. A contemporary Life of St. Poppo, by Everhelm, abbot of Haumont, is preserved by Mabillon, AA.SS., O.S.B. Mézeray, Hist. de France. Ruinart, Acta. Saussaye, Mart. Gallicanum, calls Adelviva "Saint." Bucelinus and Menard say "Blessed."