Saint Gisela, Abbess of Chelles

Gisela (757, Aachen, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany – 810–11, Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France, France) was a Frankish princess and abbess. There are also two variations of her name, which are Gisele and Giselle. She was the daughter of Pepin the Short and his wife Bertrada of Laon. She was the sister of Charlemagne and Carloman. Early in life Gisela was betrothed to Leo, son of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, but the contract was broken. There is also a brief mention of Gisela being betrothed to Adalgis, son of the Lombard king Desiderius in 770. It is likely that by this point she had been allowed to choose a life of religion for herself. Charlemagne's biographer Einhard states that Gisela had been dedicated to religion since her childhood. She became a nun at Chelles Abbey, where she was eventually made abbess. As the abbess at Chelles Abbey, Gisela oversaw one of the most prolific nuns' scriptoria active in the 8th and 9th centuries. While little is known about her education, there is suggestion she was well learned, for her correspondence with Alcuin was written and received in Latin. According to Einhard she had good relations with her brother Charlemagne, who "treated her with the same respect which he showed his mother." Alcuin was a close friend. Where he wrote personal poems for each of the king's [Charlemagne's] children, he also wrote one for Gisela, in which "Alcuin hailed her as a noble sister in the bond of sweet love, assuring her of her prayers of the brethren at Tours." Other correspondence which hints at a friendly relationship is a letter written to Gisela between 793 and 796, where he thanked her warmly for the gift of a hat. In September 798, he writes to her from his monastery at St. Loup de Troyes, where he laments that an acute fever has stopped him from travelling to see her. In this same letter, he thanks her for the gift of a cross, apparently made at her monastery, and he bade her farewell as a most beloved sister.