| Dimpna |
Irish princess (ca 600); she fled for her father who wanted to marry her after the death of her mother. She went to Flanders with a priest of her father's court, named Gerebernus. Her father followed them, and, hysterical and insane with anger, he killed them.
Dimpna was (and is) patron saint of Geel, of the mentally ill and epileptic. Her relics and those of Gerebernus are kept in Dimpnakerk and the Dimpna- en Gasthuismuseum in Geel.
A sequentia Hec in die grex noster is preserved in the 16th-century B-GEELdgm Graduale of the Dimpnakerk, added on the last folium. The same sequence, but with the opening words Laudes Dimpne plebs nostra decantat pie alleluia is written in one of the vitae preserved in the museum. Though both versions are used in the same church and written in more or less the same period, there are some differences in text and music. The sequence is also preserved in B-Br 9786-9790 (AH 37, nr 180).
An office for Dimpna is (partly)
preserved on some loose folia (AH 25, nr 86).
Two hymns
are mentioned in AH vol 23: nr 273 Vocis erumpat
puritas for vespers and matins, and nr. 274 Sion in portis
filiae for lauds. The first is written in the margin next to the
antiphons of first vespers of the office, the second one is now lost, together with part of the office.
In AH some pia dictamina to Dimpna are edited according to Wien, Familien-Fidei-Kommiss-Bibl. 7977, now Wien, ÖNB SN 12908 (Persoons nr 220, p.91) (see AH vol 15, nr 175, and vol 33 nr. 91), and according to the Vita S. Dimpnae (AH vol. 33 nrs 89 and 90).
A Mass (no proper chants) is in B-TONGLna V 326.
 | De Loos: Saints in Brabant, pp. 20-25 and 36-37 |