Imma, Bl.
IMMA, BL.
Known also as Emma, Imina, Immina, Benedictine abbess; d. c. 750. According to a 12th-century life of St. burchard, Bp. of Würzburg, she was the daughter of Hetan II, Duke of Thuringia, who built a church on the Burgberg (known later as Marienburg) that dominated the city of Würzburg. Here Imma established a Benedictine monastery that she later gave to Burchard in exchange for a location at Karlsburg-on-Main (Karlstadt) a few miles north. Her burial there is noted in a 9th-century martyrology. After the destruction of this house in 1236, her relics were transferred on October 27 of that year to the choir of the cathedral in Würzburg. Exhumed in 1700 to be placed in a new reliquary, they disappeared. The village of Himmelstadt (Imminestat given in 840 by Louis I the Pious to the bishopric of Würzburg) is named for Bl. Imma.
Feast: Nov. 25 or Dec. 10.
Bibliography: Acta Santorum Oct. 6:584–585. j. mabillon, Annales ordinis S. Benedicti, 6 v. (Lucca 1739–45) 2:138–139. w. schatz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:629.
[w. e. wilkie]