ABSTRACT
Bridget of Sweden (1302 or 1303–1373) was a devout noblewoman who, before she was widowed, spent much time at the Swedish court attempting to influence King Magnus and his French wife Blanche by her own example and her constant exhortations to moral reformation. A mother of eight, after her husband’s death in 1344 she started to experience visions which led her to found a religious order dedicated to the Virgin, whose apotheosis Bridget took to new heights. The Order of the Most Holy Saviour was a double order for nuns and monks, ruled by an abbess; Bridget’s own daughter Katherine presided over both the men and women in the mother house at Vadstena in Sweden.
