When young Ida of Nivelles fled her home to escape an unwanted marriage, she slipped out of a window, taking only her psalter, and found refuge among the local beguines living next to the hospital of St. Sépulchre. While living there, Ida often participated in the nursing care that beguines in the region provided. She gathered clothing, footwear, food, and ‘other necessary edibles’ (‘caetera esui necessaria’) from residents of Nivelles to distribute to the poor and sick in the hospitals of St. Sépulchre and St. Nicholas. While occupied in these endeavours, a patient at St. Nicholas called Ida over to her bed in order to test her motivation for this constant caretaking. She asked Ida to beg in the streets on her behalf to determine whether she aided the sick ‘purely for God's sake’ or for ‘flattery and show?’ Ida quickly responded to this entreaty, insisting that she did not wish the sick woman to remain indigent (‘sustineas indigentiam’). As a result, the hospital patient was convinced of Ida's genuine desire to serve the sick and dying.

As this story indicates, the thirteenth-century Life of Ida of Nivelles renders in pious terms her labour to provide nursing services. Tales of Ida’s caregiving contributed to her reputation as a ‘ready handmaid of Christ’ (‘statim ancilla Christi’). This hagiographic process suggests how the health agency of religious women (‘mulieres religiosae’) was encoded in other social norms. Ida's identity as an efficacious bedside healer was conveyed through her gendered connotation as a compassionate handmaid.