[5] She behaved with charity and gentleness to all, accepting an arranged marriage as was the custom, but her husband and family turned out to be abusive.

[4] Every year, on the Sunday following 5 July, a procession celebrating Saint Godelieve takes place in Gistel.

A nobleman named Bertolf (Berthold) of Gistel, however, determined to marry her, successfully invoked the help of her father's overlord, Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, along with her parents.

[5] Hemfrid, appealing to the Bishops of Tournai and Soissons and the Count of Flanders, they concluded the marriage to be indissoluble and managed to have Bertolf restore Godelieve to her rightful position as his wife, which signaled a renewal of persecution.

[7] In July 1070, Godelieve returned to Gistel and soon after, at the order of Bertolf, was strangled by two servants and thrown into a pool,[a][4] causing it to appear she died a natural death.

[8] Godelieve's body was exhumed in 1084 by the Bishops of Tournai and Noyon, in the presence of Gertrude of Saxony, the wife of Robert I, Count of Flanders, the Abbot of St. Winnoc's and a number of clergymen.

[10] Drogo, a monk of St. Winnoc's Abbey, wrote Godelieve's biography, the Vita Godeliph, about ten years after her death.