[1][2][3][4] Ida was born into a prosperous mercantile family in Nivelles, an important market town and pilgrimage destination in Brabant, a short distance to the south of Brussels.

She was aged only nine or sixteen (sources differ), and not wishing to marry she fled to a beguinage, a community of intentionally unmarried Godly women who lived in a shared community, but without taking vows or cutting themselves off from the world outside.

The beguinage community that took her in comprised seven women who lived near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in her home town.

[5] She reported numerous visions and other experiences by which she had been affected, and developing a particularly close relationship with the Virgin Mary.

[4] Goswin of Bossut wrote a biography of Ida of Nivelles shortly after her death.