Sister of Modoald, the future bishop of Trier. She was a wealthy heiress, and celebrated 'on account of her virtues, the extent of her lands and the number of her slaves.'141

The children left behind by Pippin I included Gertrude, who withdrew to the monastery of Nivelles with her mother, Itta, its foundress.141

The monk Amandus, an Aquitainian convert to Columbanian spirituality, was consecrated bishop after a pilgrimage to Rome, but did not receive a fixed episcopal see. In 640 he persuaded the widow of Pippin, Itta, to establish a monastery on her lands at Nivelles, with three small churches, whose remains were excavated between 1941 and 1953. One of these was dedicated to St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome, whose cult was beginning to develop in northern Gaul. Through Amandus, Itta entered into spiritual contact with the papacy and the Roman shrines of the apostles. Itta came to Nivelles with her 14 year old daughter Gertrude. In 652, on the death of her mother, Gertrude became abbess of Nivelles.141

Itta and her daughter, Gertrude, received Irish monks who arrived by way of Neustria, and her son, Grimoald gave them a domain 40 kilometers south of Nivelles at Brebona, later Fosses-la-Ville, near Namur. This foundation was still known as the Scots monastery in the 9th century, and it served as a base for the missionary monks who traversed northern Gaul.141