Information on Margaret comes from a biography, The Life of Margaret Ypres by Thomas of Cantimpré written in 1240.Thomas de Cantimpré, The Life of Margaret Ypres, Margot H. King, trans., Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 1990. Margaret was born in Ypres into a well-off middle class family. Her father died when she was four and Margaret, with her mother and three sisters, went to live with an uncle. She showed a predilection for a holy life from a young age. While attending a local convent school, she smelled a wonderful odor on first beholding the host and begged the Abbess to be allowed to partake of the Eucharist with the nuns. From the age of seven she began severe fasting and practiced self-mortification by stuffing stinging nettles and burrs down the front of her dress. By age ten she was tearing her flesh with thorns to experience the torment of Christ.
