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Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!
You asked about the suitability of the name <Kudrun the Pilgrim> as a pseudonym for a German nun in England in 1268.
First, thank you for the extensive documentation; it's always a pleasure to deal with knowledgeable clients. (In case others draw on your research abilities, however, I should tell you that Charlotte Yonge's _History of Christian Names_ is not considered acceptable documentation by Laurel, owing to its unreliability.)
Your question raises three issues in respect of the given name:
(1) Was some form of the name in actual use in the area around Mainz in the early 13th century?
(2) If not, is it plausible that your persona would have used a purely literary name as an alias?
(3) In either case, what form would the name most likely have taken?
We don't know enough to answer (2) with any confidence, though we suspect that it would not be plausible. Fortunately, it seems likely that the name (in some form) was in use in southern Germany in the 13th century. According to Socin (571ff), medieval use of names from the Heldensagen was quite common in the 8th, 9th, 12th, and 13th centuries, especially in Bavaria. Indeed, he has Bavarian citations for <Chutrun> from the 9th century and <Gudrun> c.1100. This leaves us with the question of form.
According to Gillespie, the most common manuscript form of the name is <Chaudrun>; <Chautrun> occurs 18 times, and there's an assortment of minor variants. These forms appear to be generally consistent with 13th century Bavarian dialect and orthography, though if the <au> spelling of Middle High German long <u> goes back to the 13th century original, it's an early example. At your date <Chutrun>, <Chudrun>, <Kutrun>, and <Kudrun> all appear to be well within the range of possible Upper German dialect forms of <Gudrun>.
On the other hand, if your persona is from Mainz, her native dialect is probably some form of Rhenish Franconian. In Rhenish Franconian initial /g/ remains /g/ and /d/ remains /d/ (Robinson, 244). In her own dialect, then, the name would probably be <Gudrun>. Her use of <Kudrun> would probably be more plausible if she had some sort of Bavarian connection. (As you've doubtless recognized, this is all educated guesswork on my part. You would need a genuine expert in Middle High German dialectology to get a much more definite answer.)
Since your persona is now living in Heidelberg, a German form of the byname seems most appropriate for registration. There are many forms from which to choose. Some of the variety may result from confusion of the given name <Peregrinus> with the Old High German <Biligrim> (Socin, 76f). At any rate, Brechenmacher s.n. Bilger gives <bilgerim> as the normalized Middle High German form of modern German <Pilger> 'pilgrim', citing <Wernherus dictus Bilgerin> 1209. Bahlow s.n. Pehlgrimm adds <Lude Pelegrim> 1317 from the north of Germany, and Schwarz s.n. Pilgrim has <Hartmann Pilgerim> 1337 from Moravia. Schwarz also gives the Middle High German word as <pilgerim> or <pilgerin>. Socin (409) cites <Heinricus dictus Bilgerin> 1295. On this limited byname evidence <Bilgerin> seems to be the best-attested form for your time and place.
Unfortunately, this raises a mildly vexing question. It appears from examples given by Socin that women's bynames of this general type were usually feminized by the addition of the suffix <-in>, e.g., <Hemma dicta Tu'velbetzin> 1297 'called (female) Devil-bear'. (The <u'> represents a <u> with a short vertical stroke directly above it, an early form of u-umlaut.) The form <Bilgerinin> looks a bit awkward, and it's conceivable that the <-in> in the underlying noun would have discouraged the addition of the feminine suffix, but we have no evidence for this. In the absence of any examples of women bearing this byname, we recommend following what seems to have been the normal practice and making it <Bilgerinin>. The final <i> in <Bilgerin> is long, so <Bilgerinin> would have primary stress on the first syllable and secondary stress on the third.
Finally, the Middle High German definite article was <diu> in the feminine singular nominative case, making the whole thing <Kudrun diu Bilgerinin>.
We hope that this has been useful. We would be glad to try to answer any further questions that you might have, though we suspect that to go much further you'd have to find a real expert in the field.
For the Academy,
Talan Gwynek
Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der Deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn: C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-60).
Gillespie, George T., _A Catalogue of Persons Names in German Heroic Literature (700-1600)_ (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1973).
Robinson, Orrin W., _Old English and Its Closest Relatives_ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).]
Socin, Adolf, _Mittelhochdeutsches Namenbuch_ (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1966 [1903]).
Schwarz, Ernst, _Sudetendeutsche Familiennamen aus vorhussitischer Zeit) (Koeln: Blehlau Verlag, 1957).