Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 03-21-08
Radegund /Radegunda /Radegundis
(520/5-587)
Baudonivia
(fl. 600-602)
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"DAUGHTERS, I CHOSE YOU."
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Radegund was born in Thuringia (an area of Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe). As a small child, she lived in the household of an uncle who had killed her king-father in battle over control of the area. When Clothar (also called Clotaire or Lothar), King of the Franks, conquered Thuringia in 531 (and killed most members of the royal house), he, then in his 40s, took the child Radegund and her only surviving brother as his share of the booty; Radegund was to be raised as his future wife, thus legitimizing his claim to Thuringia.
Radegund lived quietly in Picardy until 538, when she was married to Clothar. For over ten years they lived together but had no children. In 550 Clothar had her brother killed; shortly after that, Radegund fled his court. Although Clothar would make sporadic and unsuccessful attempts to bring Radegund back, he would support her financially until his own death in 561; afterwards, his four sons, among whom the kingdom had been divided, would do the same.
For a while Radegund lived at a villa at Saix; by the mid-550s, she had decided to found a monastery in the city of Poitiers. Clothar provided the land and the buildings, and an abbess at Arles provided a copy of a religious Rule for women that had been recently written by Caesarius, the Bishop of Arles.The monastery was established according to the Caesarian Rule, and Radegund entered it (perhaps after Clothar's death) not as abbess but as its "guiding spirit."
The courtier/poet Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) was an early visitor to the Poitiers monastery, and he became a close friend of Radegund and of her abbess, Agnes. The two poems that are attributed to Radegund are published with Fortunatus' works; although some scholars believe that he had written the poems in her voice and others believe that they are Radegund's alone, the consensus now seems to be that they are in fact collaborations between the two writers. Both poems, De excidio Thoringiae and Ad Artachis, are presented as letters to Radegund's surviving relatives, describing the loss of her family and homeland and the isolation she had known all of her life.
According to Gregory, bishop of Tours, Radegund, worried about what might happen to her monastery of about 200 nuns after her death, wrote (perhaps in the mid-560s) a letter to the bishops of her area asking (demanding?) that they and their successors prevent anyone from disturbing the nuns, changing the Rule, or alienating the monastery's property. One may question whether the two verse epistles are in fact Radegund's; with the prose letter, there seems little question --- the voice is definitely that of a strong queen.
Sometime after Radegund's death (probably after he became bishop of Poitiers in 590), Fortunatus wrote a courtier-like vita. Later, the nuns chose one of their own, Baudonivia, to complement his work. Baudonivia's memoir of Radegund, written between 600 and 602, has the full hagiographic set of miracles, but it also shows the foundress as only her fellow-nuns could have seen her --- dealing with her husband's quarreling sons and with recalcitrant bishops, acting as a spiritual guide to the women around her, and living the kind of religious life that Baudonivia could only hope would be continued in the future.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print.
Information on secondary sources.
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1. At Lina Eckenstein's book, Woman Under Monasticism (1896), link to the chapter, "St Radegund and the Nunnery at Poitiers." Although some of the information has been made outdated by later research, Radegund's story is clearly told, with Eckenstein's translation of the opening of Radegund's letter to the bishops, the first 70 lines of De excidio Thoringiae (in prose), and quotations and paraphrases of Baudonivia's vita. You can also link to the "next subsection" for an account of the nuns' revolt that followed Agnes' death (and preceded Baudonivia's vita).
2. Other essays with translations of Radegund and Baudonivia:
(a) A 1995 biography by Onnie Duvall includes brief quotations from De excidio Thoringiae and from the vita by Baudonivia, translated by Jo Ann McNamara and John E. Halborg.
(b) A 1996 essay by Steven Muhlberger on monasteries in the 500s; much of the essay is on Radegund and includes quotations from Baudonivia.
(c) The second half of Jennifer Linn Hamilton's 1994 essay on early women's monasticism deals with Radegund and quotes Baudonivia on the founder's ongoing connections with "the kings," in a translation by McNamara and Halborg.
3. In the original Latin:
(a) In Book 9 of Gregory's Historia Francorum, see Section 42 (near the bottom of the page) for Radegund's letter to the bishops (for a translation of part of the letter, see below, under "In print").
(b) Near the end of the text, Baudonivia's description of Radegund's destruction of a Frankish site dedicated to the older gods.
4. Venantius Fortunatus' vita of Radegund, translated by McNamara and Halborg; it is interesting to compare Fortunatus' focus (Radegund's austerities, which caused the comfort-loving courtier to "shudder") with that of Baudonivia (Radegund's political activities and her relationship to the other members of her community).
5. From Gregory of Tours:
(a) The abridged translation of Gregory's Historiae Francorum, made by Ernest Brehaut in 1916, does not include Radegund's letter to the bishops; however, in this collection of excerpts, see section 7 on the war in Thuringia; and on another page, sections 15 and 16 on the nuns' revolt after Radegund's death.
(b) Use your browser's search function to go to "Radegund" for several paragraphs that end with a passage from Gregory's Liber in gloria confessorum, describing the nuns' reaction to Radegund's death.
6. Essays:
(a) A biography of Radegund by Alex Perkins provides a useful introduction. (The miniature of Radegund and Clothar at table is an illumination from the manuscript described in # 8a below.)
(b) Two chapters from Suzanne Fonay Wemple's 1981 book, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900. First, the opening of "The Search for Spiritual Perfection and Freedom" describes women's monasticism in the 500s and translates excerpts from Fortunatus' Vita. Then, "Scholarship in Women's Communities," discusses the intellectual pursuits and influence of Merovingian nuns, including Radegund; here Wemple translates passages from Baudonivia and provides the original Latin in the notes.
(c) E.I. Watkin's 1952 essay on Radegund is perhaps most useful for what it tells us of the courtier Fortunatus and his relationship with the nuns of Poitiers.
7. Reviews (for more on the books' treatment of Radegund and Baudonivia, see under "Secondary sources"):
(a) Giselle de Nie on Isabel Moreira's 2000 study, Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul.
(b) Dawn Marie Hayes on John Kitchen's 1998 study, Saints' Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography.
(c) Constant Mews on the 1993 essay collection, Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre.
8. Radegund legends:
(a) It was Baudonivia's and Fortunatus' tales of Radegund's miracles that made her popular in later centuries. First, two miniatures from a manuscript of Fortunatus' Vita S. Radegundis, prepared in the later 1000s: expelling a demon from a possessed woman, and curing a blind woman.
(b) From another manuscript, an illumination showing Radegund, at top, asking the king to send men to ask the emperor for a relic of Jesus' cross; and at bottom, praying before the reliquary (according to Gregory, the oil lamp hanging above the reliquary never needed to be refilled).
(c) At the bottom of the page, an abstract for a 2004 conference paper by Jennifer C. Edwards, "Imag(in)ing the Saint: Visual and Textual 'Vitae' Devoted to Radegund in Poitiers 1050-1300," which suggests the ways different groups later made use of the illuminated stories of Radegund.
(d) Other legends, including Radegund's defeat of a dragon.
9. From the end of the 1000s manuscript described in # 8a above, a miniature of Baudonivia. Scholars believe that an illustrated copy of her vita of Radegund followed that of Fortunatus, but it is apparently lost. (For information on a 1990 article about the manuscript, see "Secondary sources.")
10. For historical background:
(a) At Wikipedia, a biography of Radegund's husband, Clothar I; you can link to information on the two of his sons that ruled Poitiers during Radegund's lifetime: Charibert, King of Paris, and Chilperic I.
(b) A 1990 essay by Jo Ann McNamara, "The Ordeal of Community: Hagiography and Discipline in Merovingian Convents," which describes what contemporary spiritual biographies reveal of life in women's monasteries in Gaul during the 500s and 600s; Baudonivia's vita is among the sources used.
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[This anthology contains translations, by Jo Ann McNamara and John Halborg (with the "critical attention" of E. Gordon Whatley), of Radegund's De excidio Thoringiae and the vitae of Fortunatus and of Baudonivia. It also includes a letter from Caesaria, abbess at Arles, giving Radegund advice on governing a monastery for women. The introductions to the translations are detailed; the whole book is a valuable aid to understanding a little-known period. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Sainted women of the Dark Ages / edited and translated by
Jo Ann McNamara and John E. Halborg with E. Gordon Whatley. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1992. (x, 340 p.: ill.)
LC#: BX4656 .S28 1992; ISBN: 0822312166, 082231200X
Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-333) and index.
---------------------
[Marcelle Thiebaux's anthology includes her prose translation of the poem Ad Artachis (not in McNamara & Halborg); Thiebaux also translates De excidio Thoringiae, Caesaria's letter, and selections from Baudonivia's vita. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The Writings of medieval women: an anthology / translations
and introductions by Marcelle Thiebaux (Garland library of medieval
literature; v. 100). 2nd ed. New York: Garland Pub., 1994. (xxvi,
536 p.)
LC#: PN667 .W75 1994; ISBN: 0815313926, 0815304099
Includes bibliographical references and index.
------------------------
[Lewis Thorpe's easily available translation of Gregory of Tour's Historia Francorum contains Radegund's letter sent to the area bishops (pp.535-548) and also an earlier letter to Radegund from seven bishops, allowing women of their dioceses to enter her monastery at Poitiers (pp.527-29). The book's detailed index makes it possible to trace the histories of Radegund, Clothar, and the later turbulent history of the monastery. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The history of the Franks / [by] Gregory of Tours; translated
[from the Latin] with an introduction by Lewis Thorpe (The Penguin
classics). Harmondsworth; Baltimore [etc.]: Penguin, 1974. (710
p.: geneal. tables, map; 18 cm.)
LC#: DC64 .G8 P46 1974; ISBN: 0140442952
Includes index. Bibliography: p. 56-58.
Radegund
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"What sailors dread would never make me quake."
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[From Radegund's De excidio Thoringiae, apparently written during the 560s, addressed to a cousin who had escaped the slaughter in Thuringia and who was now in the service of the emperor at Constantinople:]
If the monastery's sacred cloister did not keep me back,
I'd come unheralded to the region where you bide.
Swift would I pass by ship through tempest-tossed waves
Racing gladly through the gales of wintry water.
For love of you would I press more strongly through shifting
tides;
What sailors dread would never make my quake.
If the wave broke the keel in the perilous waters,
I would still seek you rowing on the surface of the sea.
If by unlucky chance, the planks refused to bear me,
I would come to you exhausted from swimming.
At sight of you, I would deny the journey's perils
For that would sweetly take the sorrow from the wreck. [McNamara
& Halborg, p.68]
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"...send frequent inquiries to my monastery, for news of
me."
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[From Ad Artachis. Radegund had heard that the cousin addressed in De excidio Thoringiae had died; she then wrote a verse epistle to a nephew who also loved the cousin. After 26 lines of mourning her cousin:]
Dear foster-child Artachis, why do I mention these things, adding your own weeping to mine? I ought instead to have offered a kinswoman's solace, but grief for the dead forces me to say bitter words. He was close to me---not bound by distant ties, but as a cousin, child of my father's brother....
You, at least, dear nephew Artachis, take the place of that gentle cousin, and be mine in affection as he once was. I beg you to send frequent inquiries to my monastery, for news of me.... [Thiebaux, p.101]
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"...how I could best forward the cause of other women."
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[From Radegund's letter to all area bishops. The tone is not quite that of the "humble and unworthy" nun addressing her "masters":]
Some time ago, when I found myself freed from earthly cares, with Divine Providence and with God's grace to inspire me, I turned of my own volition, under Christ's guidance, to the religious life. I asked myself, with all the ardor of which I am capable, how I could best forward the cause of other women, and how, if our Lord so willed, my own personal desires might be of advantage to my sisters.
Here in the town of Poitiers I founded a convent for nuns.... For the community which, with Christ to help me, I had myself assembled, I accepted the Rule in accordance with which Saint Caesaria had lived.... I appointed as Mother Superior the Lady Agnes, who became like a sister to me, and whom I have loved and brought up as if she were my daughter from her childhood onwards.... The other nuns and I followed the example of the Apostles in making over to her by deed whatever earthly property we possessed at the moment we entered the nunnery....
However, since the affairs of human beings are unpredictable, and because our times and our circumstances are always changing, for the world is running to its end and some people now prefer to follow their own desires rather than the dictates of God, while I am still alive, and in full devotion, in Christ's name and with God to guide me, I send to you, apostolic fathers, this document in which I have set out all my plans. [Thorpe, pp.533-36]
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"I conjure you... to ensure that no tyrant may stand in
my way."
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[The letter continues:]
...I conjure you, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and by the Day of Judgment, just as if I stood before you, to ensure that no tyrant may stand in my way, but that the rightful king may crown my wishes.
If perchance after my death any person whatsoever, either the bishop of this city, or some representative of the king, or any other individual, should attempt, in a spirit of malevolence or by some legal subterfuge, to disturb the community, or to break the Rule, or to appoint any Mother Superior other than Agnes...;
---or if the community should rise in revolt, which is surely impossible, and wish to make a change;
---or if any person, possible even the bishop of the diocese, should wish to claim, by some newfangled privilege, jurisdiction of any sort over the nunnery, or over the property of the nunnery, beyond that which earlier bishops, or anyone else, have exercised during my lifetime;
---or if any nun shall wish to break the Rule and go out into the world;
---or if any prince, or bishop, or person in power, or even individuals from among the nuns themselves, shall attempt with sacrilegious intent to diminish or to appropriate to his or her own personal possession any part or parcel of the property which our most noble Lothar and the most glorious kings his sons have bestowed upon me...,
may that person incur the wrath of God and that of your holiness and of all those who succeed you, and may all such persons be shut off from your grace as robbers and despoilers of the poor.... [p.536]
---------------------------------------------------
"... by God's will and by my own intent."
---------------------------------------------------
You, too, saintly Bishop, and those who come after you, whom I hasten to appoint as my patrons in God's cause, if any be found who shall try to act contrary to these my dispositions, which God forbid, do not be slow to make your appeal to the king who at that time shall rule over this place, or to the city of Poitiers, on behalf of this institution which is commended to your care before the Lord; and do not shrink from the vital labour of pursuing and defending the ends of justice: for only thus will you repel and confute the Enemy of God.
No Catholic king shall brook in any wise such infamy in his time, nor shall they permit to be torn down what has been builded up, by God's will and by my own intent and by the wishes of the several kings.... [p.537]
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"Just as the Apostle John fulfilled our Lord's request...."
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Just as the Apostle John fulfilled our Lord's request, so may you fulfill all that which, humble and unworthy though I be, I commend to you, the elders of my Church, my masters and my apostolic fathers.
If you keep the trust which I hand on to you, you will be worthy sharers of the example set by Him whose apostolic mandates you perform. [p.538]
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Baudonivia
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"...a public celebration of her glorious life to the ears
of her flock."
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[Baudonivia's vita was written between 600 and 602, when Radegund
had been dead for at least 13 years. At the start, she asks her
fellow nuns for help:]
I can as easily touch heaven with my fingers as perform the task you have imposed upon me --- namely to write something about the life of the holy Lady Radegund, whom you knew best. This task should be assigned to those who have fountains of eloquence within them.... I am the smallest of the small ones she nourished familiarly from the cradle as her own child at her feet....
So that I may, in obedience to your most gracious wishes, compose, not the full story but a partial account in writing of her famous works, and so that I may offer a public celebration of her glorious life to the ears of her flock, in devout though unworthy language, I pray that you will aid me with your prayers, for I am more devoted than learned. [McNamara & Halborg, p.86]
---------------------------------------------------
"...in rustic rather than refined language."
---------------------------------------------------
[She then lays out the plan of her book:]
In this book we will not repeat what the apostolic Bishop Fortunatus recorded of her blessed life.
...[I]nspired by the Divine Power whom Radegund strove to please in this world and with Whom she reigns in the next, we will attempt to relate, in rustic rather than refined language, what she did here and to publish a few of her many miracles. [pp.86-87]
----------------------------------------
"She played the part of a wife."
----------------------------------------
[On what Baudonivia saw as the role of a "model laywoman":]
Though united with an earthly prince, the noble queen proved herself more celestial than earthly. For a brief while, in that union, she played the part of a wife only to serve God more devoutly, acting as a model laywoman whom she herself might wish to imitate....
No worldly bonds fettered her but she was girdled about with obedience to God's servants, energetic in redeeming captives and profusely generous with alms to the needy. For she believed that anything that the poor received from her was their own in reality. [p.87]
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"...a great congregation of maidens for the deathless bridegroom."
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[On the monastery for virgins founded by the married queen:]
...Lady Radegund, mind intent on Christ and with God's help and inspiration, and by arrangement with the excellent King Clothar, built a monastery for herself at Poitiers.... Then, rejecting the false blandishments of the world, the queen joyfully entered into the monastery. There she would seek to gather ornaments of perfection, a great congregation of maidens for the deathless bridegroom, Christ.
And in all things she subordinated herself to the legally constituted abbess, reserving no authority of her own in order to follow the footsteps of Christ more swiftly and heap up more for herself in Heaven the more she freed herself from the world. [p.89]
----------------------------------------
"You are my... new plantation."
----------------------------------------
[But Radegund, if not abbess, remained very much the founder:]
She so loved her flock, which, in her deep desire for God, she had gathered in the Lord's name, that she no longer remembered that she had a family and a royal husband. So she would often say when she preached to us: "Daughters, I chose you. You are my light and my life. You are my rest and all my happiness, my new plantation...." [p.91]
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"She sent such letters to one and then to the other."
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[On Radegund's letters (not extant) to kings and nobles, seeking peace. The "peace among the kings" may refer to one of the few periods of truce among the families of Clothar's sons; in fact, the warfare would continue for several more decades:]
She was always solicitous for peace and worked diligently for the welfare of the fatherland. Whenever the different kingdoms made war on one another, she prayed for the lives of all the kings, for she loved them all. And she taught us also to pray incessantly for their stability.
Whenever she heard of bitterness arising among them, trembling, she sent such letters to one and then to the other pleading that they should not make war among themselves nor take up arms lest this land perish. And, likewise, she sent to their noble followers to give the high kings salutary counsel so that their power might work to the welfare of the people and the land....
So, through her intercession, there was peace among the kings. Mitigation of war brought health to the land. Aware of her mediations, everyone rejoiced, blessing the name of the Lord. [p.93]
----------------------------------------------------
"Her spirit blazing in a fighting mood...."
----------------------------------------------------
[In 569 when the bishop of Poitiers refused to accept the relic believed to be part of Jesus' cross that had been brought from Jerusalem, Radegund's response was not a patient one:]
The bishop of that place should have wished to welcome it devoutly with all the people but the Enemy of humankind, to subject the blessed Radegund to trials and tribulations, worked through his satellites to make the people reject the the world's ransom and refuse to receive it in the city....
But they would see: the Lord knows His own. Her spirit blazing in a fighting mood, she sent again to the benevolent king [one of Clothar's sons] to say that they did not wish to receive Salvation itself into the city. [pp.97-98]
---------------------------------------------
"Bring your own flock to the Lord!
---------------------------------------------
[By the time Baudonivia came to write her vita, the monastery had lived through the rebellion of the most prominent nuns (see the story online), after which some of the rebels returned to the monastery. Now, describing Radegund's virtues, Baudonivia seems nostalgic, reminding her sisters of "the good old days" of a peaceful monastic life:]
Who can describe her patience, charity, fervor of spirit, prudence, beneficence, holy zeal, and incessant "meditating on the law of God by day and by night"?
...[S]he never uttered any slander or lies, or curses against anyone. And not only did she speak no slander herself, she would not patiently listen to slander either. For she always prayed for her persecutors and taught others to do the same. [p.91]
[Later, Baudonivia speaks of Radegund's leadership:]
Because she did not want any slovenliness to develop in the service of God, she insisted on prayers, reading, almsgiving and incessant daily preaching so that no one could use ignorance as an excuse to slack off. [p.100]
[And near the end of the book, an appeal to Radegund in heaven:]
Oh most pious lady, may the Lord in heaven grant that you may herd before you the sheep you once gathered. Following the steps of the Good Shepherd, may you bring your own flock to the Lord! [p.102]
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Other translations of Baudonivia's vita
[One section of Joan M. Petersen's anthology is "Radegunde: A Royal Foundress in Gaul"; it gives Petersen's translations of Baudonivia's vita (identifying those passages adapted from other hagiographic works), Fortunatus' vita, and the section of Gregory of Tours' Liber in gloria confessorum that tells of his attendance at Radegund's funeral. Petersen's introduction and notes are useful for historical background. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Handmaids of the Lord: contemporary descriptions of feminine
asceticism in the first six Christian centuries / translated
and edited by Joan M. Petersen (Cistercian studies series; 143).
Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1996. (441 p.)
LC#: BR195.W6 H36 1996; ISBN: 0879075430, 0879077433
Map on lining papers. Includes bibliographical references (p.
435-441)
----------------------------
[This collection includes a translation of Baudonivia's vita by Jane Crawford. It is preceded by a essay by Marie Anne Mayeski, which discusses the way the vita illustrates Radegund's use of power --- earthly and spiritual. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women saints in world religions / edited by Arvind Sharma
(McGill studies in the history of religions). Albany: State University
of New York Press, c2000. (xi, 244 p.)
LC#: BL488 .W65 2000; ISBN: 0791446190, 0791446204
Includes bibliographical references and indexes
=========================================================================
[Marie Anne Mayeski's study of three early vitae includes the chapter, "Baudonivia's Life of St. Radegunde: A Theology of Power," which finds in Baudonivia's text a presentation of Radegund's use of worldly and spiritual power to protect her religious and political communities. The discussion here goes into greater detail than does Mayeski's introduction to the Crawford translation mentioned just above. The notes provide the Latin original of all quoted passages. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Mayeski, Marie Anne. Women at the table: three medieval theologians.
Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, c2004. (xi, 159 p.)
LC#: BX4656 .M46 2004; ISBN: 0814658296
Includes bibliographical references and index.
---------------------
[Lisa Weston's essay in this collection, "Elegiac Desire
and Female Community in Baudonivia's Life of Saint Radegund,"
discusses the way the vita views Radegund as an object
of desire as well as of veneration. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Same sex love and desire among women in the Middle Ages /edited
by Francesca Canade Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn (The new Middle
Ages). New York: Palgrave, 2001. (vi, 312 p.: ill.)
LC#: HQ75.5 .S25 2001; ISBN: 0312210566, 0333915399
Includes bibliographical references and index
----------------------
[One chapter of Isabel Moreira's study, "Visions and
the Hagiographer in Merovingian Sources," includes a discussion
(pp. 185-97) of Baudonivia's vita and its account of Radegund's
three visions. Moreira looks at what their report reveals about
Baudonivia's purpose and her achievement. Quoted passages are
given in the author's own translation, with the Latin original
given in the notes. (See
the book's table of contents online.)]
Moreira, Isabel. Dreams, visions, and spiritual authority in
Merovingian Gaul. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. (xii,
262 p.)
LC#: BR844 .M67 2000; ISBN: 0801436613
Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-258) and index
----------------------
[In this study, John Kitchen looks at the vitae written by Fortunatus and Baudonivia, and at Gregory of Tours' account of Radegund, in order to see how she was described by the two men and the one woman. In the process he gives valuable summaries of non-English-language studies of Radegund and Baudonivia. Originals of his translations from the vitae are given in the notes. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Kitchen, John. Saints' lives and the rhetoric of gender: male
and female in Merovingian hagiography. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998. (xv, 255 p.)
LC#: BX4682 .K58 1998; ISBN: 0195117220
Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-250) and index
---------------------
[This collection includes an essay, "Regendering Radegunde? Fortunatus, Baudonivia and the Problem of Female Sanctity in Merovingian Gaul," by Simon Coates. Coates looks at what the two lives written about Radegund reveal about the differing male and female perceptions of sanctity. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Gender and Christian religion: papers read at the 1996 Summer
Meeting and the 1997 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History
Society / edited by R.N. Swanson (Studies in church history,
0424-2084; 34). Rochester, N.Y.: Published for the Ecclesiastical
History Society by the Boydell Press, 1998. (xxii, 546 p.)
LC#: BR141 .S84 v.34; ISBN: 0952973316
Includes bibliographical references and index
---------------------
[This collection contains an essay by Giselle de Nie, "'Consciousness fecund through God': From Male Fighter to Spiritual Bride-Mother in Late Antique Female Sanctity," which studies Radegund as representative of a shift in the idea of the female saint; the essay focuses on the writings of Fortunatus and Baudonivia. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Sanctity and motherhood: essays on holy mothers in the Middle
Ages / edited by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (Garland reference library
of the humanities; vol. 1767. Garland medieval casebooks; vol.
14). New York: Garland Pub., 1995. (vi, 360 p.)
LC#: BX4656 .S32 1995; ISBN: 0815314256
Includes bibliographical references
----------------------
[Jo Ann McNamara's essay in this collection, "The Ordeal of Community: Hagiography and Discipline in Merovingian Convents," gives a thorough overview of the variety of life styles in women's monasteries in Western Europe between 500 and 750. In the process, McNamara tells much of Radegund and her contemporaries. The essay is also available online:]
On Pilgrimage: The best of Vox Benedictina 1984-1993; A Journal
of Feminine and Monastic Spirituality / [compiled by Elspeth
Drurie and Dewey Kramer.]. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Vox Benedictina,
1994. ( 607 p.; 23 cm)
LC#: BX4225 .O5 1994
----------------------
[An essay in this collection, "Radegund and Epistolary Tradition," by Karen Cherewatuk, discusses the poems De excidio Thoringiae and Ad Artachis. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Dear Sister: medieval women and the epistolary genre / edited
by Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Middle Ages series).
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c1993. (viii,
215 p.)
LC#: PN6131 .D4 1993; ISBN: 0812231708, 0812214374
Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-206) and index
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[Magdalena Elizabeth Carrasco's article discusses the oldest extant illuminated manuscript of Fortunatus' vita. Carrasco reproduces twelve of the miniatures and shows what they reveal both of Radegund and of the way she was seen over the next five centuries: both as a priestly and as a Christ-like figure:]
Carrasco, Magdalena Elizabeth. Spirituality in context: The
Romanesque illustrated Life of St. Radegund of Poitiers (Poitiers,
Bibl. Mun., MS 250). Art Bulletin, 72: 3 (1990), 414435.
LC#: N11 .C4; ISSN: 0004-3079
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Updated 03-21-08