Saint Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal and Catholic Saint (born 4 January 1271*)

Isabel of Aragon, born in Sargossa in 1271, was the third child of the Infante Peter of Aragon--after the death of his father in 1271, he became Peter III of Aragon and Valencia. Isabel's mother was Constance of Sicily, who inherited her father's claim to the throne of Sicily, a throne later claimed by Peter in his wife's right. 

A sixteenth-century painting of

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal,

artist unknown

(Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro)

In addition to their daughter Isabel, who was to become queen of Portugal, the couple had five other children. 

Three of Isabel's brothers would become kings: Alfonso, who became king of Aragon and Valencia after his father's death in 1285; James, who became king of Sicily after his father's death in 1285 and king of Aragon and Valencia after his brother Alfonso's death in 1291; and Frederick, who was regent of Sicily for his brother James (after James became king of Aragon) and who then, in 1296, became king of Sicily (after James was willing to cede Sicily to France in a treaty, and the Sicilians refused to be ceded). 

Isabel's younger sister, Yolande, married Robert of Naples, but Yolande died before she could become queen when Robert became king of Naples in 1309; after his death in 1343, he was succeeded by his granddaughter, Joanna I of Naples. 

Isabel's youngest brother, Peter, never became king of anything--he eventually married Guillemette of Béarn in 1291, but he died in 1296, just twenty years old.

Isabel's father also had a number of illegitimate children with two different women. His children with  Maria Nicolau were born before his marriage, those with Ines Zapata during his marriage. 

So, that was Isabel of Aragon's family. As for Isabel herself, she was named for her great aunt, Elizabeth of Hungary, who had been canonized in 1235. Elizabeth of Hungary's sister, Yolande, had married to James I of Aragon and was the mother of Isabel's father, Peter. The name was appropriate for Isabel, who received "a strict and pious education." According to the brief entry on Isabel of Portugal in the Catholic Encyclopedia, she "led a life of strict regularity and self-denial from her childhood."

That "childhood" did not last long, however--Isabel was married by proxy in February 1282, when she was just twelve years old: "I, [Isabel], daughter of the Most Illustrious Don Pedro, by the grace of God king of Aragon, hereby bestow my body as the legitimate wife of Dom Dinis, king of Portugal and of the Algarve, in his absence as if he were present. . . . " By June, she was in Portugal, the wedding celebrated in the city of Trancosa on 26 June 1282.

This rather awkward full-length portrait of

Isabel of Aragon and her husband, 

Dinis of Portugal, mid seventeenth century 

(Sala dos Capelos,University of Coimbra)

In Portugal, Isabel fulfilled her most important duty as queen, giving birth to two children. Her daughter, Constance, was born in 1290, her son Afonso, in 1291. Constance would eventually become queen of Castile, marrying Ferdinand IV of Castile in 1302, while Afonso would succeed his father as king of Portugal in 1325. 

In addition to her reputation for piety, Isabel played a role in politics, acting as something of an intermediary in the negotiations between her husband and Ferdinand of Castile in 1297, and then between her brother James and Ferdinand in 1304. She also had to intervene in the deadly feud between her husband and her son, Afonso, during a civil war that pitted father against son between 1322 and 1324. Years later, in 1336, she would once again be needed to intervene in politics when her brother, now king of Portugal, went to war with Ferdinand of Castile's son, Alfonso, who had succeeded his father as king of Castile. For her diplomatic efforts, she became known as "the Peacemaker."

Isabel of Portugal died on 4 July 1336, shortly after her successful intervention in the conflict between her brother and Alfonso of Castile. As recounted in the Catholic Encyclopedia, "the exertion brought on her final illness; and as soon as her mission was fulfilled she died of a fever, full of heavenly joy, and exhorting her son to the love of holiness and peace."

Isabel of Aragon, queen of Portugal, was buried in the Convent of Santa Clara in Coimbra, which she had "re-founded" and to which she had devoted herself after the death of her husband. Known for her faith, piety, and good works during her life, she was credited with miracles by the faithful after her death. (One of these miracles is virtually identical to the "miracle of the roses" for which Elizabeth of Hungary is known.) She was beatified in 1516 by Pope Leo X and canonized in 1626 by Urban VIII. Her feast day is now celebrated on 4 July.

In 1677, because of frequent flooding at the convent, her body was transferred to the Convent of Santa Clara-a-Nova, also in Coimbra, built to replace the older convent. 

 

*Isabel's exact date of birth is not always cited--for the purposes of this post, I'm going with the date provided by the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi). 

Guglielma of Milan, Unofficial Saint and Posthumous Heretic

Guglielma of Milan, Unofficial Saint, Posthumous Heretic, and Maybe a Princess of Bohemia? (died 24 October 1281)

In the year 1260, a woman who called herself Guglielma arrived in Milan. Apparently a widow, she was accompanied by a man she called her son. In the city, she lived a life devoted to her religious faith, attracting a devoted following. She died on 24 October 1281 and was buried first in the small parish church of San Pietro all'Orto, her body moved later to the Cistercian monastery of Chiaravalle.

Fresco in the church of 
San Andrea in Brunate
( Italy), c. 1450;
Identified by Barbara Newman
as a depiction of Guglielma, 
blessing two of her followers

These are the few verifiable biographical details of Guglielma's otherwise unremarkable life. It's her afterlife that is remarkable.

Guglielma's "history," as far as her background and connections, her religious activities, and her teaching, is now known only through the testimony of her followers given during an inquisitorial investigation in 1300. 

By the time of Guglielma's death, her religious famiglia "had come to believe," to quote historian Barbara Newman's words, that Guglielma was "the Holy Spirit herself, incarnate, in the form of a woman." 

Her followers were led by the man she called her son, Andrea Saramita, and a nun, Sister Maifredo da Pirovano. Although Guglielma herself seems to have denied their claims, the layman and the nun persisted in their teaching that the Holy Spirit, in the person of Guglielma, had come to re-establish the Church. 

Further, Guglielma's son "predicted that Guglielma would effect a Second Coming on Pentecost 1300." Cleansed and renewed, the Church would then be able to save the souls of Jews, pagans, unbelievers, heretics, and "Saracens." And, since the Holy Spirit, in Guglielma, "had chosen to appear in female form," Sister Maifredo would become the new pope, a woman replacing corrupt popes like Boniface VIII.

Guglielma's followers came to the attention of the inquisition as early as 1284 and again in 1296, but it took nearly twenty years for them to be brought before an inquisition. The investigation began with the examination of Maifreda da Provano in April 1300; the formal trial began in July and ended only in December of that year, resulting in the condemnation of Andrea Saramita and Sister Maifredi as heretics. They were burned at the stake. A second nun, judged a relapsed heretic, was also burned at the stake, while others of Guglielma's followers were assessed "hefty fines" and were condemned to wearing "penitential crosses."

Brunate (Cuomo, Italy)

As for Guglielma herself, dead for twenty years? She was posthumously condemned for heresy. Her body was dug up, her bones were burned, the ashes were scattered, and every attempt was made to make Guglielma disappear--images of her were destroyed, texts written by her followers were destroyed, and the tomb at Chiaravalle where she had been buried was "dismantled."

But, 150 years later, a cycle of paintings devoted to Guglielma appeared in the church of San Andrea, in Brunate, a small village in the province of Cuomo, overlooking Lake Cuomo, some thirty miles northeast of Milan. Only one fresco remains there today, the image that Newman argues represents Guglielma and her two followers (above). 

In the surviving records of the inquisition, several of those who were examined, including Andrea Saramita, the man who arrived in Milan with Guglielma and whom she claimed as her son, said that Guglielma was the daughter of the the king of Bohemia (or maybe his sister, at least according to the testimony of one person).

If these claims are correct, and some scholars think they could be, Guglielma was the daughter of Přemysl Otakar I, king of Bohemia, and his second wife, Constance of Hungary, a woman named Blažena Vilemína. If this surmise is correct, Guglielma would be the sister of Agnes of Bohemia (d. 1282), canonized 12 November 1989. Guglielma would also be a first cousin of Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231), canonized 25 May 1235, and a cousin to Elizabeth's niece, Margaret of Hungary (d. 1270), canonized 19 November 1943. She would also be related to Hedwig of Silesia (d. 1243), canonized in 1267--Hedwig was Elizabeth of Hungary's aunt, but I haven't quite worked through her relationship to Guglielma.

But there is no surviving evidence of Guglielma's birth. In Newman's words, "The only problem with this scenario is the absence of any corroborating Bohemian documents."

Despite all efforts to eradicate Guglielma, her story did not die. In 1425, a friar living in Ferrara wrote her vita, a saint's life. This work, filled with incredible and entirely made up detail, does not seem to have been widely read (only one manuscript copy survives), but the vita or some version of it somehow found its way to the Florentine writer Antonia Pulci, whose play on Guglielma's life, The Play of Saint Guglielma (Rappresentazione di Santa Guglielma), preserved and popularized the story of Guglielma.

The most complete and accessible (for English speakers) account of Guglielma of Milan is Barbara Newman's "The Heretic Saint: Guglielma of Bohemia, Milan, and Brunate" Church History 74, no. 1 (2005): 1-38. There is much to Guglielma's afterlife that I have not detailed here, including information about Sister Maifreda, a member of the Visconti family.

If you can read Italian, I recommend Luisa Muraro's Guglielma e Maifreda Storia di un’eresia femminista (3rd edition, Milan: Libreria delle donne), an ebook available in its entirety here.

A thorough analysis of the surviving records of the inquisition is here.

For a view of the "wandering princess" motif in religious cults like the one that grew up around Guglielma, see Dávid Falvay's “'A Lady Wandering in a Faraway Land[:] The Central European Queen/Princess Motif in Italian Heretical Cults"  Annual of Medieval Studies at Central European University Budapest, 8 (2002): 157-179 (available here).

Chiesa di Sant'Andrea Apostolo,
Brunate

Adelaide of Burgundy, Empress, Regent, Saint

Adelaide of Burgundy, Empress and Regent of the Holy Roman Empire (died 16 December 999)

About the women in Adelaide of Burgundy's extended family--among them Adelaide's daughter-in-law, the Empress Theophanu, Adelaide's older daughter, Emma, queen of the Franks, and her younger daughter Mathilda, princess-abbess of Quedlinburg--historian Pauline Stafford writes, "A group of women played key roles in the last decade of the tenth century. . . ." They "ruled as regents for under-age males." They "met together . . . to debate important questions of succession and dynastic interralations." They were, "in every sense . . . a regiment of powerful women." (If only John Knox had known about this "monstrous" regiment!)

Nineteenth-century artist Abel Terral's 
entirely imagined portrait
of Adelaide of Burgundy

Chief among these powerful and influential women was Adelaide herself: queen, empress, regent of the empire, and saint.

The daughter of Rudolf II, king of Upper Burgundy, and Bertha of Swabia, Adelaide of Burgundy was born in the Frankish kingdom of Upper Burgundy (now Switzerland) in the year 931.

In the decade before Adelaide's birth, Rudolf had intervened in the politics of northern Italy, opposing Berengar I, king of Italy and emperor of the Romans. Invited by disaffected members of the nobility to intervene in the kingdom, Rudolf was himself crowned king of Italy in Pavia in 922. He defeated Berengar at the battle of Firenzuola d'Arda on 29 July 923, after which Rudolf ruled in both Upper Burgundy and in Italy (though he never became emperor).

But by 926, sentiment turned against Rudolf, and it was the turn of Hugh of Provence, Rudolf's former ally, to be invited by disaffected members of the nobility to intervene in Italian politics. Rudolf was eventually forced back to Upper Burgundy, while Hugh of Provence gained control in northern Italy. In 931, Hugh had his son, Lothair, crowned co-ruler of Italy, and to bolster his position, concluded a treaty with Rudolf--Rudolf gave up his claims in Italy, and Hugh ceded Provence to Rudolf. To secure their alliance, the two agreed to the marriage of Rudolf's daughter, Adelaide, to Hugh's son, Lothair.

But, surprise! After Rudolf's death in 937, his widow (and Adelaide's mother), Bertha, married Hugh of Provence. After her mother's remarriage, Adelaide was raised in Pavia, and on 12 December 947, when she was about fifteen years old, Adelaide of Burgundy was married to her step-brother, Lothair. She bore him a daughter, Emma, about a year later. With the death of Hugh of Provence (c. 948), Lothair became sole king of Italy, Adelaide his queen.

But just three years after their marriage, Lothair was dead (22 November 950), probably poisoned by Berengar II--the grandson of Berengar I. This Berengar had been actively seeking control of Italy for some time. He had fought against Hugh (who died in 947), and then against Lothair. After Lothair's death, Berengar assumed the title of king of Italy, named (and crowned) his son, Adalbert, as co-ruler, and aimed to consolidate his power in the territory by forcing the widowed Adelaide to marry his son.

A hair-raising account of Adelaide's situation is related by the tenth-century writer Hrotsvita of Gandersheim in her epic poem, Carmen de gestis Oddonis imperatoris (Poem of the Deeds of the Emperor Otto). In her words, Adelaide was "a woman illustrious in the comeliness of her queenly beauty and solicitous in affairs worthy of her character." She "possessed . . . pre-eminent natural abilities"--recognized by Lothair, who intended that the kingdom of Italy would be "ruled by the will of the eminent queen" after his death.

But because of their "vile treachery," a "certain faction of the populace, with perverted and hostile spirit," betrayed Lothair and Adelaide; after Lothair's death, they offered the kingdom instead to Berengar II, who had long "nursed" a "hatred" in his "baleful breast." Having seized the throne, he deprived Adelaide of her attendants and imprisoned her in Garda Castle. The indomitable young woman resisted, ultimately escaping her confinement--according to Hrostvita's account, Adelaide somehow managed to dig a "secret tunnel under the earth" (Hrostvita says this tunnel was dug "under the guidance of common prayer" and with the "support of the benevolent Christ").

However she managed it, by means of a secret tunnel or otherwise, Adelaide escaped from Berengar, avoided pursuit and recapture, and found refuge with Adalbert Atto, count of Canossa. When Berengar attempted to take Canossa by siege, Adelaide appealed to Otto, king of the Franks. 

Otto quickly saw the advantages of a marriage with Adelaide. One contemporary source indicates that Adelaide not only appealed to Otto for assistance but sent him a marriage proposal. Hrotsvita, however, attributes Otto's interest to his recognition of Adelaide's excellent qualities (and the convenient death of Otto's first wife, Edith of England): "with frequent ponderings of heart Otto remembered the distinguished Queen Adelaide, and longed to behold the queenly countenance of her whose excellence of character he already knew."

Whatever his motivation, Otto invaded northern Italy, entered Pavia, had himself crowned king of Italy, and sent for Adelaide, who left her refuge in Canossa and joined him. They were married on 23 September 951. 

Thirteenth-century sculptures
of Otto I and Adelaide,
Meissen Cathedral. 
I love his worried face!

Following her marriage, Adelaide, now queen of the Franks and queen of Italy, gave birth to two sons, who did not survive. Her third child, a daughter, was Mathilda, who would eventually become abbess of Quedlinburg. 

A third son, Otto, was born in 955. In 961, after the death of his elder step-brother, Otto was recognized as his father's heir and co-ruler. On 2 February 962, Otto was crowned emperor of the Romans as Otto I, and Adelaide herself crowned as empress. Five years later, in December 967, Adelaide's son, Otto (who would succeed his father as Otto II), was crowned co-emperor. 

During their marriage Adelaide "acted in partnership with Otto"; since he was so often on the battlefield, Adelaide's stable position in Rome seems to have made her a reliable, accessible agent able to act on her husband's behalf, though she seems also to have been able to act independently. As Edward Schoenfeld notes in his discussion of Adelaide, "decisions regarding Italy were made only with her consent," and she "exerted considerable influence on non-Italian affairs." She was greatly interested in religious issues as well: "She promoted Cluniac monasticism and strengthened the allegiance of the German church to the emperor, playing an important role in Otto I’s distribution of ecclesiastical privileges and participating in his Italian expeditions."

The extent of her influence is documented by her appearance in contemporary diplomatic records: "Adelaide is named in royal diplomata by both her husbands; during her marriage to Otto I, she intervened in 92 out of 289 extant diplomata, 29 times in Italy, 63 in Germany."

By 972, Adelaide's son, the sixteen-year-old Otto, had married the Byzantine noblewoman Theophanu. The younger Otto had not yet reached his full majority when Otto I died on 7 March 973, though his succession was uncontested, undoubtedly because of the presence of his mother, now dowager empress. She acted briefly as regent for the young couple after their accession.

While there seems to have been some conflict between Adelaide, her son, and her daughter-in-law (Adelaide "retired" to Upper Burgundy in 978), she did act as Otto's "viceroy" in Italy, and following her son's death in December 983, whatever the issues between her and Theophanu may have been, they were put aside. Adelaide supported Theophanu as she acted as regent for her son, another Otto, who at the age of three, succeeded his father as Otto III, Holy Roman emperor.

Theophanu governed as regent until her death in 991, after which the sixty-year-old Adelaide took over the role for her grandson. Four years later, Otto III reached his majority; he was crowned emperor at Rome on 21 May 996.

By contrast, check out her face!

After resigning her regency, Adelaide focused on founding a number of religious institutions, though her political role was not yet over. After the death of her brother, Conrad I, king of Burgundy, Adelheid traveled to Burgundy to shore up support for her nephew, Rudolf III. 

She died on 16 December 999 at Selz Abbey (Alsace), which she had founded in 991. She was canonized by Pope Urban II in 1097.

I've already linked to several online sources, above. In addition, you can read letters to and from Adelaide at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters (click here). There are only two letters from Adelaide, but quite a few written to her, including a number from her daughter, Emma, queen of the Franks. 

For an academic study comparing Adelaide of Burgundy and Matilda of Tuscany, I recommend Penelope Nash's Empress Adelheid and Countess Matilda: Medieval Female Rulership and the Foundations of European Society. (A great deal of helpful introductory material, including a detailed timeline, is available from the publisher here.)

I'll make special note, too, of the edition of Hrotsvita's Deeds of the Emperor Otto, from which I've quoted, above. The English translation is by Sister Mary Bernardine Bergman, her Ph.D. dissertation (St. Louis University, 1942) published in 1943 by the Sisters of St. Benedict of Covington, Kentucky.

By the way, over the centuries, the abbey Adelaide founded suffered from a "millenial flood" (in 1307), was rebuilt, secularized (1481), Protestant-ized (1571), re-converted to Catholicism (1684), dissolved (1692), set on fire by Austrian troops (1793), rebuilt and "recreated" (1801), restored for the "anniversary" of Adelaide's death (1899), almost destroyed in World War II, and restored again in 1958.

Detail from sculpture,
Meissen Cathedral.
She looks like she'd be so much fun!

Radegund of Thuringia, Frankish Queen and Patron Saint

Radegund of Thuringia (died 13 August 587)

Probably born between the years 518 and 520, Radegund was the daughter of Berthacar, one of three brothers who, together, ruled the Germanic kingdom of Thuringia. The name of her mother is unknown.

Radegund has left us some details of her life in two epistolary poems that survive, one addressed to her cousin, Amalfred (the poem is now sometimes referred to as De excidio Thoringiae, "The Fall of Thuringia") and one to her nephew, Artachis, written after the death of his father, Amalfred.

Radegunde of Thuringia,
from an eleventh-century 
manuscript copy of 
The Life of St. Radegund

In addition to what Radegund reveals in these carefully crafted, highly rhetorical Latin letters, three of her contemporaries wrote about the woman who would become queen of the Franks and, after her death, be recognized as a saint. 

Gregory of Tours, bishop of Tours, who knew Radegund well, mentions her in his History of the Franks, paying particular attention to her foundation of the convent of the Holy Cross. He also includes references to Radegund in his Glory of the Confessors and Glory of the Martyrs, where he focuses on details of her piety.

The poet Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, also knew Radegund. He wrote a number of poems to her as well as her biography, the Vita Radegundis. In addition, he corresponded with her, and several of his letters to Radegund survive (though none of hers to him). Interestingly, although Fortunatus mentions Radegund's grandfather, father, and uncle by name in his life of Radegund, he is silent about her mother.

The third account of Radegund's life is by the nun Baudonivia, a member of the community of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, a convent founded by Radegund. Her De vita sancti Radegundis, addressed to the "holy ladies" of the convent and to their abbess, Dedimia, has been written at their request: "This task you have assigned me of writing the life of the Lady St. Radegund is like attempting to touch heaven with a fingertip," she begins. About Radegund's family, Baudonivia refers to the beginning of Fortunatus's Life for "an account of her royal origin and rank." Radegund is a "noble sprig" who springs from a "royal race"--but Baudonivia has nothing to say about Radegund's maternal family either.

We may know nothing of Radegund's early life, but we know it was filled with violence. In 529, her father, Berthacar. was killed by one of his brothers, Hermanfrid (Amalfred's father), and the girl and her unnamed brother were taken by their uncle to live with him and his wife, Amalaberga (who is said to have encouraged Hermanfrid to eliminate his other brother too . . . ).

But in 531, Thuringia was attacked by the Franks, and while Hermanfrid escaped (he did not live long after his defeat), Radegund was taken as a prize of war by the victorious Chlothar.* Possession of the girl was the subject of a dispute between Chlothar and his half-brother, Theuderic. In the words of Venantius Fortunatus, the "royal girl became part of the plunder of these conquerors and they began to quarrel over their captive." After the dispute threatened to become deadly, the brothers decided the girl's fate by some kind of wager or bet, and Radegund fell "to the lot of the illustrious King Clothar." 

In her own description of the fall of Thuringia, Radegund is only too aware of the fate of its women--the body of a "milk-white woman," lying unburied on the ground, a "matron . . . rapt away," her hands "bound fast," a wife whose "naked feet" walked through a pool of her husband's blood, a "tender sister," who is forced to step over the body of her brother, a mother whose child is "torn" from her arms. Radegund refers to herself as "The captive maid given to a hostile lord, her power fell / From the heights of glory to the lowest depths." She remains as the "sole survivor," the one who must shed tears for all those who have died.

But, as Fortunatus reminds his readers, Thuringia was a "barbarian nation"--Radegund describes herself as a "barbarian woman." Chlothar and the Franks, on the other hand, were Christian--indeed, Chlothar's mother, Clotilde, helped to convert her husband to Christianity. And so Thuringia's fall was to lead to Radegund's salvation. Once she had been taken back to Chlothar's court near Soissons, he arranged for his captive to be sent to Athies, in Vermandois, where she was reared in what Fortunatus describes as "a royal villa." The plan was for her to be educated there until she reached an age suitable for marriage.

Her "upbringing" thus "entrusted" to suitable guardians, the captive girl was not only instructed in the Catholic faith but also taught to read and write in Latin. She learned her lessons well, as her surviving letters demonstrate. In his Life of Radegund, Fortunatus describes Radegund's many pious acts she performed while at Athies. She also expressed her desire to become a martyr for the faith.

Perhaps that was why, when Chlothar decided to bring her back to court, she "escaped by night" from the villa, accompanied by "a few companions." Her attempted escape may also be explained by Chlothar's decision that "she should be made his queen at Soissons."

Her resistance to marrying Chlothar may have been due to her inclination to a religious life. But it may also have to do with the fact that Chlothar already had a few wives. Not that he had a few wives who had died or been otherwise eliminated--we're not talking about Henry VIII here. Rather, Chlothar was married to several women already--like his father, Chlothar practiced polygyny, and at the time he decided he would marry Radegunde, about the year 540 or a little earlier, he already had a number of wives, at least three and possibly four, but the chronology of his marriages and their dates aren't clear.  

According to one account of the king's marital situation, "At least two of Chlothar's wives, Ingund and Aregund, and possibly also Chunsinna and Radegund, were married to him at the same time," though Chlothar "may have abandoned" Ingund and Aregund before he married Radegund. Chlothar seems also to have married his brother's widow, Guntheuc, around the time of his marriage to Radegund (though Guntheuc may have died before Chlothar's marriage to Radegund). So, a little incest (Ingund and Aregund were sisters, and Guntheuc was his brother's widow) in addition to the more-than-one-wife-at-a-time thing.** (For a little of what Gregory of Tours has to say about Chlothar and his wives, click here. Gregory also notes that Chlothar tricks his mother, Clotilde, and joins in the murder of two of his nephews, Guntheuc's sons, who are in his mother's custody--a third escapes. Sheesh.)

All of this may help to explain why Radegund did not want to marry Chlothar and attempted to escape. She was compelled to do so, however, though the two had no children, and both Venantius Fortunatus and Baudonivia stress that Radegund continued to live her pious life even while she was married. Fortunatus insists that Radegund "avoided the trappings of royalty" and that, though married to a "terrestrial prince," she had not separated from the "celestial one."

And so matters remained. Although married to a king, Radegund devoted herself to the poor and the needy and lived an increasingly ascetic life. But about the year 550, Chlothar had Radegund's brother, the last surviving male in the royal Thuringian line, ambushed and murdered, and she fled the court at Soissons. 

And yet, as Fortunatus reminds his reader, "misfortune often leads to salvation." In his words, Radegund's "innocent brother was killed so that she might come to live in religion. . . . She left the king and went straight to holy Médard," who was the bishop of Noyon. Radegund "earnestly begged that she might change her garments and be consecrated to God." The bishop was "mindful of the words of the Apostle: 'Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed,'" and so "he hesitated to garb the Queen in the robe of a monacha." The bishop may have been worried about scripture, but he was also afraid of the very real wrath of Chlothar. 

Radegund seeks to enter a monastery,
from an eleventh-century 
Vie de sainte Radegonde,
Bibliothèque municipale de Poitiers

But Médard was won over by Radegund, who warned him that divine vengeance would surely be worse than her husband's. And the bishop soon found his way out of his scriptural dilemma too; rather than consecrating Radegund as a nun, he made her a deacon, a state that required neither virginity nor widowhood. And it probably did not hurt that Radegund "divested herself" of all of her "queenly" garb and paraphernalia, laying her golden bracelets, ornaments, pins, and circlets, her gems, and her costly garments at the altar and in the cells of those holy men whom she wished to persuade. As if to affirm that her new status as a deacon conformed to God's wishes, Radegund then experienced a series of visions, which are described by Baudonivia.

Although Chlothar made several attempts to reclaim his runaway queen over the next decade, he was never successful, eventually resigning himself to her loss, perhaps because of a sense of his own impending death. In the mean time, by about 552, she had begun to establish the abbey of Sainte-Marie in Poitiers, the first monastery for women in the Frankish empire. Construction was complete by 560, aided in part by donations from Chlothar.

Radegund was particularly noted by Gregory of Tours for her efforts to obtain a portion of the True Cross for her convent from the Byzantine emperor, Justinius. She was successful, and in 569, her convent was renamed when the relic arrived, now known as the abbey of Sainte-Croix.

Radegund remained at the convent for more than thirty years, until her death on 13 August 587.

In addition to the work of Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours, to which I've linked, above, I recommend the excellent essay on Radegund by Onnie Duvall at the ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies (click here). Now archived at the Wayback Machine is the Other Women's Voices entry for Radegund (click here). 

Letters written by and to Radegund are found online at Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters (click here).

First published in 1994, Marcelle Thiebaux's The Writings of Medieval Women: An Anthology is still in print--it contains an excellent selection from Radegund's letters and from Baudonivia's Life, written for the nuns at Sainte-Croix. And a very good chapter, "Radegund, Queen of the Franks and Abbess of Poitiers" is in Jo Ann McNamara's Sainted Women of the Dark Ages.

*The name of the Merovingian Chlothar, king of the Franks, is spelled a number of different ways--Chlothar, Chlotar, Clotaire, even Lothar.

**So much for those who are always pining for "traditional marriage"--but who have no idea of the "traditions" that have been part of marriage . . . 

Milburgha of Wenlock, Patron Saint of Birds

Milburgha of Wenlock (died 23 February 715)

Milburgha (or Mildburh) of Wenlock was the daughter of Merwald (or Merewalh), a minor king in Mercia, one of the seven kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon Britain, and of his wife, "Domina Aebbe" (Lady Aebbe)--according to legend, Queen Aebbe was the granddaughter of Eadbald, king of Kent from 616 to 640. 

An imagined portrait of Milburgha of Wenlock,
painted in the seventeenth century by
Juan de Roelas

Milburga's mother was one of three sisters who became saints--she is most frequently referred to as St. Ermenburga, although this seems to be the name of her sister . . .

The three sisters--Milburga's mother and two aunts--are St. Ermenburga (more properly St. Aebbe), perhaps the founder of a double Benedictine abbey in Thanet;* St. Ermengitha, who served as a nun in the abbey at Thanet; and St. Etheldreda of Kent (there's another, earlier and much better known St. Etheldreda as well, but she's not this one).

As for Milburga, she was also one of three sisters, the eldest of the daughters born to Merwald and Aebbe--like her mother and her two sisters, Milburga and her two sisters were dedicated to the religious life, and all three became saints. 

As her story goes, Milburgha was much sought after as a wife by a neighboring prince--and he refused to take no for an answer. Resorting to violence, he attempted to take the young woman by force, but she fled from him and his invading army. She managed to cross a river, and her pursuer was foiled when the river became impassable. 

After her fortunate escape, she seems to have been in France, where she was educated at Chelles Abbey, a Benedictine double monastery near Paris. 

According to at least one account of Milburgha's life, she returned to England and founded the nunnery of Wenlock (now Much Wenlock), with the assistance of endowments provided by her uncle, the king of Mercia, and by her father. But other sources offer different information--that Milburgha did become a nun at Wenlock, but that the double monastery had been founded by her father and Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury and was, at the time of her entry, headed by a French abbess, Liobinde of Chelles. In this account, Milburgha succeeded her predecessor as head of the monastery. 

The convent flourished under Milburgha, not least because of her remarkable power over birds--she could keep them from damaging crops. Noted for her humility, Milburgha was also credited with restoring sight to the blind and with the gift of healing. 

Milburgha died on 23 February 715. Milburgha's Wenlock was destroyed by the Danes, but the site was rebuilt in the twelfth century by Cluniac monks, who also believed that they had located Milburgha's bones--they established their rebuilt monastery as a pilgrimage site.

The ruins of Wenlock are of the later Cluniac Abbey, built on the site
of Milburgha's Wenlock, destroyed by the Danes. 

As for Milburgha's sisters: Saint Mildred (or Mildred) became abbess of Thanet, her mother's abbey, while Saint Mildgith seems to have first entered the religious life in a monastery in Kent before succeeding Mildred as abbess of Thanet.

*According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, a double monastery is a religious institution

comprising communities of both men and women, dwelling in contiguous establishments, united under the rule of one superior, and using one church in common for their liturgical offices. The reason for such an arrangement was that the spiritual needs of the nuns might be attended to by the priests of the male community, who were associated with them more closely than would have been possible in the case of entirely separate and independent monasteries.

This form of monastic foundation was frequently seen in Anglo-Saxon England, where the institutions of monks and nuns were governed by abbesses, such as the renowned Hilda of Whitby. 

Saint Barbara, Virgin Martyr

Saint Barbara (feast day, 4 December)

Today is the feast day for the Christian saint and martyr revered as Saint Barbara.

Saint Barbara, attrributed to
the "Italian School,"
Sheffield Museum, England

Although references to her make their earliest appearances in the seventh century, Barbara's martyrdom was dated to the late third or early fourth century.

The site of her martyrdom is also disputed--she is variously said to have lived in the ancient city of Nicomedia (Turkey) or Heliopolis (Lebanon).

But the legends agree in the broad outlines of her story: she was the daughter of Dioscorus, a wealthy man who kept her enclosed in a tower. Although his aim was to protect her from the dangers of the outside world, she somehow converted to Christianity.

Barbara not only rejected the husband her father had commanded she marry, but she revealed to him her new faith. Dragged in front of the Roman prefect, Martinianus, Barbara was tortured, presumably so that she would renounce her faith, and then condemned to death by beheading--a sentence to be carried out by her father.

Dioscorus did strike off his daughter's head--but he was struck by lightning afterwards. Barbara's tomb became a place where miracles occurred--those who prayed at her grave found consolation and, if they were ill, their health was restored.

There is a great deal of very beautiful art that depicts Saint Barbara--you're spoiled for choice when it comes to paintings and sculptures, really. 

Jan van Eyck's 1437
drawing of Saint Barbara

In Ghirlandaio's 1471 Saint Barbara,
she's standing on her father's body!

Lucas Cranach the Elder's Saint Barbara,
c. 1510

Saint Barbara,
Hans Holbein the Younger, 1516

Mechthild of Hackeborn, the "Nightingale of Christ"

Mechthild of Hackeborn (died 19 November 1298)

In 1240 or 1241, Mechthild von Hackeborn-Wippra was born in the castle of Helfta, in Saxony, the younger sister of Gertrude of Hackeborn, who was abbess of the convent of St. Mary of Helfta for forty years, from 1251 until 1291.

A fresco representation of
Mechthild of Hackeborn
(if you look at this hard enough,
it will freak you out)

When she was about seven years old, Mechthild joined her sister at the convent of St. Mary--as historian Bernard McGinn tells us, Mechthild became "the chantress of the house and a teacher and spiritual guide for the younger nuns," including a five-year-old girl named Gertrude, who joined the community in 1261.

The Cistercian convent of Helfta was supported by Saxon nobility, women like Gertrude and Mechilde of Hackeborn; the younger Gertrude was a "girl of unknown parentage."* She would grow up to become a woman we have met before, Gertrude the Great.

As for Mechthild, she was recognized not only for her beautiful voice (in one of her visions, Christ called her his nightingale), but she trained the convent's choir, acting as its director. 

Within the protected walls of their convent, the spiritual lives of the nuns of Helfta flourished. In 1281, Gertrude of Hackeborn experienced a profound vision of Christ; in 1289, she began to write her account of this vision, eventually embedding it into her Legatus memorialis abundantiae divinae pietatis, or The Memorial Herald of the Abundance of Divine Love. 

In 1291, during a serious illness, Mechthild revealed her own visions to her sister and began recording them in the Liber specialis gratiae, or Book of Special Grace. After Gertrude's death in 1292, Mechthild added an account of her sister's life. As Richard Emmerson describes the Book of Special Grace:

Rich in allegory, the seven parts chronicle Mechthild's life and death [the account of her death is added after her death, obviously], her visions, the special graces she experienced, her teachings concerning the true devotion to God and the virtuous life, and fragments of a correspondence with a female friend.

In his extended discussion of what he regards as the "distinctive form" of the mysticism of the women of Helfta, McGinn spends considerable time devoted to Mechthild's most important symbol, the cor Iesu (or cor Dei), the "heart of Christ." For Mechthild, the heart of Christ is "the source of nourishment," "the place of entry and incorporation into God," and a "vital connection," the "living engine that works to unify God and human." Jesus offers her his Sacred Heart as a pledge of his love, as a sacred refuge for her, and as a source of consolation, especially in the hour of death.

In his General Audience for 29 September 2010, Pope Benedict XVI offered an address on the life of St. Mechthild of Hackeborn, which you can access by clicking here. (Interestingly, he confuses Gertrude of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great, identifying "Gertrude the Great" as Mechthild's sister . . . Oops.) 

I honestly have not been able to find an accessible and affordable English translation of Mechthild's Book of Special Grace in print.  But here's a link to an online book of "selections" from Mechthild of Hackeborn from the Internet Archive. (There is a Middle English translation, published as Booke of Ghostly Grace, but the rare used copies that become available are always prohibitively expensive.) 

Update: Since I originally posted this blog entry, the noted scholar Barbara Newman has completed a translation of The Book of Special Grace, "the first ever in modern English." 

For his discussion of Mechthild, I have relied here on Bernard McGinn's The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism: 1200-1350, volume 3 of his multi-volume The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism.

*As I noted when I posted about the convent at Helfta earlier this year, there is some confusion about whether the monastery at St. Mary's belonged to the Benedictine or Cistercian order. The matter is clarified by McGinn: while the institution was intended--and founded--as a convent of Cistercian nuns in 1229, a Cistercian General Chapter had decided, in 1228, to forbid "further foundation or incorporation of houses for women into the order." Thus, as McGinn explains, the institution "remained technically a Benedictine convent, though one that used the gray habit of Cistercian nuns and followed their usages" (3:267).

Hilda of Whitby, "A Most Religious Servant of Christ"

Hilda of Whitby (died 17 November 680)

Virtually everything we know about the extraordinary woman now most commonly known as "Hilda of Whitby" comes from the early Christian historian Bede. In his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (translated variously as The Ecclesiastical History of the English People or A History of the English Church and People), he devotes an entire chapter to "The Life and Death of Abbess Hilda" (Book 4, Chapter 23).

Hilda, 
stained glass in Cowley Convent,
All Saints Sisters of the Poor,
Oxford

Bede begins with Hilda's death, noting that on 17 November 680, when she was sixty-six years old, Hilda, the abbess of Streanaeschalch, died. It is interesting that here, in his extended discussion of her, Bede uses the older name "Streanaeschalch," a Saxon or Celtic place name, rather than "Whitby." Earlier in his history, Bede translated "Streanaeschalch" as "The Bay of Beacon."

Hilda was the daughter of a Northumbrian nobleman, Hereric, and his wife, Breguswith, brought up in the court of her paternal uncle, King Edwin of Northumbria. In 627, after his marriage to the Christian princess Ethelburger, Edwin was baptized on Easter Sunday, 12 April--and Hilda was probably among those baptized with him.

According to Bede, Hilda's "life on earth" was divided into "two equal parts": she spent her first thirty-three years living in the world, "most nobly" dedicated to "secular occupations," the second thirty-three years in the monastery, living "even more nobly" by dedicating herself to God. But Bede provides no information about that first part of Hilda's life, from her birth, probably about the year 614, until 647, when the second half of her life begins.

His biography of Hilda begins with her decision to join the religious life. Having made her decision to "abandon the secular life," Hilda had at first planned to live as a voluntary exile, renouncing not only all of her possessions but her home, and to join her sister in the monastery of Chelles, near Paris. Instead, she is "recalled home" by Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne and returns to Northumbria, where she is at first given a piece of land "where she observed the monastic rule with a  handful of companions."

After a year, she is installed as the abbess of Hartlepool, where she devotes herself to establishing a religious way of life for the nuns--following Aidan's practice, this would have been a Celtic monasticism, rather than a Roman form, like the rule of St. Benedict. Then, as Bede continues, after she had ruled this monastery "for some years," Hilda herself "undertook to found or organize a monastery at a place known as Streanaeshalch," carrying out the task "with great energy."

The establishment of Whitby, as it came to be called, was a double monastery in the Celtic tradition--that is, the monastery housed both monks and nuns, who lived separately but worshipped together. Her monastery became a center of learning. Bede relates that five men from Hilda's monastery later became bishops, and in the monastery was also found the poet Caedmon--Bede tells his story and transcribes the earliest known English poem in the chapter that follows his biography of Hilda. 

In 664, Hilda hosted the Synod of Whitby at her double monastery. Celtic and Roman traditions differed on two key points: how the date of Easter should be calculated and how monks should be tonsured (that is, how the hair should be shaved from a monk's head as a sign of humility and devotion).

Although "Abbess Hilda and her community," in Bede's words, supported the Celtic traditions, the Synod ultimately decided in favor of Rome. Bede recounts the arguments made by each side; while she may have hosted the Synod, Hilda did not take part in the debates, at least as Bede preserved them. 

But Bede does note that "all her acquaintances" called Hilda "Mother" because of her "wonderful devotion and grace." She lived as "an example of holy life" not only to the monks and nuns of her community but to all men and women: "she also brought about the amendment and salvation of many living at a distance, who heard the inspiring story of her industry and goodness."

Her life, Bede notes, "was the fulfillment of a dream which her mother Breguswith had when Hilda was an infant": she dreamed that she "discovered a most valuable jewel under her garments," a jewel that "emitted such a brilliant light that all Britain was lit by its splendour."

This "valuable jewel" was Hilda, "whose life afforded a shining example not only to herself but to all who wished to live a good life."

For the last six years of her life, Hilda suffered a serious and debilitating illness; as Bede notes, quoting St. Paul, "her strength might be made perfect in weakness." Nuns far from Streanaeshalch experienced miraculous visions of her death, and miracles were reported at her tomb. She was recognized as a saint shortly after her death.

In 867, Danish invaders destroyed her monastery. 

I've used my very old Penguin edition of Bede's A History of the English Church and People here, translated by Leo Sherley-Price; there is new Penguin edition, published with the title Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with a new introduction and an account of Bede's death by Cuthbert, but it's still Sherley-Price's translation.

Frithuswith, Princess and Patron Saint

Frithuswith (died 19 October 727)

An Anglo-Saxon princess, Frithuswith (or Frideswide) was probably born about the year 650, the daughter of Dida of Eynsham, a minor king (or sub-regulus) in Mercia (holding a territory near Oxford), and his wife, Safrida. 

Frithuswith, hiding from Algar,
detail from a stained glass window
by Edward Burne-Jones,
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

There is a reference to Dida in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and two accounts of St. Frithuswith in the twelfth-century South English Legendary, one a longer version of her life, the other shorter, the two varying in some details.  

According to these narrative accounts, Frithuswith was reared and educated by a holy woman named Elgitha.

After her mother's death, Frithuswith persuaded her father to build a priory, actually a double monastery, one housing both monks and nuns, and the young woman, along with twelve companions, entered into the convent as a nun, dedicated to a life of perpetual chastity. 

It's not clear that they followed one particular monastic rule, such as that of St. Benedict. Aristocratic women may have been devoted to the spiritual life and to chastity, but the Benedictine vows of obedience and poverty may not have been strict in an institution which housed women of Frithuswith and her companions' social status. 

(The double monastic community was not unusual in England--I'll be posting about Hilda of Whitby, the most well-known head of such an institution, next month.)

Having heard accounts of her (and her beauty and wealth), another Mercian prince/king, Algar (or Aelfgar) pursued her--and after she refused to marry him, he attempted to abduct her. She managed to elude him by fleeing to Oxford, and there the two twelfth-century accounts of her life differ. According to one version, Algar followed her but fell off his horse and broke his neck; according to another, he became blind. In this version, Algar lucked out, because he was sorry, asked Frithuswith for her forgiveness, she bathed his eyes, and his sight was restored.

According to legend, when the nuns at
Frithuswith's convent complained
about having to go too far for water,
Frithuswith prayed to Saint Margaret,
who answered Frithuswith's prayers
with this well, now to be seen at the
Church of St. Margaret, Binsey

Frithuswith returned to her monastery, where she died on 19 October 727. 

In 1180, her remains were "translated" (moved) to a new building, now incorporated into Christ Church College, Oxford. In 1440, she was declared the patron saint of Oxford. 

There are many online accounts of the stories of St. Frithuswith. For more about the religious context, I recommend Medieval Women Monastics: Wisdom's Wellsprings by Miriam Schmitt, Linda Kulzer, and Mary Michael Kaliher, three scholars and members of the Order of St. Benedict, an excellent account of the female monastic tradition.

Teresa of Ávila: Nun, Mystic, Theologian

Teresa of Ávila (feast day, 15 October)

Born on 28 March 1515, Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada would become one of the most well-known and revered of early-modern religious figures: she was beatified in 1614, some thirty years after her death, and canonized just a few years later, on 12 March 1622. On 27 September 1970, Pope Paul VI named her as a Doctor of the Church.* 

Teresa of Ávila, age sixty-one,

a copy of a portrait painted from life in 1576

Although she was the pious daughter of pious parents, the young Teresa was also drawn to romantic tales of knightly adventure, the pleasures of spending time with her friends, and caring for her appearance.

But after the death of her mother, when Teresa was fifteen, and then of her eldest sister, she was sent to an Augustinian convent. She spent eighteen months there, but as a result of an illness, she returned home.

She eventually decided to return to a religious life--as the safest kind of life--and joined the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation in Ávila on 2 November 1535. 

Once again she suffered a severe illness (probably malaria), but she also began experiencing a series of ecstatic visions, the most famous of which she would later describe in her Autobiography:

I saw in [an angel's] hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.

Like many of the religious women we've encountered this year, Teresa found life in the convent not rigorous enough. In addition to her role as a visionary, she became a reformer, founding a new, more rigorous Carmelite rule, one focused on absolute poverty, self-flagellation, and rigid asceticism. The Discalced (or shoeless) Carmelite Nuns of the Primitive Rule of St. Joseph was founded in Ávila in 1562. 

Then the visionary and reformer became a builder: traveling throughout Spain, she established convents in Medina del Campo (1567), Malagon and Valladolid (1568), Toledo and Pastrana (1569), Salamanca (1570), Alba de Tormes (1571), Segovia (1574), Veas and Seville (1575), and Caravaca (1576). She describes this frenetic activity--as well as the opposition she encountered everywhere--in her Book of Foundations.

In addition to her autobiography, El Libro de su vida (Life Written by Herself), completed before 1567, Teresa wrote a series of works for the women who wished to live a religious life. El camino de perfección (The Way of Perfection), written about 1566, was intended to show her readers the way to achieve their spiritual goals.

Her most well-known work, El castillo interior or Las moradas (The Interior Castle or The Mansions) was probably completed between 1577 and 1580--in this work, she instructs her readers in contemplative prayer, leading them through stages of an interior exploration. Libro de las Fundaciones (The Book of Foundations), begun in 1573 and completed in 1582, was written as a history of the order and of its growing number of established institutions. She also composed poems and prayers. More than 400 letters, whole and fragmentary, survive.

Teresa died at the age of sixty-seven on 4 October 1582 in Salamanca.

You can access all of her works online--you might start with what's available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library by clicking here.

While Teresa does tell the story of her own life in her autobiography, for a good scholarly introduction to the woman and her work, neither a hagiographical view or a romanticized one, I recommend Cathleen Medwick's Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul.

*She was recognized along with Catherine of Siena, the two becoming the first two women to be named as Doctors of the Church. Thérèse of Lisieux, recognized in 1997, and Hildegard of Bingen, in 2012, are the only two other women so identified.