The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

Life of Radegund, Vita sanctae Radegundis (BHL 7048, CPL 1042)

Summary:

Preface 1. Fortunatus perorates on God’s benevolence to the female sex, writing that Christ makes them strong and valiant, though they are born weak. He praises pious women’s mortifications, chastity and faith. He states his intention to make Radegund’s life publicly known, that her memory be celebrated in the world.

2. Radegund was the daughter of King Bertechar of Thuringia. The Franks invade Thuringia, and the captive young Radegund falls to the lot of King Chlothar, who takes her to the royal villa of Athies in Vermandois. She is brought up there and proceeds to exhibit extraordinary virtue, 'often, in speaking to the other children, expressing the hope that, if events so worked out, she might become a martyr' (frequenter loquens cum parvulis, si conferret sors temporis, martyra fieri cupiens). She feeds and washes the other children and leads solemn processions of them to an oratory, which she tends dutifully. Chlothar attempts to bring her to Vitry, but she escapes with a few companions through Beralcha. She later agrees to be made Chlothar’s queen at Soissons.

3. Wishing to continue her life of piety, Radegund eschews the luxuries of royalty and commits herself to almsgiving to the needy and to monasteries.

4. Radegund builds a house at Athies where she bathes poor men and women. She feeds secretly on beans and lentils, and she attends the singing of the hours.

5. Radegund would leave her marriage bed at night to pray on the cold floor of the privy, discarding even her hair-shirt, freezing her body throughout. People joke that Chlothar had married a nun (monacha) rather than a queen. Chlothar becomes irritated with her austerities, but she soothes his temper or bears it patiently.

6. During Lent, she would wear a hair-shirt (cilicium) under her royal garments.

7. Radegund would make and care for candles in oratories and holy places. Chlothar would request her presence at night but was told she was busy with God’s affairs. This caused conflict between the king and queen, but later he gave her gifts in compensation for his harsh words.

8. She would greet clergy and ascetics by washing their feet and listening to their teaching; she would give gifts to bishops.

9. If Radegund received compliments on her garments from female servants, she would donate them as cloth to be laid on a church altar.

10. When Chlothar condemned guilty criminals to death, Radegund would rally nobles and the king’s ministers to convince him to revoke the sentence.

11. While Radegund is walking in her garden at her villa in Péronne, some imprisoned criminals cry out to her for help. When she asks her servant who is calling out, they lie and say that it is a crowd of beggars. Believing this, she sends them relief. That night, the prisoners’ chains break (fractis vinculis), and they run to her to give thanks.

12. Radegund’s brother is killed, and she leaves the king and goes to Bishop Medard at Noyon to ask to be made a nun. Facing scriptural prohibitions and intimidation from the nobility, Medard hesitates. Radegund puts on monastic clothes (vestis monacha) herself, goes to the altar and chastises the bishop for fearing men more than God. Medard relents and consecrates her a deaconess.

13. Radegund gives her royal trappings - clothing, gems and ornaments - to the church for the relief of the poor. To the ascetics Jumerus, Dato and Gundulf she gives items such as gems, bracelets, coifs and pins, many decorated with gems and gold.

14. Radegund goes to Tours to visit the holy sites of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, S00050). She gives clothing and ornaments to his church. From Tours she goes to Candes [where Martin died], again to honour the saint.

15-16. From Candes she goes to her villa of Saix near Poitiers. There she adopts an austere diet and even grinds flour herself to give to nearby monasteries. Crowds begin to seek her munificence.

17. Twice a week Radegund bathes, grooms, feeds and clothes the needy.

18. On Sundays Radegund served undiluted wine to the poor. After serving them, she would dine with priests.

19. Whenever lepers arrived at the villa, Radegund would inquire as to their number and accordingly set a dinner table for them. She would kiss some of the leprous women and wash the faces and hands of both men and women. As they left, she would give them gifts of clothing and gold. 'One of her servants presumptuously cajoled her: “Most holy mistress, when you have embraced lepers, who will kiss you?” She replied with kindness: “Really, if you won’t kiss me, that's not of concern to me.”' (Ministra tamen praesumebat et blandimentis sic appellare: "Sanctissima domina, quis te osculetur, quae sic leprosos amplecteris?" Illa respondit benivole: "Vere, si me non osculeris, hinc mihi cura nec ulla est".)

20. She would miraculously cure wounds by making the sign of the cross over a vine leaf which was then placed on the wound. Some sick people would come to Radegund after being told in a dream to present her attendants with a candle, which they would burn overnight; by morning the person would be healed. She would give food and drink to the sick, thereby healing them.

21. Radegund’s asceticism, healing and charity inspire crowds of people to gather around her cell, who 'proclaim her both confessor and martyr' (ipsam praedicaret tam confessorem quam martyrem). Fortunatus describes her extreme asceticism in eating.

22. Radegund encloses herself in her cell throughout Lent for the first time and eats an even more austere diet. She wears a hair-shirt and sleeps on a bed of ashes.

23. She would collect and clean the nuns’ shoes while they slept, and perform other services to the monastery, including cooking and cleaning duties, and care for the infirm.

24. Radegund would prepare the kitchen, cook and clean up after the nuns at mealtimes. Her washing of the infirm is again mentioned.

25. During one Lent, Radegund binds her body with iron circlets and chains, causing her flesh to swell, and then bleed badly when they were removed at the end of the fast.

26. Radegund presses a hot brass plate in the shape of the cross against her body, and, again during Lent, she presses a water basin full of burning coals against her body, 'so that she might by herself become a martyr, though it was not an age of persecution' (quia non essent persecutionis tempora, a se ut fieret martyra) leading once more to terrible injury. All this she did in secrecy, but her miracles revealed her sanctity

27. A blind woman from Gislad named Bella is led to Poitiers to seek the saint’s healing. Radegund heals her by impressing the sign of the cross on her eyes.

28. Radegund exorcises a girl named Fraifled at Saix. The next day, she exorcises a woman named Leubela, who was afflicted by a demon in her back. At the moment of exorcism, a worm crawled out of her back, and Leubela trod it under her foot.

29. A nun suffers with fevers for six months. Radegund is informed of this, has the nuns lay her in a bath of warm water, and heals her by rubbing her body from head to foot.

30. A possessed woman is brought to Radegund, who commands the demon to lie on the pavement. The demon does so, and Radegund puts her heel on the woman’s neck. The demon leaves the woman’s body in a flow of diarrhoea. On another occasion, a mouse tried to nibble on a ball of thread that Radegund had spun and died instantly.

31. Florius, one of Radegund’s men, is fishing at sea when a storm causes his boat to capsize. In desperation, he calls on Radegund for help. The sky then clears and the prow of the boat floats to the surface.

32. A girl named Goda languishes in her bed for a long time, beyond the benefits of medicine. 'A candle was made to the measure of her own height, in the name of the holy woman, and the Lord took pity on her. At the hour when she expected the chills, she kindled the light and held it, and, as a result, the cold fled before the candle was consumed.' (Facta candela ad mensuram suae staturae, Domino miserante, in nomine sanctae feminae, qua hora frigus speraret, lumen accendit et tenuit, cuius beneficio ante fugata sunt frigora, quam esset candela consumpta.)

33. A carpenter’s wife is possessed by a demon, and the abbess jokes that she will excommunicate Radegund if she does not successfully exorcise her within three days. Ashamed at her slowness in exorcising the woman, the next day Radegund prays, and the demon leaves the woman through her ear. The woman returns home with her husband. On another occasion, Radegund has a laurel tree transplanted near her cell, but it does not take root and withers. The abbess jokingly suggests that Radegund pray for it to take root lest she be without food. Radegund does so, and the tree takes root and flourishes.

34. One of the nuns has an eye flooded with blood, and she lays on it some wormwood that Radegund kept with her for refreshment. The eye is soon healed. The son of Andered, Radegund’s agent, dies soon after birth. The grieving parents wrap the child in the saint’s hair-shirt, and he is raised from the dead.

35. The nun Animia, suffering from dropsy, is near death. While she is sleeping, she has a dream of Radegund instructing her to lie naked in an empty bath. Radegund proceeds to pour oil onto Animia and give her a new garment. When she awakes, she smells of oil and is completely healed.

36. The lay people are singing, dancing and playing instruments outside the monastery. One nun says to Radegund that she recognized one of her songs being sung. Radegund expresses dismay 'that she is pleased to hear religion linked with the stench of this word.' (si te delectat coniunctam religioni audire odorem saeculi) The sister replies that she has heard two or three songs she has composed. Radegund replies that she had not heard any worldly songs. Fortunatus interprets this as proof that her spirit was already in heaven while she was in the world.

37. Radegund is in her cell and hears a nun crying. She inquires into the reason, and is told that the nun's infant sister had died. She tells the nun to bring the corpse into her cell and proceeds to rub the girl for seven hours. She is finally raised from the dead.

38. On the day of the saint’s death, the tribune Domnolenus, wasting away with illness, has a dream of the saint approaching his town. She proceeds to tell him the location of the foundation of an abandoned basilica and instructs him to build an oratory in honour of St. Martin. She then rubs his jaw and throat for a long time and says that she came to bring him back to health; she also tells him to release those he has imprisoned. Upon waking, he realises that Radegund has died, and a messenger confirms the time of her death. Domnolenus directs the prison to release its seven prisoners.

39. Fortunatus closes the life, citing the need to narrate only a few of her miracles. She lived such a pious and holy life 'that also after her glorious death miracles accompanied her' (ut et ad ipsam post obitum gloriosi transitus mirabilia prosequantur).


Text: Krusch 1888.
Summary: Kent Navalesi, using McNamara and Halborg 1992.

Cult building - oratory

Composing and translating saint-related texts

Miracle during lifetime
Miracle at martyrdom and death
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
Miracle with animals and plants
Healing diseases and disabilities
Power over life and death
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Assumption/otherworldly journey
Freeing prisoners, exiles, captives, slaves
Exorcism
Miracle after death

Contact relic - saint’s possession and clothes

Women
Children
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Monarchs and their family
Prisoners
Demons

Oil lamps/candles

Source

Discussion

Bibliography