Aldhelm, in his prose On Virginity, names *Constantina (virgin daughter of Emperor Constantine, ob. 354, S02468) as an exemplary virgin. Written in Latin in southern Britain, for the nuns at the monastery at Barking (south-east Britain), c. 675/686.
E06628
Literary - Other
Aldhelm
Aldhelm, prose On Virginity, 48
Constantina, integerrimae virtutis virago, Constantini filia, qui per idem tempus tripertiti mundi monarchiam prosperis successibus gubernasse dinoscitur, nonne cunctas propemodum Romanorum praetorum filias omnemque paene generosam feminini sexus sobolem ac pulcherrimam pubertatis indolem famosae virginitatis rumore comperto ad culturam Christianae religionis et coronam castitatis colloquio incitavit, sermone suasit, exemplo instigavit, ita dumtaxat, ut unamquamque spreto nuptiali thalamo et maritali luxus commercio caelestis sponsi amplexus enixius satagere et inter virgines sapientes cum limpidis lampadibus properare ducta crebro suspiria faterentur, quod plenius de conversatione illius scripta dogmatibus opuscula produnt? Cuius rei Attica et Arthemia illibatae virginitatis pudicitia florentes satis evidens documentum declarant. Quarum genitor Gallicanus, (quo), dum Constantinus, Constantii filius in Britannia ex pelice Helena genitus, sceptris imperii poteretur, nullus in Romana monarchia praestantior extitit et quem solum prae omnibus tribunicae potestatis personis et procerum magistratibus dignissimum ratus est, cui Constantinam regali prosapia genitam propter secundos bellorum exitus et prosperos triumphorum suceessus nuptiali dote subarraret et ad copulae contubernium, si rerum ratio pateretur, desponsaret, eruta radicibus paganorum cultura ad fidem catholicam conversus est. Qui solus ea tempestate Scithicae gentis impetum, quae cum infinito duelli apparatu a circio proficiscens Traciarum provincias hostiliter populabatur, perferre potuisse tradebatur.
'As for CONSTANTINA, a heroine of most intact virtue, the daughter of Constantine, who at that time is known to have governed the monarchy of the tripartite world with beneficial results, did she not incite with her conversion, persuade with her speech and arouse with her example nearly all the daughters of Roman praetors, nearly all the high-born offspring of the feminine sex, and the most beautiful flower of its youth, through the manifest renown of her famous virginity, to the worship of the Christian religion and to the crown of chastity – to such an extent that they confessed that each one, rejecting their marriage bed and the self-indulgent intercourse of wedlock, yearned more eagerly for the embraces of a heavenly bridegroom, and were hastening, with shining lamps and frequently uttered sighs, among the wise virgins – all of which is abundantly recorded concerning her behaviour in those works drawn from her teaching? Of this fact, Attica and Artemia, flourishing with the purity of unimpaired virginity, provide a quite evident proof. Their father Gallicanus who, while Constantine – the son of Constantius born in Britain of the concubine Helena – controlled the sceptre of government, was more renowned than anyone else in the Roman empire, and whom alone he [i.e. Constantine] considered to be the most worthy of all those of the status of tribune and all the leading magistrates, and to whom, because of the fortunate outcome of his wars and the prosperous results of his victories he would have betrothed Constantina, the daughter of his royal family, with a nuptial dowry, and (would have) arranged the espousals for the fellowship of the marriage-bond, if the proper order of things had allowed - having torn up by the roots his pagan beliefs, (Gallicanus) was converted to the catholic faith. It was said that Gallicanus alone at the time could sustain the attack of the Scythians who, invading from the north with an infinite apparatus of war, were devastating aggressively the province of Thrace.'
Text: Ehwald 1919, 302-3.
Translation: Lapidge and Herren 1979, 115.
Composing and translating saint-related texts
Transmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Monarchs and their family
Relatives of the saint
Aristocrats
Pagans
Women
Officials
Source
Aldhelm’s prose treatise On Virginity (De Virginitate), for Abbess Hildelith and the nuns of Barking (south-east Britain), survives in twenty manuscripts, the earliest of which are 9th c. Together with its later, poetic counterpart, it forms what Bede described in 731 as a ‘twinned work’ (opus geminatum), although there is a notable difference between the content and style of the two sections, the second part constituting more than a straightforward ‘versification’ of the first (see E06659).Aldhelm (ob. 709/10) appears to have been a son of Centwine, king of the Gewisse or West Saxons (south-west Britain) from 676 until 682/5, when he abdicated and retired to a monastery. We do not know when Aldhelm himself took religious vows, but he definitely attended, perhaps for many years, Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian’s school at Canterbury (from shortly after 670?), and possibly studied at the Irish foundation of Iona, off the coast of north-west Britain (perhaps in the 660s?). Around 682/6 he became abbot of the West Saxon monastery of Malmesbury, and in 689 probably accompanied King Cædwalla on his pilgrimage to Rome (see E05710 and E06661). In 705/6 he was appointed ‘bishop west of the wood’ in his home kingdom (later identifiable with the diocese of Sherborne). (For all aspects of Aldhelm’s career see now Lapidge, 2007.)
At the core of On Virginity is a lengthy catalogue of exemplary virgins, first men (Old Testament prophets; New Testament figures; martyrs and other saints of the Roman Empire), then women (Mary; martyrs and other saints of the Empire), followed by some remarks on a group of non-virginal, Old Testament sancti who in some sense prefigured Christ. As with Bede in his Marytrology (725/31), Aldhelm makes good use of Roman Martyrdoms and Acts in his accounts of many post-Biblical saints. Although he does not seem to have had the same range of hagiographical material at hand as Bede later would at the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow (north-east Britain), his use of the texts is more creative, and he extensively reworks them in his characteristically florid prose style.
The prose On Virginity presents difficulties with dating, but the author’s reference to himself in its preface as only a ‘servant’ (bernaculus) of the Church would seem to place it before his abbacy in 682/6 (ibid., 67-9). Meanwhile – if the twelfth-century chronicler John of Worcester is correct – Aldhelm’s chief dedicatee Hildelith only appears to have taken control over Barking in 675, thus allowing us to date the work cautiously to somewhere within 675/86. This is significant, since it suggests that the many Martyrdoms which Aldhelm used among his sources (including several translated from the Greek) were available to him in southern Britain before his probable visit to Rome in 689.
Discussion
Aldhelm's main sources for this passage are 'unknown' (Lapidge and Herren, 1979, 178).The cult of Constantine's daughter would develop later in the middle ages. Leaving aside some incidental (and seemingly non-cultic) references to Constantina in the Martyrdom of Agnes (E02457) and the Martyrdom of Gallicanus (E02520), this may be the earliest known text to treat her as a saint in her own right. Considering the unusual phenomenon of early Anglo-Saxon royal saints (cf. S02083, S02159); the frequent association of royal princesses with monasteries in seventh-century England (cf. E06918); and, indeed, Aldhelm's own background as a royal prince, it may well be significant that Constantina's first known 'saintly' appearance comes via this particular text.
Bibliography
Edition:Ehwald, R., Aldhelmi opera (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 15; Berlin, 1919).
Translation:
Lapidge, M., and Herren, M., Aldhelm, The Prose Works (Cambridge, 1979).
Further reading:
Lapidge, M., "The Career of Aldhelm," Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007), 15-69.
Benjamin Savill
13/10/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S02468 | Constantia/Constantina, virgin daughter of Emperor Constantine, ob. 354 | Constantina | Certain |
|---|
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