Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

Placidia died in the year 450. She was buried at Ravenna; and, with some ambiguity of meaning, it is said that there her corpse, seated in a chair of cypress wood, was preserved for ages. Her son perished by the avenging hand of a senator whose wife he had perfidiously violated. He was the last emperor of the house of Theodosius; and his mother was the last woman, with a name in history, who was worthy of mention in the records of the perishing Western Empire.

With the death of Placidia, we arrive at the end of a cycle in the evolution of the human race. It was contemporaneous with the terminus of ancient Aryan civilization--it was during a climacteric in human history. Again the world was to revert to the rudeness necessarily accompanying the vigorous strength which characterizes the setting forth of a new race. The world began again--polished manners and social order gave place to strenuosity and individualism. The strong hand again became the one thing needful. Literature was silent, and art was forgotten. Of the glory of classic civilization there remained only a memory; and even this grew faint, for the struggle for existence became exacting. Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of the state; she wrested for herself some of those legal rights to which, by virtue of her humanity at least, she is indubitably entitled.

VIII

WOMEN OF THE FRANKISH CHURCH

We may now consider ourselves to have nearly passed the transition period between the Classic and the Middle Ages, and to have begun to enter that indefinite range of history known as Mediævalism--indefinite as to character rather than extent of period. A new world opens to our view; a world which we examine under the influence of the romanticist more than under that of the philosopher. In the age to which our researches have now brought us we find that the life of woman has wholly changed. Evolution has taken a new beginning. In place of the state as the symbol and the object of power and progress individualism has come to the front and asserted itself. There is now more play for personal initiation on the part of the multitude. The activity of the individual is more directly attributable to his personal motives and culminates more fully in his own desires. Consequently, though woman is still held down to an inferior level, and is hampered by unequal laws, she has more room in which to assert herself, and she plays a stronger part in historical events. Practically, though not theoretically, she is still given in marriage without her consent; but she is no longer regarded as a mere possession. Her surroundings also have wonderfully changed. In place of the porticoed villa with its marble floor and beautiful statuary, its highly decorated atrium and sparkling fountains, she is now seen in what was the rudiment of the turreted castle with its rough hall and rush-strewn floor. She has lost the learning by which she was wont to delight her idle hours with classic poetry and Greek philosophy; if she can read at all, her accomplishment is a rare one, and the most powerful stimulus to her imagination is the song of illiterate bards who recite the heroic achievements of her race. In this she has reverted to literature in its embryonic condition. Her religion has gained morality, though emphatically more in theory than in practice, but it has distinctly lost in poetry. Elegance has disappeared from every phase of her life. When she rides abroad it is no longer in a splendidly equipped litter, but, in hardier fashion, upon horseback. While for her to lead men-at-arms is an extreme rarity, she is far likelier to attain ruling authority than she was under the refined civilization of older times. With the Franks, however, supreme rule by a woman, in any direct manner, was rendered impossible by the ancient Salic law which prescribed that "no portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex."

To us the early Mediæval life seems more remote and less intelligible than that of the classic age. We are more at home in the villas of Rome than in the castles of Charlemagne. This is partly because the literature of the latter age has not presented such a satisfying picture as have the immortal productions of the former; but more largely because the genius of modern civilization has its counterpart in the social ideas of classic times, rather than in the individualistic motive of mediævalism.

The period covered by this chapter extends over four hundred years, from the end of the fifth century to the tenth. In our selection of characters from the successive generations during that term, we shall have an eye to their utility as representing types of the feminine, even more than to their aptitude for illustrating any special development in civilized habits. Evolution proceeded slowly in those days, and, consequently, a century or two did not greatly change social habits.

Somewhere about the middle of the fifth century, a Frankish chief named Childeric was driven from his own people by the varying fortunes of war. He took refuge among the Thuringians, and rewarded their kindness by seducing Basina, the wife of their king. After his return, she left her husband and joined her lover, becoming his recognized wife. Childeric's guilt in this affair is somewhat mitigated by the spirit of Basina, who declared that she chose the Frank solely because she knew no man who was wiser, stronger or handsomer, surely a frank admission of natural sentiment. The offspring of this free union was Clovis, the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, and the means whereby it became Christian.

While still a youth, though established in the chieftainship by his valor in marauding expeditions, Clovis heard of the beauty and the desirable character of Clotilde, the niece of Gondebaud, King of the Burgundians. She had been brought up amidst the most barbarous scenes which those times could produce. Her father and her two brothers had been put to death by her uncle, who had also caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone fastened to her neck, and drowned. Clotilde and her sister Chrona, he permitted to live. The latter had become a nun, while Clotilde, no less religious, was living at Geneva where, as it is said, she employed her whole time in works of piety and charity. Clovis sent to Gondebaud asking the hand of his niece; but it appears that at first his suit was not favorably looked upon, for the Frank resorted to unusual measures whereby he gained his end and provided the material for an interesting story. It is told as follows by Fredegaire in his commentary on the history by Gregory of Tours: "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde, Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To ensure confidence in himself, he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and whilst she was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending toward her, said under his breath, 'Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit me secret revelation.' She consenting, replied, 'Say on.' 'Clovis, King of the Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: if it be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.' She accepted this ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him in marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople; and if he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to naught.'"