Women of Early Christianity

by Alfred Brittain; Mitchell Carroll

Brunehaut maintained her power under the reigns of her son and her grandson in Austrasia, the capital of which was Metz. In 599, however, she was expelled from this kingdom, and went to that of Burgundy, where her other grandson, Theodoric II., reigned, having his capital at Orleans. In a letter written to Theodoric by Gregory the Great, the latter says: "And this in you among other things is enough to call for praise and admiration, that in such things as you know that our daughter, your most excellent grandmother, desires for the love of God, in these you make haste most earnestly to lend your aid, so that thereby you may reign both happily here, and in a future life with the angels." It is evident from this that in Burgundy the veteran queen was not denied the opportunity to exercise that executive talent of which the Austrasians had wearied. If the accounts given by Frankish historians may be relied upon, Brunehaut's influence upon her grandson was not in all respects calculated to fit him for a life among the angels. They accuse her of having encouraged him in licentious living, in order that her own power might not be undermined by the introduction into his court of a lawful queen.

There are several letters extant which were written to her by Pope Gregory. They all, in that polite manner in which Church dignitaries treat worldly potentates, speak of her virtuous acts and ignore all mention of her frailties. Brunehaut would be an exceedingly estimable woman if nothing more of her were known than what is to be gathered from these epistles. Gregory was a severe moralist, but he allowed his condemnation of many faults to be silenced by his gratitude for the piety of the queen in erecting "the Church of Saint Martin in the suburbs of Augustodunum (Autun), and a monastery for handmaidens of God, and also a hospital in the same city." There is also a letter to Thalassia, the first abbess of this convent, ordaining that the property donated shall never be alienated from her and her successors; also, that "on the death of an abbess of the aforementioned monastery, no other shall be ordained by means of any kind of craftiness or secret scheming, but that such a one as the king of the same province, with the consent of the nuns, shall have chosen in the fear of God, and provided for the ordination of." This also is evidence regarding the interior politics of the nunneries of that time.

Brunehaut lived a stormy life. Gentleness and modesty, the qualities most esteemed in feminine character, were the least noticeable in her nature; they would not have been consonant with either her ambitions or her methods. She was ever striving with the chieftains of her realm, endeavoring, with no little success, to force their independence into submission to regal authority. With the clerics, also, she had her quarrels. Saint Didier, Bishop of Vienne, was at her instigation brutally murdered. Saint Columba, even, was visited with her displeasure because he refused to connive at her faults with the award of his blessing. In 614, after thirty-nine years of the most strenuous political life and the most extreme vicissitudes of personal fortune that ever fell to the lot of any queen, she perished most miserably at the hands of Clotaire II., the son of her old enemy, Fredegonde. He caused the venerable queen, now eighty years of age, to be paraded before the army on the back of a camel; and then, by his order, she was bound by the hair, one hand, and one foot, to the tail of an unbroken steed by which she was kicked and dashed to pieces. Thus lived, and thus died a "Christian" queen who had received high encomiums from one of the greatest bishops of history.

It must not be supposed, however, that feminine modesty, faithful love, and the gentleness which is ever venerated in womankind, were entirely unknown to that rough and licentious age. What could be more pleasing than the romantic story of Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards? In the year 584, Authari succeeded to that kingdom. He asked in marriage the beautiful and pious daughter of Garibald, King of the Bavarians. In order that he might ascertain whether the attractions of this damsel were in reality equal to their reputation, and also that he might hasten matters in case he should be satisfied on this point, Authari impersonated his own ambassador and visited the court of Garibald in this guise. He there stated that he was the trusted friend of the Lombard king, and that Authari had charged him to bring back a minute report of the charm of his expected bride. Theodelinda submitted to the inspection; and the supposed ambassador, being at once enamored of her grace and beauty, hailed her as Queen of the Lombards, and requested that, according to the custom of his people, she present a cup of wine to him, her first subject. As she did this, he slyly touched her hand and then his own lips. This familiarity astonished the maiden, but, advised by her nurse, she said nothing, and Authari, before leaving the court, succeeded in gaining her affections. As he left to return home, he revealed his rank to her by saying, as he drove his huge battle-ax into the trunk of a tree, "Thus strikes the king of the Langobardi." After his departure, influenced by the Franks, Garibald withdrew his consent to his daughter's marriage; whereupon Theodelinda took the matter into her own hands and fled across the Alps to her lover and was married to him at Verona. Although she was early left a widow, she had so completely gained the love and the confidence of the Lombards, that they intrusted her with the privilege of raising to the throne whomsoever she might favor with her hand in marriage. Her choice fell upon a handsome Thuringian named Agilulf. He knew not of his fortune until it was announced to him by the queen herself in this fashion: one day, as he bent to kiss her hand in faithful homage, she blushingly said, "You have the right to kiss my cheek, for you are my king!" So great was Theodelinda's influence over her people that at her request the whole nation simultaneously became Christian; and in view of that event, it is no wonder that she was on the most friendly terms with Pope Gregory the Great, whose letters to her may still be read. Under her happy reign, the kingdom of Lombardy was strengthened, and its constitution established. Agilulf died, and his son and successor, Adelwald, rendering himself obnoxious, was murdered by some of his subjects; but to make amends to her for this act, the Lombards placed the husband of her daughter Gerberga on the throne. Boccaccio, by making Theodelinda the subject of one of his amorous tales, has taken an unwarranted and reprehensible liberty with a good queen of whom her age was justly proud.

It is to these times, also, that the pathetic story of Saint Genevieve belongs. She was the wife of Count Siegfried of Andernach. He, setting out against the Moors who were then invading the land, intrusted her to the care of Golo, his principal servant. This man, having failed in his repeated attempts on her conjugal faithfulness, accused her of the fault which he would fain have persuaded her to commit, and procured her condemnation to death. Her executioners being merciful, spared her life by having her conveyed far into the recesses of a forest. There she, with her little daughter, lived for several years in absolute solitude. They were sheltered by a cave; and a doe, whose tameness was regarded as a miraculous providence, supplied them with milk. It was no less regarded as a divine interposition which eventually led Siegfried to the grotto while following the chase; her innocence being proved, she was happily reinstated as his wife, and has ever since been honored as a saint, which doubtless she was.

Christianity, during the latter half of the first millennium, could show triumphs of sanctification in personal character; it had its heroes of morality, but it must be confessed that the conversion of the barbaric nations was not accompanied with a very signal improvement in their morals. Milman says: "It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict or coalition of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity all its ferocity, with none of its generosity or magnanimity; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty and even of sensuality. Christianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes....

"As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest where the females are at the mercy of the victors, especially if female virtue is not in much respect, would severely try the more rigid morals of the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic character, when it had once burst the bounds of habitual or traditional restraint, might seem to disdain easy and effeminate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence of lust, by mingling it with all other violent passions, rapacity, and inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on the lightest occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their politics. Christianity hardly interferes even to interdict incest." Clotaire and Charibert each married two sisters. The latter was sternly rebuked by Saint Germanus, but (so the historian informs us) as the king already had many wives, he bore the rebuke with extreme patience. There were laws against these irregularities; but, strict as they were in their terms, they were completely nullified by failure of execution. These laws, also, are models of the inequality which existed between the sexes. When punishment for adultery is prescribed, it is always understood that it refers solely to the wife. The man was burdened by no legal responsibility in this matter. Free women were not permitted to marry slaves; to do so reduced them to a position of servitude. This did not apply to men, excepting such as were too poor to compound the felony with the abducted slave's owner. The kings were free in this matter.

Under the Carlovingian dynasty, manners were somewhat less ferocious than those exhibited by the Merovingian kings; but it was rather the result of the former being more confident of its security than any evidence of real improvement in morals. Earnest champion of the Church as was Charlemagne, and much as he honored religion, the records of his own private life and those of his family are examples of wholesale libidinosity such as is rarely equalled in history.

Five women were united in marriage to the great emperor. The first was Desirée, the daughter of the Lombard king, whom Pope Stephen so bitterly opposed. This union, however, was short lived; during one year only did Desirée hold the wandering affections of the sturdy monarch. He then took Hildegarde, a Swabian princess; but in the same indifferent manner he dissolved this connection, being instigated thereto by the allegations of a servant named Taland, who was enraged at the contempt with which the queen received his criminal advances. Charlemagne did not trouble himself to look into the matter; like Cæsar, he held that his wife should be above suspicion. There is a pleasing story in regard to Hildegarde who, after her divorce, went to Rome and devoted herself to a religious life. By her charitable deeds and acts of piety she gained a great and well deserved name for sanctity. It is said that one day she met Taland, who was reduced to the life of a blind mendicant. By the power of her holiness, she restored his sight, and he, filled with remorse, confessed his crime and brought about a reconciliation between Hildegarde and the king. No less naive is the legend related of one of Charlemagne's daughters. His children included several girls, all beautiful; but for political reasons their father denied them the privilege of marriage. He considered that if they were united to the great nobles of the land, it would mean a division and consequent weakening of the empire. But love laughed at politics. "His secretary, young Eginhart, became deeply enamored of his daughter Emma, and the youthful lovers, fearing his anger should he discover their affection, met only at night. It happened that one night, while Eginhart was in the princess's apartment, a fall of snow took place. To return across the palace court must lead to the inevitable discovery by the traces of his footsteps. The moment called for resolution; woman's wit came to the assistance of the perplexed lover, and the faithful and prudent Emma, taking her lover on her back, bore him across the court. The emperor, who chanced to be gazing from his window, beheld this strange sight by the clear moonlight, and the next morning sent for the young couple, who stood before him in the expectation of being sentenced to death, when the generous father bestowed upon Eginhart his daughter's hand, and the Odinwald in fief. The tomb of Emma and Eginhart is still to be seen at Erbach." Another daughter, Bertha, called after her grandmother--the mother of Charlemagne, carried on a similar intrigue with Engelbert; and, though not fortunate enough to receive her father's sanction to marriage, with a gift of land, she became the mother of Nithart, who was a famous historian of his time. Charlemagne's own character enabled him to understand, and his justice prompted him to condone those instincts which his policy would not allow to be satisfied in a lawful and conventional manner.