A story worthy of a James Bond movie.
In the 5-6th centuries, Thuringia was a kingdom in the Harz Mountains of Central Germany, near today’s state of Thuringia but much more extensive. The Thuringians were thought to have come from beyond the Elbe River, and integrated some remnants of Attila’s Hunnic Empire. In 531, Thuringia was conquered by two sons of the Frankish King Clovis, Theodoric and Chlotar (or Clotaire), and the last Thuringian King, Hermanfried, was killed. His niece, eleven-year old Radegonde (probably born at Erfurt), was kidnapped by Clotaire, and then forced to marry him when she turned eighteen. She was one of Clotaire I’s six wives.
Radegonde, however, was no pushover (possibly due to very strong genes: her widowed mother Media would re-marry with Wacho, King of the Lombards, and become the ancestor of the Lombard royal line for several centuries). Radegonde took refuge as she could from her unloved captor/ husband in almsgiving, prayer, and helping the poor and sick. A decade later, however, Clotaire murdered Radegonde’s brother, the last surviving male member of the Thuringian royal family, and Radegonde fled the court. She found refuge with Medard, the Bishop of Noyon, who threatened Clotaire with excommunication and kept the King from recapturing Radegonde.
Safe from Clotaire, Radegonde further embraced the religious life and in 552 founded the first abbey for women in France, then called Sainte-Marie of Poitiers. Radegonde declined the role of abbess, instead installing her friend Agnes as leader of Sainte-Marie. The abbey rapidly acquired a wide reputation, largely around Radegonde’s good works and reputed miracles, attracting among others the poet Venantius Fortunat from Italy in 567. Fortunat composed a series of hymns, inspired by Radegonde – still sung as part of the Catholic liturgy, ended his life as bishop of Poitiers and was eventually venerated as a saint in France and Italy (see “If this be the Food of Love”). In 569, Radegonde send some hand-sewn cloth to no less than the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, with a small request: would the Emperor kindly mind sending Radegonde a piece of wood from the Holy Cross? Not many refugee nuns could pull that off: and not only did Justinian receive the request, but he responded “yes.” The relic made its way to Poitiers, and in its honor Sainte-Marie was henceforth renamed as the Abbey of the Sainte-Croix, a name it still holds.
Radegonde went on to play an increasingly activist role with the later Merovingian Kings, intervening to moderate their tendencies to constantly slaughter their relatives and rivals. After she died in 587, her tomb – in the church she had built outside of the then Poitiers city walls, then called Sainte-Marie-hors-les-murs, and now the Church of Sainte Radegonde — became one of the major pilgrimage destinations in France well into the 20th Century, with many pilgrims making their way from Germany to venerate her. Radegonde has to go down as one of the most remarkable women of medieval history – even if Ian Fleming never wrote down her story.
