Radegund – The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen (Women in Antiquity)

A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family.A queen, who renounced her position, received consecration as a deaconess, and took monastic vows.A religious leader, who acquired a fragment of the Cross of the Crucifixion for her convent of Holy Cross in Poitiers. And, lastly, a saint, remembered for her healings, exorcisms, and extreme self-mortification.Such was Radegund, a woman who lived through an era defined by headlong change.Honored as a "mother" by subsequent Frankish kings and as a holy woman by her nuns and devotees, Radegund enjoyed a reputation for righteousness that spread throughout the whole of medieval Europe, with later queens emulating her pious achievements.For generations, she defined medieval queenship, female monastic practice, and the expectations associated with holy women.Today, she is often envisioned as a pan-European saint. Radegund presents a new interpretation of this remarkable woma