Clotilde (c.475–545), wife of Clovis, first Christian king of the Franks. A Burgundian princess, Clotilde was put forward as the possible wife for Clovis, the powerful pagan war-leader. Impressed by her beauty and wisdom, Clovis married her c.492. If we can believe Gregory of Tours, Clotilde actively encouraged Clovis to abandon his idols and become a Christian. When their first son was born, Clotilde had him baptized, but he died soon afterwards. Naturally Clovis reproached her, but she bore him another son, Clodomir, who was also baptized and taken ill. He recovered, however, and eventually Clovis and Clotilde had two other sons and a daughter. Meanwhile Clovis in 496 was in serious trouble during a battle against the Alemanni: he prayed to ‘the God of Clotilde’, vowing to accept baptism if he won the victory. This proved to be complete and on Christmas Day 498 he was baptized by Remigius, bishop of Rheims. Clovis's subsequent military achievements, against Burgundians and Visigoths, do not seem to have been associated with Clotilde, but the building at Paris (his capital) of a church of the Apostles was their joint enterprise, and Clovis, who died in 511, was buried there.
Now Clotilde retired to Tours, but still exercised a political role in the violent Merovingian world, mainly through her sons. Two of these were assassinated and her daughter, married to the Visigoth Amalric, died at about the same time. Thenceforward she led a devout life, serving in Martin's basilica at Tours, building churches and monasteries, and now totally detached from politics and power-struggles except through prayer. The churches which were claimed to be built by her included Laon, Andelys, and Rouen. She died on 3 June, the day of her feast, and was buried at Paris in the basilica of the apostles, later called St Genevieve.
Gregory of Tours is the principal source for her life, but a biography followed in the 10th century. This celebrated her as the saintly ancestor of the French kings. Artists from several centuries depicted her presiding at the baptism of Clovis or as a suppliant at the shrine of St. Martin. Andelys has a fine 16th-century stained-glass window devoted to her life, and in Normandy especially she was the patron of the lame, and invoked against sudden death and iniquitous husbands. In spite of the Revolution, her relics have survived at the church of Saint-Leu at Paris.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Iun. I (1695), 292–8
- Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, books 2–4
- Life in B. Krusch (ed.), M.G.H. Scriptores rer. merov., ii. 349–51, tr. J. A. McNamara, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages (1992)
- see also G. Kurth, Sainte Clotilde (Eng tr. 1898). H.S.S.C., iii. 115–19
