Genevieve (Genofeva) (d. c.500), virgin, patroness of Paris. Born at Nanterre, Genevieve took the veil at the age of about fifteen; on the death of her parents she moved to Paris, where she continued her chosen life of prayer and austerity. She was supported by Germanus of Auxerre, who had apparently known her from childhood. When the Franks under Childeric besieged Paris, Genevieve is said to have personally made a sortie with an armed band to obtain provisions by river from Arcis and Troyes. She won Childeric's respect, however, and she built a church in honour of Denys. Clovis also, we are told, venerated her and released prisoners at her request. She is also said to have encouraged the Parisians to avert the coming of Attila and his Huns by the frequent use of fasting and prayer: in the event they changed the route of their march and Paris was spared.
After her death Genevieve was enshrined in the church of SS. Peter and Paul (later St. Genevieve's), built by Clovis, where her miracles made it famous. The fabric eventually decayed and a new church was begun in 1746, but was secularized at the Revolution and is called the Pantheon, a burial place for the worthies of France. During the Middle Ages the feretory of Genevieve was carried in procession at times of disaster: her most famous cures were from an epidemic of ergotism in 1129, but over and over again Parisians have invoked her in times of national crisis. Several churches were dedicated to her there and two in medieval England, where at least five abbeys celebrated her feast. Her cult also spread to SW. Germany in the Middle Ages. Her shrine and relics were largely destroyed at the Revolution, but this by no means finished her cult in France. Many of the most notable artistic representations of her, continuing traditions from the late Middle Ages, date from the 17th–19th centuries, including the frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes in the Pantheon. Her most usual emblem is a candle, with or without the devil, who was reputed to have blown it out when she went to pray at night in the church.
Her name is in the Martyrology of Jerome, so her cult is ancient, but the Life which purports to be contemporary was written some centuries after her death. Consequently little can be asserted about her with certainty, but her cult has flourished on civic and national pride. Feast: 3 January.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Ian. I (1643), 137–53; Text ‘A’ edited by B. Krusch in M.G.H., Scriptores rerum merov., iii (1896), 204–38; text ‘B’ by C. Kohler, Étude critique sur le texte de la vie latine de Sainte Cénéviéve (1881); text ‘C’ by C. Kunstle, Vita Sanctae Genofevae (Teubner
edn. 1910 ). Some scholars maintain the traditional date and value of the Life, see G. Kurth, ‘Étude critique sur la Vie de sainte Généviève’ in Études Franques, ii (1919), 1–96; see also Lives by C. H. Lesêtre (1900) and M. Reynès-Monlaur (1924); N. Jacquin, Sainte Généviève, ses images et son culte (1952); Réau, ii. 563–8; Bibl. SS., vi. 157–64
