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Translation by John Wijngaards

The following quote we owe to Venantius Fortunatus a contemporary of Radegund. We find it in his biography of her, Vitae Sanctae Radegundis. This was published in Mon. Germaniae Auctores antiquissimi, IV, 2, p. 41; see also MIGNE, PL 88, 502.

Radegund was a Thuringian princess who was captured as a child by Clothaire I, a Frankish king, and later forced into marriage with him, becoming one of his seven recognized wives. Clothaire was a violent and unpredictable man. Radegund fled from court after the King’s treacherous murder of her brother . . .[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1419718968468{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 40px 10px 10px 10px !important;}”][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1419853850488{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 10px 10px 44px 20px!important;background-color: #d7d7d7 !important;}”]Source: Vitae Sanctae Radegundis chapter XII, § 26 & 28

Veniens ad beatum Medardum Novomago, supplicat instanter ut ipsam mutata veste domino consecraret. … Sanctissima … intrans in sacrarium, monachica veste induitur, procedit ad altare, beatissimum Medardum his verbis alloquitur dicens: Si me consecrare distuleris … de manu tua, pastor, ovis anima requiratur. Quo ille contestationis concussus tonitruo, manu superposita consecravit diaconam.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1419853904370{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding:10px 10px 10px 20px !important;background-color: #ffcccc !important;}”]

Coming to blessed Medardus at Noyon, she begged him to instantly ordain her as soon as she would have changed her dress . . . The most holy woman . . . entered the sacristy, put on a nun’s dress, proceeded to the altar, and addressed the most blessed Medardus with these words: ‘If you refuse to ordain me . . . my soul will be required from your hand, O shepherd, as a [lost] sheep.’ Struck by the thunder of her statement, he imposed hands on her and ordained her a deacon.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1419854332151{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 10px !important;}”]

Comment

Radegund was anxious to escape from her worldly and ambitious husband, King Clothaire of the Franks. She wanted to devote her life to God. And by entering a monastery she would be outside the King’s reach, as nuns were generally protected under church laws. So why did she also want to be a deacon? Did it give her more protection? Or did she seek the ministry of women?

Whatever the answer, she will have received a full ordination to the diaconate through a simple ordination rite.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]