Clotilde

Clotilde ( 474 – 3 June 545 in Burgundy, France) (also known as Clotilda (Fr.), Chlothilde (Ger.) Her feast day is June 3. Her history also appears in French hagiographies, but most of them were written before Kurth's.

Clotilde's grandfather was Gondioc, who had four sons: her father Chilperic II of Burgundy, Gundobad, Gondemar, and Godegisel. After Gondioc's death, Burgundy was divided up among them, but Gundobad gained power over Burgundy when he murdered his brothers. Gundobad also killed Clotide's brothers and her mother Carétène, who might have converted Chilperic to Christianity and was called "a remarkable woman" by Sidonius Apollinaris and Venantius Fortunatus.

Clotilde and her sister, Sedeleuba (or Chrona), who later became a nun and founded the church of Saint-Victor in Geneva, were raised at the court of Gundobad. They were educated as Catholics, even though Gundobad, like most of the Burgundian kings, were Arians.

Post-marriage and death According to Kurth in The Catholic Encyclopedia, an epic about the Franks accuses Clotilde of inciting her son Chlodomer to start a war with his cousin, Sigismund of Burgundy, to avenge the deaths of her parents. Godefroid doubts the story is true, considers it a defamation against Clotilde, and states that she arranged a truce between Clovis and Gondebad, Sigismund's father.

After the deaths of Clovis and her grandchildren, Clotilde left Paris and moved to Tours, where she spent most of her time near the tomb of Saint Martin of Tours and became closely associated with the diocese of Tours. Dunbar writes that Clotilde and Clovis were devoted to Saint Martin. As Farmer reports, "thenceforward she led a devout life," becoming "totally detached from politics and power-struggles except through prayer". The space in front of the fountain was larger than it currently is, providing enough room for pilgrims who came for healing, which reinforced people's belief in its power. The spring has become known for healing skin diseases.

At a royal Merovingian villa in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, she had a small chapel dedicated to Saint George c. 511; a century and a half later, Saint Balthild would build Chelles Abbey on the chapel's ruins. The monastery was wealthy until modern times and was for many years "a great place of resort and education for English princesses" who descended from Clovis and Clotilde.

Clotilde also built churches reportedly at Rouen and Lyon.

Clotilde has been depicted in art over the centuries presiding over the baptism of Clovis or as a supplicant at St. Martin's shrine. The church dedicated to her in Andelys contains a "fine 16th-century stained-glass window devoted to her life." The Bedford Hours missal contains a painting of Clotilde, probably by Jan Van Eyck, which Dunbar describes as "a beautiful and brilliant representation of the granting of the lilies to Clovis." Clotilde's relics survived the French Revolution and since 1997 have been stored at the Church of Saint Louis of France in Paris. In 1857, a "grand new church" was founded in her honour in Paris.

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