Santa Radegonda
St. Radegund
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani took vows at the convent of Santa Radegonda in 1619 and remained within the walls of the convent for the rest of her life. Her sister had entered the convent two years earlier and they joined several aunts as the second generation of the Cozzolani family at the convent. The convent already enjoyed a reputation for its excellent musical establishment, a reputation considerably enhanced by Chiara’s publications in the 1640s.
The convent was dedicated to Santa Radegonda (Saint Radegund), daughter of a Thuringian king that was forced to marry the Frankish king Clothaire I, whom she eventually abandoned, was best known as one of the leading women intellectuals of the early “Dark Ages.” Not long after her birth around 520, Radegund’s father Berthaire was murdered by her uncle, Hermanfred, who then brought up Radegund and her brother, until the Frankish invasion, which led to the defeat and virtual destruction of the Thuringian royal family in 531.
Radegund and her brother were captured by the Frankish King Clothaire I, who carried them off, as spoils of war, to his royal estate near Athies, where Radegund remained until she was aged eighteen. Then, despite a vain attempt at flight, she was taken by Clothaire to his court at Soissons to be his queen. Radegund was reluctant to marry Clothaire, partly because of his brutal and dissolute character, but also on account of to her resistance to the married state itself, an early sign of her attraction to a monastic vocation. She eventually consented to the wedding (c.540), but continued to lead an austere and devout existence, thus goading Clothaire to fury. She used the revenues of the lands she was granted at her wedding to found hospices and do other charitable work on behalf of the poor. One such hospice, dedicated to Saint Radegund, still exists at Athies.
She left Clothaire in 550 after learning that he had murdered her brother and later founded the Convent of Our Lady of Poitiers, which became a center for learning and scholarship. The nuns, though strictly forbidden to leave the convent, were required to be able to read and write, and devoted several hours of the day to reading the scriptures and copying manuscripts, as well as to such traditionally female tasks as weaving and needlework. In her last years, Radegund took her habitual practice of asceticism still further. She shut herself off from the day-to-day life of the convent, and isolated herself in a walled-up cell, where she devoted her hours to prayer and meditation. She died on 13th August 587.
This post is adapted from a more comprehensive article by Alex Perkins that can be read here.
Tags: Alan Perkins, Radegonda, Radegund
