The Church Fathers · c. 587
The Life of Radegund
Venantius Fortunatus · c. 530 – c. 609
What it is
A Thuringian princess taken as war booty by the Frankish king who had killed her family, married to him, and eventually escaped to found a monastery at Poitiers. Fortunatus, her friend, describes the fasting, the iron chains, and the burns she inflicted on herself.
Why it lasted
The fullest portrait of a sixth-century woman by someone who knew her, and an uncomfortable one — the asceticism reads as an answer to what had been done to her. A second life by the nun Baudonivia tells it differently.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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