Handmaids of God: Images of Service in the Lives of Merovingian Female Saints

Abstract

Merovingian hagiographies make extensive use of the metaphor of service to demonstrate the sanctity of their subjects. These religious images emerged from a society in which slaves and servants were both ubiquitous and demeaned, and the metaphors were embedded in the social realities of service. This article examines the Lives of three elite female saints who were depicted as slaves, or engaged in acts of servitude: Radegund, Balthild, and Austreberta. It argues that although service as a religious motif was central to each of these texts, the authors engaged with the image in strikingly different ways and to quite different ends, depending on the social world of the text.She tendered service to them out of holy devotion, as if she was the most foul of little serving girls, even when she still ruled the public palace and often visited the holy community. She demonstrated an example of such great humility that in the kitchen she served the sisters and performed the most foul cleaning chores, even carting away dung. And she did all of this with a joyous and happy spirit, to be such a humble servant for the sake of Christ. 1