Erminethrudis (died c. 600), was a nun and a member of the Merovingian aristocracy who died in Paris about 600, leaving a will which survived as a rare example from the period.
The testament of Erminethrudis serves as a rare example of some conditions of a woman in the aristocracy in this time period, as only nuns or widows left wills in their own capacity, of which few survive.[1] She owned two villas in Lagny-sur-Marne and Bobigny and at least 13 separate vineyards in this area east of Paris, leaving properties to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and other basilicas.[2]
She had been married and had children before joining her religious order. Her son, Deorovaldus, had been buried in St Symphorien of Paris before her death.[3][4]
She also had a surviving son to whom she left clothing and other possessions. She left individual items of gold jewelry to four Parisien basilicas[5] and freed a number of unfree workers from her lands.[6] The religious gifts were designed to ensure prayers being said for her and her son in perpetuity.[7]
References
- ^ Chis Wickham (2009). The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000. Penguin Books. pp. 180–181. ISBN 978-0-7139-9429-2.
- ^ Chris Wickham (30 November 2006), Framing the Early Middle Ages, Oxford University Press, p. 231, ISBN 9780191622632
- ^ Constance Brittain Bouchard (2015). Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500-1200. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 178–179. ISBN 9780812246360.
- ^ Chris Wickham (30 November 2006), Framing the Early Middle Ages, Oxford University Press, p. 231, ISBN 9780191622632
- ^ Constance Brittain Bouchard (1998). Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0271027852.
- ^ Constance Brittain Bouchard (1998). Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 196. ISBN 978-0271027852.
- ^ Allen E Jones (2009). Social Mobility in Late Antique Gaul Strategies and Opportunities for the Non-Elite. Cambridge University Press. p. 226. ISBN 9780511596735.
External links
- Testament in Chartes originales antérieures à 1121 conservées en France
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This page was last edited on 18 May 2024, at 15:08