178 ST. RADEGUND the great grief of her nuns, and their regret that the strict rule of St. Cesarius forbade their leaving their cloister even to follow their beloved mother to the grave. She The Queen's Will is preserved in Pertz' Monumenta, vol. XXVII.; it is the first of the Diplomata Regum Fran- corum e Stirpe Merovingica. In it she leaves property to the monastery and says that she built and endowed it by the aid of her husband Clothaire the king, and his sons Charibert, Gunt- chramn, Chilperic, and Sigibert. charges the Holy Cross and the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Hilary and St. Martin to prevent any one from persecuting Sister Agnes the abbess, or taking away the lands or revenues of the monastery. She entreats all kings and bishops not to allow the rule to be changed or the community injured. Radegund is one of three very famous royal sainted ladies of Thuringia and the only one of them who was a native of that country. See WALBURGA (1) and ELIZABETH (11). The ruins of a grand old abbey of the Premonstratensian Order, dedicated in the name of St. Radegund, may be seen at Alkham, near Folkestone. It was built in the reign of Richard I. and was of considerable strength. She has other dedications in England. One of the chief authorities for the daily life of the good queen within the nunnery walls is her secretary and biographer, Venantius Honorius Clementianus For- tunatus, who has been called the last representative of Latin poetry in Gaul, and who was for some years an inmate of the monastery and eventually became bishop of Poitiers. In his Life of Rade- gund he speaks with great affection of the Queen and the Abbess Agnes, of their strictness to themselves and their indulgence towards others. He tells us that even when their rule compelled them to fast, they provided a luxurious little dinner for a favoured guest, strew- ing the table with rose leaves and on- hancing the pleasures of the repast by their charming conversation. Radegund was indulgent to her nuns in the matter of recreation. She allowed them to see friends from outside the monastery. She sometimes permitted those dramatic en- tertainments which were beginning to be introduced into the religious world. Miss Eckenstein, in Woman under Monasticism, gives extracts from some of Radegund's poems. Her life was also written by one of her nuns. She is mentioned by Gregory of Tours, and all the historians of the time. R.M. AA.SS. Sismondi. Butler. Mon- talembert, Moines d'Occident. Thierry, Recits Merovingiens. Fortunatus. Migne, Cursus completus, LXXXVIII., 506. Adams, Cyclopædia of Female Biography. Radegund's whole history is so well authenticated and so rational that it is almost a pity to add a miraculous legend, which is borrowed from the story of the flight of the B. V. MARY into Egypt. The story told by Cahier is that when Radegund's husband was pursuing her, she passed through a field where the peasants and serfs were sowing corn. She said to the workmen, "If any one asks you whether I passed through your fields, be sure you say it was when you were sowing the corn." They promised. The corn grew up and ripened in a single night, and next day, when the king and his men came that way and asked whether the queen had been seen, they pointed to the ripe corn, and said, Yes, she was here when we were sow- ing this field." So the pursuers were thrown off the track. " St. Radegund (2) of Chelles, Jan. 26, Feb. 3, + 670 or 680. A god- daughter of BATHILDE (1), queen of France, who took the child with her when she went to live as a nun in the monastery of Chelles. Bathilde attended carefully to her education and became very fond of her, and prayed that Rade- gund might not survive hor, lest she should fall away from holy innocence when deprived of her care. She died at the age of seven, on the same day as her god-mother, or by other accounts, three days before her, and they were buried together. Radegund is sometimes called LITTLE ST. BATHILDIS. Butler, "St. Bathildis." B. Radegund (3) of Treviño near Burgos, Jan. 29 (REDEGUNDIS, REdigund,
