Baudovinia

Baudovinia (fl. c. 600) was a nun and hagiographer. Very little is known about her. She is the author of the "second part" (in truth a new version) of the Vita Radegundis,^[1] a biography of Radegund, which she wrote at Chelles Abbey sometime between 599 and 614.^[2] With the former half having been written by Venantius Fortunatus, she regarded her work like the latter half of a diptych.^[3] Her work has been characterised as faithful to the picture painted by Fortunatus, but more significantly influenced by the ideology of Caesarius of Arles's Regula Virginum with the clear purpose of providing a model of sanctity for the nuns of her generation.^[4] The work is focused on the later stages of Radegund's life, when Radegund lived in a cell near Poitiers.^[5]

Notes

1. Translated into English in McNamara, Halborg and Whatley (eds.), Sainted Women, pp. 86–105
2. Lerner, Creation of Feminist Consciousness, p. 249; Smith, "Radegundis Peccatrix", p. 324
3. Smith, "Radegundis Peccatrix", p. 324
4. Lerner, Creation of Feminist Consciousness, pp. 249–50; Smith, "Radegundis Peccatrix", pp. 324–26
5. Lerner, Creation of Feminist Consciousness, p. 250

References

• Lerner, Gerda (1993), The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-506604-9
• McNamara, Jo Ann; Halborg, John E.; Whatley, E. Gordon; Watt, D. E. R., eds. (1992), Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-1200-X
• Smith, Julia M. H. (2009), "Radegundis Peccatrix: Authorizations of Virginity in Late Antique Gaul", in Rousseau, Philip; Papoutsakis, Manolis, Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown, Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 303–26, ISBN 0-7486-1110-X