Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

of Eboriac in fact provides one of the clearest examples in the work of Jonas’ conception
of Eustasius and his contemporaries as discipuli of Columbanus: he completed the work
his master started, by ensuring Burgundofara’s eventual entry into Eboriac.
Eustasius’ vital role in the foundation is carefully set out. Arriving at the home of
Chagneric, conviva of the king, he received a warm welcome, not least because he was
accompanied by Chagneric’s son Chagnoald, who had entered Luxeuil and became
Columbanus’ assistant and later bishop of Meaux. 216 With her parents was Burgundofara,
whom her father had now decided to marry off, and whom, Jonas is careful to imply, was
blind and close to death as a consequence of this decision and her own unhappiness. 217
After confirming her wish to enter religious life, and gaining the agreement of Chagneric,
Eustasius cured her, but the moment she was cured, and Eustasius had departed,
Chagneric again decided that she should be married. This time Burgundofara had to take
her fate into her own hands, and fled to the church of St Peter. Chagneric sent his
servants after her with orders to kill her; fortunately, Eustasius returned and rescued her,
taking her to Gundoald, the bishop of Meaux, to be consecrated with the religious
habit. 218
Taking this episode in isolation, the participants appear to be playing out well-
defined roles. Burgundofara is the virgin who wishes to remain so, prepared to die in
preference to marriage; Chagneric is the cruel father with his mind fixed on worldly
affairs; Eustasius, whose story this is, a figure of sufficient spiritual and temporal
authority to be able to intervene in defence of the girl’s longed-for union with Christ. 219
This is a dramatic piece of writing on Jonas’ part, but it reads rather as the slightly
desperate use of a stock motif which would enable him to present Eustasius as a figure of
dynamism and courage. Nothing else suggests opposition to Burgundofara’s vocation;
indeed, Jonas himself states quite the opposite. In Book I, Jonas had described
216 VCD I:27; I:15.
217 VCD II:7.
218 VCD II:7.
219 Other examples of such intervention are in the Vita Glodesindis (AASS Jul. 25, 198-224, cap. 10),
where a mysterious stranger veils the fugitive Glodesind; or in the Vita Rictrudis (AASS May 12, 78-98,
cap. 14), when Amand helps Rictrude in her plan to avoid remarriage in favour of a life in religion.
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