Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

known as St Césaire. This suggested context throws an interesting sidelight on the
apparently very limited cult enjoyed by Caesaria, particularly as the Vie describes her as
‘une des plus celebre Heroïnes de Christianisme’. 114 It contains no dates for Caesaria’s
life; her actions are merely echoes of those of Caesarius. At the age of seventeen, in 486
or 487, Caesarius had been tonsured by Bishop Silvester of Châlon, and it may have been
around the same time that the twenty-two-year-old Caesaria committed herself to the
religious life. 115 However, Caesaria’s age suggests an alternative interpretation. The age
at which Christian girls tended to marry was usually between the ages of fifteen and
eighteen, so twenty-two would seem a fairly advanced age for a decision of that kind. 116
If there ever was a moment of choice, for Caesaria or her parents, between marriage and
perpetual virginity, it had probably been made considerably earlier than that,
notwithstanding her biographer’s claim that her first introduction to dedicated religious
life came when Caesarius summoned her to Arles to be abbess of the monastery, ‘pour
cultiver cette jeune plante dans le terroir de la vertu, & pour avoir soin de cette ame
innocente’. 117 The cases of Fuscina and Avitus may be instructive in this instance. As in
their family, Caesaria’s vocation may have been the first formal expression of her
family’s piety, and Caesarius’ own subsequent decision to be a monk merely the more
visible sign of this.
It seems highly possible, then, that Caesaria had been living as a dedicated
religious for the better part of three decades. The financial and legal circumstances of a
Gallo-Roman woman of Caesaria’s social status would almost certainly suggest a
strongly familial context for such a dedication, with strong links being maintained to
family members. Seen within such a setting, her presence in Arles and acceptance of her
brother’s cenobitic impulses becomes clearer. Her own vocation was also the expression
of her family’s faith. If, as may be likely, she moved to Arles to be under Caesarius’
protection once he became bishop, the latter’s religious formation on the monastic island
of Lérins made him keen to reproduce this style of religious life for his sister and other
114 Vie de Sainte Cesarée, 313.
115 V.Caes, I, 4.
116 A. Arjava Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1996) 32-3.
117 ‘… to cultivate that young plant in the land of virtue, and to have care of that innocent soul’. Vie de
Sainte Cesarée, 314-5.
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