Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

ore the holy body with psalms beneath the walls’. 93 This echoes Caesarius’ ‘she must
never, up to the time of her death, go out of the monastery’. 94 There are many more
instances where Baudonivia’s knowledge of the rule informs the way in which she
describes Radegund’s activities. One section in particular, first highlighted by McNamara
and Halborg, seems to describe Radegund’s activities in terms of their relationship to the
Regula virginum. 95 Radegund ‘would not allow her maid to minister to her’; 96 this
suggests, but does not follow slavishly, Caesarius’ requirement that ‘No one, not even the
abbess, may be permitted to have her own maid for her service’. 97 Radegund’s reluctance
to use her maid is perhaps intended to indicate the ex-queen’s strength of will even more
than the complete absence of such assistance would have done. A subsequent passage
would have pleased Caesarius immensely. One of Radegund’s virtues is the ‘incessant
meditating on the law of God by day and by night’ 98 : this is reminiscent not only of the
Regula, which makes mention several times of the need for constant meditation, ‘...when
the reading has ceased, holy meditation of the heart shall not cease’ (cap. 18), which
demands of the nuns ‘Whatever work you may be doing at a time when there is no
reading, always ruminate on something from divine Scriptures’ (cap.22), but also of the
Vita Caesarii, which records that ‘No hour of the day passed him by without meditation
on the divine word, not even when he was sleeping’. 99 The fact that Holy Cross possessed
a copy of the Vita Caesarii to accompany their copy of the rule appears even more
probable from a later passage of Baudonivia’s Life, which is taken almost verbatim from
Book II of the Vita Caesarii. Baudonivia asks ‘Oh God, oh goodly sculptor, who now can
even recapture her look, her form, her being? Indeed it is painful to remember what she
was like. For we humbled ones long for her teaching, the form and face, person,
knowledge, piety, goodness and sweetness that she had in herself from the Lord that
made her special among other people.’ 100 The derivation from the Vita Caesarii is clear:
93 Vita Radegundis II 24, tr. SWDA, 103.
94 RV 2; tr. McCarthy, 171.
95 SWDA, 90, n.94
96 Vita Radegundis II 8, tr. SWDA, 91.
97 RV 7; McCarthy, 173.
98 Vita Radegundis II 8, tr. SWDA, 91.
99 V.Caes I.46, tr. Klingshirn, Life, Testament, Letters, 32-33.
100 Vita Radegundis II 19, tr. SWDA, 101: Nam qualem vultum, Deus, plasmator bone, qualem faciam,
qualem personam habuit, quis potest unquam exponere? Sed et hoc reminisci supplitium est. Nos vero
humiles desideramus in ea doctrinam, formam, vultum, personam, scientiam, pietatem, bonitatem,
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