“Heteronomy and autonomy of female saints' vitae in Gaul at the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages”
The dynamic developments in the 4th century AD paved the way for the transformation process of the early Christian community into a “people's church” and a new Christian self-image with the model of an unbloody imitatio Christi. At the same time, the literary genre of the Acts and Passions of the Martyrs was replaced by the first vitae of the saints. The first biographies of male saints were soon followed by the first lives of female saints, including the Vita Sactae Macrinae by Gregory of Nyssa and the Vita Melaniae Iunioris by Gerontius. The text genre would reach its heyday in the High Middle Ages.
Gaul played a special role as the educational center of Western monasticism, and its autochthonous position came to the fore through holy figures such as Martin of Tours. From the 6th century onwards, the number of reports about holy women would also increase here. The Vita Genovefae was followed by other biographies, including the Vita Monegundis by Gregory of Tours and the Vita Radegundis by Venantius Fortunatus and the prioress Baudonivia.
At the center of the study is the question of the autonomy or heteronomy of the vitae of those women who were active in Gaul in the early Middle Ages in relation to the known vitae of saints dedicated to men (and women) in late antiquity. The aim is to work out specific design features of a Christian holy woman in order to show how these were taken up and at the same time how special aspects of female sanctity were elaborated in order to form an independent text genre.
As a reflection of the increasing participation of the Frankish ruling classes in the cult of Christian saints, the Vites can also provide information about the development of early medieval religiosity as well as the change in ideas of female sanctity and the development of female-specific types of saints in the Latin West.