Bathilde the Slave Queen Dies
On the Day January 30 680AD
Khen Lim
Bathilde the slave queen (Image source: TradCatKnight)
Hurriedly, the flaxen braided slave girl rushed into a hidden
chamber near to the kitchen but out of sight of anyone around. Locking the door
behind her, she tried to catch her breath but eventually, she quickly
undressed.
Dispensing with the attractive clothes she wore in attendance of the
aristocrats and the nobility, she found her old dirty rags and put them on
instead. Then she smeared her pretty face with kitchen grime desperately to
conceal her beauty. After she completed her disguise, she resurfaced and calmly
walked to the kitchen and became a dirty kitchenhand unfit for the eyes of the
royalty and palace attendees.
Disney Studios could easily be behind this story and
transformed it into an animation movie with a fairy-tale ending where the slave
girl is spotted by a handsome beau who marries her and lived happily ever
after.
The remarkable thing about this story is that it is real. It happened
and the girl was pursued by a powerful politician but she married someone else and
left an amazing legacy. This was certainly nothing an epic motion picture could
not do justice to.
Some say she was the daughter of someone
called Sisoigne but no one can be sure. No one could also be certain of her Anglo-Saxon
descent even if she was alleged to have been captured by Danish raiders around
645-650AD who plundered England and then sold as a teenage slave in France.
What we do know is that Bathilde served as a slave to the
mayor of the palace of Neustria (similar to a prime minister in stature), Erchinoald’s
wife and when she died, he cast his eyes on her, admiring her modesty as much
as her physical beauty.
The problem with Bathilde was that she carried herself
impressively in public and before him. She was always cheerful, helpful and
attentive to people’s needs. Others had also observed her intelligence and
integrity. Because of her kindness, her fellow servants were also very fond and
respectful of her, remembering how she would clean their shoes and mend their
clothes. Erchinoald was so taken by her that he appointed her his cupbearer.
While Erchinoald boldly proclaimed to others that he desired
her hand in marriage after the death of his wife, she, in turn, did not
reciprocate the same feelings. She had no intention of being betrothed to him and
so she set about to make herself appear as undesirable as possible by adorning
unattractive, ugly, old and ragged garments, fitting only as a wretched kitchenhand
and matting her hair, covering herself in grime. She then resorted to mingle
with the lower servants of King Clovis II’s palace, desperate that he not find
her in her usual place.
As a result, Erchinoald concluded that she must have fled the
palace for whatever reason. Eventually, much to her relief, he married someone
else. With that crisis well and over, Bathilde reverted to her normal cheerful
self, attending to her usual duties in the palace.
King Clovis II (Image source: pinterest.com)
But then, after Erchinoald, she
caught the eye of King Clovis II of Neustria and Burgundy who confessed to her
his matrimonial intentions. However this time, Bathilde neither squirm nor baulk
but instead, accepted his offer.
Like any healthy fairy tale (except this one was real), in
649AD, the 17-year-old Bathilde became the queen of France and took her newly
elevated station in life to be charitable. Rather than being smothered by the
giddy heights of obscene wealth and snotty prestige, Bathilde made full use of
her authority to actually serve others.
As she was mindful of her humble
underpinnings, she never forgot her trials as a poor slave and therefore,
focused her energies in the direction of helping them. To do that, she
constantly encouraged her husband, Clovis, to do good.
Queen Bathilde (Image source: pinterest.com)
Bathilde’s marriage to Clovis lasted only seven years after
which, he died in 656AD, leaving her to bring up their three children, Clotaire
III (652-673AD), Childeric II (653-675AD) and Theuderic III (654-691AD), all of
whom became kings in their own right.
The eldest, Clotaire succeeded his father
at the age of five, requiring Bathilde to act as the queen regent until he
reached ruling maturity. Ironically, it was Erchinoald, in his capacity as the
mayor of the palace, who provided counsel to the woman who effectively spurned
his motives.
In her eight-year regency, the queen proved her worthiness as
an outstanding stateswoman. Centring her efforts in abolishing Christian
slavery, she used her power to liberate children who were sold into slavery.
With guidance from Eloi (Eliguis) of Noyon (c588-660), she bought up every
slave she could find only to deliberately free them into society.
She also
firmly repressed simony among the clergy, the repugnant practice of trading
privileges including pardons and benefices. She also lowered taxes so that
impoverished families did not have to resort to selling their children to make
ends meet.
While she somehow could not outlaw the existing slaves,
Bathilde made certain that it was no longer legally permissible to trade in
slavery in France anymore. To ensure this, she introduced a law that gave every
slave brought into the country from that point onwards the automatic right to
be liberated.
No doubt that much of what she did earned the love
and admiration of her people who saw in her a person who, despite her royalty, was
humble, generous and kind and someone who never forgot her roots. As a pioneer
in the abolition of slavery, Bathilde probably was earlier than most others we
have come across.
Bathilde, queen consort of the Franks (Image source: pinterest.com)
Those who remembered her said, “Queen Batilda was the holiest
and most devout of women; her pious munificence knew no bounds; remembering her
own bondage, she set apart vast sums for the redemption of captives.”
In her
wisdom as a ruler, she sought to create civilised settlements by deploying
eligible men to clear out wild lands that were often too dangerously inhabited
by wolves and other beasts. Other than forests, she reclaimed waste lands and transformed
them into cornfields and pasture and other useful agrarian activities.
Bathilde went on to build hospitals and when finances were low,
she sold off her own jewellery so that the needy would not be in want. Also, her
charitable service and generous donations were evidence that she never forgot Christian
outreach.
From these efforts were her founding of the abbeys of Corbie for me
and Saint-Denis and Chelles, near Paris, for women. Very likely also through
her own generosity, she founded those in Jumièges, Jouarre and Luxeuil. Many of
these monasteries had also transformed the ruins of the country.
Once her eldest son, Clotaire came of eligible age to rule,
Bathilde saw it as an opportunity to retire and recede into a life of humble
servitude. She was not a woman obsessed with power and saw very little need to
cling on to it. When she was in a position of power, she used it to advance the
lives of her own people.
In her retirement, she chose her own royal abbey of
Chelles and there, she continued to serve others, particularly the nuns with
humility. Despite her evident royal background and the immense respect that she
garnered by her adoring public, Bathilde chose a life of obedience to the
abbess like the least of the sisters in the monastery.
By then as well, her other sons had also reached adulthood and
established their respective territories. Clotaire ruled Neustria while
Childeric took up the Frankish monarchy of Austrasia (now part of Netherlands,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France) and Theuderic was installed in Burgundy.
While Bathilde would wish to renounce her royalty and enter a
religious life, her duties had kept her at court. Erchinoald, her once-suitor,
had died in 659AD and was succeeded by Ebroin, who came with ambitions that
needed to be put in check while performing his duties as the new mayor of the
palace. In keeping her presence, the queen was more than able to maintain her
authority and capitalise on her reputation to benefit the kingdom at large.
Bathilde enters the Abbey of Chelles (Image source: nouvl.evangelisation.free.fr)
When she officially entered the royal abbey of Chelles in
664AD, she surrendered the royal seal and in exchange, she coveted the lowest position
among the inmates, wanting nothing but the pleasure to serve others including
the poor and the sick.
In her time, she devoted to prayer and physical toil
without any regret. When she retired her royal position, she never once looked
back nor did she have any delusions of grandeur.
By the beginning of 680AD, Bathilde had spent fifteen years of
her retirement in servitude. Right then, she had premonitions that the end of
her life had beckoned forth and sought to prepare for it. By then, the queen
was in her late-forties.
While lying in bed, dying, she had a vision of a
ladder from which angels were calling for her to ascend to heaven. Tradition
tells us that Bathilde died on this day 1,337 years ago, in 680AD. It is said
that she did not reach the age of fifty.
Bathilde the slave queen, the noblest, most humble and most
beloved in all of France, was buried at the Abbey of Chelles, east of Paris. In
833AD, her remains were reinterred at a new church under the auspices of King Louis
the Pious of Aquitaine (778-840AD). 200 years following her death, she was
canonised by Pope Nicholas I (820-867AD). Thanks to Bathilde’s incredible far-sightedness,
grace, diligence and dedication, France became the very first Christian nation
to abolish slavery.
To her, France has every reason to be grateful.
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