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178 178 ST. RADEGUND tho great grief of ber nuns, and their regret that the strict role of St. Cesarios forbade their leaving their cloister even to follow their beloyed mother to the grave. The Queen's Will is preserved in Pertz* ManumentcLj voL XXVlI. ; it is the first of the Diphmata Regum Fran- corum e Sttrpe Merovingica. In it she leaves property to the monastery and says that she built and endowed it by the aid of her husband Clothaire the king, and his sons Charibert, Gunt- chn^m, Chilperic, and Sigibert. She charges the Holy Cross and the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Hilary and St. Martin to prevent any one from persecuting Sister Agnes the abbess, or taking away the lands or revenues of the monastery. She entreats all kings and bishops not to allow the rule to be changed or the conmiunity injured. Radegund is one of three very famous royal sainted ladies of Thuringia and the only one of them who was a native of that country. See Walburoa (1) and ELIZABI'n'H(ll). The ruins of a grand old abbey of the Premonstratensian Order, dedicated in the name of St. Radegund, may be seen at Alkham, near Folkestone. It was built in the reign of Richard I. and was of considerable strength. She has other dedications in England. One of the chief authorities for the daily life of the good queen within tho nunnery walls is her secretary and biographer, VenantiuB Honorius Clementianus For- tunatus, who has been called the last representative of Latin poetry in Gaul, and who was for some years an inmate of the monastery and eventually became bishop of Poitiers. In his Life of Rade- gund he speaks with great affection of the Queen and tho Abbess Agnes, of their strictness to themselves and their indulgence towards others. He tells us that even when their rule compelled them to fast, they provided a luxurious little dinner for a favoured guest, strew- ing the table with rose leaves and en- hancing the pleasures of tho repast by their charming conversation. Radegund was indulgent to her nuns in tho matter of recreation. She allowed them to see friends from outside the monastery- She sometimes permitted those dramatic en- tertainments which were beginning to be introduced into the religiouB world. Miss Eckenstein, in Woman under Manattictsm^ gives extracts from some of Radegund's poems. Her life was also written by one of her nmia. She is mentioned by Gregory of Tours, and all the historians of the time. BJf. AASS. SismondL Butler. Hon- talembert, Moines ^Occident. Thierry, Becits M^ovingiens, Fortunatns. Ifigne, Oursus completus, LXXXVIIL, 506. Adams, Gydopsedia of Female Biography. Radegund's whole history is so well authenticated and so rational that it is almost a pity to add a miraculous legend, which is borrowed from the story of the flight of the B. V. Mabt into Egypt The story told by Cahier is that when Radegund's husband was pursuing her, she passed through a field where the peasants and serfis were sowing com. She said to the workmen, '' If any one asks you whether I passed through your fields, be sure you say it was when you wore sowing the com." They promised. The com grew up and ripened in a single night, and next day, when the king and his men came that way and asked whether the queen had been seen, they pointed to the ripe com, and said, " Tos, she was here when we were sow- ing this field." So the pursuers were thrown off the track. St. Radeg:und (2) of Chelles, Jan. 26, Feb. 3, + 670 or 680. A god- daughter of Bathilde (1), queeh of France, who took the child with her when she went to live as a nun in the monastery of Chelles. Bathilde attended carefully to her education and became yery fond of her, and prayed that Rade- gund might not survive her, lest she should fall away from holy innocence when deprived of her care. She died at the age of seven, on the same day as her god-mother, or by other accounts, three days before her, and they were buried together. Radegund is sometimes called Little St. Bathildis. Butler, "St Bathildis." B. Radeg^und (3) of Trevino near Burgos, Jan. 29 (Redegundis, Rediound,