The saint who tamed a dragon
It’s a rain day here today, so I’m looking into some stories. This one really caught my imagination when I wandered into an ancient church just below where the old city walls of Poitiers would once have wrapped the town.
And yes, there was a saint and a dragon! But also an abducted princess, a child bride, an abused wife, an escaping queen, a monastery founder, and a spiritual role model for centuries of women. All one and the same person!
So her name is Radegund, and she was born in 520 or so. She was a princess in Thuringia, in what is now Germany - until a bunch of Franks came thundering in and abducted her. And dragged her back to their king, Chlothar: king of the Franks and a brutal leader. He liked the look of her, imprisoned her in his harem, and from what we know was as brutal to his women as he was in the field. She hated it. He made her his wife. She hated it even more.
Chlothar had a lot on his plate, not that that is any excuse. He had the whole Merovingian empire to manage and expand, an area that covered much of today’s France and Germany. He’d inherited it all from his father, Clovis, who had more or less started the whole show. And it was one of those classic three generation things, when Chlothar’s five-decade reign came to an end the lands were divided three ways between his sons. Which didn’t end well.
But back to Radegund, poor girl. She just wanted to get away from this cruel husband two decades her elder. And somehow one day she did. Not sure if it was knotted sheets from the highest tower, or if she got help from a passing knight, but she escaped. And promptly got chased by a dragon!
Beautiful soul that she was, the dragon turned tame. And on she went, ending up in Poitiers, and starting a spiritual refuge for women in need of escape, an early women’s shelter. That grew and became a monastic order that was the first of its kind in Europe, and that still exists today.
Radegond was in her twenties when she escaped, close to 70 when she died and was entombed in the church here, St Radegonde. Wasn’t long before she was made a saint, one of the most beloved in this part of the world. The one you turn to when times are tough.
What was the dragon thing all about, was there a dragon? Who knows. The better story is always the better story in my book. But it seems that dragon-slaying in general is a sign of courage: holiness and strength in the face of adversity. Symbolic of overcoming sin, evil, or personal adversity.
We all have our dragons in life to slay, so its kind of nice to know we always have Radegond on our side. A brave woman, with courage in spades! And she was a book reader too it seems.
