Holy Queens. Transformation of the concept of sainthood in Frankish society in the 6-10th centuries

This study is dedicated to the three Frankish queens who were attributed by contemporaries and descendants to the saints. The question of female sanctity and female power in the early Middle Ages has often become a topic of reсent studies. Nevertheless, the role of the images of the holy queens Clotilde, Radegund and Bathilde in the Frankish Empire, as well as the reasons for their formation and development, remained unclear. This paper examines the dynamics of transformation and continuity in the images of the holy queens created by hagiographers throughout the 6th-10th centuries and seeks to find out whether a special hagiographic model of the holy queen has developed. Moreover, it explores the reasons for such images and assesses the degree of their variability depending on the goals of hagiographs. Among the results of the present investigation, the common features of the images of the three chosen queens, the goals of hagiographers in creating these images were defined and the models on which the authors of vitas were based during the creation of the images of the holy queens were investigated.