From Master to Husband: What Balthild Teaches a Modern Woman

Queen Balthild traded one set of bonds for another when King Clovis made her a wife instead of a slave. The same traits that made her a good slave to Erchinoald were the ones that made her appealing as a wife. Her obedience and quiet nature were prized by her owner and then by her husband. An understanding of how the standards for exceptional slaves and prize wives are the same leads to a discussion of how women can only achieve freedom once they free themselves of all masters. 

Sold across the sea “at a low price,” Balthild came as a slave into the household of Erchinoald, a powerful man in the Kingdom of the Franks (119). She served at his table, washed clothes, cleaned feet, and fetched water. Her quiet manner coupled with an absence of complaining made her an excellent slave, and she would later be described as being both humble “and obedient to all her equals" (120). She obeyed her master as well as her equals. Without glorifying or romanticizing her early life, it is clear that she worked hard and kept her head down. These traits also made her appealing as a wife as not one but two of the most powerful men around strove to wed her. 

The first man to try and chain Balthild to him in holy matrimony was her master Erchinoald. He called her to his bedchamber presumably with the intention of raping her. Balthild hid herself in an out-of-the way corner and threw cheap rags over herself" (120). This seemingly comical defense worked and Erchinoald soon forgot her. Sometime later, she attracted the attention of King Clovis and he married her. 

Already a good slave, King Clovis knew Balthild would make a good wife. She had “the merit of her humility” and “obeyed the king as her lord" (121). She gave him three sons. While her husband lived, Balthild gave money to the poor, “fed the hungry, clothed the naked with garments, and conscientiously arranged the burial of the dead" (ibid). She remained subservient to him and did all she did to reflect positively on him. She remained a part of him, without the freedom to leave or do work that did not benefit him. Although she had nicer clothing and more money that she had before, she still lacked ownership over her labor. She only truly became free after the death of her master Erchinoald and husband Clovis. 

After the death of King Clovis, Balthild came into her own with the power to control her own time and labor. Instead of being the kind and quiet wife indebted to the king, she became the powerful mother of kings. At this point, she is credited with stopping “impious evil” within the church and keeping “harmony of peace among” the three kingdoms that her sons ruled (123). No longer imprisoned by the bounds of marriage or slavery, she became a player for influence and power.

The life of Balthild shows how women without the ability to control their own labor remain enslaved to male masters. As a slave, she scrubbed floors and as a wife, she distributed her husband’s money to the poor. In both, she labored for the benefit of men. These two positions aren’t fundamentally different, and we should not treat them as such. Her life story, as told in Vita Domnae Balthidis, presents her as a woman first saved by Erchinoald and then by Clovis glamorizes her situation in life while stripping her of agency. In actuality, it would be only after her husband’s death that she would come into any real power. 

This reading of Balthild’s life has contemporary implications for women. Although Balthild died over a millennium ago, her life is not too different from the experience of women in marriage in the twenty-first century. Today it is still common practice for prospective husbands to ask permission from prospective bride’s fathers and to mark their new acquisition with a gold ring. This ritual of asking the paternal figure for permission to marry a woman implies that the father owns his daughter. The ring is less to honor the woman and more to warn away any other suitors during the period of engagement as demonstrated by single women continuing to wear rings to fend off unwanted male attention. This practice remains gendered as men do not usually wear engagement rings or have their fathers asked for permission.

Although women today are given considerably more privilege and agency today, there remain a number of practices that mark women as property of men. To fully escape the burdens of belonging to men that Balthild showed, women today should do away with engagement rings, refuse the notion that they belong to their fathers, and perhaps reject the institution of marriage itself. Today’s women need to ask themselves if they are comfortable in an institution that considers them as the property of men.

Note: all references are to the translation of the Vita domnae Balthildis in Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding, Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640-720 (New York: Manchester University Press, 1996).