The Chasuble of St. Balthild

Holy Habits: The Chasuble of St. Balthild

By Dan Ennis, Mira-Rose Kingsbury Lee, Isabella McMillen, and Emma Salafsky

The Queen

Much of what we know about Balthild comes from her hagiography, or a biography pertaining to somebody that has been sainted. That being said, our knowledge - especially of her early life - is rather murky. We’re not entirely sure where she came from or when she was born; however, her impressive influence within the Frankish world earned her both sainthood and a place in the history books.

What we know of Balthild begins in the seventh-century CE court of Erchinoald, the mayor of the palace to King Clovis. She was brought over as a slave to Neustria (a region that we now call northern and eastern France) from one of the Anglo-Saxon regions, and subsequently was given as a gift from the mayor of the palace of Neustria to Clovis II, King of Neustria and Burgundy, who eventually took her as his wife sometime in the 640s. While it’s difficult to say whether or not she was originally of noble or royal birth, her impressive leap from enslavement to the power she wielded is quite unorthodox. During her marriage, she seemed to take it as her duty to produce a male heir seriously, and had three sons – Chlothar, Childerec, and Theuderic – within three years. Some later historians (inspired by the dismissive attitudes of later dynasties and their chroniclers) believed that he took none of his duties particularly seriously, and referred to him as a “do-nothing-king,” or roi fainéant. After his premature death in his early twenties, all of his children were too young to assume any kind of regency. As a result, Queen Balthild seized the reins of power over Neustria and Burgundy as her childrens’ regent.

She remained in power for six or seven years, maintaining peace - both internally and externally - for the Merovingian kingdoms, which was no small feat. According to Balthild's sacred biography, the anonymous Vita Domnae Balthildis, Balthild dedicated much of the royal fisc to the construction of churches and abbeys, including those in Corbie and Chelles; she founded various monasteries and contributed considerable wealth to their maintenance; she made considerable legislative leaps such as outlawing infanticide (common due to the high tax burden), she attacked the practice of simony (purchasing ecclesiastical pardons, etc.) and purchased and released slaves, especially Anglo-Saxon or Christian ones. She delicately balanced deft statecraft and devout piety to become an incredibly influential woman.

Much of this information, as mentioned before, comes from the Vita Domnae Balthildis, her hagiography; however, her memory in that writing is not the only thing she left behind. After she retired to the abbey of Chelles (located southeast of Paris), she devoted the rest of her life to the monastery. There, she wore – or perhaps didn’t wear – the Chasuble of St. Balthild, a garment beautifully embroidered with birds, crosses, and embroidered imitations of jewels that represented her deep devotion to the church.

The Chasuble

A chasuble is a Christian liturgical garment, commonly worn by priests during the celebration of the Eucharist, or more simply a sleeveless tunic worn as an outer garment. While it varies widely in degree of ornamentation depending on the place of origin, time period, and liturgical season in which the wearer dons it, the chasuble is a simple vestment: large and sleeveless, with a single hole through which the wearer’s head is passed. The Chasuble of Balthild is one such tunic, associated with Queen Balthild though it is not known whether or not she actually wore it in her lifetime. The provenance of the chasuble is hazy before 1907, when the tunic was removed from Chelles Abbey, by the historian and archeologist Alfred Bonno in the hopes of preserving it. It remains in the Musée Alfred Bonno in Chelles, France to this day.

 

The artist behind the garment, where it was produced, and when, if at all, Balthild wore the garment remains unknown. Confusion surrounding the use of the chasuble by Balthild is in part due to the multiple exhumations and reinterments of the queen’s body. The chasuble may have been worn by the queen during her life, or her death at one time, but it is known that she was not interred in it. Rather, she was originally buried “in a large semicircular cloak of red color with yellow fringes with a brooch at her chest” (Effros 12). The luxurious garments that clothed St. Balthild for her burial stand in contrast to the famous chasuble. While Balthild's burial garb conspicuously reflected her high status, the chasuble does so in a more understated manner. The tunic itself is simple in nature, being made of a cream white linen, yet it features complex embroidery with silk thread in varying shades of yellow, red, green, and blue. The costly nature of the silk making up the embroidery on the chasuble alludes to the wearer being of higher station regardless of the relative simplicity of the tunic itself. 

The embroidery featured on the chasuble is believed to be reproductions of jewelry pieces, specifically three necklaces. The first two necklaces wrap around the neckline and “evoke Merovingian cloisonné jewelry, made of gold set with precious stones.” (Charamond 438). The third necklace sits below the blue V-shaped pattern and holds the large cross that is the center of the tunic. The circular medallions that hang below the cross were part of an original necklace that was the largest piece on the chasuble, but is now only needle pricks. “Birds, human figures, and monsters facing one another across a tree of life” appear in the free-hanging pendants across the tunic (Charamond 438). The embroidered jewelry takes inspiration from Germanic models from the second half of the seventh century, when the chasuble was manufactured, but most of all from Byzantine and Lombard objects. The significance of the ornamentation can be found in the embroidery’s similarity to jewelry worn by Empress Theodora of Byzantium. This visual allusion to the very powerful, though also controversial, example of female rulership that was Empress Theodora suggests that the complex embroidery on the otherwise simple chasuble represents Queen Balthild’s continued royal status despite her retirement to religious life. 

This chasuble is an exceptional find for fabrics of this time period. Most other fabrics found in Northern Europe were fragments of  silk patterns or larger clothes, whereas the chasuble of St. Balthild is a full-length garment. This garment is embroidered with coloured silks (as seen on the right) creating a beautiful set of patterns. The cross seen on the garment corresponds with ornamental fabrics seen on other notable women of the time, like Theodora and her ladies in the mosaics in San Vitale (Marzinzik). Specifically, on this garment we see an embroidered cross (seen on the right), which is remarkably similar to the cross of King Agilulf from Italy or the Cross of Guarrazar from Spain (Marzinzik). This style was popularized in the Byzantino-Mediterranean area, so the chasuble is evidence of imitation and strong reception of Southern fashion trends in northern Frankish- aristocratic society. 

The construction of the garment speaks to its importance. At this time, gold fibers, colorful dyes, and silks were considered the highest quality materials to create with. Gold often came from melting down jewelry and was then woven into a garment. The silk was very thin and hard to work with and ranged in complexity. Silks had to be imported from the Mediterranean, Persia and China, and were intricately woven together to create beautiful garments for those who had access to these materials (Desrosiers). Even the dyes used in this fabric, especially the color red, were very exclusive at the time. 

The use of these precious media in decorative garments with religious symbols highlights how important the demonstration of faith was deemed to be. ​​As with other positions of status, being a Christian of great importance was signaled through ornate clothes, and there was a clear link in Christianity between precious textiles and power. Extremely ornate textiles were an obvious visual way of signaling the possession of  resources and a powerful network. At this time silk was a very difficult material to acquire, deriving as it did from the Byzantine empire and thus having to travel a long way to get to Northern Europe. Christianity was new to Northern Europe at this time, and people were encouraged to use gifts of precious cloth as a means of strengthening the perception of the religion and churches in the area (Marzinzik). Many important Christian people, such as saints and martyrs, have also been found wearing garments with highly visible ornate crosses in their resting places, surrounded by beauty and ornate decorations. Christians at the time understood the visual strength of ornate garments and used them to create an association between Christianity and wealth and power. 

 

Laporte notes no contemporary equivalent to the garment's large central cross. It is distinguished from other crosses of the period by two characteristics. First is its elaborate border, likely a work made with the cloisonné technique, an ancient process of constructing jewelry or clothing from stones and wire; it is the only cross besides that decorating the binding of the approximately contemporary Gospel of Théodelinda in Monza which shares this unusual color scheme. Second – and perhaps more important – is the size of the cross. Unlike the typical cross necklaces of the Merovingian period, which bore crosses about 5 centimeters tall, this pectoral cross is nearly 18 centimeters tall (Laporte). The size of the pectoral cross is unusual in particular because of the (presumable) prospective wearer of the garment. Laporte points out that the cross is substantially larger than that found on similar religious ornamental garments for women of the same period, which he adds “confers to the whole a strong religious connotation.” The overt implication here is that the garment must have been reserved exclusively for a woman of great religious and political standing; for it to be worn by anyone else would have been lèse-majesté. [1]

The intricacy of the embroidery, the expensive silk thread, and the central placement of the large pectoral cross all suggest that the chasuble belonged to a woman of high rank, one who was an important participant in religious life. Yet, despite the finery of the embroidery, the simple linen fabric of the chasuble carries little intrinsic value. In embracing linen and renouncing ostentatious jewelry, Balthild may have sought to follow the example, a century earlier, of the pious Queen Radegund. Yet, in having the image of her court finery embroidered in a liturgical garment, which she (quite possibly) wore during religious ceremonies, she could simultaneously remind the court of her substantial wealth and political power.

The chasuble of St. Balthild may therefore have served, in her lifetime, as a potent symbol of her dual authority over the religious and royal spheres alike. In one aspect, the simple, austere fabric of the chasuble reflects the piety of past saints, such as Radegund and Saint Eligius, who, according to the Vita Eligii, “…asked Balthild to give up her jewels for Christ” (Charamond 438). In another, the enormous embroidered cross suggests the weight of royal power. Throughout Balthild’s entry into religious life, she remained queen, deftly straddling the line between the religious and secular worlds. In no other single object is that duality more evident than in her mysterious chasuble.

[1] A treasonous offence against the ruling head of state.

Bibliography

Bonnie Effros, "Appearance and Ideology: Creating Distinctions between Clerics and Laypersons in Early Medieval Gaul," in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, ed. Désirée Koslin and Janet Snyder (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 7-24.

Christian Charamond, "The Chasuble of Balthilde (France)," in Rome and the Barbarians: The Birth of a New World, ed. Jean-Jacques Aillagon (Milan: Skira, 2008), 438.

Fouracre, P., & Gerberding, R. A. (2013). "Vita Domnae Balthildis (The Life of Lady Balthild, Queen of the Franks)". In Late Merovingian France. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.

Jean-Pierre Laporte. La Chasuble de Chelles, article suivi de la traduction de la Vie de Bathilde par G. Duchet-Suchaux, Bulletin du Groupement Archéologique de Seine-et-Marne, n.23, 1982.

Sonja Marzinzik, "Expressions of Power: Luxury Textiles from Early Medieval Northern Europe," Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (2008): https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/237

Sophie Desrosiers and Antoinette Rast-Eicher, "Luxurious Merovingian Textiles Excavated from Burials in the Saint Denis Basilica, France in the 6th-7th Century," Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (2012): https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/675