Clovis & Clotilde: What if the King listened to the Queen?

Day 29 of 40:
Monday, March 10:
Clovis & Clotilde

What if the king
listened to the queen?


Clovis king of Franks, Clotilde queen of Burgundy, made a marriage and an alliance against neighbouring tribes such as the Allemani. Her terms included his acceptance of a Trinitarian catholic faith rather than his Arian origins. This is a crucial turn in making what we call France as a regional nation and people – who still call Germany ‘Allemagne’. Clovis was baptized 1500 years ago. How has it gone?

Don’t impose modern frames on this – like the woman being in charge of religious matters, and the man leading warfare, or the individual conscience and conversion of individuals. This is a century when tribes convert, and priests sprinkle baptism waters on crowds from wet evergreen boughs: thus, ‘casting aspersions’ on them. Is your religious identity traceable in part to Clovis?


Medieval construing of these stories tends toward the ‘God is on our side, and rewards those who obey the true faith. God is in charge of history as the elites are in charge of the world. Watch for the complexity of the relationship of church and state, though – the church legitimates civil power, and a ‘Holy Roman Empire’ emerges only after the real imperial power is broken.

In our postmodern age of fragmentation, we have empathy with the post-imperial age of barbarians. They would appeal to their own gods, or to an Arian Jesus more of an advocate and champion hero on one side or another. We have similar temptations to place Jesus in our back pocket or on our dashboards, to answer ‘gimme’ prayers and take our sides against other heathen.

What if ‘trinitarian’ worldview matters? The appeal of Clotilde is not based in degenerate versions of the faith in Rome or Constantinople, but in a version that worked for Burgundians and Franks, modeling a greater unity that preserved particularity, in an economy of relationships within God, to help imagine human identities finding unity from a range of identifications. This is not speculation, but a working faith and vision.

Eurocentric civilization that follows may fail to inspire confidence in this original epiphany. Wars of religion returned through the reformation, and were exported globally, to return home with a vengeance in the 20th century world wars, as ‘earths proud empires pass away’. But I think we might glimpse in a vignette of Clovis and Clotilde some more inspiring unity in diversity.

What if the king listened to the queen?
What if particular subjective pride paused?
What if subtler relationships were revealed?