Burgundofara, who had never married, drew up a will giving to her monastery the
land, slaves, vineyards, pastures, and forests that she had received from her two
brothers and her father. In the same will, she gave other property near Paris to her
brothers and sister.
Burgundofara’s generous piety was extraordinary only in degree. The world of
kings, queens, and aristocrats intersected with that of the church. The arrival (c.590)
on the Continent of the fierce Irish monastic reformer Saint Columbanus (543–615)
marked a new level of association between the two. Columbanus’s brand of
monasticism, which stressed exile, devotion, and discipline, made a powerful impact
on Merovingian aristocrats. They flocked to the monasteries that he established in
both Francia and Italy, and they founded new ones on their own lands in the
countryside. In Francia alone there was an explosion of monasteries: between the
years 600 and 700, an astonishing 320 new houses were established, most of them
outside of the cities. Some of the new monks and nuns were grown men and women;
others were young children, given to a monastery by their parents. This latter
practice, called oblation, was well accepted and even considered essential for the
spiritual well-being of both children and their families.
Irish monasticism introduced aristocrats on the Continent to a deepened religious
devotion. Those who did not actively join or patronize a monastery still read, or
listened to others read, books preaching penance, and they chanted the psalms.
Sometimes they claimed one of their own as a saint and martyr. Leudegar, bishop of
Autun (r.c.662–c.677?), was, according to his biographer “a new martyr in Christian
times.... Just as he was nobly born according to earthly descent, so... he stood
out prominently ahead of others, no matter what the office... to which he was
promoted.”^13 The Merovingian laity, especially the aristocratic laity, developed a
culture of domestic piety at about the same time as the Byzantines did.
Deepened piety did not, in this case, lead to the persecution of others—something
that (as we shall see) happened in later centuries. In particular, where Jews were
settled in Western Europe—along the Mediterranean coast and inland, in Burgundy,
for example—they remained integrated into every aspect of secular life. They used
Hebrew in worship, but otherwise they spoke the same languages as Christians and
used Latin in their legal documents. Their children were often given the same names
as Christians (and Christians often took biblical names, such as Solomon); they
dressed as everyone else dressed; and they engaged in the same occupations. Many
Jews planted and tended vineyards, in part because of the importance of wine in
synagogue services, in part because the surplus could easily be sold. Some were rich
