2. The Cult of Saints in the Early Middle Ages

Growing saints’ cults

With the spread of Christianity across Eurafrasia in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the landscape became ever more populated with sites associated with holy men and women, saints, and their cults.

Unlike in the High Middle Ages and the modern day, early medieval saints did not go through an official process of canonisation; their local notoriety and potency — and having a powerful patron from among either the lay or ecclesiastical elites — was often enough to establish a popular cults.

Hagiographical texts were therefore incredibly important in establishing cults, as were the various ways saints and their cults became prestigious.

Radegund's Tomb in Poitiers (© Norris 2026)

Imitation of saints by saints: Establishing prestige in the Early Middle Ages

Despite an interest in local saints, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries, there was often simultaneously an interest in:

ancient Roman martyrs,
Biblical figures and relics,
and holy men and women from far away places.

Local saints might imitate far away saints to enhance their spiritual prestige.

Alternatively, saints might seek to acquire Biblical relics or objects associated with Biblical relics to enhance their prestige.

One prominent example of this phenomenon is the sixth-century queen-turned-nun, Radegund of Poitiers, who acquired the relics of the True Cross as a gift from then Emperor Justin II:

Radegund acquires relics of the True Cross (Baudonivia, Life of Radegund, 16)

Post congregatas sanctorum reliquias, si fieri potuisset, ipsum Dominum de sede magestatis suae visibiliter hic habitare expetisset. […]

Quod fecit illa in orientali patria, hoc fecit beata Radegundis in Gallia. […]

Sed quod sua vota poscebant obtinuit, ut beatum lignum crucis Domini ex auro et gemmis ornatum et multas sanctorum reliquias, quas Oriens retinebat, uno residens loco se habere gloriata est. Ad petitionem sanctae transmisit imperator legatarios cum euangeliis ex auro et gemmis ornatis.

At ubi lignum, ubi salus mundi pependerat, Pictavis civitatem cum congregatione sanetorum advenit […]

After having collected many relics of the saints, had it been possible, [Radegund] would have petitioned the Lord Himself in the seat of His Majesty to dwell here in sight of all. […]

What Helena did in oriental lands, Radegund the blessed did in Gaul! […]

She [Radegund] got what she had prayed for: that she might glory in having the blessed wood of the Lord’s cross enshrined in gold and gems and many of the relics of the saints that had been kept in the east living in that one place. At the saint’s petition, the emperor sent legates with gospels ornamented in gold and gems.

And the wood where once hung the salvation of the world came with a congregation of saints to the city of Poitiers […]

Edition: Baudonivia, De Vita Sanctae Radegundis Libris Duo, ed. Bruno Krusch (MGH Script. rer. Merov., 2), Hanover: Hahn, 1888, lib. 2, cap.16, pp. 387–389

Translation adapted from: Jo Ann McNamara and John E. Halborg, “Radegund, Queen of the Franks and Abbess of Poitiers (ca. 525–587).” In eds. Idem, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, 96–98. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1992.

Radegund thus both imitated Helena, the Mother of the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine I, and gained associations with the relics of the True Cross of Christ, enhanging her own prestige. In doing so, Radegund also made Poitiers, her city, and the convent she founded, pilgrimage destinations.

Exercise:

Unsuccessful imitations of saints

However, imitating other saints was not always successful. It could also be seen as presumptuous or inappropriate, like the case of Vulfolaic in Gaul imitating Simeon Stylites from Syria:
(Vulfolaic recounts his story to Gregory of Tours):

Vulfolaic, the Stylite in Gaul, recounts his tale (Gregory of Tours, Histories, 8.15)

Deinde territurium Trevericae urbis expetii, et in quo nunc estis monte habitaculum quod cernitis proprio labore construxi [...]

Colomnam etiam statui, in qua cum grandi cruciatu sine ullo pedum perstabam tegmine. Itaque cum hiemis tempus solite advenisset, ita rigore glaciali urebar, ut ungues pedum meorum saepius vis rigoris excuteret et in barbis meis aqua gelu conexa candelarum more dependeret. Magnam enim hiemem regio illa persaepe dicitur sustenere. […]

Et quia semper ipse invidus Deum quaerentibus nocere conatur, advenientibus episcopis, qui me magis ad hoc cohortare debuerant, ut coeptum opus sagaciter explicare deberem, dixerunt mihi: “Non est aequa haec via, quam sequeris, nec tu ignobilis Symeoni Anthiochino, qui eolomnae insedit, poteris conparare. Sed nec cruciatum hoc ter sustenere patitur loci positio. Discende potius et cum fratribus, quos adgregastia tecum, inhabita. Ad quorum verba, quia sacerdotes non obaudire adscribitur crimini, discendebam, fateor, et ambulabam cum eisdem ac cybum pariter capiebam. Quadam vero die, provocans me episcopus longius ad villam, emisit operarius cum scutis et malleis ac securibus, et eliserunt colomnam, in qua stare solitus eram.

“I [Vulfolaic] then moved to the neighbourhood of Trier, and on the hillside where you are now standing I built with my own hands the dwelling which you see before you. [...]

I myself set up a column, on which I remained standing with bare feet, no matter how much it hurt me. When winter came in its season, it so froze me with its icy frost that the bitter cold made my toenails fall off, not once but several times, and the rain turned to ice and hung from my beard like the wax which melts from candles. This district is famous for its harsh winters. […]

“There came to me certain bishops whose plain duty it was to exhort me to press wisely on with the task which I had begun. Instead they said to me: ‘it is not right, what you are trying to do! Such an obscure person as you can never be compared with Simeon the Stylite of Antioch! The climate of the region makes it impossible for you to keep tormenting yourself in this way. Come down off your column, and live with the brethren whom you have gathered around you’. Now, it is considered a sin not to obey bishops, so, of course, I came down and went off with those brethren and began to take my meals with them. One day a certain bishop persuaded me to go off to a manor which was some distance away. Then he sent out workmen with wedges, hammers and axes, and they broke the column on which I used to stand.”

Edition: Gregory of Tours, Libri historiarum X, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum I.1; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1951), 8.15, pp. 380, 382-838.

Translation (edited): Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, trans. L. Thorpe (Penguin Classics; London, 1974), 8.15, pp. 445–447.

Here, Vulfolaic has tried to imitate the Stylite, Simeon, but has been instructed by his bishops that it is not possible due to the limitations of climate. He respects the authority of his bishops and so no longer attempts to imitate Simeon.