Doda of Metz

Saint Doda of Metz (Oda) was the wife of Saint Arnulf, bishop of Metz from 614 to 629, and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Her commemoration is on 7 September. Our sources mention no Orthodox veneration. She died, according to some notices, about the year 640, but the sources seem to mix her date with that of Arnulf.

Doda came of a noble family and was probably the daughter of Arnoald, bishop of Metz (601 to 609). From her marriage to Arnulf, of the Arnulfing family, she bore two sons: Chlodulf (died 8 June 696 or 697), bishop of Metz from the year 657 or 656, and Ansegisel (born about 610, died in 657 or about 679), ancestor of the Carolingians. When, in 614, Arnulf was elected bishop of Metz and, as bishop, could no longer be married, Doda withdrew to a convent at Trier.

Many historians, among them Eduard Hlawitschka, have held that Saint Arnulf had no wife named Oda (Doda), but that a confusion occurred: the mother of Arnulf, Saint Oda, was mistakenly counted by later writers as his wife. In the Life of Arnulf, written by Ummo in agreement with the commonly accepted genealogy of Saint Arnulf, the Commemoratio genealogiae domni Arnulfi, Arnulf is named as the son of Arnoald, and among his aunts the name Doda is mentioned. To introduce this name as that of Arnulf's wife would mean a kinship between the spouses, in a time when the Church watched closely over the degree of kinship of spouses. There are thus no real grounds to reject this later testimony.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries historical science re-⁠examined the soundness of the Commemoratio. Critical study showed that Saint Arnulf was probably the son-⁠in-⁠law of Arnoald. From this it follows that Doda was the daughter of Arnoald, who gave his daughter the name of his aunt, and that a possible granddaughter of Doda, Clotilda (Doda), wife of King Theodoric III, was in turn named after her.