Theodelinda

Theodelinda was queen of the Lombards, a believing woman from Bavaria who, through her marriages to two successive kings, had great influence over the Lombard kingdom in Italy for more than thirty years. She is honoured for supporting the Nicene faith in a kingdom where many were Arians, and for the churches she built. The Catholic Church commemorates her on 22 January.

Family and marriages

She was born around 570, daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria, of the Agilolfing family, and of Waldrada, who descended from the old Lombard king Waco; her place of birth, perhaps Regensburg, is uncertain. In 588 or 589 she married Authari, king of the Lombards, son of Cleph. It seems that Pope Gregory the Great encouraged this marriage, which joined a Catholic Bavarian to the Arian Lombards, as he had done with the marriage of the Frankish princess Bertha to King Æthelberht of Kent. Authari died in 590.

Theodelinda was so esteemed in the kingdom that, according to the historian Paul the Deacon, she was asked to remain in power and choose a successor. Modern historians suspect political bargaining or force. In any case, two months later she took Agilulf, duke of Turin, as her husband, and he became king of the Lombards in 591.

Support of the faith

Theodelinda worked hard for the Nicene faith to take first place in Italy against Arianism, and her influence reached most of the peninsula between the Apennines and the Alps. Agilulf remained an Arian, but allowed his son with Theodelinda to be baptized a Catholic. The king had trouble with his dukes, who believed he had given himself to the faith of the conquered, but he did not let his wife’s faith decide his policy toward the Byzantines. Theodelinda corresponded often with Pope Gregory (590-604); some letters are preserved by Paul the Deacon, and others concerned her husband’s conversion. She welcomed Catholic missionaries in the kingdom. The pope sent her silver ampullae of Syro-⁠Palestinian work, a casket for the Gospel and a golden cross from Byzantium set with gems. She also received from him a text of the Gospel of John for herself and her son Adaloald, and, according to some sources, a particle of the Holy Cross.

Regent and builder

Shortly before Agilulf’s death in 616, he named her co-⁠regent for their son Adaloald, and after he came of age she remained co-⁠ruler. She was queen for about thirty-⁠five years. She built and richly endowed the cathedral of Monza, near Milan, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, and it is said that she built churches in Lombardy and Tuscany, among them the first baptistery of Florence. According to Paul the Deacon she also supported the founding of monasteries, among them Bobbio and Pedona. Some sources say she was pushed aside in 625 or 626 through a conspiracy of Lombard nobles. She died in 627 or 628, at Monza.

In the treasury of the cathedral of Monza are kept the iron crown of the Lombard kings, a statue in gilded silver of a hen with her chicks, probably a gift of Pope Gregory, and a Gospel text that was sent to her. Theodelinda’s Chapel in the cathedral of Monza has frescoes of her story, painted in 1444 by the Zavattari.