“More Noble by Sanctity”

This chapter argues that monasticism is central to understanding the patterns of kinship in early medieval Europe. It examines the passing of an aristocratic consciousness bound to the disintegrating late antique civic order and the formation of a new consciousness flowing from rural centers of power buttressed by estate-laden monasticism during the Merovingian period. The contention is supported with an examination of the rejection of the worldly family in late Roman monasticism and the celebration of the natal family in seventh-century monasticism, as that transformation appears in portrayals of parentage in hagiographical literature. This distinctive conception of kinship was propelled by a dynamic, Augustinian notion of kinship which bound patron families and monasteries to one another, and to the eternal family of God. The chapter ends with an examination of late seventh-century hagiographical works which explicitly embedded a saint’s natal and marital families within the familia Christi.