“No one who has been joined to a spouse will see the Kingdom of Heaven”

Abstract

This article explores the story of Berthegund, a Merovingian woman who tried to leave her husband to join a religious life. This story comes to us only from a hostile witness, and most scholars have echoed his dismissive perspective. However, it is possible to reconstruct Berthegund’s perspective by exploring what would have seemed possible for her. The article then sets her story into the context of several broader issues. The first is the idea of the marital debt and its relation to early medieval ideas about sexuality, as well as stories about marital sex avoidance. The article then takes a further step back to consider the implications of her story for understandings of female agency in the early Middle Ages and how this was shaped by ideas about sexual consent. Berthegund’s small story therefore reveals a rich set of worldviews and understandings.