88 Facts About Genevieve

Genevieve was a consecrated virgin, and is one of the two patron saints of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

Genevieve moved from Nanterre, her hometown, to Paris, after her parents died and became known for her piety, healings, and miracles, although the residents of Paris resented her and would have killed her if not for Germanus' interventions.

Genevieve's prayers saved Paris from being destroyed by the Huns under Attila in 451 and other wars; her organisation of the city's women was called a "prayer marathon" and Genevieve's "most famous feat".

Genevieve was involved in two major construction projects in Paris, a basilica in the honour of Saint Denis of Paris in 475 and the Basilica of the Holy Apostles, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Genevieve was recognized as the patron saint of Paris in the 14th century.

Genevieve was "a favorite of both the humblest residents and of the Bourbon family, and was equally venerated by Erasmus and revolutionary fishwives" and was considered "a cultural symbol which Parisians shared, appropriated, negotiated, and used according to specific communal assumptions and traditions".

Genevieve was born c in Nanterre, France, a small village almost seven kilometers west of Paris, to Severus and Gerontia, who were of German or possibly Frankish origins.

Genevieve was recognised for her religious devotion from an early age.

When Genevieve was seven years old, Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes stopped at Nanterre on their way to Britain from Gaul to put an end to the Pelagian heresy.

Genevieve told Germanus that she wanted to follow God; according to her vita, Germanus confirmed her desire to become a consecrated virgin, plucked a coin from the ground, and instructed her to have a necklace made from it to remind her about their meeting.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states that since there were no convents near Nanterre, she "remained at home, leading an innocent, prayerful life"; according to historian Jo Ann McNamara, Germanus inspired Genevieve to dedicate her life and virginity to God's service, which was not limited to an established rule or a monastic lifestyle.

Genevieve's vita relates a story about her mother being struck blind after violently preventing Genevieve from attending church on a feast day.

Sluhovsky calls her mother's healing the first water-related miracle associated with Genevieve, who was invoked to protect Paris from floods centuries after her death.

In 1599, the Swiss physician and writer Thomas Platter recorded a possibly earlier water miracle: when Genevieve was still in school, a bridge appeared over a ditch filled with water, and then disappeared after she crossed it.

Genevieve became severely paralysed and almost died; after she recovered, she reported that she had seen visions of heaven.

Genevieve fasted, between the ages of 15 and 50, from Sunday to Thursday and from Thursday to Sunday; her diet consisted of beans and barley bread, and she never drank alcohol.

Genevieve devoutly kept vigil each Saturday night, "following the teaching of the Lord concerning the servant who awaited the master's return from a wedding".

Genevieve's neighbours, "filled with jealousy and envy", accused her in 445 or 446 of being a hypocrite and imposter, and that her visions and prophecies were frauds.

Sluhovsky states that Genevieve "received the divine gift of reading people's thoughts", which displeased many residents of Paris.

Shortly before the Huns' 451 attack of Paris, Genevieve prophesied that the city would be spared, but that those who fled Paris would be killed.

McNamara, who translated Genevieve's vita, calls it a "prayer marathon" and Genevieve's "most famous feat".

Genevieve persuaded the men to not remove their goods from Paris.

Years later, Genevieve "distinguished herself by her charity and self-sacrifice" during the defeat of Paris by Merowig in 480 and was able to influence him and his successors, Childeric and Clovis I, to be lenient towards the city's residents.

Genevieve led a convoy, and "proved herself capable of leading a paramilitary operation which necessitated crossing enemy lines", through the blockade of Paris up the Seine from Troyes to bring food to the starving citizens.

On her return home, Genevieve's prayers saved the eleven ships that carried her, her companions, and the grain for the residents of Paris.

Genevieve was involved in two major construction projects in Paris.

Genevieve had a strong devotion to Saint Denis of Paris, the city's first bishop, and wanted to build a basilica in his honour in 475, even though the local priests had few resources.

Genevieve told them to go to the bridge of Paris, where they found an abandoned lime kiln, which provided the building materials for the basilica.

Genevieve collaborated with Clothilde, the wife of Clovis I, to bring about his conversion to Christianity; shortly before her death, Genevieve convinced him to build the Basilica of the Holy Apostles, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which was completed after the year 500.

Genevieve was buried next to members of Clovis' family and she was considered a protector of the royal family.

McNamara states that Genevieve "aligned with the poor and the conquered against unharnessed secular power".

McNamara believes that her status as a woman with no official status or political power "rendered her innocuous in the context of secular power" and reports that Genevieve inspired the Franks to respect the Gallic saints and provided evidence to the rulers on both sides that God responded to her prayers.

Genevieve performed miracles in Paris and throughout the Ile-de-France, which included exorcising demons, healing the blind, resurrecting the dead, rescuing prisoners, and helping a consecrated virgin escape her fiance.

Genevieve healed a nine-year-old girl who lived in Lyon and healed, by the laying on of her hands, a young girl who had not been able to walk for two years.

Genevieve resurrected a four-year-old boy, the son of a woman she had healed of demon possession, who had fallen into a well and drowned.

Genevieve healed a man from Meaux who had a withered hand and arm; she prayed for him, touched his arm and joints, and made the sign of the cross over him; he was restored to health in 30 minutes.

Genevieve released twelve people who lived in Paris of demon possession; she ordered them to go to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and healed them after making the sign of the cross over each of them.

Genevieve was asked to heal the wife of a tribune of paralysis, which was done with prayer and the sign of the cross.

Genevieve healed a city official, who had been deaf for four years, by touching his ears while making the sign of the cross over them.

Genevieve's vita describes miracles that happened in Orleans through her intercessions, including raising the daughter of a family's matriarch from the dead and healing a man who became ill because he refused to forgive his servant.

Genevieve then visited Tours, "braving many perils on the River Loure"; she was greeted there by a crowd of people possessed by demons, whom she healed, with prayers and the sign of the cross, in the Basilica of Saint Martin.

Some victims reported that Genevieve's fingers "blazed up one by one with celestial fire" while healing them.

Genevieve healed three women of demon possession privately, in their homes, and at the request of their husbands.

Genevieve's prayers protected a harvest near Meaux from a whirlwind during a rainstorm; neither the reapers nor the crops were touched by any water.

Complex images and attributions of Genevieve were created over a period of over 700 years, in liturgical writings, in editions of her Vita, in iconography, and in textual metaphors that were motivated by changing social, political, and religious conditions.

Over 70 emergency invocations of Genevieve were processions with her reliquary from her shrine to Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Genevieve's relics were involved in 120 public invocations between 1500 and 1793, with over one-third occurring during the 18th century, which art historian Hannah Williams found surprising because "superstitious spirituality, with miracle-working objects and cults of saints, sits uneasily with our idea of the eighteenth century as the 'age of reason'".

Sluhovsky states that Genevieve remained relevant for her followers because "she was made and remade by them" and because her roles, which changed throughout the centuries, were designed with different meanings, functions, and attributes.

Genevieve's image was changed into a military protector of France and "a warrior in the service of Paris", but points out that this change did not replace other images of Genevieve, but was "one of the extension of [her] roles".

Scholar Maria Warner states that Genevieve "benefited from the extension of taxonomy of female types" like Joan of Arc; Sluhovsky adds that it was part of the new image of the female warrior that connected her with contemporary concerns, which increased in popularity during the 16th century, when "France was preoccupied with military affairs".

The most notable artistic representations of Genevieve, which continued traditions from the late Middle Ages, were created between the 17th and 19th centuries, including the frescoes of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in the Pantheon.

Several iconographic images depicting Genevieve's water-based miracles were created during the Middle Ages, including a small bas-relief as part of her effigy in the portal of Notre-Dame, which depicted the well in Navarre where Genevieve retrieved the water that healed her mother.

Genevieve is portrayed protecting Paris from a flood in a Parisian Book of Hours published in the late 1400s and her image as a fountain is included in hymnals published in the 1400s.

In 1512, the poet Pierre du Pont wrote a votive poem in honour of Genevieve, which was dedicated to Phillippe Cousin, who was the abbot of Saint Genevieve Abbey.

In 1652, a book of hymns dedicated to Genevieve was published by Antoine Godeau, a poet and the bishop of Venice, that invoked water-based images, metaphors, and associations connected with Genevieve.

Genevieve has been compared to Leo I, who rescued Rome from Attila the same year that she diverted Attila from Paris.

Genevieve participated in the consolidation of Clovis' power and in the defeat of Arianism, and her active life in Paris occurred at the same time the city's influence was increasing.

Historian Anne Lombard-Jourdan states that Genevieve was substituted for and assigned the attributes of Leucothea, the Greek marine goddess whose name might be the origin of the name of Paris.

In 997, Robert I of France donated a new altar to the basilica and Genevieve's reliquary was moved from the crypt to the new altar.

At first, the members of St Genevieve's abbey followed the Rule of Chrodegang, which emphasized living in community, although cloistering and poverty were not mandatory, and obedience to the rule was lax; for example, her secular canons were able to keep the funds they received.

Genevieve was called one of the most venerated saints of the early eleventh century.

In 1129, during an epidemic of ergot poisoning, which Farmer called her most famous cure, was stayed after Genevieve's relics were carried in a public procession from her reliquary to Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Genevieve's body was brought from the abbey to Notre-Dame, a Mass was said, and then she was returned to the abbey.

One of the yearly processions conducted in Genevieve's honor occurred on the final day of the Rogation Days, an important three-day procession during the harvest season.

Genevieve's abbey was fortified and included within the city's new walls in 1210, and a new parish church, the Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, was constructed near by.

Genevieve was not the only saint who had lived in Paris and who was invoked with rituals and processions, but as Sluhovsky states, "from the twelfth century on she acquired a unique position among Parisian saints".

In 1303, the earliest known confraternity in Genevieve's honour was formed in the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris.

In 1535, Genevieve's cult became connected to the cult of Corpus Christi, which was included in what Sluhovsky called the "royal religion of early modern French absolutism" because the throne appropriated and changed it to support its authority and power in France.

In 1589, processions were held and Genevieve was invoked in well-organised responses to conflict between King Henry III, the House of Guise, and the Catholic League.

Sluhovosky states that for the first time, invocations of Genevieve changed from demonstrations of loyalty to public demonstrations of revolt and disloyalty to the king.

Sluhovsky reported that the failure decreased the city's devotion toward Genevieve; he called their accusations against her "not unfounded".

Sluhovsky called this image of Genevieve "the nurturing patron" and considered it a feminization of her image at a time when women's roles were changing and becoming more restrictive, and when several canons took her as their patron saint, including novices to the Carmelite order in Paris.

In 1649, when Paris was again engaged in open rebellion against the king, Genevieve appeared to Anne of Austria, the mother of King Louis XIV, in a vision after Anne invoked her for peace and the protection of the Paris people, even though many had just rebelled against her.

Ordinary processions honoured Genevieve, legitimised her "unique position in the hierarchy of the sacred in Paris", established the route, between Notre-Dame and her shrine, of the processions, and solidified the "reciprocal relationship" between the cathedral and the shrine.

In 1658, Genevieve was invoked to heal Anne; no procession was called, but Genevieve's reliquary was removed, and Anne recovered from her illness.

Genevieve's reliquary was removed 50 more times in the next 100 years, 33 times for the health of members of the French royal family.

Saint Genevieve's Church began to be rebuilt in 1746 because it had decayed; as Farmer states, it "was secularized at the Revolution and was called the Pantheon, a burial place for the worthies of France".

In 1725, Genevieve was invoked amidst religious and political conflict, which as Sluhovsky states, "had an impact on the ability of lay Parisians to maintain their traditional forms of devotion".

Sluhovsky adds that the emotions the royal appropriation of Genevieve caused during the 1720s to the 1750s were motivated by Paris' deep attachment to Catholicism.

In 1744, King Louis XV became ill in Lorraine during the War of the Austrian Succession; he invoked Genevieve, was healed, and made a pilgrimage to her shrine.

Genevieve was continued to be invoked by the royals throughout the 1700s, but the citizens of Paris often opposed and ridiculed them.

The opposition of the royal appropriation of Genevieve occurred at the same time Protestants and Paris elites, including Voltaire, began to criticise Catholic practices such as the cult of the saints.

Genevieve regularly appeared in the popular religious literature of the time.

Genevieve called it "a turning point in the history of the monument"; the same time Voltaire's remains were transferred, Genevieve's remains were moved out of the church and into another part of the abbey.

In 1803, after the end of the Revolution, Genevieve's cult was revived by Napoleon at the Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.

Louis Phillippe I reinstated the building to a secular temple and Genevieve's relics were sent to Notre-Dame, but Napoleon III reinstated it as a church in 1851.

Genevieve was invoked to save France during World War I and a procession carrying her relics occurred to prevent the German occupation of France during World War II.

Also according to Sluhovsky, although Genevieve remains as the patron saint of Paris, her cult has never returned to its pre-Revolutionary popularity and unifying status.