Difference between revisions of "Saint Sigismundus"

<p> <b> Sigismundus, </b> St., martyr, 5th king of the [[Burgundians]] (516–524), brought up under the influence of Avitus, the orthodox archbp. of Vienne, who succeeded in winning him, with two of his children, from the [[Arianism]] of his nation and family (Avitus, <i> Epp. </i> 27, 29, Migne, <i> Patr. Lat. </i> lix. 243, 246; Agobardus, <i> adv. Leg. Gund. </i> xiii. <i> Patr. Lat. </i> civ. 124), and sought to lead his inclinations towards the [[Roman]] empire (see Mascou, <i> Annotation </i> ii., where the passages are collected, and Fauriel, <i> Hist. de la Gaule Mérid. </i> ii. 100). He married Ostrogotha, the daughter of [[Theodoric]] the Ostrogothic king of Italy (Jornandes in Bouquet, ii. 28). While his father was still living, [[Sigismund]] was invested with regal dignity and held his court at [[Geneva]] (Avit. <i> Epp. </i> 29, 30; Greg. Tur. <i> Epitom. </i> xxxiv.). In 515 he founded or ( <i> Hist. litt. de la [[France]] </i> , iii. 89, 91) refounded the monastery of St. [[Maurice]] at Agaunum, where tradition placed the martyrdom of the Legio Thebaea (Marius Avent. <i> Chronicon, Patr. Lat. </i> lxxii. 796). In 516 he succeeded his father (Marius, <i> ib. </i> ), and in 517 convened a council, under the presidency of Avitus, at Epaunum (supposed to be the present Iene on the Rhone; "Epaon," <i> D. C. A. </i> ; <i> Hist. litt. </i> iii. 9). If the extent of his dominion may be inferred from the sees of the bishops present, [[Burgundy]] then included, besides the later duchy and county, Dauphiny and Savoy, the city and dominion of [[Lyons]] and the Valais, besides a part of the present [[Switzerland]] (Mascou, xi. 10, 31). In 523 Clodomir, Clotaire, and Childebert, three of the four sons of Clovis, stirred up by their mother the widowed Clotilda, invaded Burgundy. Sigismund was defeated and fled to St. Maurice, where he was betrayed by his own subjects to [[Clodomir]] and carried prisoner in the garb of a monk to Orleans. [[Shortly]] afterwards, with his wife and two children, he was murdered at the neighbouring village of Coulmiers, by being cast alive, as was said, into a well (Marius, <i> ib. </i> ; Greg. Tur. iii. 6). His brother, Godemar, succeeded him as 6th and last king of the Burgundians. </p> <p> Sigismund was well-intentioned but weak. He apparently yielded too much to the influence of Roman ideas and habits for the king of a barbarian people, neighboured on one side by the powerful Ostrogothic monarchy and on others by the fiercely aggressive Franks. His partisanship for the orthodox faith, while it harmed him with his subjects, was not thorough-going enough to win the clergy from their leaning towards the [[Franks]] (see Fauriel, ii. 100 sqq.). </p> <p> [S.A.B.] </p>