Erminethrudis

{{Short description|6th century Frankish abess}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Erminethrudis

| other_names = Ermintrude

| death_date = {{circa}} 600

| death_place = Paris

| children = ≈ 2

| family = Merovingian dynasty

}}

Erminethrudis (died c. 600), was a nun and a member of the Merovingian aristocracy who died in Paris about 600, leaving a will which survived as a rare example from the period.

The testament of Erminethrudis serves as a rare example of some conditions of a woman in the aristocracy in this time period, as only nuns or widows left wills in their own capacity, of which few survive.{{cite book |author= Chis Wickham |authorlink= |title=The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 |year=2009 |publisher=Penguin Books |location= |pages=180–181 |quote= | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VUy1RFS01yIC&pg=PT180 |isbn=978-0-7139-9429-2 }} She owned two villas in Lagny-sur-Marne and Bobigny and at least 13 separate vineyards in this area east of Paris, leaving properties to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and other basilicas.{{citation |page=231 |title=Framing the Early Middle Ages |author=Chris Wickham |isbn=9780191622632 |date=30 November 2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}

She had been married and had children before joining her religious order. Her son, Deorovaldus, had been buried in St Symphorien of Paris before her death.{{cite book |author= Constance Brittain Bouchard |authorlink= |title=Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500-1200 |year=2015 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location= |pages=178–179 |quote= | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ua5CBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA178 |isbn=9780812246360}}{{citation |page=231 |title=Framing the Early Middle Ages |author=Chris Wickham |isbn=9780191622632 |date=30 November 2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}

She also had a surviving son to whom she left clothing and other possessions. She left individual items of gold jewelry to four Parisien basilicas{{cite book |author= Constance Brittain Bouchard |authorlink= |title=Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World |year=1998 |publisher= Pennsylvania State University Press |location= |pages=27 |quote= | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79eFU3dOim0C&dq=Erminethrudis&pg=PA27 |isbn=978-0271027852}} and freed a number of unfree workers from her lands.{{cite book |author= Constance Brittain Bouchard |authorlink= |title=Caring for Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World |year=1998 |publisher= Pennsylvania State University Press |location= |pages=196 |quote= | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=79eFU3dOim0C&dq=Erminethrudis&pg=PA27 |isbn=978-0271027852}} The religious gifts were designed to ensure prayers being said for her and her son in perpetuity.{{cite book |author= Allen E Jones |authorlink= |title=Social Mobility in Late Antique Gaul Strategies and Opportunities for the Non-Elite |year=2009 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location= |pages=226 |quote= | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=yv4km5meoqsc&dq=Erminethrudis&pg=PA372 |isbn=9780511596735}}