View source for Clotilde

=== Early life ===
Clotilde, born around 474, was from Burgundy.{{Sfn|Butler|1995|p=462}} According to [[Hagiography|hagiographer]] [[Alban Butler]], the only source for Clotilde's biography, which was edited by Bruno Krusch before the 10th century, is mostly dependent upon a document written by a monk from [[Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis|Saint-Denis]] a couple of centuries earlier. Her history has also been pieced together by [[Gregory of Tours]] and [[Chronicle of Fredegar|Fredegarius]], and in certain hagiographies. Butler states that the most reliable source about her life is by Belgian historian [[Godefroid Kurth]], but David Hugh Farmer calls Gregory of Tours' hagiography about Clotilde "the principal source for her life" and said that a later hagiography "celebrated her as the saintly ancestor of the French kings".<ref name="farmer">{{Cite book |last=Farmer |first=David Hugh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_zJJtvK2_KsC&q=Clotilde |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Saints |date=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192800589 |edition=4th |pages=95 |access-date=June 1, 2024}}</ref> Her history also appears in French hagiographies, but most of them were written before Kurth's.{{Sfn|Butler|1995|p=463}}

It seems Clotilde's grandfather was [[Gondioc]], who had four sons, [[Gundobad]], Clotilde's father [[Chilperic II of Burgundy]], [[Gundemar|Gondemar]], and [[Godegisel]].{{Sfn|Dunbar|1904|p=191}}{{Sfn|Baring-Gould|1897|p=23}} After Gondioc's death, Burgundy was divided up among them, but Gundobad gained power over Burgundy when he murdered his brothers. Gundobad also killed Clotide's brothers and her mother Caretena, who might have converted her husband to Christianity{{Sfn|McNamara|Halborg|Whatley|1992|p=38}} and was called "a remarkable woman" by [[Sidonius Apollinaris]] and [[Venantius Fortunatus]].<ref name="cathencyclopedia">{{Cite book |last=Kurth |first=Godefroid |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04066a.htm |title=The Catholic Encyclopedia |date=1908 |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |volume=4 |location=New York |chapter=St. Clotilda |access-date=31 May 2024}}</ref>{{Efn|As scholar JoAnne McNamara put it, Clothild and her mother "set a pattern for a chain of Catholic female missionaries to the courts of the pagan and Arian kings they married".{{sfn|McNamara|Halborg|Whatley|1992|p=38}}}} Clotilde and her sister, Sedeleuba (or Chrona), who became a nun and founded the church of Saint-Victor in [[Geneva]], were raised at the court of Gundobad. They were educated as Catholics, even though Gundobad, like most of the Burgundian kings, were [[Arianism|Arians]].{{Sfn|Dunbar|1904|pp=191-192}}<ref name="cathencyclopedia" />{{Efn|Gundobad's son was later converted to Catholicism, although he was killed by Clotilde's sons.{{sfn|McNamara|Halborg|Whatley|1992|p=39}}}} According to hagiographer [[Sabine Baring-Gould]], Clotilde "grew up full of piety and tenderness to sufferers".{{Sfn|Baring-Gould|1897|p=23}}