Clotilde

Saint Clotilde (475–545), also known as Clothilde, Clotilda, Clotild, Rotilde etc. (Latin Chrodechildis, Chlodechildis from Frankish *Hrōþihildi or perhaps *Hlōdihildi, both "famous in battle"), was the second wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, and a princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. Venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, she was instrumental in her husband's famous conversion to Catholicism and, in her later years, was known for her almsgiving and penitential works of mercy.

Biography

Clotilde was born at the Burgundian court of Lyon, the daughter of King Chilperic II of Burgundy. Upon the death of Chilperic's father King Gondioc in 473, he and his brothers Gundobad and Godegisel had divided their inheritance; Chilperic II apparently reigning at Lyon, Gundobad at Vienne and Godegesil at Geneva.

From the sixth century on, the marriage of Clovis and Clotilda was made the theme of epic narratives, in which the original facts were materially altered and the various versions found their way into the works of different Frankish chroniclers. According to Gregory of Tours (538–594), Chilperic II was slain by his brother Gundobad in 493, and his wife drowned with a stone hung around her neck, while of his two daughters, Chrona took the veil and Clotilde was exiled - it is, however, assumed that this tale is apocryphal. Butler's account follows Gregory.

Clotilde (floruit 673)

Clotilde or Chlodechilidis (fl. 673) was the founder of the abbey of Bruyères-le-Châtel. Her charter is one of only eight known original manuscripts to survive from 7th century Francia, among which it is the only private charter. It is a parchment, which is unusual in that most surviving Merovingian documents of the 7th century were written on papyrus. As a result, it has been the object of detailed analysis over many years.

Clotilde, notes Levillain, was evidently a very important woman. It is supposed that she was in some way related to the Merovingian kings, but the exact relation is uncertain. Her name and its variants, male and female, are common ones among the Merovingians, perhaps due to the memory of Clotilde wife of Clovis I. Clovis and Clotilde had a daughter of the same name. This Clotilde was unhappily married to the Visigothic king Amalric. King Guntram had a daughter named Clotilde, and Clotilde the Proud, daughter of King Charibert I, was a famously disobedient nun whose story is recounted by Gregory of Tours. Clotilde's charter also suggests a link to the Merovingians as it requires the nuns to pray for the stability of the kingdom and success for the king, a requirement found elsewhere only in royal charters.

Clotilde (slave ship)

The schooner Clotilde (or Clotilda) was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay in autumn 1859 (some sources give the date as July 9, 1860), with 110-160 slaves. The ship was a two-masted schooner, 86 ft long by 23 ft (26 × 7 m), and it was burned and scuttled at Mobile Bay, soon after. The sponsors had arranged to buy slaves in Whydah, Dahomey on May 15, 1859.

Many descendants of Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, the last survivor of the Clotilde, still reside in Africatown, a neighborhood of Mobile, Alabama. A memorial bust of him was placed in front of the Union Missionary Baptist Church there.

History

In autumn of 1859, the schooner Clotilde (or Clotilda), under the command of Captain William Foster, arrived in Mobile Bay carrying a cargo of enslaved Africans, numbering between 110 and 160 people. Captain Foster was working for Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipyard owner and shipper, who had built the Clotilde in 1856. Local lore relates that Meaher bet some "Northern gentlemen" that he could get around the 1807 law, which prohibited the importation of slaves, without getting caught. The Clotilde was a two-masted schooner, 86 ft (26 m) long and 23 ft (7 m) wide, with a copper-sheathed hull. Meaher had learned that West African tribes were fighting, and that the King of Dahomey was willing to trade Africans for US$50 each in the Kingdom of Whydah, Dahomey. Foster arrived in Whydah on May 15, 1859, bought Africans from several different tribes, including members of the Tarkbar tribe of Tamale, Ghana, and headed back to Mobile.

Clotilde (opera)

Clotilde is an opera (melodramma semiserio) in two acts by Carlo Coccia. The Italian-language libretto was by Gaetano Rossi. It premiered on 8 June 1815 at Teatro San Benedetto, Venice.

Clotilde was especially appreciated for the usage of the chorus. A contemporaneous Italian writer wrote: "Nobody after Mayer has understood how a composer can take advantage of a sensible usage of the chorus. Coccia did it in this opera, avoiding those screams heard too often before".Francesco Regli in its Dizionario biografico stated: "With Clotilde Coccia taught how a chorus has to be written".

Clotilde was performed also in Paris in 1821, but it was unsuccessful.

In modern times, this opera was revived for the first time at the Teatro Coccia in Novara, on 7 November 2003. This production was recorded and published on CD. In his review of the Novara performance, produced making use of different versions of the opera, the Italian music critic Giangiorgio Satragni noted "the resounding of features of Rossini's style" and emphasized, among the pieces of the opera, Emerico's cavatina Soave all'anima and Clotilde's aria Deh! Tu guida, but judged the work on the whole as "implacable nineteenth-century operatic routine".