of Brabant Genevieve Genoveva or Genovefa

GENEVIEVE (GENOVEVA OR GENOVEFA), OF BRABANT, heroine of mediaeval legend. Her story is a typical example of the widespread tale of the chaste wife falsely accused and repu diated, generally on the word of a rejected suitor. Genovefa of Brabant, wife of the palatine Siegfried of Treves, was falsely accused by the majordomo Golo. Sentenced to death she was spared by the executioner, and lived for six years with her son in a cave in the Ardennes nourished by a roe. Siegfried, who had meanwhile found out Golo's treachery, was chasing the roe when he discovered her hiding-place, and reinstated her in her former honour. Her story is said to rest on the history of Marie of Brabant, wife of Louis II., duke of Bavaria, and count-palatine of the Rhine, who was beheaded on Jan. 18, 1256, for supposed infidelity, a crime for which Louis afterwards had to do penance. The change in name may have been due to the cult of St. Genevieve, patroness of Paris. The tale first obtained wide popu larity in L'Innocence reconnue, ou vie de Sainte Genevieve de Brabant (pr. 1638) by the Jesuit Rene de Cerisier (1603-62), and was a frequent subject for dramatic representation in Ger many. Several other forms of the legend exist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

S. Grundtvig, Danske Kaempeviser (1867) ; R. Bibliography.—S. Grundtvig, Danske Kaempeviser (1867) ; R. Kohler, "Die deutschen Volksbiicher von der Pfalzgrafin Genovefa" in Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie (1874) ; B. Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalzgriifin Genovefa (Wurzburg, 1877) ; "Sir Triamore," in Bishop Percy's Folio ms., ed. Hales and Furnivall, vol. ii. (1868) ; The Erl of Toulous and the Emperes of Almayn, ed. G. Liidtke (Berlin, 1880 ; The Romance of Octavian, ed. E. M. Goldsmid (Aungervyle Soc., Edinburgh, 1882) ; F. J. Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. art. "Sir Aldingar" (i886) ; B. Golz, Pfalz griifin Genovefa in der deutschen Dichtung (Leipzig, 1897).