Holy Quitterie

Sainte Quitterie is a young princess gothe, decapitated towards 472 on the site of Aire-sur-l'Adour, in the Landes, with the site of the source which is dedicated to him.

Presentation

Quittery was the girl of Aeyius, king Visigoth of Toulouse. Refusing the hand of Germain, the executor of simple works of his father, she flees with Aire-sur-l'Adour disguised in rider to escape from the requests from the applicant and anger from her father. Its running away intervened little of time after its conversion with Christianity accompanied by a vow of chastity. Germain ends up finding it and the decapitated.

The legend says that when its head touched ground, a fountain spouts out. Quittery would have taken its head washed well in its arms to deposit it in top of the plate of the Farmhouse, where its sarcophagus is today (in the Crypte of the Holy-Quitterie church of Surface).

The bishop, of the name of Faust, the very same day made a sermon, after which all the town of Surface converts with Christianity, including Germain.

Very close to the church of Surface a fountain runs today to which one allots the virtue to cure the headaches as well as the rage (one often represents it with a dog with his feet drawing the language). Many fountains of the Moors and Charente (Aussac, Chadurie) supposed to have the same virtues, are placed under the patronage of the holy one. Quittery is since a typical first name of the Moors and South-west in general.

The posterity

The Relique S of the Sainte remained until the 16th century in the crypt of the church, old Roman temple dedicated to the god Mars and converted into Baptistère by the bishops of the Tarusates. They were preserved inside a Sarcophage of white marble, one of most beautiful of the 4th century, because of the extraordinary richness of its decoration, mixing ancient and Christian carved reasons.

Its relics attract many pilgrims since the Middle Ages. The site will quickly be essential like a stage on the Via Podiensis one of the ways of the Pèlerinage of Saint-Jacques-to-Compostelle.

Context

With the collapse of the Roman Empire of Occident, the Novempopulanie, province of the current town of Surface, was conquered by the Visigoths, with the statute of federate Peuple starting from 418. Goths, to which Quitterie belonged, was the first barbarian people with being christianized.

Sources

ways of Saint-Jacob in the Moors, Francis Zapata, Jean-Pierre Rousset, South-western Editions
Dictionary of the French Moor, Charles Daney, Editions Loubatières

See too

List of the catholic saints
History of the Moors (department)

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