ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the life and death of Queen Amalasuintha of Italy in one of those murderous family dramas of the Dark Ages that might have been commemorated in a brooding saga and carried from court to court by bards and scops. Amalasuintha’s career can be viewed against two principal historic events: first, the half-century of Gothic control in Italy lasting from 494 to 552 and, second, the ultimately triumphant efforts of Justinian to oust the Goths, reconquer Italy and bring it temporarily back under the imperial Roman administration. She tried to introduce the garb and ceremonies of the Byzantine court into the Gothic kingship and to impose the Catholic beliefs on her resistant Germanic courtiers, who were firmly Arian. Part of her Catholic agenda was to foster the building of churches, the cult of martyrs, and the cult of the Virgin Mary.
