year 495/6 is addressed to Hereleuva regina.75 As in the chancery tradition, the royal title appears only in the heading of the letter, while in the document Erelieva is addressed as sublimitas vestra.76 This is one of the forms that are used a century later by Gregory the Great and in the Epistulae Austrasicae to address queens, as alternatives to excellentia vestra, gloria vestra, pietas vestra, and clementia vestra. While it is theoretically possible that Pope Gelasius simply used this title as a matter of respect, it seems more likely that Erelieva had an honorary queenship, which she possessed by virtue of her son’s kingship rather than through her former position as royal concubine.77
The example of Erelieva indicates that in Gothic Italy a royal woman could be addressed as regina without being married to a king. And it is possible that the kingdom had, for short periods, two royal women bearing the title of queen—Audefleda, wife of Theoderic, naturally enough bore the title, but so did Erelieva, Theoderic’s mother, who had never been a regent and was not the wife of a king; rather, she was Theudimer’s concubine. After Theodahad’s election, both Amalasuintha and Gudeliva held the title: the latter became regina on the day of her husband Theodahad’s election or, at the latest, after Amalasuintha’s deposition. This may have been unusual in some of the post-Roman kingdoms, but there is certainly a parallel in Frankish Gaul after Clovis. His heirs’ wives were called queens even while Clotilde, his widow, kept the royal title and maintained some level of authority. But not until Brunhild in the late sixth century do we find a powerful queen regent in Gaul.
Like her paternal grandmother, Erelieva, Amalasuintha was a widowed queen mother. But she was an unusual one, and her royal motherhood played an important role in defining her political power. In both the Getica (probably relying on Cassiodorus’s lost historical work) and the Romana, Jordanes refers to Amalasuintha solely as the mater regens.78 Justinian’s 554 Constitutio Pragmatica, which lacks royal titles for all the Amal kings,79 refers to her as Athalaric’s regia mater: this expression is a unique occurrence in Justinian’s Code, and it is also very rare in the sources; the adjective regia indicates her royal bloodline.80 Jordanes may have been familiar with the Constitutio Pragmatica, which was meant to reorganize Italy after the Gothic war. It was issued about the same time and in the same place Jordanes wrote his two historical works, and in the same milieu in which Procopius completed and published the Gothic War.81 Within a short but complex passage, Jordanes describes in the Romana the events that took place in the palace of Ravenna during the years 526–535: “But in Italy, after King Theoderic had died, by his own order Athalaric his grandson succeeded [him]; although living as a minor for eight years, he was passing the time with his mother Amalasuintha ruling (matre tamen regente)…. After Athalaric died, his mother (mater sua) made Theodahad her cousin part of her kingdom (regni sui participem).”82
Through the use of the participial regens, which is found almost nowhere else in both the Getica and the Romana, Jordanes expresses the strong control that the royal mother exercised in de facto managing the government. Cassiodorus never applies this participle to Amalasuintha, but he states that the mother’s affection rules (matris regnat affectio).83 To indicate the legal guardianship of one of Theoderic’s grandchildren, Jordanes uses the juridical term “tutor” (tutela), as according to the Roman law.84 The use of regens as a substantive for “ruler regent” came into use in late medieval Latin.85 The Greek lexicon expressed the tutorship with the noun “ἐπίτροπος,” which was used to refer to those who took care of the children of the Theodosian dynasty. This word is also used by Procopius.86 Like Jordanes, Procopius describes Amalasuintha as the mother (μήτηρ) who “as guardian (ἐπίτροπος οὖσα) of her child administered the government.”87 Our sources make clear that Amalasuintha was ruling in the name of her son. But the critical point here is that the “regency” itself had never been an institutionalized position. It was not a title used in the empire, though there were numerous examples of strong female figures in the Julio-Claudian and Severan dynasties and also women who held power directly, like Pulcheria, or regent mothers, such as Justina and Galla Placidia. Nor did the position hold an institutional meaning in the post-Roman kingdoms, where regents did not have juridical rights but ruled de facto in an array of situations so diverse that it is often difficult to distinguish between “regency,” “guardianship” and “co-ruling.”88
We may also wonder whether, in dealing with the Gothic aristocracy at the palace, Amalasuintha used the corresponding Gothic term for regens and ἐπίτροπος to express her position as regent. As we saw in the introduction to this chapter, the word ragineis translates as “guardian” or “tutor,” and can also be used for “adviser”; and advising was one of the main functions of queens in this period.89 Fluent in Latin, Greek, and her native tongue,90 Amalasuintha was aware of the significance of these words for the two peoples of the kingdom.
But it was when her son died and her regency ended that Amalasuintha turned to her most radical experiment, the appointment of her cousin Theodahad as coregent. On what basis could the mother of a dead king create a new political structure if she were not already a queen? In fact, it is in the descriptions of this crucial moment that we find some clues about her status. As soon as Athalaric died, his mother associated Theodahad to her kingdom: participem regni sui faciens. This phrase acknowledges Amalasuintha’s royal status that she already held as regent for her son, on the basis of which she could claim the kingdom at the very moment that her son died. And in the Getica we read that it was Amalasuintha herself who made the decision to raise Theodahad to the throne.91 Cassiodorus’s letters contain the same terminology that Jordanes uses: Amalasuintha had chosen Theodahad as supporter of her regia dignitas, she had taken good care of her kingdom (propria regna), she had made him a partner in her government (consors regni sui), and Theodahad participated in her power (potestatis suae particeps).92 The Book of the Popes confirms that Amalasuintha elected her cousin while she was in possession of the royal title, as does the Eastern author Count Marcellinus when he refers to Amalasuintha as the regina creatrix of Theodahad.93
There is still more evidence that Amalasuintha was regina before the death of her son. In a Cassiodoran letter dating to the beginning of 537, King Witiges reminded Emperor Justinian about the protection that he had granted to “Queen Amalasuintha of divine memory”: divae memoriae Amalasuinthae reginae.94 This is the only time that we find in the text of the Variae the word “regina” applied to an Amal lady. But here this attribution has a specific political meaning. For Cassiodorus claimed that the former queen was entrusted to Justinian’s protection, referring here to a diplomatic event that took place around 532/3, which I discuss in Chapter 3. That Amalasuintha was “entrusted” to Justinian as regina is confirmed by the Book of the Popes, while Justinian never acknowledged the co-regency.95 Cassiodorus’s intentional use of the royal title for Amalasuintha in a letter to the emperor almost two years after her death seems rather to indicate that Justinian was aware that her royal title preceded Athalaric’s death.
Procopius finally provides us with some insight. In the Gothic War he refers to Amalasuintha as the mother and the guardian of her child. At another point in the narrative, however, he specifies that in a time of difficulties she did not succumb to desperation but rather displayed royal stature (τὸ βασιλικὸν ἀξίωμα);96 and sometime later she raised Theodahad to royal dignity.97 In the Secret History the historian implies that Amalasuintha considered herself a queen before Athalaric’s death, and that this was known at the imperial palace.98 He writes that Theodora was jealous of Amalasuintha because of her beauty and her noble ancestry, and also because she was a “woman” (γυνή) and a “queen” (βασιλίς).99 Once again, the commonly accepted narrative that Amalasuintha
