Clementina, Patrician

Clementina was a Roman patrician lady (femina patricia) who corresponded with Pope Gregory the Great (590-604). She is known chiefly from four of Gregory's letters written between roughly 590 and 600, in which he addresses her as a noblewoman and spiritual daughter, consoles her on the death of a kinsman or associate (Eutherius), reassures her that he bears her no ill will despite rumors spread by detractors, and writes about the election of the presbyter Amandus to the see of Surrentum (Sorrento), suggesting her interests reached into Campania. Beyond these letters she is otherwise little attested; her precise family, estates, and dates are not securely documented, though her status and the matters Gregory raises mark her as a prominent member of the late-sixth-century Italian lay aristocracy who maintained close ties to the papal court.