The Ring and the Cross - Barbara Rogers

As barbarian hordes storm once-civilized lands, ordinary people must rescue what they can of morality and faith, building a Christian Age on the bits and pieces of the past. Based on real people and events in sixth-century France, when Christian Europe was forming on the ruins of the Roman Empire, The Ring and the Cross mingles history, fiction, and religion. The poet Fortunatus begins as a playboy and ends as the saintly bishop of Poitiers, under the spiritual guidance of his beloved St. Radegund. Queen Brunhild marries a doomed prince and avenges his murder, against the counsel of St. Radegund. This is the story that inspired Wagner's Brunhilde, and shines light on our own times, today.