She was "a favorite of both the humblest residents and of the Bourbon family, and was equally venerated by Erasmus and revolutionary fishwives"[6] and was considered "a cultural symbol which Parisians shared, appropriated, negotiated, and used according to specific communal assumptions and traditions".

Genevieve was born c. 419 or 422 in Nanterre, France, a small village almost seven kilometers (4.3 mi) west of Paris, to Severus and Gerontia, who were of German or possibly Frankish origins.

Even though popular tradition represents Genevieve's parents as poor peasants,[8] their names, which were common amongst the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, are considered evidence that she was born into the Gallic upper class.

After speaking to her and encouraging her "to persevere in the path of virtue",[8] Germanus interviewed her parents and told them that she would "be great before the face of the Lord"[13] and that by her example, lead and teach many consecrated virgins.

[14][15]According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Germanus gave Genevieve a medal engraved with a cross and instructed her to wear it instead of pearls and gold jewelry to help her to remember her commitment to Christ.

[27] Genevieve and Germanus' archdeacon persuaded the people of Paris that she "was not a prophetess of doom"[15] and convinced the women that instead of joining their husbands and abandoning their homes, to pray and do acts of penance to spare the city.

[8][28][29][30] According to her vita, Genevieve persuaded the women of Paris to undertake a series of fasts, prayers, and vigils "in order to ward off the threatening disaster, as Esther and Judith had done in the past".

She led a convoy, and "proved herself capable of leading a paramilitary operation which necessitated crossing enemy lines",[30] through the blockade of Paris up the Seine from Troyes to bring food to the starving citizens.

After praying all night, one of the priests promised to raise the funds needed to hire workers, and carpenters donated their time to gather wood and other resources.

[10] Genevieve's vita states, about the basilica, "A triple portico adjoins the church, with pictures of Patriarchs and Prophets, Martyrs and Confessors to the faith in ancient times from pages of history books".

McNamara goes on to state, "Power, as expressed through miracles, protected Childeric and his successors from the possibility that whatever mercy and indulgence they showed towards the saints and to the poor they championed might be construed as a sign of weakness unbecoming a warrior".

[8] She also performed miracles in Paris and throughout the Ile-de-France, which included exorcising demons, healing the blind, resurrecting the dead, rescuing prisoners, and helping a consecrated virgin escape her fiancé.

Her vita describes miracles that happened in Orléans through her intercessions, including raising the daughter of a family's matriarch from the dead and healing a man who became ill because he refused to forgive his servant.

[45] Genevieve then visited Tours, "braving many perils on the River Loure";[46] she was greeted there by a crowd of people possessed by demons, whom she healed, with prayers and the sign of the cross, in the Basilica of Saint Martin.

[7] Complex images and attributions of Genevieve were created over a period of over 700 years, in liturgical writings, in editions of her Vita, in iconography, and in textual metaphors that were motivated by changing social, political, and religious conditions.

[56] As Williams states, Genevieve's relics were "intimately tied to the city's history" and were called upon by the residents of Paris during times of crisis, "their faith rewarded with Saint Geneviève's long and impressive record of miracles".

[65] Sluhovsky states that Genevieve's image as a warrior and protector occurred at the same time when women like Catherine de' Medici and Anne of Austria gained more political power in France.

[50] The most notable artistic representations of Genevieve, which continued traditions from the late Middle Ages, were created between the 17th and 19th centuries, including the frescoes of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in the Panthéon.

In the early 1400s, a mystery play was composed by her canon called the Miracles De Sainte Genevieve; it related 14 episodes in her life, including her defence of Paris, and compared her to Joan of Arc.

[71] French sculptor Paul Landowski created a statue of Genevieve in 1928, which honoured her protection of Paris during World War I, at the Pont de la Tournelle.

[4] In 1129, during an epidemic of ergot poisoning, which Farmer called her most famous cure,[4] was stayed after Genevieve's relics were carried in a public procession from her reliquary to Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The Seine receded and even though the relics and the participants in the procession crossed the Petit Pont twice and the bridge's foundations were weakened from the threatening flood waters, it did not collapse until the reliquary was returned and no one was injured.

[86] According to Sluhovsky, by the second half of the 1200s and continuing into the early 16th century, a tradition of invoking Genevieve to protect Paris from floods was established, often as a last resort, when the prayers to other saints were ineffective.

[97] Also according to Sluhovsky, who describes the regulations and practices of the Company of the Bearers of Reliquary of Sainte Geneviève up until the 18th century, members had to financially support its activities, including payments to the abbey for its clerics to perform Masses for them.

He states, "The religious austerity that characterized the invocations of the thirteenth century and of late medieval Paris, with its emphasis on penance and contrition, was replaced by the contradictory expressions of supplication and triumphalism".

[131] Saint Genevieve's Church began to be rebuilt in 1746 because it had decayed; as Farmer states, it "was secularized at the Revolution and was called the Panthéon, a burial place for the worthies of France".

[135] In 1725, Genevieve was invoked amidst religious and political conflict, which as Sluhovsky states, "had an impact on the ability of lay Parisians to maintain their traditional forms of devotion".

[139] The opposition of the royal appropriation of Genevieve occurred at the same time Protestants and Paris elites, including Voltaire, began to criticise Catholic practices such as the cult of the saints.

[140] The appropriation of Genevieve by the monarchy did not decrease the people's devotion to her during this time, even when processions stopped and invocations to her were made for the royal family during the late 18th century.

According to Sluhovsky, Genevieve's bones were put on trial, found guilty of collaborating with the royal authorities, and condemned to be publicly burned at the Place de Greve.