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[Paul Halsall]
The text presented here is the abridged translation of Gregory of Tour's History of the Franks made by Earnest Brehaut in 1916. The etext gives the full text of the Brehaut edition, pp. 1-248, apart from the Selections from The Eight Books of Miracles [pp. 249-62] which has been made available separately.
Brehaut gives a complete list of books and chapters, but only translated a selection of the chapters. Here each book is preceded by a list of all the chapters. I have made clear which chapters are available here by highlighting those that are translated. Short notes from the foot of each page have been inserted italicized into the body of the text.
This is a very large file, but has been kept as one to facilitate keyword searching, downloading, and printing.
The following individual episodes have been created as separate files for classroom use and discussion:
[Since the scanning of this text is a big task, but the text is of special use to students and teachers, it has been made available even though only parts are as yet completed.
This version is dated 12/21/1997, and now contains Brehaut's Introduction, and Books I-X, as well as an up-to-date Bibliography and guide to Web Resources. The end notes will be added as time allows].
[Other Translations Included: In addition to the Chapters translated by Brehaut, which amount to over half the full text, from time to time other chapters will be inserted in the text, as copy-permitted translations become available. So far such other translations include: VIII:20]
By Earnest Brehaut, [from his 1916 translation] , pp. ix-xxv
[Note: Many of Brehaut's opinions and prejudices would
not be upheld by modern historians. Students should not rely
on this Introduction as a guide.]
The History of the Franks by Gregory, bishop of Tours, is an historical record of great importance. The events which it relates are details of the perishing of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a great modern state and for these events it is often the sole authority. However although Gregory was relating history mainly contemporaneous or recent, we must allow largely for error and prejudice in his statements of fact. It is rather as an unconscious revelation that the work is of especial value. The language and style, the intellectual attitude with which it was conceived and written, and the vivid and realistic picture, unintentionally given, of a primitive society, all combine to make the History of the Franks a landmark in European culture. After reading it the intelligent modern will no longer have pleasing illusions about sixthcentury society.
Gregory's life covers the years from 538 to 594. He was a product of central Gaul, spending his whole life in the Loire basin except for brief stays elsewhere. [note: Besides Clermont and Tours in which cities Gregory spent most of his life we hear of stays at Poitiers, Saintes, Bordeaux, Riez, Cavaillon, Vienne, Lyons, Chalon-sorSaône, ChâlonssurMarne, Rheims, Soissons, Metz, Coblentz, Braine, Paris, Orleans. Monod, Sources de l'histoire Mérovingienne, p. 37.] The river Loire may be regarded as the southern limit of Frankish colonization and Gregory therefore lived on the frontier of the barbarians. He was born and grew up at Clermont in Auvergne, a city to which an inexhaustibly fertile mountain valley is tributary. In this valley his father owned an estate. Its wealth brought Clermont much trouble during the disorderly period that followed the breakup of Roman rule, and Gregory gives a hint of the eagerness which the Frankish kings felt to possess this country [note: Childebert the elder is represented as saying: Velim unquam Arvernam Lemanem quae tantae jocunditatis gratia refulgere dicitur, oculis cernere. H. F. III: 9.]
After 573 Gregory lived at Tours in the lower Loire valley. This city with its pleasant climate and moderately productive territorial background had more than a local importance in this age. It lay on the main thoroughfare between Spain and Aquitania and the north. Five Roman roads centered in it and the traffic of the Loire passed by it. The reader of Gregory's history judges that sooner or later it was visited by every one of importance at the time. It was here that the Frankish influences of the north and the Roman influences of the south had their chief contact.
However the natural advantages of Tours at this time were surpassed by the supernatural ones. Thanks to the legend of St. Martin this conveniently situated city had become "the religious metropolis" of Gaul. St. Martin had made a great impression on his generation. [note: In France, including Alsace and Lorraine, there are at the present time three thousand six hundred and seventyfive churches dedicated to St. Martin, and four hundred and twentyfive villages or hamlets are named after him. C. Bayet, in Lavisse, Histoire de France, 221, p. 16] A Roman soldier, turned monk and then bishop of Tours, he was a man of heroic character and force. He had devoted himself chiefly to the task of Christianizing the pagani or rural population of Gaul and had won a remarkable ascendancy over the minds of a superstitious people, and this went on increasing for centuries after his death. The center of his cult was his tomb in the great church built a century before Gregory's time just outside the walls of Tours. This was the chief point of Christian pilgrimage in Gaul, a place of resort for the healing of the sick and the driving out of demons, and a sanctuary to which many fled for protection. [note: . C. Bayet, in Lavisse, Histoire de France, 21, pp. 13 ff.] In a time of dense superstition and political and social disorder this meant much in the way of securing peace, influence, and wealth, and it was to the strategic advantage of the office of bishop of Tours as well as to his own aggressive character that Gregory owed his position as the leading prelate of Gaul.
Gregory does not neglect to tell us of his family connections and status in society. [note: Monod, op. cit. pp. 25 ff. See pp. 13, 84, 109,0, 140.] He belonged to the privileged classes. Of his father's family he tells us that "in the Gauls none could be found better born or nobler," and of his mother's that it was "a great and leading family." On both his father's and his mother's side he was of senatorial rank, a distinction of the defunct Roman empire which still retained much meaning in central and southern Gaul. But the great distinction open at this time to a Gallo-Roman was the powerful and envied office of bishop. Men of the most powerful families struggled to attain this office and we can therefore judge of Gregory's status when he tells us proudly that of the bishops of Tours from the beginning all but five were connected with him by ties of kinship. We hear much of Gregory's paternal uncle Gallus, bishop of Auvergne, under whom he probably received his education and entered the clergy, and of his granduncle Nicetius, bishop of Lyons, and of his greatgrandfather Gregory, bishop of Langres, in honor of whom Gregory discarded the name of Georgius Florentinus which he had received from his father. Entering on a clerical career with such powerful connections he was at the same time gratifying his ambitions and obeying the most strongly felt impulse of his time.
In spite of all these advantages, under the externals of Christianity Gregory was almost as superstitious as a savage. His superstition came to him straight from his father and mother and from his whole social environment. He tells us that his father, when expecting in 534 to go as hostage to king Theodobert's court, went to "a certain bishop" and asked for relics to protect him. These were furnished to him in the shape of dust or " sacred ashes " and he put them in a little gold case the shape of a peapod and wore hem about his neck, although he never knew the names of the saints whose relics they were. According to Gregory's account the miraculous assistance given to his father by these relics was a common subject of family conversation. After his death the relics passed to Gregory's mother, who on one occasion . extinguished by their help a great fire that had got started in the straw stacks on the family estate near Clermont. While on a horseback journey from Burgundy to Auvergne Gregory himself happened to be wearing these same relics. A fearful thunderstorm threatened the party, but Gregory "drew the beloved relics from his breast and lifted them up against the cloud, which at once separated into two parts and passed on the right and left, and after that did no harm to them or any one else." In spite of himself Gregory could not help being somewhat elated at the incident and he hinted to his companions that his own merit must have had something to do with it. "No sooner were the words spoken than my horse shied suddenly and threw me heavily on the ground; and I was so shaken that I could scarcely get up. I understood that my vanity was the cause of it, and it was a lesson to me to be on my guard against the spur of pride. And if thereafter I happened to have the merit merely to behold miracles of the saints I would say distinctly that they had been worked by God's grace through faith in the saints." [note: Gloria Martyrum, c.83].
The number of miracles at which Gregory " assisted " was great. A picturesque and significant one is the following: "It happened once that I was journeying to visit my aged mother in Burgundy. And when passing through the woods on the other side of the river Bèbre we came upon highwaymen. They cut us off from escape and were going to rob and kill us. Then I resorted to my usual means of assistance and called on St. Martin for help. And he came to my help at once and efficiently, and so terrified them that they could do nothing against us. And instead of causing fear they were afraid, and were beginning to flee as fast as they could. But I remembered the apostle's words that our enemies ought to be supplied with food and drink, and told my people to offer them drink. They wouldn't wait at all, but fled at top speed. One would think that they were being clubbed along or were being hurled along involuntarily faster than their horses could possibly go", [note: De Virtut. S. Mart. I, 36.]
The reality of this incident need not be doubted. The highwaymen were as superstitious as Gregory, probably more so. When they found what they had against them they fled in a panic. The peculiar wording of the last sentence makes it seem likely that Gregory for his part thought that the highwaymen had demons to help them and that these in their urgent flight before the superior " virtue " of St. Martin were responsible for the appearance he describes.
Of Gregory's education and literary training we receive scanty details. At the age of eight he was beginning to learn to read.[note: Vitae Patram, VIII, 3.] The books he read were naturally the Scriptures and works of Christian writers and his contact with pagan literature of the classical period must have been slight; he appears to have read Virgil and Sallust's Catiline but probably did not go beyond these. [note: Bonnet, Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours, pp. 4876]. His attitude toward pagan literature was the conventional one of his age,-fear of the demonic influences embodied in it; [note: Speaking of Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva, Venus, a character in the Vitae Patrum, XVII, says, Nolite, o, viri, nolite eos invocare, non sunt enim dii isti sed daemones.] he expresses it thus: "We ought not to relate their lying fables lest we fall under sentence of eternal death." [note: Gloria Martyrum, Pref. ] Among Christian writers Sulpicius Severus, Prudentius, Sidonius Apollonaris, and Fortunatus were the only ones to exercise a genuine influence on his style.
The question has been much discussed whether sixthcentury education in Gaul included a knowledge of the liberal arts. Gregory gives us no definite information on the point. It is true that he is explicit as to his own case. He says, " I was not trained in grammar or instructed in the finished style of the heathen writers, but the influence of the blessed father Avitus, bishop of Auvergne, turned me solely to the writings of the church." [note: Vitae Patrum, II, Pref. ] Gregory does indeed mention Martianus Capella's work on the seven liberal arts and seems to have had some notion of the scope of each one, [note: See p. 240. (i.e. Book X.16)] but in the face of his repeated confessions of ignorance of the most elementary of them as well as the actual proof of ignorance which he constantly gives, the conclusion must be that they were not included in his education. As to the general situation the only evidence is furnished by Gregory's famous preface in which he declares that "liberal learning is declining or rather perishing in the Gallic cities," and no one could be found sufficiently versed in the liberal arts to write the History of the Franks as it ought to be written. We may feel certain that Gregory's idea of the qualifications for historical writing were not high; correct spelling, knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic as laid down in the textbooks would be sufficient. But, as he tells us, no person so qualified could be found to undertake the task. Again we hear of bishops who were illiterate. It is plain that the trend of the evidence is all in one direction, namely that in Gaul by this time the liberal arts had disappeared from education.
Gregory's Latin presents many problems. Its relation to sixth-century linguistic development is not well understood although it has been closely scrutinized. Gregory's vocabulary does not show the decadence that might be expected. It is extremely rich and varied and contains a moderate number of Celtic, Germanic, and Hunnish additions. Old Latin words, however, often have new and unexpected meanings. In the field of grammar the situation is different. Judged by anything like a classical standard Gregory is guilty of almost every conceivable barbarity. He spells incorrectly, blunders in the use of the inflections, confuses genders, and often uses the wrong case with the preposition. In addition he is very awkward in handling the Latin verb: the different voices, tenses, and modes are apt to look alike to him. His constructions too, are frequently incorrect. In all this he seems very erratic, he may use the correct form ten times and then give us something entirely different. No method has so far been traced in his vagaries.
Gregory's literary style is as peculiar as his language. It is often vigorous and direct, giving realistic and picturesque delineations of events. Within his limitations he well understood the complexity of human motives and actions, and now and then he shows a trace of humor. However, offending elements often appear; sometimes his realism verges on a brutal plainness. He is also by no means free from literary affectation; indeed by his choice of expressions, his repetitions and unnatural arrangement of words, he is almost always striving for effect. In his day the tradition of literary workmanship was quite dead but it would seem as if its ghost tortured Gregory. On the whole his literary style is uncouth, awkward, and full of rude surprises.
There are wellmarked variations in the style. At times we have the conventionalized jargon of the church, in which Gregory was proficient and which was always in the back of his mind ready to issue forth when other inspiration failed. At the opposite extreme from this is the easy, clear narrative in which the popular tales, both Frankish and Roman, are often recited. It is believed that in some of these we have a version of epic recitals of Frankish adventures. Then there are the passages, like the baptism of Clovis [note:l See p. 40 (i.e. Book II:30-31).] or the tale of the two lovers, which Gregory labored to make striking. These do not offend; they are so naïvely overdone that they are merely amusing.
In the light of these conclusions, objectively reached, [note: They are substantially the conclusions of Bonnet in Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours, Paris, 1890.], as to Gregory's language and style, how shall we interpret the confessions in regard to them which he repeatedly makes? In these confessions there are two leading notions: first, that he is without qualifications to write in the literary style; second, that the popular language can be more widely understood. The inference is always therefore that Gregory writes in the language of the day. This, however, cannot be so. A language spoken by the people would have something organic about it, and it would not defy as Gregory's does the efforts of scholars to find its usages. It would be simpler than the literary language and probably as uniform in its constructions. We must decide then that Gregory's self-analysis is a mistaken one, correct in the first part but not in the second. He knew he could not write the literary language but in spite of this he made the attempt, and the result is what we have, a sort of hybrid, halfway between the popular speech and the formally correct literary language.
In the Epilogue of the History of the Franks written in 594, the year of Gregory's death, he gives us a list of his works: "I have written ten books of History, seven of Miracles, one on the Lives of the Fathers, a commentary in one book on the Psalms, and one book on the Church Services [note: See p. 247 (Book X: 31.) In the Arndt and Brusch edition in the Monumenta Germania Historica we have all these titles included. The commentary on the Psalms however is in a fragmentary condition, and the Lives of the Fathers appears as one of eight books of Miracles. The book on Church Services is there entitled Account of the Movements of the Stars as they ought to be observed in performing the Services. It is really a brief astronomical treatise the purpose of which was in the absence of clocks to guide the church services at night. ] These works represent two sides of Gregory's experience,-his profession, and his relations with the Merovingian state.
In the former sphere the overshadowing interest was the miraculous. We have eight books devoted to miracles and it may be said that as a churchman Gregory never got very far away from them. It is idle to discuss the question whether he believed in them or not. It is more to the point to attempt to appreciate the part they played in the thought and life of the time. They were considered as the most significant of phenomena. They seemed a guarantee that the relations were right between the supernatural powers on the one hand and on the other the men who possessed the "sanctity" to work miracles and those who had the faith or merit to be cured or rescued by them. Gregory's eight books of Miracles were thus a register of the chief interest of his day, with an eye of course to its promotion, and it is much more remarkable that he wrote a History of the Franks than that he compiled this usually wearisome array of impossibilities.
A brief glance at the practical situation that lay back of the four books which Gregory devotes to the miracles wrought by St. .Martin will be enlightening. The cult of St. Martin was a great organized enterprise at the head of which Gregory was placed. In the sixth century St. Martin's tomb was a center toward .which the crippled, the sick, and those possessed by demons flowed as if by gravity from a large territory around Tours. The cures wrought there did much " to strengthen the faith." They passed from mouth to mouth and brought greater numbers to the shrine and it was to aid this process that the four books of St. Martin's miracles were written. Gregory is here a promoter and advertiser. To get at the practical side of the situation we have only to remember that St. Martin's tomb was the chief place of healing among the shrines of Gaul, and that the shrines of the sixth century stood for the physicians, hospitals, drugs, patent medicines, and other healing enterprises of the twentieth.
The History of the Franks is Gregory's chief work. It was written in three parts. The first, comprising books IIV, begins with the creation, and after a brief outline of events enters into more detail with the introduction of Christianity into Gaul. Then follow the appearance of the Franks on the scene of history, their conversion, the conquest of Gaul under Clovis, and the detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigibert in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours two years. The second part comprises books V and VI and closes with Chilperic's death in 584. During these years Chilperic held Tours and the relations between him and Gregory were as a rule unfriendly. The most eloquent passage in the History of the Franks is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic's character is unsympathetical1y summed up. The third part comprises books VIIX. It comes down to the year 591 and the epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory's death. The earlier part of the work does not stand as it was first written; Gregory revised it and added a number of chapters. It will be noticed that from the middle of the third book on, Gregory was writing of events within his own lifetime, and in the last six books, which are of especial value, of those that took place after he became bishop. For the earlier part of the work he depended on various chronicles, histories and local annals, and also on oral tradition. [note: The list given by Manitius is as follows: Chronicles of Jerome Victor, Sulpicius Severus; history of Orosius; church history of EusebiusRufinus; Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius Severus; letters of Sidonius Apollinaris and Ferreolus writings of Avitus; histories of of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus and Sulpicius Alexander (not elsewhere known), annals of of Arles, Angers, Burgundy. Geschichte der Lateinischen Litteratur.]
For the task undertaken by Gregory in the History of the Franks no one else was so well qualified His family connections were such as to afford him every opportunity of knowing the occurrences of central Gaul, while his position as bishop of Tours with all that it entailed brought him into touch with almost every person and matter of interest throughout the country. His frequent journeys and wide acquaintance, his leadership among the bishops, and his personal relations with four kings, Sigibert, Chilperic, Gunthram,and Childebert and also with most of the leading Franks, gave him unsurpassed opportunities for learning what was going on. Perhaps his most realistic notions of the working of Frankish society were obtained in dealing with the political refugees who sought- refuge in St. Martin's church. Though these people must have always been interesting to talk with, they were the cause of some of Gregory's most harrowing and at the same time informing experiences. This varied contact with the world about him made Gregory what every reader feels him to be, a vivid and faithful delineator of his time.
The History of the Franks must not be looked upon as a secular history. The old title, Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, is a better one descriptively. It is written not from the point of view of the GalloRoman or the Frank, but solely from that of the churchman, almost that of the bishop. Gregory does not take a tone of
loyalty to the Frankish kings, much less of inferiority. His attitude toward them is cold unless they are zealous supporters of the church, and he speaks with the utmost disgust of their civil wars, which seemed to him absolute madness in view of the greater war between the good and evil supernatural powers. [note: Book III, Pref, and IV Pref.] On the other hand his loyalty to his worthy fellowbishops is often proved. No doubt the words he quotes from Paulinus expressed his own feelings: "Whatever evils there may be in the world, you will doubtless see the worthiest men as guardians of all faith and religion." [note: Book II:13, Cf. V:11] Everywhere we can read in the lines and between the lines Gregory's single-minded devotion to the church and above all to the cult of St. Martin.
The great value of Gregory's writings is that we get in them an intimate view of sixthcentury ideas. At first sight, perhaps, we seem to have incongruous elements which from the modern viewpoint we cannot bring into harmony with one another. Credulity and hardheaded judgment appear side by side. How could Gregory be so shrewd and worldlyminded in his struggle with Chilperic and at the same time show such an appetite for the miraculous? How could he find it necessary to preface his history, as no other historian has done, with an exact statement of his creed? And how could he relate Clovis's atrocities and then go on to say, "Every day God kept laying his enemies low before him and enlarging his kingdom because he walked with right heart before him and did what was pleasing in his eyes"? These apparently glaring incongruities must have some explanation.
The reason why they have usually passed as incongruities is perhaps that it is difficult for us to take an unprejudiced view of religious and moral phenomena that are in the direct line of our cultural descent. If we could regard the Franks and GalloRomans as if they were alien to us, living, let us say, on an island of the southern Pacific, and believing and practising a religion adapted to their general situation, the task of understanding the History of the Franks would become easier. It is really a primitive society with a primitive interpretation of life and the universe with which we have to deal.
I,ook at the conception of religion held by Gregory. It seems most explicable, not by the creed he thrusts at us or by any traditional elements interpreted in a traditional sense, but by the living attitude toward the supernatural which he held. Two words are always recurring in his writings; sanctus and virtus, [note: Nunc autem cognovi quod magna est virtus eius beati Martini. Nam ingrediente me atrium domus. Vidi virum senem exhibentem arborem in manu sua, quae mox extensis ramis omne atrium texit. Ex ea emm unus me adtigit ramus, de cuius ictu turbatus corrui. Book VII:42] the first meaning sacred or holy, and the second the mystic potency emanating from the person or thing that is sacred. These words have in themselves no ethical meaning and no humane implications whatever. They are the keywords of a religious technique and their content is wholly supernatural. In a practical way the second word is the more important. It describes the uncanny, mysterious power emanating from the supernatural and affecting the natural. The manifestation of this power may be thought of as a contact between the natural and the supernatural in which the former, being an inferior reality, of course yielded. These points of contact and yielding are the miracles we continually hear of. The quality of sacredness and the mystic potency belong to spirits, in varying degrees to the faithful, and to inanimate objects. They are possessed by spirits, acquired by the faithful, and transmitted to objects.
There was also a false mystic potency. It emanated from spirits who were conceived of as alien and hostile, and, while it was not strong as the true "virtue," natural phenomena yielded before it and it had its own miracles, which however were always deceitful and malignant in purpose. This "virtue" is associated with the devil, demons, soothsayers, magicians, pagans and pagan gods, and heretics, and through them is continually engaged in aggressive warfare on the true " virtue." [note: See pp. 38 (Book II:28), 162 (Book VI:35), 185 (Book VII:44), 205 (Book IX:3).]
For the attainment of the true mystic potency asceticism was the method. This was not a withdrawal from lower activities of life to gain more power for higher activities, but it was undertaken m contempt of life, and in the more thoroughgoing cases the only restraint was the desire to avoid selfdestruction, which was forbidden. Almost every known method of selfdenial and self mortification was practised. Humility of mind was insisted on as an always necessary element. Fasting was part of the prescribed method. The strength of the motive behind asceticism may be judged from the practice of immuring, [note: For an objective account of immuring as the climax of religious practice see Vol II, chap. I, Sven Hedin's TransHimalaya, 1909. The following is his account of an immured monk who was brought out from his cell after a long time. "He was all bent up together and as small as a child and his body was nothing but a lightgray parchment like skin and bones. His eyes had lost their color, were quite bright and blind. His hair hung round his head in uncombed matted locks and was pure white. His body was covered only by a rag for time had eaten away his clothing and he had received no new garments. He had a thin unkempt beard, and had never washed himself all the time or cut his nails."] several specimens of which are related by Gregory. In this the ascetic was shut in a cell and the door walled up and only a narrow opening left to hand in a scanty supply of food. Here he was to remain until he died. Such men were regarded as having the true "virtue" in the highest degree. In reality their life must have made them distinctly inferior in all the ordinary virtues of a natural existence. [note: pp, 147-150 (Book VI:6), 158 (Book VI:28), 198-199 (Book: VIII:34)]
As asceticism was the method by which mystic potency was attained, so miracles were the product, and the proof that it had been acquired. Of course in theory the main object of the mystic was to assimilate himself to the supernatural and not expressly to work miracles. Still to society in general the miracles were the important thing. In the first place they served the immediate purpose for which a miracle might be needed, healing the sick or driving out a demon or something of the sort; in the second place they encouraged society by evidencing the fact that things in general were right and that their spiritual leaders had the right "medicine." Incredulity is not to be expected in such a situation. The miracle played an integral part in the life-theory of the time. It was the proof of religion and it did not need to be proved itself. Furthermore many miracles were real; for example, the cessation of a pain or natural recovery from a sickness would be regarded as a miracle.
Some mention should be made of the transmissibility of the mystic potency. The case of St. Martin is a good example. During his lifetime he acquired this power in a large degree. When he died on November 8, 397, at a village halfway between Tours and Poitiers, the inhabitants of these cities were all ready to fight for his body, when the people of Tours managed to secure it by stealth. This was because of the sanctity and mystic "virtue" inherent in it. It was carried to Tours and buried there and proved the greatest asset of the city. The mystic potency resided in the tomb and the area about it, and was transmitted to the dust accumulated on it, the wine and oil placed on it for the purpose, and was carried in these portable forms to all parts of Gaul. Gregory himself, for example, carried relics of St. Martin on his journeys and records that they kept his boat from sinking in the river Rhine.
The system of superstition just outlined is the greater and more real part of Gregory's religion. There was the right mystery and the wrong mystery; and both were of a low order; men had to deal with capricious saints and malignant demons. It was a real, live, local religion comparable with that of savages. By the side of this and intertwined with it the elements of traditional Christianity in a more or less formalized and ritualized shape were retained. Here the great stress was laid on the creed, not, however, that it amounted to anything in Gregory's mind as a creed. He was no theologian. His acceptance of it and insistence on it was ritualistic. However, although he accepted it as he tells us with pura credulitas, [note: Book I:Pref] that is, without a critical thought, it was not mere formality. He felt, no doubt, that it was a sort of mystic formula, especially the Trinitarian part of it,-for putting men into the right relation with the supernatural. If they believed in the creed they had the right "medicine"; if they did not, they had not.
This system of superstition was not calculated to nourish delicate moral sensibilities. Life had gone too far back to the primitive word applied to the adept in this religion was sanctus and it indicated not moral excellence at all but a purely mystic quality. The "virtue" which this person possessed was mystic potency, which was not moral but a supernatural force. The orthodox of course called the saint good, but this was merely because they were on the same side, just as Cicero for example six centuries before called members of his political party the boni. Gregory's moral praise or blame is distributed in the same way. When he praises a man we must look for the service done by this man to the church, and when he blames one we must look in like manner for the opposite. Outside of the interests of the orthodox group Gregory is not morally thinskinned; he shared in the brutality of his contemporaries, as we can see in many recitals. His portrait of Clovis throws no false light back on Gregory. Clovis was a champion and favorite of the right supernatural powers in their fight with the wrong ones, and any occasional atrocities he committed in the struggle were not only pardonable but praiseworthy. [note: See pp. 47-50 (Book II:40-43)].
Secular activities and the state of mind just indicated could not coexist in the same society. We have noticed already how education was desecularized. It is of interest to note also what had happened to the secular professions of medicine and law.
The profession of medicine had almost completely disappeared. It is true indeed that we hear of a few physicians. For example when Austrechild, king Gunthram's wife, was dying, she accused her two physicians of having given her "potions" that were proving fatal, and asked the king to take an oath to have them executed. He did so and kept his word and Gregory remarks with what seems excessive moderation, " Many wise men think that this was not done without sin." [note: p 130 (Book V;34)] Again we hear of Gregory's own illness, when he sent for a physician. He soon decided that "secular means could not help the perishing," and sent for some dust from St. Martin's tomb which he put in water and drank, and was soon cured. [note: De Virtut. S. Martin, II.1] Such tales indicate the status of the medical profession.
The truth was that the condition of the people's minds made the profession an impossibility. Disease was looked upon as supernatural. The sick man thought he had a better chance if he called the priest rather than the doctor. Gregory tells us of Vulfilaic, who was suddenly covered from head to foot with angry pimples; he rubbed himself with oil consecrated at St. Martin's tomb, and they speedily disappeared. He reasoned that if they had been driven away by St. Martin, they had plainly been sent by the devil. [note: p. 196 (book VIII:154)] This meant to him that the whole thing was supernatural and that the true mystic power had driven out the false which had caused the trouble.
Perhaps this was not the reasoning in every case, but at any rate, the people went to the shrines and churches to be healed. In some cases the diagnosis was quite clear as with a patient at Limoges. The priest put holy oil on his head and " the demon went down into his finger-nail; seeing this the priest poured oil on the finger and soon the skin burst, blood flowed from the place, and the demon thus took his departure. [note: Glor.Conf. c.9]
Such practices were not isolated or unusual, but typical. Mystical healing was adjusted to an everyday basis, as many "cases " cited by Gregory indicate. Many, like the following are found: "Charigisil, king Clothar's secretary, whose hands and feet were made helpless by a humor, came to the holy church, and devoting himself to prayer for two or three months, was visited by the blessed bishop [note: St. Martin] and had the merit to obtain health in his crippled limbs. He was later domesticus of the king I have mentioned, and did many kindnesses to the people of Tours and the officials of the holy church." An analysis of this record reveals the typical elements, with the exception of fasting which is usually mentioned. The miraculous properties of St. Martin were thus reinforced by change of scene, prolonged treatment, and a rigorous mental and physical regimen.
With such a state of mind prevailing no rivals of the clergy in the healing art were to be found except among those healers who used a "virtue" of another kind-the false virtue of the magicians and demons; the few physicians who remained were not real competitors.
The administration of justice was also affected by the same causes which brought about the disappearance of medicine There was little inducement to look for evidence when an appeal could be made to superstitious fear. Hence the importance of the oath. Gregory himself, when he was charged with slandering queen Fredegunda, had to take oath to his innocence on three altars We have also other appeals to the supernatural in the trial by combat and the ordeal. Another interference in the domain of law was a peculiar one; holy men seemed to have a particular desire to set prisoners free. Gregory himself begs them off. We heal of one dead bishop whose body sank like lead on the street before the jail and could not be moved until all in the jail were let loose. [note: De Virtut. S. Martin., I, 21, 25.] Another holy man tried to secure the pardon of a notorious criminal and falling, brought him back to life after he was executed.
In the History of the Franks attention is given from time to time to natural phenomena. With few exceptions these passages deal with prodigies. Gregory tells for example of the prodigies of the year 587. Most of them are given from his own personal observation. [note: Book IX:5] Mysterious marks which could not be deleted in any way appeared on dishes; vines made a new growth and bore deformed fruit in the month of October after the vintage; at the same time fresh leaves and fruits appeared on fruit trees; rays of light were seen in the north. In addition Gregory mentions from hearsay that snakes had fallen from the clouds, and that a village with its inhabitants and dwellings had disappeared entirely. He goes on to say, "Many other signs appeared such as usually announce a king's death or the destruction of a country." In the same way he tells us of the signs preceding plagues. Sometimes he relates the prodigies without giving any sequel to them. In one case he says, " I do not know what these prodigies foretold." It is evident that the idea which Gregory had of the phenomena of nature was such as to prevent his giving any intelligent attention to them. The supernatural came between him and objective realities in such a way as to prevent the latter from having a natural effect upon his mind.
The inhibiting and paralyzing force of superstitious beliefs penetrated to every department of life, and the most primary and elementary activities of society were influenced. War, for example, was not a simple matter of a test of strength and courage, but supernatural matters had to be taken carefully into consideration. When Clovis said of the Goths in southern Gaul, "I take it hard that these Arians should hold a part of the Gauls; let us go with God's aid and conquer them and bring the land under our dominion," [note: see p. 45 (Book II:37)] he was not speaking in a hypocritical or arrogant manner but in real accordance with the religious sentiment of the time. What he meant was that the Goths, being heretics, were at once enemies of the true God and inferior to the orthodox Franks in their supernatural backing. Considerations of duty, strategy, and self-interest all reinforced one another in Clovis's mind. However, it was not always the orthodox side that won. We hear of a battle fought a few years before Gregory became bishop of Tours between king Sigibert and the Huns, [note: Book IV:29] in which the Huns " by the use of magic arts caused various false appearances to arise before their enemies and overcame them decisively. " It is very plain that one exceedingly important function of the leader of a sixthcentury army was to keep the right relation with the supernatural powers. Clovis is represented as heeding this necessity more than any other Frankish king. [note: pp 3638 (Book II:22-29), 40 (Book II:31), 45 (Book II: 37), 5354 (Book II: Pref)]
It is clear that in the sixthcentury state of mind in Gaul nothing was purely secular. As far as possible all secular elements had been expelled. Men did not meet the objective realities of society and of nature as they were; there was a superstitious interpretation for everything. The hope in such a condition of things lay only in unconscious developments which might break through the closed system of thought before the latter realized that it was on the defensive.
The most promising element in the situation was the Frankish state. Apparently the Frankish kingship was not to any large extent a magicoreligious institution, but simply a recent development arising out of the conquest. As an institution it was not grounded in the superstitious past, and the cold hostility of the bishops kept it from the development usual in a benighted society. To this chance we may perhaps attribute a momentous result; in it lay the possibility and promise of a secular state.
In the case of King Chilperic we apparently have a premature development in this direction. We must read between the lines when Gregory speaks of him. Gregory calls him "the Nero and Herod of our time," and loads him with abuse. He ridicules his poems, and according to his own story overwhelms him with an avalanche of contempt when he ventures to state some new opinions on the Trinity. The significant thing about Chilperic was this, that he had at this time the independence of mind to make such a criticism, as well as the hard temper necessary to fight the bishops successfully. "In his reign," Gregory tells us, "very few of the clergy reached the office of bishop." Chilperic used often to say: "Behold our treasury has remained poor, our wealth has been transferred to the churches; there is no king but the bishops; my office has perished and passed over to the bishops of the cities." [note: see p. 166 (Book VI: 46)] Chilperic was thus the forerunner of the secular state in France.
E. B.
With liberal culture on the wane, or rather perishing in the Gallic
cities there were many deeds being done both good and evil: the
heathen were raging fiercely; kings were growing more cruel; the
church. attacked by heretics, was defended by Catholics; while
the Christian faith was in general devoutly cherished, among some
it was growing cold; the churches also were enriched by the faithful
or plundered by traitors-and no grammarian skilled in the dialectic
art could be found to describe these matters either in prose or
verse; and many were lamenting and saying: "Woe to our day,
since the pursuit of letters has perished from among us and no
one can be found among the people who can set forth the deeds
of the present on the written page." Hearing continually
these complaints and others like them I [have undertaken] to commemorate
the past, order that it may come to the knowledge of the future;
and although my speech is rude, I have been unable to be silent
as to the struggles between the wicked and the upright; and I
have been especially encouraged because, to my surprise,
it has often been said by men of our day, that few understand
the learned words of the rhetorician but many the rude language
of the common people. I have decided also that for the reckoning
of the years the first book shall begin with the very beginning
of the world, and I have given its chapters below.
1. Adam and Eve
2. Cain and Abel.
3. Enoch the Just.
4. The flood
5. Cush, inventor of idols.
6. Babylonia.
7. Abraham and Ninus.
8. Isaac, Esau, Job and Jacob.
9. Joseph in Egypt.
10. Crossing of the Red Sea.
11. The people in the desert and Joshua.
12. The captivity of the people of Israel and the generations to David
13. Solomon and the building of the Temple.
14. The division of the kingdom of Israel.
15. The captivity in Babylonia.
16. Birth of Christ.
17. The various kingdoms of the nations.
18. When Lyons was founded.
19. The gifts of the magi and the slaughter of the infants.
20. The miracles and suffering of Christ.
21. Joseph who buried Him.
22. James the apostle.
23. The day of the Lord's resurrection.
24. The ascension of the Lord and the death of Pilate and Herod.
25. The suffering of the Apostles and Nero.
26. James, Mark and John the evangelist.
27. The persecution under Trajan.
28. Hadrian and the heretics' lies and the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp and Justin.
29. Saints Photinus, Irenæus and the rest of the martyrs of Lyons.
30. The seven men sent into the Gauls to preach.
31. The church of Bourges.
32. Chrocus and the shrine in Auvergne.
33. The martyrs who suffered in Auvergne.
34. The holy martyr, Privatus.
35. Quirinus, bishop and martyr.
36. Birth of St. Martin and the finding of the cross.
37. James, bishop of Nisibis.
38. Death of the monk Antony.
39. The coming of St. Martin.
40. The matron Melania.
41. Death of the emperor Valens.
42. Imperial rule of Theodosius.
43. Death of the tyrant Maximus.
44. Urbicus, bishop of Auvergne.
45. The holy bishop Hillidius.
46. The bishops Nepotian and Arthemius.
47. The chastity of the lovers.
48. St. Martin's death.
As I am about to describe the struggles of kings with the heathen enemy, of martyrs with pagans, of churches with heretics, I desire first of all to declare my faith so that my reader may have no doubt that I am Catholic. I have also decided, on account of those who are losing hope of the approaching end of the world, to collect the total of past years from chronicles and histories and set forth clearly how many years there are from the beginning of the world. But I first beg pardon of my readers if either in letter or in syllable I transgress the rules of the grammatic art in which I have not been fully instructed, since I have been eager only for this, to hold fast, without any subterfuge or irresolution of heart, to that which we are bidden in the church to believe, because I know that he who is liable to punishment for his sin can obtain pardon from God by untainted faith.
I believe, then, in God the Father omnipotent. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord God, born of the Father, not created. [I believe] that he has always been with the Father, not only since time began but before all time. For the Father could not have been so named unless he had a son; and there could be no son without a father. But as for those who say: "There was a time when he was not," [note: A leading belief of Arian Christology.] I reject them with curses, and call men to witness that they are separated from the church. I believe that the word of the Father by which all things were made was Christ. I believe that this word was made fresh and by its suffering the world was redeemed, and I believe that humanity, not deity, was subject to the suffering. I believe that he rose again on the third day, that he freed sinful man, that he ascended to heaven, that he sits on the right hand of the Father, that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that the holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, that it is not inferior and is not of later origin, but is God, equal and always coeternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial in its nature, equal in omnipotence, equally eternal in its essence, and that it has never existed apart from the Father and the Son and is not inferior to the Father and the Son. I believe that this holy Trinity exists with separation of persons, and one person is that of the Father, another that the Son, another that of the Holy Spirit. And in this Trinity confess that there is one Deity, one power, one essence. I believe that the blessed Mary was a virgin after the birth as she was a virgin before. I believe that the soul is immortal but that nevertheless it has no part in deity. And I faithfully believe all things that were established at Nicæa by the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But as to the end of the world I hold beliefs which I learned from our forefathers, that Antichrist will come first. An Antichrist will first propose circumcision, asserting that he is Christ; next he will place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem to be worshipped, just as we read that the Lord said: "You shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place." But the Lord himself declared that that day is hidden from all men, saying; "But of that day and that hour knoweth no one not even the anger in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father alone." Moreover we shall here make answer to the heretics [note: the Arians] who attack us, asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of this day. Let them learn then that Son here is the name applied to the Christian people, of whom God says: "I shall be to them a father and they shall be to me for sons." For if he had spoken these words of the onlybegotten Son he would never have given the angels first place. For he uses these words: "Not even the angels in heaven nor the Son," showing that he spoke these words not of the only-begotten but of the people of adoption. But our end is Christ himself, who will graciously bestow eternal life on us if we turn to him.
As to the reckoning of this world, the chronicles of Eusebius bishop of Cæsarea, and of Jerome the priest, speak clearly, an they reveal the plan of the whole succession of years. Orosius too, searching into these matters very carefully, collects the whole number of years from the beginning of the world down to his own time. Victor also examined into this in connection with the time of the Easter festival. And so we follow the works of the writers mentioned above and desire to reckon the complete series of years from the creation of the first man down to our own time, if the Lord shall deign to lend his aid. And this we shall more easily accomplish if we begin with Adam himself.
1.
In the beginning the Lord shaped the heaven and the earth in his Christ, who is the beginning of all things, that is, in his son; and after creating the elements of the whole universe, taking a frail clod he formed man after his own image and likeness, and breathed upon his face the breath of life and he was made into a living soul. And while he slept a rib was taken from him and the woman, Eve, was created. There is no doubt that this first man Adam before he sinned typified the Redeemer. For as the Redeemer slept in the stupor of suffering and caused water and blood to issue from his side, he brought into existence the virgin and unspotted church, redeemed by blood, purified by water, having no spot or wrinkle, that is, washed with water to avoid a spot, stretched on the cross to avoid a wrinkle. These first human beings, who were living happily amid the pleasant scenes of Paradise, were tempted by the craft of the serpent. They transgressed the divine precepts and were cast out from the abode of angels and condemned to the labors of the world.
2.
Through intercourse with her companion the woman conceived and bore two sons. But when God received the sacrifice of the one with honor, the other was inflamed with envy; he rushed on his brother, overcame and killed him, becoming the first parricide by shedding a brother's blood.
3.
Then the whole race rushed into accursed crime, except the just Enoch, who walked in the ways of God and was taken up from the midst by the Lord himself on account of his uprightness, and reed from a sinful people. For we read: " Enoch walked with the Lord, and he did not appear for God took him."
4.
And so the Lord, being angered against the iniquities of the people who did not walk in his ways, sent a flood, and by its waters destroyed every living soul from the face of the earth; only Noah, who was most faithful and especially belonged to him and bore the stamp of his image, he saved in the ark, with his wife and those of his three sons, that they might restore posterity. Here the heretics upbraid us because the holy Scripture says that the Lord was angry. Let them know therefore that our God is not angry like a man; for he is aroused in order to inspire fear; he drives away to summon back; he is angry in order to amend. Furthermore I have no doubt that the ark typified the mother church. For passing amidst the waves and rocks of this world it protects us in its motherly arms from threatening ills, and guards us with its holy embrace and protection.
Now from Adam to Noah are ten generations, namely: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malalehel, Jareth, Enoch, Mattusalam, Lamech, Noah. In these ten generations 2242 years are included. The book Joshua clearly indicates that Adam was buried in the land of Enacim, which before was called Hebron.
5.
Noah had after the flood three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. From Japheth issued nations, and likewise from Ham and from Shem. And, as ancient history says, from these the human race was scattered under the whole heaven. The first-born of Ham was Cush. He was the first inventor of the whole art of magic and of idolatry, being instructed by the devil. He was the first to set up an idol to be worshipped, at the instigation of the devil, and by his false power he showed to men stars and fire falling from heaven. He passed over to the Persians. The Persians called him Zoroaster, that is, living star. They were trained by him to worship fire, and they reverence as a god the man who was himself consumed by the divine fire.
6.
Since men had multiplied and were spreading over all the earth they passed out from the East and found the grassy plain of Senachar. There they built a city and strove to raise a tower which should reach the heavens. And God brought confusion both to their vain enterprise and their language, and scattered them over the wide world, and the city was called Babyl, that is, confusion, because there God had confused their tongues. This is Babylonia, built by the giant Nebron, son of Cush. As the history of Orosius tells, it is laid out foursquare on a very level plain. Its wall, made of baked brick cemented with pitch, is fifty cubits wide, two hundred high, and four hundred and seventy stades in circumference. A stade contains five agripennes. Twenty-five gates are situated on each side, which make in all one hundred. The doors of these gates, which are of wonderful size, are cast in bronze. The same historian tells many other tales of this city, and says: "Although such was the glory of its building still it was conquered and destroyed."
[7. Abraham, who is described as "the beginning of our faith." 8. Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Job. 9. The twelve patriarchs, the story of Joseph, and the coming out of Egypt to the crossing of the Red Sea.]
10.
Since many authorities have made varying statements about this crossing of the sea I have decided to give here some information concerning the situation of the place and the crossing itself. The Nile flows through Egypt, as you very well know, and waters it by its flood, from which the inhabitants of Egypt are named Nilicolæ. And many travelers say its shores are filled at the present time with holy monasteries. And on its bank is situated, not the Babylonia of which we spoke above, but the city of Babylonia in which Joseph built wonderful granaries of squared stone and rubble. [note: The pyramids, apparently] They are wide at the base and narrow at the top in order that the wheat might be cast into them through a tiny opening, and these granaries are to be seen at the present day. From this city the king set out in pursuit of the Hebrews with armies of chariots and a great infantry force. Now the stream mentioned above coming from the east passes in a westerly direction towards the Red Sea; and from the west a lake or arm of the Red Sea juts out and stretches to the east, being about fifty miles long and eighteen wide. [note: Gregory's geography is mixed] And at the head of this lake the city of Clysma is built, not on account of the fertility of the soil, since there is nothing more barren, but because of the harbor, since ships coming from the Indias lie there for the convenience of the harbor; and the wares purchased there are carried through all Egypt. Toward this arm the Hebrews hastened through the wilderness, and they came to the sea itself and encamped, finding fresh water. It was it this place, shut in by the wilderness as well as by the sea, that they encamped, as it is written: "Pharaoh, hearing that the sea and the wilderness shut them in and that they had no way by which they could go, set out in pursuit of them." And when they were close upon them and the people cried to Moses, he stretched out his wand over the sea, according to the command of the Deity, and it was divided, and they walked on dry ground, and, as the Scripture says, they crossed unharmed under Moses' leadership, a wall of water on either hand, to that shore which is before Mount Sinai, while the Egyptians were drowned. And many tales are told of this crossing, as I have said. But we desire to insert in this account what we have learned as true from the wise, and especially from those who have visited the place. They actually say that the furrows which the wheels of the chariots made remain to the present time and are seen in the deep water as far as the eye can trace them. And if the roughness of the sea obliterates them in a slight degree, when the sea is calm they are divinely renewed again as they were. Others say that they returned to the very bank where they had entered, making a small circuit through the sea. And others assert that all entered by one way; and a good many, that a separate way opened to each tribe, giving this evidence from the Psalms: "Who divided the Red Sea in parts.'' [Ps. 135:13] But these parts ought to be understood according to the spirit and not according to the letter. For there are many parts in this world, which is figuratively called a sea. For all cannot pass to life; equally or by one way. Some pass in the first hour, that is those who are born anew by baptism and are able to endure to the departure from this life unspotted by any defilement of the flesh. Others in the third hour, plainly those who are converted later in life; others in the sixth hour, being those who hold in check the heat of wanton living. And in each of these hours, as the evangelist relates, they are hired for the work of the Lord's vineyard, each according to his faith. These are the parts in which the passage is made across this sea. As to the opinion that upon entering the sea they kept close to the shore and returned, these are the words which the Lord said to Moses: "Let them turn back and encamp before Phiahiroth which is between Magdalum and the sea before Belsephon." There is no doubt that this passage of the sea and the pillar of cloud typified our baptism, according to the words of the blessed Paul the apostle: "I would not, brethren, have you ignorant that our fathers were all under the cloud and all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." And the pillar of fire typified the holy Spirit. Now from the birth of Abraham to the going forth of the children of Israel from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea, which was in the eightieth year of Moses, there are reckoned four hundred and sixty-two years.
[11. The Israelites spend forty years in the wilderness. 12. From the crossing of the Jordan to David. 13. Solomon. 14. Division of the kingdom into Judæa and Israel. 15. The captivity. 16. From the captivity to the birth of Christ.]
17.
In order not to seem to have knowledge of the Hebrew race alone [note: Gregory's purpose is not realized] we shall tell what the remaining kingdoms were in the time of the Israelites. In the time of Abraham Ninus ruled over the Assyrians; Eorops over the Sitiones; among the Egyptians it was the sixteenth government, which they call in their own tongue dynasty. In Moses' time lived Trophas, seventh king of the Argives; Cecrops, first in Attica; Cencris, who was overwhelmed in the Red Sea, twelfth among the Egyptians; Agatadis, sixteenth among the Assyrians; Maratis was ruler of the Sicionii. . . [note: Jerome's Chronicle was the source for the history summarized here. It is dear that Gregory had not much sense of the historical perspective in spite of a list of states Which might impress his audience. He passes directly from "Servius the sixth king of Rome " to Julius Caesar the founder of the empire.]
[18. Beginning of the Roman empire; founding of Lyons, a city afterwards ennobled by the blood of martyrs. 19. Birth of Christ. 20. Christ's crucifixion. 21. Joseph is imprisoned and escapes miraculously. 22. James fasts from the death of the Lord to the resurrection 23. The day of the Lord's resurrection is the first, not the seventh. 24. Pilate transmits an account of Christ to Tiberius. The end of Pilate and of Herod. 25. Peter and Paul are executed at Rome by order of Nero, who later kills himself. 26. The martyrs, Stephen, James and Mark; burning of Jerusalem by Vespasian; death of John. 27. Persecution under Trajan. 28. The rise of heresy. Further persecutions. 29. The martyrs of Lyons. Irenæus, second bishop, converts the whole city. His death and that of vast numbers," of whom Gregory knows of forty-eight.]
30.
Under the emperor Decius many persecutions arose against the name of Christ, and there was such a slaughter of believers that they could not be numbered. Babillas, bishop of Antioch, with his three little sons, Urban, Prilidan and Epolon, and Xystus, bishop of Rome, Laurentius, an archdeacon, and Hyppolitus, were made perfect by martyrdom because they confessed the name of the Lord. Valentinian and Novatian were then the chief heretics and were active against our faith, the enemy urging them on. At this time seven men were ordained as bishops and sent into the Gauls to preach, as the history of the martyrdom of the holy martyr Saturninus relates. For it says: " In the consulship of Decius and Gratus, as faithful memory recalls, the city of Toulouse received the holy Saturninus as its first and greatest bishop." These bishops were sent: bishop Catianus to Tours; bishop Trophimus to Arles; bishop Paul to Narbonne; bishop Saturninus to Toulouse; bishop Dionisius to Paris; bishop Stremonius to Clermont, bishop Martial to Limoges.
And of these the blessed Dionisius, bishop of Paris, after suffering divers pains in Christ's name, ended the present life by the threatening sword. And Saturninus, already certain of martyrdom said to his two priests: "Behold, I am now to be offered as a victim and the time of my death draws near. I ask you not to leave me at all before I come to the end." But when he was seized and was being dragged to the capitol he was abandoned by them and was dragged alone. And so when he saw that he was abandoned he is said to have made this prayer; "Lord Jesus Christ, grant my request from holy heaven, that this church may never in all time have the merit to receive a bishop from among its citizens." And we know that to the present it has been so in this city. And he was tied to the feet of a mad bull, and being sent headlong from the capitol he ended his life. Catianus, Trophimus, Stremonius, Paul and Marcial lived in the greatest sanctity, winning people to the church and spreading the faith of Christ among all, and died in peace, confessing the faith. And thus the former by martyrdom as well as the latter by confession, left the earth and were united in the heavens.
31.
One of their disciples went to the city of Bourges and carried to the people the news of Christ the lord as the saviour of all. A few of them believed and were ordained priests and learned the ritual of psalmsinging, and were instructed how to build a church and how they ought to observe the worship of the omnipotent God. But as they had small means for building as yet, the citizens asked for the house of a certain man to use for a church. But the Senators and the rest of the better class of the place were at that time, devoted to the heathen religion and the believers were of the poor, according to the word of the Lord with which he reproached the Jews saying; "Harlots and publicans go into the kingdom of God before you." And they did not obtain the house from the person from whom they asked it, but they found a certain Leocadius, [note: Gregory's paternal grandmother was Leocadia, who traced her descent from Vectius Epagatus See Historia Francorum ed. Arndt, Introd. p. 4, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica The story related above was from Gregory's family tradition. ] the first senator of the Gauls, who was of the family of Vectius Epagatus, who, we have said above, suffered in Lyons in Christ's name. And when they had made known to him at the same time their petition and their faith he answered; " If my own house in the city of Bourges were worthy of this work I would not refuse to offer it." And when they heard this they fell at his feet and offered three hundred gold pieces on a silver dish and said the house was very worthy of this mystery. And he accepted three gold pieces from them for a blessing and kindly returned the rest, although he was yet entangled in the error of idolatry, and he became a Christian and made his house a church. This is now the first church in the city of Bourges, built with marvelous skill and made illustrious by the relics of Stephen, the first martyr.
32.
Valerian and Gallienus received the Roman imperial power in the twentyseventh place, and set on foot a cruel persecution of the Christians. At that time Cornelius brought fame to Rome by his happy death, and Cyprian to Carthage. In their time also Chrocus the famous king of the Alemanni raised an army and overran the Gauls. This Chrocus is said to have been very arrogant. And when he had committed a great many crimes he gathered the tribe of the Alemanni, as we have stated,-by the advice, it is said, of his wicked mother,-and overran the whole of the Gauls, and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which had been built in ancient times. And coming to Clermont he set on fire, overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vasso Galatæ in the Gallic tongue. It had been built and made strong with wonderful skill. And its wall was double, for on the inside it was built of small stone and on the outside of squared blocks. The wall had a thickness of thirty feet. It was adorned on the inside with marble and mosaics. The pavement of the temple was also of marble and its roof above was of lead.
[33. Martyrs of Clermont. 34. The bishop of Gévaudan is maltreated by the Alemanni.]
35.
Under Diocletian, who was emperor of Rome in the thirty-third place, a cruel persecution of the Christians was kept up for four years, at one time in the course of which great numbers of Christians were put to death, on the sacred day of Easter, for worshipping the true God. At that time Quirinus, bishop of the church of Sissek, [note: In Hungary] endured glorious martyrdom in Christ's name. The cruel pagans cast him into a river with a millstone tied to his neck, and when he had fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface by a divine miracle, and the waters did not suck him down since the weight of crime did not press upon him. And a multitude of people standing around wondered at the thing, and despising the rage of the heathen they hastened to free the bishop. He saw this and did not permit himself to be deprived of martyrdom, and raising his eyes to heaven he said: "Jesus lord, who sittest in glory at the right hand of the Father, suffer me not to be taken from this course, but receive my soul and deign to unite me with thy martyrs in eternal peace." With these words he gave up the ghost, and his body was taken up by the Christians and reverently buried.
36.
Constantine was the thirty-fourth emperor of the Romans, and he reigned prosperously for thirty years. In the eleventh year of his reign, when peace had been granted to the churches after the death of Diocletian, our blessed patron Martin was born at Sabaria, a city of Pannonia, of heathen parents, who still were not of the lowest station. This Constantine in the twentieth year of his reign caused the death of his son Crispus by poison, and of his wife Fausta by means of a hot bath, because they had plotted to betray his rule. In his time the venerated wood of the Lord's cross was found, through the zeal of his mother Helen on the information of Judas, a Hebrew who was called Quiriacus after baptism. The historian Eusebius comes down to this period in his chronicle. The priest Jerome continues it from the twenty-first year of Constantine's reign. He informs us that the priest Juvencus wrote the gospels in verse at the request of the emperor named above.
[37. James of Nisibis and Maximin of Trèves. 38. Hilarius bishop of Poitiers.]
39.
At that time our light arose and Gaul was traversed by the rays of a new lamp, that is, the most blessed Martin then began to preach in the Gauls, and he overcame the unbelief of the heathen, showing among the people by many miracles that Christ the Son of God was the true God. He destroyed heathen shrines, crushed heresy, built churches, and while he was glorious for many other miracles, he completed his title to fame by restoring three dead men to life. At Poitiers, in the fourth year of Valentinian and Valens, Saint Hilarius passed to heaven full of sanctity and faith, a priest of many miracles; for he too is said to have raised the dead.
[40. Melania's journey to Jerusalem.]
41.
After the death of Valentinian, Valens, who succeeded to the undivided empire, gave orders that the monks be compelled to serve in the army, and commanded that those who refused should be beaten with clubs. After this the Romans fought a very fierce battle in Thrace, in which there was such slaughter that the Romans fled on foot after losing their horses, and when they were being cut to pieces by the Goths, and Valens was fleeing with an arrow wound, he entered a small hut, the enemy closely pursuing, and the little dwelling was burned over him. And he was deprived of the burial he desired. And thus the divine vengeance finally came for shedding the blood of the saints. Thus far Jerome; from this period the priest Orosius wrote at greater length.
[42. The pious emperor Theodosius. 43. The emperor Maximus with capital at Trèves. 44. Urbicus, second bishop of Clermont, and his wife. 45. Hillidius, third bishop of Clermont, and his miracles. 46. Nepotian and Arthemius, fourth and fifth bishops of Clermont. 47. Legend of the two lovers of Clermont.]
48. In the second year of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, departed this life at Candes, a village of his diocese, and passed happily to Christ in the eighty-first year of his life and the twenty-sixth of his episcopate, a man full of miracles and holiness, doing many services to the infirm He passed away at midnight of the Lord's day, in the consulship of Atticus and Cæsarius. Many heard at his passing away the sound of psalmsinging in heaven, which I have spoken of at greater length in the first book of his Miracles. Now as soon as the saint of God fell sick at the village of Candes, as we have related, the people of Poitiers came to be present at his death, as did also the people of Tours. And when he died, a great dispute arose between the two peoples. For the people of Poitiers said: "As a monk, he is ours; as an abbot, he belonged to us; we demand that he be given to us. Let it be enough for you that when he was a bishop on earth you enjoyed his conversation, ate with him, were strengthened by his blessings and cheered by his miracles. Let all that be enough for you. Let us be permitted to carry away his dead body." To this the people of Tours replied: "If you say that the working of his miracles is enough for us, let us tell you that while he was placed among you he worked more miracles than he did here. For, to pass over most of them, he raised two dead men for you, and one for us; and as he used often to say himself, there was more virtue in him before he was bishop than after. And so it is necessary that he complete for us after death what he did not finish in his lifetime. For he was taken away from you and given to us by God. If a custom long established is kept, a man shall have his tomb by God's command in the city in which he was ordained. And if you desire to claim him because of the right of the monastery, let us tell you that his first monastery was at Milan." While they were arguing in this way the sun sank and night closed in. And the body was placed in the midst, and the doors were barred and the body was guarded by both peoples, and it was going to be carried off by violence by the people of Poitiers in the morning. But omnipotent God was unwilling that the city of Tours should be deprived of its protector. Finally at midnight the whole band from Poitiers were overwhelmed with sleep and no one remained out of this multitude to keep watch. Then when the people of Tours saw that they had fallen asleep they seized on the clay of the holy body and some thrust it out the window and others received it outside, and placing it in a boat they went down the river Vienne with all their people and entered the channel of the Loire, and made their way to the city of Tours with great praises and plentiful psalm-singing, and the people of Poitiers were waked by their voices, and having no treasure to guard they returned to their own place greatly crestfallen. And if any one asks why there was only one bishop, that is, Litorius, after the death of bishop Gatianus to the time of Saint Martin, let him know that for a long time the city of Tours was without the blessing of a bishop, owing to the resistance of the heathen. For they who lived as Christians at that time celebrated the divine office secretly and in hiding. For if any Christians were found by the heathen they were punished with stripes or slain by the sword.
Now from the suffering of the Lord to the passing of Saint Martin, 412 years are included.
HERE ENDS THE FIRST BOOK CONTAINING 5597 YEARS WHICH ARE RECKONED
FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD TO THE DEATH OF THE HOLY BISHOP
MARTIN.
1. The episcopate of Bricius.
2. The Vandals and the persecution of the Christians under them.
3. Cyrola the heretics' bishop and the holy martyrs.
4 The persecution under Athanaric.
5. Bishop Aravatius and the Huns.
6. St. Stephen's church in the city of Metz.
7. The wife of Ætius.
8. What the historians have written about Ætius.
9. What the same say of the Franks.
10. What the prophets of the Lord write about the images of the nations.
11. The emperor Avitus.
12. King Childeric and Egidius.
13. The episcopate of Venerandus and of Rusticus in Auvergne.
14. The episcopate of Eustochius at Tours and of Perpetuus; St. Martin's church.
15. The church of St. Simphorianus.
16. Bishop Namatius and the church at Clermont.
17. His wife and St. Stephen's church.
18. How Childeric went to Orleans and Odoacer to Angers.
19, War between the Saxons and Romans.
20. Duke Victor.
21. Bishop Eparchius.
22. Bishop Sidonius.
23. The holiness of bishop Sidonius and the visitation of the divine vengeance for the wrongs done to him.
24. The famine in Burgundy and Ecdicius.
25. The persecutor Euvarege.
26. Death of the holy Perpetuus and the episcopates of Volusianus and Virus.
27. Clovis becomes king.
28. Clovis marries Clotilda.
29. Death of their first son in his baptismal garments.
30. War with the Alamanni.
31. Clovis's baptism.
32. War with Gundobad
33. Killing of Godegisel.
34. How Gundobad wished to be converted.
35. Clovis and Alaric have an interview.
36. Bishop Quintian.
37. War with Alaric.
38. King Clovis is made patrician.
39. Bishop Licinius.
40. Killing of Sigibert the elder and his son.
41. Killing of Chararic and his son.
42. Killing of Ragnachar and his brothers.
43. Death of Clovis.
FOLLOWING the order of time we shall mingle together in our tale the miraculous doings of the saints and the slaughters of the nations. I do not think that we shall be condemned thoughtlessly if we tell of the happy lives of the blessed together with the deaths of the wretched, since it is not the skill of the writer but the succession of times that has furnished the arrangement. The attentive reader, if he seeks diligently, will find in the famous histories of the kings of the Israelites that under the just Samuel the wicked Phineas perished, and that under David, whom they called Stronghand, the stranger Goliath was destroyed. Let him remember also in the time of the great prophet Elias, who prevented rains when he wished and when he pleased poured them on the parched ground, who enriched the poverty of the widow by his prayer, what slaughters of the people there were, what famine and what thirst oppressed the wretched earth. Let him remember what evil Jerusalem endured in the time of Hezekiah, to whom God granted fifteen additional years of life. Moreover under the prophet Elisha, who restored the dead to life and did many other miracles among the peoples, what butcheries, what miseries crushed the very people of Israel. So too Eusebius, Severus and Jerome in their chronicles, and Orosius also, interwove the wars of kings and the miracles of the martyrs. We have written in this way also, because it is thus easier to perceive in their entirety the order of the centuries and the system of the years down to our day. And so, leaving the histories of the writers who have been mentioned above, we shall describe at God's bidding what was done in the later time.
1.
After the death of the blessed Martin, bishop of Tours, a very great and incomparable man, whose miracles fill great volumes in our possession, Bricius succeeded to the bishopric. Now this Bricius, when he was a young man and the saint was yet living in the body, used to lay many traps for him, because he was often accused by Saint Martin of following the easy way. And one day when a sick man was looking for the blessed Martin in order to get medicine from him he met Bricius, at this time a deacon, in the square, and he said to him in a simple fashion: "Behold I am seeking the blessed man, and I don't know where he is or what he is doing." And Bricius said: "If you are seeking for that crazy person look in the distance; there he is, staring at the sky in his usual fashion, as if he were daft." And when the poor man had seen him and got what he wanted, the blessed Martin said to the deacon: " Well, Bricius, I seem to you crazy, do I? " And when the latter, in confusion at this, denied he had said so, the saint replied: "Were not my ears at your lips when you said this at a distance? Verily I say unto you that I have prevailed upon God that you shall succeed to the bishop's office after me, but let me tell you that you will suffer many misfortunes in your tenure of the office. Bricius on hearing this laughed and said: "Did I not speak the truth that he uttered crazy words?" Furthermore, when he had attained to the rank of priest, he often attacked the blessed man with abuse. But when he had become bishop by the choice of the citizens, he devoted himself to prayer. And although he was proud and vain he was nevertheless considered chaste in his body. But in the thirty-third year after his ordination there arose against him a lamentable ground for accusation. For a woman to whom his servants used to give his garments to be washed, one who had changed her garb on the pretext of religion, conceived and bore a child. Because of this the whole population of Tours arose in wrath and laid the whole blame on the bishop, wishing with one accord to stone him. For they said: "The piety of a holy man has too long been a cover for your wantonness. But God does not any longer allow us to be polluted by kissing your unworthy hands." But he denied the charge forcibly. "Bring the infant to me," said he. And when the infant, which was thirty days old was brought, the bishop said to it: "I adjure you in the name of Jesus Christ, son of omnipotent God, to declare publicly to all if I begot you." And the child said: "It is not you who's my father" When the people asked him to inquire who was the father, the bishop said: "That is not my affair. I was troubled in so far as the matter concerned me; inquire for yourselves whatever you want." Then they asserted that this had been done by magic arts, and arose against him in a conspiracy, and dragged him along, saying: "You shall not rule us any longer under the false name of a shepherd." And to satisfy the people he placed red-hot coals in his cloak and drawing it close to him he walked as far as the tomb of the blessed Martin along with throngs of the people. And when the coals were cast down before the tomb his robe was seen to be unburned. And he said: "Just as you see this robe uninjured by the fire, so too my body is undefiled by union with a woman." And when they did not believe but denied it, he was dragged, abused, and cast out, in order that the words of the saint might be fulfilled: "Let me tell you that you will suffer many misfortunes in your episcopate." When he was cast out they appointed Justinian to the office of bishop. Finally Bricius went to see the pope of the city of Rome, weeping and wailing and saying: "Rightly do I suffer this because I sinned against a saint of God and often called him crazy and daft; and when I saw his miracles I did not believe." And after his departure the people of Tours said to their bishop: " Go after him and attend to your own interest, for if you do not attack him, you shall be humiliated by the contempt of us all." And Justinian went forth from Tours and came to Vercelli, a city of Italy, and was smitten by a judgment of God and died in a strange country. The people of Tours heard of his death, and persisting in their evil course, they appointed Armentius in his place. But bishop Bricius went to Rome and related to the pope all that he had endured. And while he remained at the apostolic see he often celebrated the solemn ceremony of the mass, weeping for the wrong he had done to the saint of God. In the seventh year he left Rome and by the authority of that pope purposed to return to Tours. And when he came to the village called Mont-Louis at the sixth milestone from the city, he resided there. Now Armentius was seized with a fever and died at midnight. This was at once revealed to bishop Bricius in a vision, and he said to his people: "Rise quickly, so that we may go to bury our brother, the bishop of Tours." And when they came and entered one gate of the city, behold they were carrying his dead body out by another. And when he was buried, Bricius returned to the bishop's chair and lived happily seven years after. And when he died in the forty-seventh year of his episcopate, Saint Eustochius, a man of magnificent holiness, succeeded him.
2.
After this the Vandals left their own country and burst into the Gauls under king Gunderic. And when the Gauls had been thoroughly laid waste they made for the Spains. The Suebi, that is, Alamanni, following them, seized Gallicia. Not long after a quarrel arose between the two peoples, since they were neighbors And when they had gone armed to the battle, and were already at the point of fighting, the king of the Alemanni said: "Why are all the people involved in war? Let our people, I pray, not kill one another in battle, but let two of our warriors go to the field in arms and fight with one another. Then he whose champion wins shall hold the region without strife." To this all the people agreed, that the whole multitude might not rush on the edge of the sword. In these days king Gunderic had died and in his place Thrasamund held the kingdom. And in the conflict of the champions the side of the Vandals was overcome, and, his champion being slain, Thrasamund promised to depart, and so, when he had made the necessary preparations for the journey, he removed from the territories of Spain.
About the same time Thrasamund persecuted the Christians, and by torture and different sorts of death tried to force all Spain to consent to the perfidy of the Arian sect. And it so happened that a certain maiden bound by religious vows was brought to trial. She was very rich and of the senatorial nobility according to the ranking of the world, and what is nobler than all this, strong in the catholic faith and a blameless servant of Almighty God. And when she was brought before the eyes of the king he first began to coax her with kind words to be baptized again. And when she repelled his venomous shaft by the armor of the faith, the king commanded that wealth be taken from her who already in her heart possessed the kingdom of paradise, and later that she should be tortured without hope of this life. Why make a long story? After long examinations, after losing the treasure of earthly riches, when she could not be forced to attack the blessed Trinity she was led against her will to be rebaptized. And when she was being forcibly immersed in that filthy bath and was crying loudly; "I believe that the Father and the holy Spirit are of one substance With the Son," when she said this she stained the water with a worthy ointment [note: For qua sanguine cuncta infecit read digne aquas unguine infecit. See Bonnet, Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours, p. 457.], that is, she defiled it with excrement. Then she was ; taken to the examination according to the law, and after the needle, flame and claw, she was beheaded for Christ the lord. After this the Vandals crossed the sea, the Alemanni following as far as Tangier, and were dispersed throughout all Africa and Mauritania.
[3. Persecutions of Catholics by Arians under the Vandal king Honeric of Africa. 4. The same, under the Gothic king Athanaric of Spain. 5. Journey of Bishop Aravatius of Tongres to Rome thait he might avert by prayer the threatened invasion of the Huns. But there he learns that "it was sanctioned in the council of the Lord that the Huns must come into the Gauls and ravage them." He: returns to Tongres and dies.]
6. Now the Huns left Pannonia and, as certain say, on the very watchnight of holy Easter arrived at the city of Metz, after devastating the country, and gave the city over to burning, slaying the people with the edge of the sword and killing the very priests of the Lord before the holy altars. And there remained in the city .no place unburned except the oratory of the blessed Stephen, the deacon and first martyr. And I do not hesitate to tell what I have heard from certain persons about this oratory. For they say that before these enemies came, a man of the faith saw in a vision the blessed levite Stephen as if conferring with the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and speaking as follows about this disaster: " I beg you, my lords, to prevent by your intercession the burning of the city of Metz by the enemy, because there is a place in it in which the relics of my life on earth are preserved; rather let the people learn that I have some influence with God. But if the wickedness of the people has grown too great, so that nothing else can be done except deliver the city to burning, at least let this oratory not be consumed." And they replied to him: " Go in peace, beloved brother, your oratory alone the fire shall not burn. But as for the city shall not prevail, because the sentence of the will of the Lord has already gone out over it. For the sin of the people has grown great, and the outcry of their wickedness ascends to the presence of God; therefore this city shall be burned with fire." Whence it is certain that it was by the intercession of these that when the city was burned the oratory remained unharmed.
7.
And Attila king of the Huns went forth from Metz and when he had crushed many cities of the Gauls he attacked Orleans and strove to take it by the mighty hammering of battering rams. Now at that time the most blessed Annianus was bishop in the city just mentioned, a man of unequaled wisdom and praiseworthy holiness, whose miracles are faithfully remembered among us. And when the people, on being shut in, cried to their bishop, and asked what they were to do, trusting in God he advised all to prostrate themselves in prayer, and with tears to implore the ever present aid of God in their necessities. Then when they prayed as he had directed, the bishop said: "Look from the wall of the city to sec whether God's mercy yet comes to your aid." For he hoped that by God's mercy Ætius was coming, to whom he had recourse before at Arles when he was anxious about the future. But when they looked from the wall, they saw no one. And he said: "Pray faithfully, for God will free you this day." When they had prayed he said: "Look again." And when they looked they saw no one to bring aid. He said to them a third time: "If you pray faithfully, God comes swiftly." And they besought God's mercy with weeping and loud cries. When this prayer also was finished they looked from the wall a third time at the old man's command, and saw afar off a cloud as it were arising from the earth. When they reported this the bishop said: "It is the aid of the Lord." Meanwhile, when the walls were now trembling from the hammering of the rams and were just about to fall, behold, Ætius came, and Theodore, king of the Goths and Thorismodus his son hastened to the city with their armies, and drove the enemy forth and defeated him. And so the city was freed by the intercession of the blessed bishop, and they put Attila to flight. And he went to the plain of Moirey and got ready for battle. And hearing this, they made manful preparations to meet him....
Ætius with the Goths and Franks fought against Attila. And the latter saw that his army was being destroyed, and escaped by flight. And Theodore, king of the Goths, was slain in the battle. Now let no one doubt that the army of Huns was put to flight by the intercession of the bishop mentioned above. And so Ætius the patrician, along with Thorismodus, won the victory and destroyed the enemy. And when the battle was finished, Ætius said : to Thorismodus: "Make haste and return swiftly to your native land, for fear you lose your father's kingdom because of your brother." The latter, on hearing this, departed speedily with the intention of anticipating his brother, and seizing his father's throne first. At the same time Ætius by a stratagem caused the king of the Franks to flee. When they had gone, Ætius took the spoils of the battle and returned victoriously to his country with much booty. And Attila retreated with a few men. Not long after Aquileia was captured by the Huns and burned and altogether destroyed. Italy was overrun and plundered. Thorismodus, whom we have mentioned above, overcame the Alans in battle, and was himself defeated later on by his brothers, after many quarrels and battles, and put to death.
[8. The history of Renatus Frigeridus is quoted for the character of Ætius and an account of his death.]
9.
The question who was the first of the kings of the Franks is disregarded by many writers. Though the history of Sulpicius Alexander tells much of them, still it does not name their first king, but says that they had dukes. However, it is well to relate what he says of them. For when he tells that Maximus, losing all hope of empire, remained within Aquileia, almost beside himself, he adds: "At that time the Franks burst into the province of Germany under Genobaud, Marcomer, and Sunno, their dukes, and having broken through the boundary wall they slew most of the people and laid waste the fertile districts especially, and aroused fear even in Cologne. And when word was carried to Trèves, Nanninus and Quintinus, the military officers to whom Maximus had intrusted his infant son and the defense of the Gauls, assembled an army and met at Cologne. Now the enemy, laden with plunder after devastating the richest parts of the provinces, had crossed the Rhine, leaving a good many of their men on Roman soil all ready to renew their ravages. An attack upon these turned to the advantage of the Romans, and many Franks perished by the sword near Carbonnière. And when the Romans were consulting after their success whether they ought to cross into Francia, Nanninus said no, because he knew the Franks would not be unprepared and would doubtless be stronger in their own land. And since thi displeased Quintinus and the remainder of the officers, Nanninus returned to Mayence, and Quintinus crossed the Rhine with his army near the stronghold of Neuss, and at his second camp from the river he found dwellings abandoned by their occupants and great villages deserted. For the Franks pretended to be afraid and retired into the more remote tracts, where they built an abattis on the edge of the woods. And so the cowardly soldiers burned all the dwellings, thinking that to rage against them was the winning of victory, and they passed a wakeful night under the burden of their arms. At the first glimmer of dawn they entered the wooded country under Quintinus as commander of the battle, and wandered in safety till nearly midday, entangling themselves in the winding paths. At last, when they found everything solidly shut up by great fences, they struggled to make their exit into the marshy fields which were adjacent to the woods, and the enemy appeared here and there, and sheltered by trunks of trees or standing on the abattis as if on the summit of towers, they sent as if from engines a shower of arrows poisoned by the juices of herbs, so that sure death followed even superficial wounds inflicted in places that were not mortal. Later the army was surrounded by the enemy in greater number, and it eagerly rushed into the open places which the Franks had left unoccupied. And the horsemen were the first to plunge into the morasses, and the bodies of men and animals fell indiscriminately together, and they were overwhelmed by their own confusion. The foot soldiers also who had escaped the hoofs of the horses were impeded by the mud, and extricated themselves with difficulty, and hid again in panic in the woods from which they had struggled a little before. And so the ranks were thrown into disorder and the legions cut in pieces. Heraclius, tribune of the Jovinians, and nearly all the officers were slain, when night and the lurking places of the woods offered a safe escape to a few." This he narrated in the third book of his History.
And in the fourth book, when he tells of the killing of Victor son of Maximus, the tyrant, he says: "At that time Carietto and Sirus who had been appointed in place of Nanninus, were absent in the province of Germany with the army opposed to the Franks". And a little later when the Franks had taken booty from Germany, he added: "Arbogastes, wishing no further delay, warned Cæsar that the punishment due must be exacted from the Franks, unless they speedily restored all the plunder they had taken the previous year when the legions were destroyed, and delivered up the instigators of the war to be punished for their treachery in breaking the peace." He related that this had been done under the leadership of dukes and says further: "A few days later he held a hasty conference with Marcomer and Sunno, princes [note: 'Regalabus'] of the Franks and required hostages of them as usual, and then retired to Treves to spend the winter." But when he calls them princes, we do not know whether they were kings or held in the place of kings. Still the same writer, when he told of the hard straits of the emperor Valentinian, added this: "While events of various sorts were taking place in the East throughout Thrace, the public order was disturbed in Gaul. Valentinian the emperor was shut up in Vienne in the palace, and reduced almost below the position of a private person, and the military command was given over to the Frankish allies, and even the civil offices fell under the control of Arbogast's faction, and no one of all the oathbound soldiery was found to dare to heed the familiar speech or obey the command of the emperor." Then he says: "In the same year Arbogast pursued with heathenish hate the princes of the Franks, Sunno and Marcomer, and hastened to Cologne in the depth of winter, since he knew that all the retreats of Francia could be safely penetrated and ravaged with fire when the woods, left bare and dry by the fall of the leaves, could not conceal men lying in ambush. And so he gathered an army and crossed the Rhine, and devastated the country of the Brictori, near the bank, and also the district which the Chamavi inhabit, and no one met him any where, except that a few of the Ampsivarii and Chatti appeared with Marcomer as duke on the ridges of distant hills." At another time this writer, no longer mentioning dukes and princes, openly asserts that the Franks had a king, and without mentioning his name he says: " Then the tyrant Eugenius undertook a military expedition, and hastened to the Rhine to renew in the customary way the old alliances with the kings of the Alemanni and the Franks and to threaten the barbarian nations at that time with a great army." So much the historian mentioned above wrote about the Franks.
Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whom we have already mentioned, in his story of the capture and destruction of Rome by the Goths, says: "Meantime when Goare had gone over to the Romans, Respendial, king of the Alamanni, turned the army of his people from the Rhine, since the Vandals were getting the worse of the war with the Franks, having lost their king Godegisil, and about 20,000 of the army, and all the Vandals would have been exterminated if the army of the Alamanni [note: Alamanni for Alani] had not come to their aid in time." It is surprising to us that when he names the kings of the other nations he does not name the king of the Franks as well. However, when he says that Constantine, after seizing imperial power, commanded his son Constantius to come to him from the Spains, he speaks as follows: "The tyrant Constantine summoned from the Spains his son Constans, also a tyrant, in order to consult with him about their general policy; and so Constans left at Saragossa his court and his wife, and gave Gerontius charge over all in the Spains, and hastened to his father without breaking his journey. And when they met, many days passed and there was no danger from Italy, and Constantine gave himself up to gluttony and urged his son to return to Spain. And while Constans was sending his troops forward, being still with his father, news came from Spain that Maximus, one of his clients, had been given imperial authority by Gerontius, and was securing a following of the barbarians. Alarmed at this, they sent Edobeccus forward to the German tribes, and Constans and Decimus Rusticus, now a prefect,-he had been master of the offices,-hastened to the Gauls, with the intention of presently returning to Constantine with the Franks and Alamanni and all the soldiers."
Again, when he writes that Constantine was being besieged, he uses these words: "The fourth month of the siege of Constantine was scarcely yet under way, when news came suddenly from farther Gaul that Iovinus had assumed royal state, and was threatening the besiegers with the Burgundians, Alamanni, Franks, Alans, and all his army. So the attack on the walls was hastened, the city opened its gates, and Constantine surrendered. He was sent hastily into Italy, and was slain at the river Mincio by assassins sent to meet him by the emperor." And a little later the same writer says: "At the same time Decimus Rusticus, prefect of the tyrants, Agrœtius, one of the chief secretaries of Jovinus, and many nobles, were captured in Auvergne by the commanders of Honorius and cruelly put to death. The city of Trèves was plundered and burnt in a second inroad of the Franks." And when .Asterius had been made a patrician by an imperial letter, he adds this: "At the same time Castinus, count of the bodyguard, undertook an expedition against the Franks and was sent into the Gauls." This is what these have told of the Franks. And the `historian Horosius says in the seventh book of his work: "Stilico gathered the nations, crushed the Franks, crossed the Rhine, wandered through the Gauls, and made his way as far as the Pyrenees."
This is the evidence that the historians who have been named have left us about the Franks, and they have not mentioned kings. Many relate that they came from Pannonia and all dwelt at first on the bank of the Rhine, and then crossing the Rhine they passed into Thuringia, and there among the villages and cities appointed longhaired kings over them from their first or, so to speak, noblest family. This title Clovis' victories afterwards made a lasting one, as we shall see later on. We read in the Fasti Consulares that Theodomer, king of the Franks, son of Richimer, and Ascyla his mother, were once on a time slain by the sword. They say also that Chlogio, a man of ability and high rank among his people, was king of the Franks then, and he dwelt at the stronghold of Dispargum which is within the borders of the Thuringians. And these parts, that is, towards the south, the Romans dwelt as far as the Loire. But beyond the Loire the Goths were in control; the Burgundians also, who belonged to the sect of the Arians, dwelt across the Rhone in the district which is adjacent to the city of Lyons. And Chlogio sent spies to the city of Cambrai, and : they went everywhere, and he himself followed and overcame the : Romans and seized the city, in which he dwelt for a short time, and he seized the land as far as the river Somme. Certain authorities assert that king Merovech, whose son was Childeric, was of the family of Chlogio.
10.
Now this people seems to have always been addicted to heathen worship, and they did not know God, but made themselves images of the woods and the waters, of birds and beasts and of the other elements as well. They were wont to worship these as God and to offer sacrifice to them. O ! would that that terrible voice had touched the fibers of their hearts which spoke through Moses to the people saying, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image nor worship any likeness of anything that is in heaven or on earth or in the water; thou shalt not make them and shalt not worship them." . . .
And in Isaiah he speaks a second time: "I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no god and creator whom I do not know. They that fashion a graven image are all of them vanity, and the things that they delight in shall not profit them. They are themselves witnesses of what they are, that they do not see nor have understanding, and they are confounded in them. Behold all his fellows shall be put to shame, for the workmen arc of men. On the coals and with hammers did he form it, and he worked it with his strong arm. In like manner, too, the carpenter fashioned it with compasses, and made the likeness of a man as if of a comely man dwelling in a house. He hewed down the wood, he worked and made a graven image, and worshipped it as a god, he fastened it with nails and hammers so that it should not fall to pieces. They are carried because they cannot walk; and the remainder of the wood is prepared by men for the hearth and they are warmed. And from another he made a god, and a graven image for himself. He bends before it and worships it and prays, saying: 'Deliver me, for thou art my god. I burned half of it with fire; and baked bread upon its coals; I baked flesh and ate, and from the residue I shall make an idol, I shall worship before a wooden trunk; part of it is ashes.' The foolish heart worshipped it, and did not deliver his soul. And he does not say: 'Perhaps there is a lie in my right hand?"' The nation of the Franks did not understand at first; but it understood later, as the following history relates.
[11. Avitus, citizen of Clermont, emperor of Rome, and bishop of Placentia.]
12.
Childeric was excessively wanton and being king of the Franks he began to dishonor their daughters. And they were angry with him on this account and took his kingdom from him. And when he learned that they wished also to kill him he hastened to Thuringia, leaving there a man who was dear to him to calm their furious tempers; he arranged also for a sign when he should be able to return to his country, that is, they divided a gold piece between them and Childeric took one half and his friend kept the other part, saying: " Whenever I send you this part and the joined parts make one coin, then you shall return securely to your native place." Accordingly Childeric went off to Thuringia and remained in hiding with king Basinus and Basina his wife. The Franks, after he was driven out, with one accord selected as king Egidius, whom we have mentioned before as the commander of the troops sent by the republic. And when he was in the eighth year of his reign over them that faithful friend secretly won the good will of the Franks and sent messengers to Childeric with the part of the divided coin which he had kept, and Childeric learned by this sure sign that he was wanted by the Franks, and returned from Thuringia at their request and was restored to his kingdom. Now when these princes were reigning at the same time, the Basina whom we have mentioned above left her husband and came to Childeric. And when he asked anxiously for what reason she had come so far to see him it is said that she answered: " I know your worth," said she, "and that you are very strong, and therefore I have come to live with you. For let me tell you that if I had known of any one more worthy than you in parts beyond the sea I should certainly have sought to live with him." And he was glad and united her to him in marriage. And she conceived and bore a son and called his name Clovis. He was a great and distinguished warrior.
[13. Artemius, bishop of Clermont, is succeeded by Venerandus and he by Rusticus.]
14.
In the city of Tours after the death of bishop Eustochius in the 17th year of his episcopate, Perpetuus was ordained fifth bishop after the blessed Martin. And when he saw that miracles were being worked continually at Saint Martin's tomb, and that the chapel which had been built over it was a tiny one, he judged it unworthy of such miracles, and moving it away he built there great church which remains to the present day, situated 550 paces from the city. It is 160 feet long and 60 wide and 45 high to the vault; it has 32 windows in the part around the altar, 20 in the nave; 41 columns; in the whole building 52 windows, 120 columns; 8 doors, three in the part around the altar and five in the nave. The feast of the church is given sanctity by a triple virtue: that is, the dedication of the temple, the transfer of the body of the saint, and his ordination as bishop. This feast you shall observe four days before the Nones of July, and remember that his burial is the third day before the Ides of November. And if you celebrate these faithfully, you will merit the protection of the blessed bishop both in the present life and that to come. And since the ceiling of the former chapel was of choice workmanship the bishop thought it unworthy that this work should perish, and he built another church in honor of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul in which he placed the ceiling. He built many other churches which remain to the present time in Christ's name.
[15. Eufronius, bishop of Autun, who "piously sent the block of marble which is placed above the holy tomb of the blessed Martin."]
16.
Now after the death of the bishop Rusticus, saint Namatius became the eighth bishop of Clermont. He undertook the task of building the older church which is still standing and is contained within the walls of the city, one hundred and fifty feet in length, sixty in width,-that is, the nave,-fifty in height to the vault, with a round apse in front and on each side aisles finely built, the whole building is laid out in the form of a cross; it has forty-two windows, seventy columns, eight doors. The fear of God is in it and a great brightness is seen, and in the spring a very pleasant fragrance as if of spices is perceived there by the devout. It has near the altar walls of variegated work adorned with many kinds of marble. The blessed bishop on finishing the building in the twelfth year, sent priests to Bologna in Italy, to procure relics of saints Agricola and Vitalis, who we know very certainly were crucified in the name of Christ our God.
17.
His wife built the church of Saint Stephen in the outskirts of the city. And wishing to adorn it with colors she used to carry a book in her bosom, reading the histories of ancient times and describing to the painters what they were to represent on the walls. It happened one day that while she sat in the church and read, a certain poor man came to pray, and seeing her in black clothing, already an old woman, he thought she was one of the needy, and he took out part of a loaf and put it in her lap and went off. But she did not disdain the gift of the poor man who did not know her, but took it and thanked him and put it away, and setting it before her at meals used it as holy bread until it was used up.
18.
Now Childeric fought at Orleans and Odoacer came with the Saxons to Angers. At that time a great plague destroyed the people. Egidius died and left a son, Syagrius by name. On his death Odoacer received hostages from Angers and other places. The Britanni were driven from Bourges by the Goths, and many were slain at the village of Déols. Count Paul with the Romans and Franks made war on the Goths and took booty. When Odoacer came to Angers, king Childeric came on the following day, and slew count Paul, and took the city. In a great fire on that day the house :of the bishop was burned.
19.
After this war was waged between the Saxons and the ; Romans; but the Saxons fled and left many of their people to be slain, the Romans pursuing. Their islands were captured and » ravaged by the Franks, and many were slain. In the ninth month of that year, there was an earthquake. Odoacer made an alliance with Childeric, and they subdued the Alamanni, who had overrun that part of Italy.
20.
Euric, king of the Goths, in the 14th year of his reign, placed duke Victorius in command of seven cities. And he went at once to Clermont, and desired to add it to the others, and writings concerning this exist to the present. He gave orders to set up at the church of Saint Julian the columns which are placed there. He gave orders to build the church of Saint Laurentius and saint Germanus at the village of Licaniacus. He was at Clermont nine years. He brought charges against Euchirius, a senator, whom he ordered to be put in prison and taken out at night, and after having him bound beside an old wall he ordered the wall to be pushed over upon him. As for himself, since he was overwanton in his love for women and was afraid of being killed by the people of Auvergne, he fled to Rome, and there was stoned to death because he wished to practise a similar wantonness. Euric reigned four years after Victorius's death, and died in the twentyseventh year of his reign There was also at that time a great earthquake.
[21. Bishop Eparchius of Clermont finds his church at night full of demons.]
22.
The holy Sidonius was so eloquent that he generally improvised what he wished to say without any hesitation and in the clearest manner. And it happened one day that he went by invitation to a fête at the church of the monastery which we have mentioned before, and when his book, by which he had been wont to celebrate the holy services, was maliciously taken away, he went through the whole service of the fête improvising with such readiness that he was admired by all, and it was believed by the bystanders that it was not a man who had spoken there but an angel. And this we have set forth more fully in the preface of the book which we have composed about the masses written by him. Being a man of wonderful holiness and, as we have said, one of the first of the senators, he often carried silver dishes away from home, unknown to his wife, and gave them to poor people. And whenever she learned of it, she was scandalized at him, and then he used to give the value to the poor and restore the dishes to the house.
[23. Terrible fate of priests who rebelled against their bishop. 24. In time of famine in Burgundy Ecdicius feeds more than four thousand persons. 25. The Gothic king Evatrix persecutes the Christians in southwestern Gaul. 26. A bishop being "suspected by the Goths " is carried a captive into Spain.]
27. After these events Childeric died and Clovis his son reigned in his stead. In the fifth year of his reign Siagrius, king of the Romans, son of Egidius, had his seat in the city of Soissons which Egidius, who has been mentioned before, once held. And Clovis came against him with Ragnachar, his kinsman, because he used to possess the kingdom, and demanded that they make ready a battlefield. And Siagrius did not delay nor was he afraid to resist. And so they fought against each other and Siagrius, seeing his army crushed, turned his back and fled swiftly to king Alaric at Toulouse. And Clovis sent to Alaric to send him back, otherwise he was to know that Clovis would make war on him for his refusal. And Alaric was afraid that he would incur the anger of the Franks on account of Siagrius, seeing it is the fashion of the Goths to be terrified, and he surrendered him in chains to Clovis' envoys. And Clovis took him and gave orders to put him under guard, and when he had got his kingdom he directed that he be executed secretly.; At that time many churches were despoiled by Clovis' army, since he was as yet involved in heathen error. Now the army had taken from a certain church a vase of wonderful size and beauty, along with the remainder of the utensils for the service of the church. And the bishop of the church sent messengers to the king asking that the vase at least be returned, if he could not get back any more of the sacred dishes. On hearing this the king said to the messenger: "Follow us as far as Soissons, because all that has been taken is to be divided there and when the lot assigns me that dish I will do what the father [note: papa. The word was used in the early Middle Ages in unrestricted, informal sense, and applied widely to bishops. Cf. Du Cange, Glossariam] asks." Then when he came to Soissons and all the booty was set in their midst, the king said: "I ask of you, brave warriors, not to refuse to grant me in addition to my share, yonder dish," that is, he was speaking of the vase just mentioned. In answer to the speech of the king those of more sense replied: " Glorious king, all that we see is yours, and we ourselves are subject to your rule. Now do what seems wellpleasing to you; for no one is able to resist your power." When they said this a foolish, envious and excitable fellow lifted his battleax and struck the vase, and cried in a loud voice: " You shall get nothing here except what the lot fairly bestows on you." At this all were stupefied, but the king endured the insult with the gentleness of patience, and taking the vase he handed it over to the messenger of the church, nursing the wound deep in his heart. And at the end of the year he ordered the whole army to come with their equipment of armor, to show the brightness of their arms on the field of March. And when he was reviewing them all carefully, he came to the man who struck the vase, and said to him "No one has brought armor so carelessly kept as you; for neither your spear nor sword nor ax is in serviceable condition." And seizing his ax he cast it to the earth, and when the other had bent over somewhat to pick it up, the king raised his hands and drove his own ax into the man's head. "This," said he, "'is what you did at Soissons to the vase." Upon the death of this man, he ordered the rest to depart, raising great dread of himself by this action./ He made many wars and gained many victories In the tenth year of his reign he made war on the Thuringi and brought them under his dominion.
28.
Now the king of the Burgundians was Gundevech, of the family of king Athanaric the persecutor, whom we have mentioned before. He had four sons; Gundobad, Godegisel, Chilperic and Godomar. Gundobad killed his brother Chilperic with the sword, and sank his wife in water with a stone tied to her neck. His two daughters he condemned to exile; the older of these, who became a nun, was called Chrona, and the younger Clotilda. And as Clovis often sent embassies to Burgundy, the maiden Clotilda was found by his envoys. And when they saw that she was of good bearing and wise, and learned that she was of the family of the king, they reported this to King Clovis, and he sent an embassy to Gundobad without delay asking her in marriage. And Gundobad was afraid to refuse, and surrendered her to the men, and they took the girl and brought her swiftly to the king. The king was very glad when he saw her, and married her, having already by a concubine a son named Theodoric.
29.
He had a first-born son by queen Clotilda, and as his wife wished to consecrate him in baptism, she tried unceasingly to persuade her husband, saying: "The gods you worship are nothing, and they will be unable to help themselves or any one else. For they are graven out of stone or wood or some metal. And the names you have given them are names of men and not of gods, as Saturn, who is declared to have fled in fear of being banished from his kingdom by his son; as Jove himself, the foul perpetrator of all shameful crimes, committing incest with men, mocking at his kinswomen, not able to refrain from intercourse with his own sister as she herself says: Jovisque et soror et conjunx. What could Mars or Mercury do? They are endowed rather with the magic arts than with the power of the divine name. But he ought rather to be worshipped who created by his word heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is out of a state of nothingness, who made the sun shine, and adorned the heavens with stars, who filled the waters with creeping things, the earth with living things and the air with creatures that fly, at whose nod the earth is decked with growing crops, the trees with fruit, the vines with grapes, by whose hand mankind was created, by whose generosity all that creation serves and helps man whom he created as his
