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HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IN SIXTH-CENTURY GAUL
AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF

GREGORY OF TOURS' DECEM LIBRI HISTORIARUM

BY
Kathleen Mitchell

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

1983

aoe7¢

6/

ABSTRACT
HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IN SIXTH-CENTURY GAUL
AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF
GREGORY OF TOURS' DECEM LIBRI HISTORIARUM
BY
Kathleen Mitchell

This study is a thematic and organizational analysis of
Gregory of Tours' Decem libri Historiarum. The Historiae has
been examined primarily on the basis of internal evidence, al-
though for interpretive reasons it has also been placed with-
in the contexts of the established traditions of Christian
historiography and of the sixth-century Gallic church.

The Historiae is a highly structured work of histori-
cal interpretation written to serve practical religious and
social purposes. In it Gregory blended the Eusebian—Orosian
historiographical concerns with the distant past, orthodoxy,
the inseparability of church and state, and human free will
with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Gregory understood
Trinitarian orthodoxy to affirm the qualities of the Godhead,
whereas the Arian heresy emphasized the material aspects of
God and was therefore idolatrous. To obey God's law, an
orthodox society would favor the Godlike ethic of charity
and harmony, and would reject the heretical and idolatrous

materialism of exploitation and war for gain. The value of

 

1!

UC

te

ed

mu:

C0!

orthodoxy for society was proven through the history of the
Hebrews and Franks: when a community ignored God's law and
lapsed into idolatry, political defeat was likely to follow.

Gregory thus addressed his arguments in the Historiae to the

 

leaders of Christian society. Bishops should counsel kings
regarding the societal orthodoxy or heresy of their actions,
and kings should respond to this guidance by protecting their
realms from disorder and defeat through promotion of justice
and charity. Were society to be truly Christian, and history
showed that that made political sense, its individual members
would no longer need fear the Last Judgment.

Gregory's goal in the Historiae was, in fact charac-
teristic of the sixth-century Gallic church, because it shar-
ed with the sermons of Caesarius of Arles and the contempor-
ary conciliar legislation the concern that Christian beliefs
must make a difference in the attitudes and actions of the

community of believers.

Copyright by
Kathleen Mitchell
1983

nil.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study of Gregory of Tours is the result of a
decade-long quest of both a personal and professional nature
to discover what history is and how historians go about their
business. The first paper I wrote in my doctoral program at
Michigan State University was on Bede's Historia ecclesiastica
gentis Anglorum. I realized then that the field of historio-
graphy, particularly medieval historiography, is one that hap-
pily denies all possibility for the easy answer. At that time
I also became intrigued with the fact that Bede's historio-
graphy is often described as being superior to that of Gregory
of Tours. My second seminar paper was on Gregory and from
thenceforth his Decem libri Historiarum was, I realize now,
the standard against which I have measured all other examples
of medieval historiography. It is very satisfying to recog-
nize that this dissertation not only completes my doctoral
studies but brings my doctoral program full circle. I am also
pleased to have discovered by means of a detailed analysis of
the Historiae that my early positive but naive impressions of
it were, in fact, based on more reality than a perverse de-
light in preferring, despite the critics, Gregory of Tours'
work to Bede's.

My search for a sense of what history and historians

are was charted by the four important people who served on my

ii

doctoral committee: Professors Richard E. Sullivan, Marjorie
E. Gesner, Josef W. Konvitz, and John A. YUnck (Department of
English). Among them are fine teachers, exciting thinkers,
and highly respected friends of great wisdom and patience.
Richard E. Sullivan, my major professor, has been an especial-
ly careful guide to the profession of being an historian.

His support and direction are of great worth to me.

During the research and writing of the actual disserta-
tion several people who are neither on my guidance committee
nor connected with Michigan State University have also been
particularly helpful. Professor Walter Goffart of the Univer-
sity of Tbronto was most generous in his response to an early
formulation of my ideas about Gregory of Tours which I gave at
the 1981 International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalama-
zoo, Michigan. Professor Richard Kenneth Emmerson of Walla
Walla College read much of this study in manuscript form and
made valuable suggestions. My colleagues and students at
Pacific Union College, especially those in the Departments of
History and English, have been kind and understanding friends
throughout this project. I have also benefitted from use of
the resources and services of the College. Cathemae Cecchin,
a student at the College, did a fine job entering the major
‘portion of this study into the word processor. Though not
people, the libraries of the University of California, Berke-
ley, have become close and indispensable acquaintances during

the last few years. I am grateful that their MGH edition

iii

of the Historiae was never recalled while I was using it un-
til just ten days before my dissertation defense.

Although one must ultimately bear full responsibility
for one's own presentation of ideas, the creation of a work
of scholarship is, without question, an affirmation of a rich
and rewarding community. I

At the brink of this major rite of passage, the com-
pletion of my formal education, I have articulated for myself
the crucial place that six unique people have held in my life-
long development of ideals and goals. Mrs. Miriam Tymeson,
my grade school principal, gave me my first sense of the joys
of history. Miss Edith Davis, my high school English teacher,
let her students explore ideas as much as they possibly could.
Professor Donald R. McAdams, my masters level professor of
English history, encouraged me to pursue doctoral studies.
Professor Siegfried H. Horn, for whom I worked, by example,
taught me more than anyone else the skills and production of
scholarship. It is my parents, Robert H. Mitchell and Mary
Jane Dybdahl Mitchell, however, who are responsible for having
created in the first place my susceptibility to the charm of
learning. Their delight in the exploration and aesthetic ap-
preciation of things and ideas is unbounded. In a very con—

crete way, this study of Gregory of Tours is theirs.

Napa County, California
January 1983

iv

Introduction:
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Conclusion

Bibliography

TABLE OF CONTENTS

'Decem libros Historiarum scripsi'

THE LESSONS OF THE PAST

ORTHODOXY AND THE GOOD SOCIETY

THE REALITIES OF HISTORY

THE HISTORIAN AS BISHOP

14

59

121

188

222

226

INTRODUCTION: ”DECEM LIBROS HISTORIARUM SCRIPSI"

Gregory of Tours lived in an age of practicality and
hot tempers, but in a world that was nonetheless aware of
holiness and susceptible to Christian idealism. Georgius
Florentius was born on the thirtieth of November, Saint
Andrews' day, ca. 538, into a senatorial and episcopal family
of the Auvergne. In August 573, assuming the episcopal name
of Gregorius, he was elevated to the bishopric of Tours and a
career of both ecclesiastical and political activity. Accord-

ing to his own accounts in his great work, the Decem libri

 

Historiarum,1 he was at Tours a fitting episcopal succes-
sor to Saint Martin:2 he was a builder of churches,3
a suppressor of heresy and theological error,4 and a

promoter of the relics and miracles of saints.5 In so

 

lGregorii Episcopi Turonensis Libri Historiarum X,
ed. by Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, I (2nd ed.; Han-
nover: Hahn, 1951).

 

2Gregory's description of Saint Martin's career

reads: 'Hic enim fana distruxit, heresem oppraessit, eclesi-
as aedicavit et, cum aliis multis vertutibus refulgeret, ad
consummandum laudes suae titulum tres mortuos vitae restitu-
it' (Hist., i. 39). For Saint Martin's influence, of. for
example, Elie Griffe, “Saint Martin et le monachisme gaul-
ois," in Saint Martin et son temps. Mémorial du XVIe cen-
tenaire des débuts du monachisme en Gaule, 361-1961 (Studia
Anselmiana, 46; Rome: Pontifical Institute, 1961), pp. 3-24.

3Hist., x. 31. 4Hist., 43-44; vi. 5; x. 13.

sHist., x. 31, where he lists the books he authored:

doing, he was a man of his century, a bishop vigorously
concerned in all aspects of his professional life with the
imposition upon society of the principles of Christian be-
lief.6

The royalty who were contemporary with Gregory and
toward whom he often assumed an advising, an almost prOphetic
role were the sons and grandsons of Lothar I (died 561).
Lothar himself was the last surviving son of the great Mero-
vingian progenitor Clovis who had unified the Prankish realms
and instigated their official conversion to orthodox Chris-
tianity. According to Gregory's Historiae, the challenge to
the Frankish kings was the establishment and maintenance
within the kingdom of lawful authority, unity, and peace.
These goals were rarely, if ever, achieved.

The periods of time, spanning, in fact, most of the

century, that were especially troublesome in the political

 

“Decem libros Historiarum, septem Miraculorum, unum de Vita
Patrum scripsi; in Psalterii tractatu librum commentatus sum;
de Cursibus etiam ecclesiasticis unum librum condidi." Cf.
P. R. L. Brown, Relics and Social Status in the Age of
Gregory of Tgprs (Stenton Lecture; Reading:‘ University of
Reading, 1977).

 

6Walter Ullmann has stated that the episcopal syn-
odists of the early Middle Ages, particularly of the sixth
century, “functioned as actual builders of a Christian soci-
etyI (”Public Welfare and Social Legislation in the Early
.Medieval Councils" [Councils and Assemblies, ed. by G. J.
Cuming and Derek Baker (Studies in Church History, 7; Cam—
bridge: University Press, 1971), p. 3)]. Cf. also Hubert
Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankreich (Berlin: Wal-
ter de Gruyter, 1975), p. 16: "Gallien erlebte . . . im 6.
Jahrhundert einen Hdhepunkt aktiven kirchlichen Reformstre-
hens, .. .'

 

experience of sixth-century Gaul were those when there were
rival fraternal kings, each dissatisfied with his own pater-
nal inheritance and grasping to increase his territory,
power, and prestige. The first such period occurred follow-
ing the death of Clovis in 511 and lasted until the death of
his son Childebert in 558. The rivals then were his illegi-
timate son Theuderic (died 534), who was succeeded by Theude-
bert (died 548) and Theudebald (died 555); and the king's
sons by Queen Clothild, Chlodomer (died 524), Childebert I,
and Lothar. Chlodomer's line was eventually extinguished by
Childebert and Lothar who, following their brother's death,
assassinated two of his young sons and allowed a third to
take monastic vows.‘7
The second major period of strife began with the death
of Lothar and ended in 584 with the assassination of Chil-
peric. The rivals at that time were Charibert (died 567),
Sigibert (died 575), and Guntram (died 593), and their half-
brother Chilperic who, with his wife Fredegund (died 597),
appears as "the worst of Lothar's sons, . . . the villain of

the History.“8

The survival of one brother, as in the
cases of Lothar and Guntram, however, was no guarantee of

peace and harmony. Lothar in old age faced the rebellion of

 

7cr. Hist., iii. 18.

330 O. M. Dalton in the Introduction to his transla-
tion of the Historiae (The History of the Franks by Gregory
(If Tours, I [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927], 62).

hi

ab

(I)
'0-
.rs

sta

gun

dam.
fear
Inju

ing

CEpt;

his son Chramn, and Guntram was continually apprehensive
about the intentions of his nephew Childebert II, the heir of
Sigibert. Both he and Childebert had necessarily to be con-
stantly on guard against attempts by Chilperic's widow Frede-
gund upon their lives.

To serve as spiritual guide and advisor to such kings
and in such circumstances as the Merovingian dynasty produced
demanded political sagacity, moral courage, and unshakable

fearlessness. The Tourangean bishops of the Historiae,

 

Injuriosus in the time of Lothar9 and Gregory himself dur-
ing the reigns of Chilperic, Guntram, and Childebert II, were
equal to their task. In fact, a careful reading of the gist-
23233 indicates both the importance of episcopal leaders in
sixth-century society and the position and authority, especi-
ally with kings, they had the potential to enjoy. The power-
ful position of these bishOps, however, also made them sus-
ceptible to professional risk, and, in some cases, possible
assassination. Gregory's own career served him often as il-
lustration of both the public influence and the personal haz-
ard inherent in the sixth-century episcopal office. He left
no doubt, however, that, in his mind, the risks ultimately
deserved only minimal consideration.

In the Historiae Gregory made plain his belief that

the task of the bishop was to exhort and to remind the

 

9Hist., iv. 2.

members of the Christian community about their obligations to
God and to their fellows. Because he was a bishop and the
successor and spokesman for Saint Martin, the preeminent Gal-
lic saint, Gregory expected to be heard and to have his coun-
sels seriously considered. It seems likely, in fact, that
Gregory undertook to write history as a means of projecting
his episcopal message beyond his own lifetime and of guaran-
teeing that the force of his Christian counsel and warning
would never fail.

It is clear from statements in the Historiae that
Gregory was concerned to write of the conflicts between good

10 and of the rewards of saints and sinners.11

and evil
He placed these in the context of the past so that what had
gone before would provide hope for those anticipating the

12 In an age of lessening literary

coming end of the world.
culture, he felt it to be vital that historical work on these
topics be done before it became impossible to achieve. His
use of language troubled him, but in the end he was more in-
terested in the comprehensibility and cohesion of his message
than he was in the means by which it might be communicated.

In the general preface of the work, by means of apologizing

for his literary inadequacies, he noted that it was common

 

loCf. Hist., praef. prima; i. raef.; iii, praef.;
cf.. v. praef. for a more complex view of conflict.

11Cf. Hist., iii. prae .
12Hist., i. praef.

knd
rus
undi
and
the
in f
the:
therl
writ:
with

the C

regain

Stud:

knowledge that “few understand educated rhetoric, but many
rustic speech."13 What mattered ultimately was that he be.
understood. That he considered the ideas of the Historiae
and of his other works to be vital is emphatically stated at
the conclusion of Book X: his episcopal successors at Tours,
in fear of the judgment, were to preserve his books with nei-

14 What Gregory expressed

ther emendation nor omission.
there was not simple pride of accomplishment. What he had
written during the course of his professional life had dealt
with concerns he believed had long-lasting significance for
the Christian community.
In recent years several suggestions have been made

regarding the way in which Gregory of Tours' work should be
studied in the future. Roger D. Ray pointed out that this

important early medieval historian deserves monographic treat-

ment.15 J. M. Wallace-Hadrill stressed the necessity of

 

13"'Philosophantem rethorem intellegunt pauci, lo-
quentem rusticum multi'.‘ Cf. Helmut Beumann, “Gregor von
Tours und der Sermo Rusticus," in Spiegel der Geschichte.
Festgabe fur Max Braubach zum 10. April 1964, ed. by Konrad
Repgen and Stephan Skalweit (Mfinster: Verlag Aschendorff,
1964), pp. 69-98; Max Bonnet, Le latin de Gregoire de Tours
(Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie., 1890). Saint Caesarius
(of Arles had stressed the importance of the use of homiletic
.language which could be understood by even the most simple
listener. Cf. Sermo LXXXVI, quoted by Gustave Bardy, 'La
;prédication de Saint Césaire d'Arles, Revue d'histoire de
.l'église de France, 29 (1943), 228.

l4Hist., x. 31.
15"Medieval Historiography Through the Twelfth

Century: Problems and Progress of Research,” Viator, 5
(1974) , 59.

 

consi
his 6
cal k

years

considering Gregory's historical work in the context of both
his duties as an episcopal administrator and his hagiographi-
cal writing.16 Peter R. L. Brown, who in the last few
years has dealt effectively with Gregory the hagiographer,
expressed the need that Gregory be the subject of a complete
religionsgeschichtliches Kommentar. He has stated that no
I'consequential attempt [has] been made to seize the incidents
and attitudes revealed in the works of Gregory of Tours in a
human or social context of satisfying precision.“ He noted
that, "Instead, a tradition of interpretation that is
inclined to join, as in a maximum and minimum thermometer,
the low ebb of Gregory's Latinity with the high tide of his
credulity still rests heavily on the subject.'17 In the
light of these comments, one can understand that much study
--in many cases initial investigations, not just reinterpre-
tations--remains to be carried out on the work of Gregory of
Tburs. An important part of that study should be an analysis
of his historical and religious ideas and the context in
which he wrote them. This is an approach which, I believe,
would be in line with Gregory of Tours' ultimatum in the
final chapter of the Historiae.

On the strength of Gregory's statements of the signi-

ficance of what he had written, an analysis of the internal

 

16'Gregory of Tours in the Light of Modern Research,”
in The Long-Haired Kings (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1962),
p. 51.

1'7Relics and Social Status, p. 3.

it
kn
be
re.
cox
pa:
int
whi.

tell

her

the 1
its 1
and ‘

Can I

 

thematic evidence of his works should allow his ideas to be

18 This would result in the mental-

visible in high relief.
ity of an important early medieval figure becoming better
known. Despite Wallace-Hadrill's belief that the history can
be best understood in the light of the hagiography, it seems
reasonable that the means to a comprehension of the complete
corpus is the comprehension of its individual component
parts. Gregory's injunction that his literary corpus be kept
intact should also be applicable to a single work within it
which would be studied in terms of its own philosophical and
religious integrity. If Gregory believed that his writing as
a whole had cohesion, any given work within that corpus should
as well. One work thematically and ideologically analyzed
should help in the subsequent analysis of the whole.

This present study has subjected Gregory's major work,
the Decem libri Historiarum, to careful scrutiny as regards
its historical and religious themes, structural organization,

and creative milieu. In the light of this analysis, the work

can be seen, as Peter Brown anticipated, as being far more

 

18Cf. for example, the studies of John H. Corbett
(“The Saint as Patron in the Work of Gregory of Tours," Jour-
;nal of Medieval History, 7 [1981], 1-13), and Sofia Boesch
Gajano ('Il santo nella visione storiografica di Gregorio di
‘Tours,’ in Gregorio di Tours [Convegni del Centro di Studi
Sulla SpiritualitS Medievale, XII; Todi: Presso L'Acca-
demia Tudertina, 1977], pp. 27-91; a study originally pre-
sented in 1971) regarding the role of the saint in Gregory's
works. Corbett's article reflects the influence of Peter
Brown's seminal studies (such as "The Rise and Function of
the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies, 61
[1971], 80-101) on the late antique/early medieval worlds.

than
Lati
eme:
tori
cape.
natu
ther:
Ophe:
teal:
stre:

Aati:

than a jumbled collection of anecdotes recounted in decadent
Latin with little heed given to chronological accuracy. It
emerges as rather a carefully planned work of thoughtful his-
torical interpretation. Gregory, writing in his episcopal
capacity, used history in order to define and illustrate the
nature and actions of a truly Christian society. The work
therefore is argumentative and thus dependent upon the devel-
opment of an integrated logical progression. Gregory wrote
realistically with regard at least to the Historiae when he
stressed the importance of the future maintenance of the the-
matic and structural integrity of his work.

The initial stage of this analytical study of the his-
torical themes and organization of the Decem libri involves a
placement of the work within the Christian historiographical
milieu available to Gregory. The way Christian history had
been written in the past must have convinced the sixth-
century bishop that undertaking an historical work would be
an attractive and worthwhile endeavor for him to pursue. In
the fourth and fifth centuries, Eusebius of Caesarea and Oro-
sius established to large extent the territory of Christian
historiography. Gregory of Tours both explicitly and impli-
citly drew upon and transformed their assumptions about
Christian history. Methodologically, the histories of Euse-
laius and Orosius have great importance for this study. Much
of the historiographical understanding which guided my analy-

sis.of Gregory's Decem libri resulted from my preliminary

wox
thi
ill
lin
vhi
of;
int]

Tour

deri
role
tioa
conf‘
Utes;
bins
Sins

COns

10

work on these two early Christian historians. The survey of
their historiography in Chapter I plays, therefore, a doubly
illuminating role in this study of the Historiae. It out-
lines the qualitative framework of Christian historiography
which Gregory of Tours accepted as his model for the writing
of history. The chapter also identifies an historiographical
interpretation which explained to me much of what Gregory of
Tours did with history.

A dominant theme of Gregory's Historiae, one which he
derived from Eusebius' history and which undoubtedly has a
role to play with regard to the frequent medieval considera—
tion of his work as an Historia ecclesiastica,19 is the
conflict between orthodoxy and heresy. Rather than limiting
these matters to the realms of church and theology, as Euse-
bius had largely done, Gregory, perhaps influenced by Oro-
sius' view of the inseparability of the state and religion,
considered them to be definable in political and social terms
as well. His purpose in writing history was to develop an
interpretation of orthodoxy which would involve the recogni-
tion of a communal ethic governing religious, political, and
social activity. As will be explored in Chapters II and III,
his history, as a result, ranges from the idealistic to the
realistically observant as he attempted to demonstrate by

.means of the vehicle of history what Christian society could

 

19Cf. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, in Long-haired Kings,
p. 51.

be as
of th!
beliei
Orthoc
Histoz

action

his ca
mindin
saint]
their

{Ward

11

be as opposed to what it most often was. His understanding
of the machinery of history and of human nature led him to
believe enthusiastically that society could be improved.
Orthodox belief established a goal for Christian action.
History provided the arena wherein one could observe that
action.

The Bishop of Tours, according to his Historiae, spent
his career denouncing yet cajoling his contemporaries, re-
minding them of their historic commitment to Christianity and
saintliness, and warning them of the evils that had befallen
their ancestors and which could come to them should hostility
toward God and their fellow Christians prevail. Commencing
his first book of histories, Gregory announced that he would
write of conflicts. His reason for doing so, however, his
all-consuming desire, was that he might confess and confirm
orthodox Christian belief. "Christ Himself is our true end,
who in His full grace will give us eternal life, if we become

20 As Chapter IV will point out, it was

converted to Him.“
in his position as bishop that Gregory of Tours wrote his ten
books of histories so that he could encourage a genuine con-
version of all the constituent parts of society.

Although it has this distinctive message of the

need for communal orthodoxy and harmony, the Decem libri

 

 

20Hist., i. praef.: 'Noster vero finis ipse Chris-
‘tus est, qui nobis vitam aeternam, si ad eum conversi fuer-
imus, larga benignitate praestabit."

 

H31

55
re
wi
No
in.
si.
are
in]
war
and
gun
dau
Sid
int:
"he:
anec
0f l
Dans
Plif

incl

12

Historiarum is admittedly not a work whose thesis is neces-
sarily easily discernible. What stands out for the modern
reader are the fine stories which Gregory charmingly tells
with what Robert Latouche has called a cinematic style.21
Nonetheless, a chapter by chapter analysis of the ten books
indicates that almost 75% of the chapters--whether they con-
sist of anecdote, digression, or account of historic events--
are specifically directed toward an explication of Gregory's
interpretation of the nature of Christianity in action or a
warning of the chaos which can result when Christian harmony
and charity are ignored. One of my favorites, that of Frede-
gund slamming down the lid of a chest hoping to choke her
daughter Rigunth while she pawed through the treasure in-

side,22

can serve as illustration. This story, despite its
integral unity, assumes its real role within the Historiae
when it is read in its broad context. It is one of several
anecdotes of family dissension which anticipate the account
of the serious and well-documented revolt of the Poitevin

23 As is exem-

nuns of the Holy Cross against their abbess.
plified by this story and its context, when Gregory of Tours

included material in the Historiae, one can generally count

 

 

21Gregoire de Tours. Histoire des Francs, I (Paris:
Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres,” 1963), 20.

22Hist., ix. 34.

23Hist., ix. 33-35, 38. The account of the revolt
begins with Chapter 39.

13

on the fact that he had a precise thematic reason for its
presence there. It is true that one would find it impossible

to identify a formal statement of purpose in the Decem libri

 

Historiarum. Nonetheless, upon reflection, one can identify
its clear-cut goals.

John H. Corbett has stated that 'Gregory of Tours has
long suffered from the contempt born of excessive familiar-

ity.'24

It is hoped that this study will be able to add

some new sparkle to the old marriage between Gregory and the
historians of the early Middle Ages. It has been undertaken
with the support and corroboration of scholars of several
generations, but throughout I have felt an especial kinship
tuith Nancy F. Partner who stated that "even with admirable
aid in the work of others, the student of medieval historians
:is left peculiarly alone with his author and must willingly

follow wherever he eccentrically leads."25

The goals of
scholarship aside, to follow Gregory's lead is to become a1-
Imost irresistibly caught up in the bishop's idealism and
hope. The ”word of the preacher“ still gleams “like sil-

ver."26

 

24Journal of Medieval History, 7 (1982), 1.

25Serious Entertainments. The Writing of History in
Twelfth-Century England (Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press, 1977), p. 7.

26Hist., i. 15. Cf. below, p. 59; Chapter IV.

Chapter I

THE LESSONS OF THE PAST

Gregory of Tours stated in the Decem libri Historiarum
that two major Christian historians had influenced his under-
standing of time and events,1 and that he sought to follow
the examples of Eusebius of Caesarea and Orosius2 in outlin-
ing the chronological sequence from Adam to his own time. Un-
derscoring the notion that his work was a chronicle, in the
preface to Book II he stated that, should his history seem
confused, it was because he wrote of events in the order in
which they occurred.3 Despite these comments of Gregory's

regarding the nature of his work, were his Historiae a mere

 

chronicle, however, it would not have presented as much of a

challenge to modern scholarship as it has.4 Although A.-D.

 

1Hist., i. praef.

2He also mentioned Jerome, i.e., his continuation of
Eusebius' chronicle, and Victorius. This study will not in-
volve itself in the discussion regarding Gregory's sources.
For that see, for example, the work of Massimo Oldoni, "Greg-
orio di Tours e i 'Libri historiarum': letture e fonti,
metodi e ragioni,” Studi Medievali, series 3, l3 (2), (1972),
563-700; ”Gregorio di Tours e i 'Libri Historiarum' 1e font
scritte,” in Gregorio di Tours, pp. 251-324. This present
study is concerned with the process of historiographical
modelling.

3'Prosequentes ordinem temporum, mixte confusquae
tam virtutes sanctorum quam strages gentium memoramus. Non
enim inrationabiliter accipi puto, se filicem beatorum vitam
inter miserorum memoremus excidia, cum idem non facilitas
scripturis, sed temporum series praestit.”

4Cf. the survey of scholarly interpretation of

14

V0
Ull

Ea

bi]

rel

tic

15

von den Brincken included the Historiae in her study of
universal chronicles of the Middle Ages,5 J. M. Wallace-
Hadrill indicated its more congenial milieu of comparison:
Gregory and Bede, different as they are in many re-
spects, belong to the historiographical genre of
Cassiodorus and Jordanes, Isidore, Fredegar and Paul
the Deacon. . . . We cannot call them ancient his-
torians, and only in a particular sense are they ec-
clesiastical historians. What they really are is
medieval historians, the first of their kind. . . .
[T]hey write Vulgar history, post-classical his-
tory: Latin, Catholic, apologetic, provincial.
Wallace-Hadrill also sets these early medieval historians
apart from "the first great ecclesiastical historian, Euse-
bius, and his immediate followers."6
Although he is correct in recognizing that Gregory's
references to his work as a chronicle are an underestima-
tion of his actual achievement,7 Wallace-Hadrill has per-

haps not taken Gregory enough at his word because of the

 

the Historiae in Oldoni, “Gregorio di Tours e i 'Libri His-
toriarum' letture e fonti, metodi e ragioni,‘ Studi Medie-
vali, series 3, 13 (2), (1972), 571-576. Cf. also, idem,
“Gregorio di Tours e i 'Libri Historiarum' le font scritte,”
in Gregorio di Tours, pp. 256-265.

5"Die lateinische Weltchronistik," in Mensch und
Weltgeschichte. Zur Geschichte der Universalgeschichts-
schreibung, ed. by Alexander Randa (Salzburg: Universitats-
verlag, 1969), pp. 43-86; cf. the charts, pp. 77-78.

 

6"Gregory of Tours and Bede: Their Views on the
Personal Qualities of Kings,” in the collection of his works,
Early Medieval History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), p.
96.

7Cf. also Gregory's final few lines of the Histor-
iae, x. 31. Wallace-Hadrill does not specifically state
this. He simply does not write of Gregory as if he were a
chronicler.

16

suggestion that the sixth-century writer was separated from
Eusebius and his successors, particularly if Orosius is
considered as one of those.

Just how familiar Gregory was with the texts of the
histories of Eusebius and Orosius is a matter of some discus-
sion. Wallace-Hadrill has noted, however, that Gregory's
debt to Orosius should be emphasized, but that "[the] nature
of . . . [that] indebtedness . . . is a difficult question,
and involves much more than the borrowing of phrases or ma-

terial."8

One area of historical interpretation in which
Orosius seems clearly to have influenced Gregory of Tours is
that of his development of the idea of the Christian state,
his assumption that to be Christian and to be Roman were one
and the same thing. On the basis of the close relationship
in Orosius' thinking between Christianity and Rome, Theodor
E. Mommsen has disassociated him from his immediate mentor
Saint Augustine and linked him with "the school of 'Christian
progressivists.‘ a school whose most outstanding representa-
tive had been Eusebius of Caesarea."9 The acceptance of
this interpretation regarding Orosius' understanding of
history would be sufficient to demand in his regard a survey

of Eusebius' historiography. The themes around which Gregory

of Tours organized his Historia, however, make such a survey

 

8The Long-Haired Kings, pp. 55, 57; cf. above, n. 2.

 

9"Orosius and Augustine,‘ in Theodor E. Mommsen:
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. by Eugene F. Rice, Jr.

 

 

.‘fi -::.' H- r‘
C) '* ‘- Z) :J
' .‘J m n.

'—‘
u)

01 H rv- F... ' ( ,
O (D I: ‘- - [3.1) H
V .9: 5? 3’ W O 0‘

17

imperative. Because Orosius' audience was ultimately pagan,
he did not concern himself with the history of the church; he
was interested rather in the interaction of the Christian God
with the Roman state. Eusebius, in contrast, wrote almost
exclusively of the Christian church. Although Gregory of
Tours integrated these two themes, as my study as a whole

will demonstrate, there is no doubt but that in the Historiae

 

the theme of the church defines that of the state. Gregory
not only used the Eusebian-like theme of the church in the
Historiae, but he also wrote about the church in the same
general way Eusebius had: both historians were deeply
concerned with the historic definitions and implications of
orthodoxy.10 Modern scholarship, thus, has suggested a

potentially complex relationship between Gregory and Orosius,

 

(Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1959), pp. 325-
349. In this important essay, Mommsen outlines the ideologi-
cal gulf between Orosius and his mentor Augustine. He sug-
gests “that the basic principles of Orosius' philosophy of
history were those of Eusebius and his Greek and Latin fol-
lowers in the fourth century, principles most explicitly
rejected by Augustine in the first part of The City of God"
(p. 345). Robert W. Banning, reflecting Mommsen, stated
that, ”Nowhere is the triumph of Eusebius more apparent than
in the work of Augustine' s own disciple, Paulus Orosius" (The
Vision of History in Early Britain from Gildas to Geoffrey_ of
Monmouth [New York and London: Columbia University Press,
1966], p. 37). So also Henri Irénée Marrou, who said that
Orosius was, "Tout d fait dans la lignee d'Eusébe, tres loin
par consequence d'Augustin . . ." ("Saint Augustin, Orose et
l'Augustinisme," in La Storiografia Altomedievale, I [Set-
timane di studio del centro Italiano di studi sull'alto
medioevo, XVII; Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1970],
60).

 

1oIt can also be misleading to see Gregory as a slav-
ish follower of Eusebius. This has been done particularly

and

son
the
H_i_s

Ch:

18

and between Orosius and Eusebius. Thematic analysis of the
historical works of Gregory of Tours and Eusebius points out
some striking similarities in their uses of history. For
these reasons, it is essential that a study of Gregory's

Historiae give consideration to the work of the two earlier
11

 

Christian historians.
Eusebius of Caesarea invented ecclesiastical his-

tory12 to prove that nothing the church had ever done was

new. It had its origins before the founding of the world,

and from ancient times it had prevailed against the persistent

 

in interpretations of his Clovis episodes in Book II of the
Historiae. Cf. Louis Halphen, 'Grégoire de Tours, historien
de Clovis,“ in Mélanges d'histoire du moyen age offerts a M.
Ferdinand Lot par ses amis et ses éléves (Paris: E. Champion,’
1925): PP. 243-244.

 

11Wallace-Hadrill makes clear that the influence of
Eusebius and Orosius on Gregory of Tours is not to be un-
derestimated (Long-Haired Kings, p. 57 [Orosius]; Early Med-
ieval History, pp. 97-98 [Eusebius, possibly via Orosiusl).
See also Robert W. Hanning's fine survey of the roots of the
early medieval historical imagination in Vision of History,
pp. 1-430

 

12Eusebius Pamphili (ca. 260-340), Ecclesiastical
History (- Historia ecclesiastica), tr. by Roy J. Deferrari
(2 vols.; New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1953).
This translation will be used unless otherwise noted. For
the relationship of Eusebius' Greek Historia ecclesiastica
and its early fifth-century Western Latin translation by
Rufinus of Aquileia, see Torben Christensen, ”Rufinus of
Aquileia and the Historia Ecclesiastica, lib. VIII-Ix, of
Eusebius,” Studia Theologia, 34 (1980), 129-152. Christen-
sen stated that, I'It should be evident that Rufinus's trans-
lation can in no way be described as 'willkurlich'. It is
on the contrary the result of a meticulous attempt to under-
stand his original and to translate it clearly and under-
standably into Latin" (148).

Robert M. Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 39, states: "We do not
need to accept all that Eusebius claims for himself."

att
the
inn
firm
had

tru

to.

the
def.
Prel
how:

and

19

attacks of evil. The history of Christianity was an epic of
the on-going triumph of truth and tradition over error and
innovation. The Historia ecclesiastica sought to assure the
fourth-century church that, despite the great changes that
had recently taken place in its surroundings, it remained
true to its ancestry.

The historiographical tool which Eusebius designed was
to prove also to have far greater flexibility than the bishop
of Caesarea would probably have cared to recognize. For him,
the function of history was to propagate the gospel and to
defend the church. The techniques of methodology and inter-
pretation which he initiated in the Historia ecclesiastica,
however, would eventually be applicable to the propagation
and defense of history, the study of.which would become an
end in itself. Eusebius inadvertantly, therefore, was the
founder of a Western historiography which was to evolve a
rich range of topics. Glenn F. Chesnut has rightly stated
that, "His work, and that of his immediate successors and
imitators, determined to a large degree the way history was

written for a thousand years afterwards."13

 

13The First Christian Histories. Eusebius,
Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret; and Evagrius (Theologie His-
torique, 46; Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1977), p. 31. Cf.
also the important suggestions of Arnaldo Momigliano as to
Eusebius' role in the Western historiographical tradition
("Pagan and Christian Historiography in the Fourth Century
A.D.,' in The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in
the Fourth Century [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963], pp.
90-92. Cf. also pp. 88-99 for the newness of Christian
historiography in the face of Graeco-Roman models).

be
he

EX

h
v

20

Eusebius was not, however, the sole ancestor of west-

14 His model received much

ern Christian historiography.
aid from a fifth-century successor, Orosius, who synthesized
the fourth-century theme of the triumph of Christianity with
the pagan outline of history. These two authors together
gave to Gregory of Tours and the West an historiographical
model which includes the recognition that the past identifies
the present and should, if at all possible, be documented,
that the church can and should be clearly defined in terms of
both its institutional structure and its ideas, and that,
because of its process of world evangelization, the church
has a special relationship with the secular world, which is
exemplified best by the state, that can in no way be denied.
The Historia ecclesiastica was Eusebius' attempt to
prove that, within the history of mankind, the religious tra-
ditions which would evolved into the church of his day were
orthodox and true. For the structure of his argument he drew
upon an apologetic tradition established within the church by
the third-century theologians Irenaeus and Tertullian. They
had considered the greatest truth to be that which had with-
stood the most time. Heresies were ideas new to Christian-

ity; the orthodox were those beliefs which had always been

held.15 In this context, it was essential that Eusebius

 

l4Cf. above, p. 16, n. 9, for the exclusion of Au-
gustine from the Eusebian-Orosian-Gregorian historiographi-
cal tradition.

15R. L. P. Milburn, Early Christian Interpretations

 

ch

98

in n

21

immediately establish in his Historia the venerability of the
church and the timelessness of its founder, Jesus Christ,
whom he identified as the Johannine ngg§.16 As he stated
it, 'he who intends to hand down in writing the story of
Christ's leadership would have to begin with the very origin

of Christ's dispensation itself,"17

that origin being in
eternity. Christ was "the light that existed before the
world and the wisdom that was intellectual and essential
before the ages, the Living Word who was in the beginning God
by the side of the Father, . . . together with the Father the

maker of all things."18

Christianity was so orthodox, so
true, that it predated time itself. The fourth-century
church was a legitimate body because its source had been
established even before the founding of the world.

It has been noted that Eusebius broke new ground his-

toriographically by writing of the distant as well as of the

recent past.19 This was necessary for his establishment of

 

of History (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1954), pp. 35-36.
E. P. Meijering (God Being History. Studies in Patristig
Philosophy [Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1975],
pp. 88, 94-95) interprets the Arian ontological definition of
the Godhead as the Father being superior to the Son because
he was temporally precedent, temporal priority indicating
qualitative superiority.

1511;, 1. 1-4; cf. John 1:1-5.

17g, i. 1.

13g, i. 2.

19Chesnut, First Christian Histories, pp. 244-255;

R. A. Markus, "Church History and Early Church Historians,"
in The Materials! Sources, and Methods of Ecclesiastical

an

to
fi.
stl
Chl
no:
The
ter
his
lar

phu

ere

imp.

22

an identity of orthodox truth for the Christian church. Al-
though his history of the church began by tracing its origins
to the pre-temporal nggg and to the life of Jesus in the
first century,20 there was little attempt made to recon-
struct those periods historically. In a sense, all the
Christian centuries preceding those with which Eusebius was
more closely acquainted were treated in much the same way.
They function as documentation for the church's later charac-
ter and authority, not as historical topics themselves. What
historical details are available in Books I-III are drawn in
large part from various works of the Jewish historian Jose-
phus.21
In addition to its history, however, Eusebius consid-
ered two of the church's most striking characteristics to be
important evidence in his establishment of its identity: its
efforts to maintain truth and its courage in the face of op-
position. Whether he was anachronistic in finding in the
early church the same problems facing that of the fourth cen-

tury will not be of concern here.22 It is without doubt,

 

History, ed. by Derek Baker (Studies in Church History, 11;
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975), pp. 2-3; Momigliano, in
Paganism and Christianity, p. 91.

203E, 1. 2; 5-6, 9-11.
21Jewish War, Antiguities, Against Apion, Life; cf.

Appendix E 1n G. A. WiII1amsonTs translation of the Historia
ecclesiastica (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 422.

 

22Cf. Guy Fau' s unsympathetic and meagerly docu-
mented essay, Eusébe de Cesarée et son Histoire de 1' Eglise
(Paris: Cercle Ernest- Renan, 1976), where he states that,

Chi
”0'

‘1
Ll:

r) ‘U
‘ 0: F‘-
F ‘ (I)

tn]:

k.
Ultt

23

however, that, whether or not the church had always been
faced with the need to preserve doctrinal orthodoxy and had
done so with remarkable demonstrations of courage, Eusebius'
Historia ecclesiastica is unified by means of the consistent
presentation of these topics.23
The church's preoccupation with the orthodoxy of its
beliefs meant that it underwent a continual process of deter-
mining what it was not. Heretics loom large in the Historia.
R. A. Markus has remarked that “despite the claims made by
heretics, [Eusebius believed that] heresy lay outside the

24 The

church and belonged to its hostile environment.“
heretic, however, could not be such had he not first been
within the church. Simon Magus, "the first author of all
heresy,” was a baptized member of the church before his

deceptions were exposed and his power extinguished.25 He

 

'L'Eglise lui parait avoir, dés 1'ori ine, existé telle
qu'elle est au IVe siécle, avec sa hierarchie' (p. 2). He
concludes by commenting 'qu'on ne lit plus guére Eusébe de
Cesarée. Mais ce qu'il a imagine, romance, deformé, reste
gravé dans les esprits. D'od 1a severité de ma critique:
meme avec de bonnes intentions, il a causé beaucoup de tort a
la vérité historique' (p. 32).

23Since these concerns have certainly faced the
church since his time, it seems safe to assume that they were
not merely historiographical devices of Eusebius' own inven-
tion.

24Markus, in Materials, Sources! and Methods, p. 5.

ZSHE, ii. 13, 1, 15. Because he is mentioned in the
Historia ecglesiastica in the broad context of what might be
called the ”heresy“ of the Jews, it is intriguing to see
this Samaritan not merely as a Christian heretic but as a
Jewish heretic as well--in other words, Simon Magus was by
birth a heretic of the heretics. His successor, Menander, is

 

24

would not have been the kind of threat to the church he was
had he not appeared to be part of it. Markus is correct in
suggesting that “heresy lay outside the church," but that
could happen only after the devil had been identified as its
instigator and the heretic had been amputated from the body
of Christ. Eusebius was concerned to state clearly that the
church had always dealt decisively with heresy.

In his efforts to identify the church's orthodoxy his-
torically, Eusebius drew heavily from two kinds of ecclesias-
tical documentation. The first was the evolving New Testa-
ment which consisted of material directly traceable to the
first Christian generation. Eusebius was much concerned to
establish the sacred Christian canon. In fact, his monitor-
ing in the Historia ecclesiastica of its selection process

may have helped to solidify it.26

From the standpoint of
Eusebius' emphasis on defining the identity of the church,
the apostolic canon was invaluable because it told what the
church had been. The second kind of Christian document show-
ed how it intended to remain that way. These documents were
the advisory and polemical materials written by the succes-
sors of the apostles, much of it having been formulated in

response to the challenges of heterodox ideas. In a sense,

Eusebius appears to have relished the rise of heresy because

 

identified specifically as also being a Samaritan (iii. 26).

26Cf. Hg, iii. 3, 24-25; and D. S. Wallace-Hadrill,
Eusebius of Caesarea (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Limited,
1960), p. 69.

AN»
1. K

Kl.
1"

NIB A“ V

25

of the opportunities it provided for the church to clarify
its beliefs. At the close of a lengthy account describing
theconfounding of the heresies of Saturninus and Basilides,
he commented that 'truth again brought forth for itself more
champions who campaigned against the godless heresies not
alone with unwritten proofs but also with written demonstra-

tions.'27

These written refutations of heresy became part
of the evidential dossier available to inform the church what
it was.

It is understandable that an historian whose purpose
in writing was to demonstrate the church's changeless ortho-
doxy and to record the history of the debates by which that
orthodoxy was maintained should appropriate to his work the
methodology of those theological disputes. The fact that the
debates the church mounted in favor of orthodoxy had motiva-
ted the creation of an impressive corpus of documentation may
have been highly influential in determining that Eusebius
would use written evidence to solidify and prove his histori-
cal interpretations. By the fourth century the methodology
of confounding error by means of debate and document must
have been second nature to Eusebius and his fellow church of-

ficials. In writing the history of these debates he would

possibly almost by habit use the same procedures.28 It was

 

27§§, iv. 7; cf. iv. 24.

28R. M. Grant suggested that Eusebius' Historia ec-
clesiastica was his legal survival kit packaged to prove his
own orthodoxy ("The Case Against Eusebius or, Did the Father

 

t4

Ol

tl
st

3C

as
an
Eu:

ior.

rec.

26

not merely in discussions of difficulties the church faced
with heretics, however, that Eusebius utilized the documen-
tary methodology of theological argumentation. Because his
overall theme was the church's historic orthodoxy, this
methodology could be applied to anything he wrote regarding
the church.29 Documents were useful not just to demon-
strate the church's vigorous destruction of heresy, but to
account also for the courage of the orthodox.

The church of the Historia ecclesiastica appears not
as an inanimate safe harbor for the saints, but rather as an
army in full battle array against traitors and opponents.
Eusebius' two major types of historic heroes were the champ-
ions of orthodoxy and the martyrs. Through martyrdom, even a
member of the laity might be engraved with bishops and pres-

byters on the corporate Christian memory.30

It will not be
necessary to review here the many unpleasant ways Eusebius

recorded that Christians were killed. A good portion of the

 

of Church History Write History?" Studia Patristica, 12
[1975], 419-421). Interestingly, Grant does not include this
article in the bibliography of his Eusebius as Church Histor-
133 although he cites other of his articles on Eusebius.

One wonders whether this Christian methodology of or-
thodoxy is at all indebted to Roman legal practices. Grant
does point out the official Roman bureaucratic precedents for
Eusebius' linguistic and theologically rhetorical practices
(Egsebius as Church Historian, pp. 142-144).

29Cf. B. Gustafsson, I'Eusebius' Principles in Hand-
ling his Sources, as Found in his Church History, Books I-
VII,‘ Studia Patristica, 4 (1961), 429-441.

30E.g., Blandina, one of the martyrs of Gaul, who is
mentioned as being of the servant class (v. 1-3) .

-27

Historia, in fact, consists of anatomical descriptions of
these martyrdoms which become disgusting and monotonous by
repetition. Suffice it to say that for him they served as
additional proof of the church's orthodox identity. Whereas
theological debates demonstrated the rationality and legiti-
macy of Christian doctrine, the martyrs removed all abstrac-
tion from the issue by suffering very concretely for the sake
of the truth.

The orthodox identity of the church, therefore, was
demonstrated in the Historia ecclesiastica in terms of the
great antiquity of its beliefs, the resolve of its leaders
against the onslaught of error, and the courage of its
followers to defend it, when necessary, with their lives.
All three of these aspects of the church's character were
instituted by or responses to forces outside the church. The
eternal quality of Christian doctrine was due to the time-
lessness of Christ, orthodoxy was defined in debate with
misguided individuals, and martyrs were created by state
persecutions. Eusebius did not really describe the church
as an organization in and of itself. Where he came closest
to doing so was in his tracing of the lines of episcopal
succession. The Christian church was comprehensible to
Eusebius and could be written of historically ptimarily
in terms of what happened to it. This is not to say that
he saw the church as passive. Given the right stimuli,

it surged into action to spread the gospel, to establish

SE

1‘?"

28

truth over falsehood, and to defend itself against des-
truction. One must keep in mind the fact that Eusebius
operated according to the principle that the church was the

changeless conservator of truth.31

Ironically, historical
events in the early fourth century brought immeasurable
changes to the church. Rather than interpreting them as the
innovations they were, however, Eusebius was able to consider
the conversion of the Roman empire to be, On the one hand,
divine reward for the church's courageous defense of truth,
on the other, part of the on-going apostolic tradition of
evangelizing the world.

Throughout most of the Historia ecclesiastica, the
secular world played either a neutral or a negative role gig-
§;yi§ the church. The most recognition Eusebius gave to the
secular world was to note the succession of political lead-
ers. He mentioned that Jesus was born during Caesar Augus-
tus' reign, but included no information or interpretation be-

yond that given in Luke 2 except to indicate the date of

Christ's birth in relation to Augustus' victory over Antony

 

31Robert L. Wilken has suggested that, ”The bishop
loved the Church--as a maiden: He wanted her to remain pure,
untouched, virginal. . . . Any historical development, any
innovation, addition, or allegation away from the apostolic
faith can only be a derivation. Eusebius wrote a history of
Christianity in which there is no real history, for there is
no place for change in his portrait of Christianity. . . . In
Eusebius' history, nothing really happens--or, more accurate-
ly, nothing pg! happens. The history of the church is a his-
tory of an eternal conflict between the truth of God and its
<opponents' (The Myth of Christian Beginnings. History's Im-
pact on Belief [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company,
Inc., 1971], P. 73).

 

till
qui

sir

an
Oil
the
tre

'Jnc

29

and CleOpatra. Theologically, Augustus had no more impor-
tance in the Historia ecclesiastica than other non-perse-

32 Eusebius used such imperial reigns

outing Roman emperors.
primarily as a chronological framework within which to place
the events of church history.

The changes wrought to the church by the conversion of
the Roman empire were to be of tremendous historical conse-
quence. In Eusebius' understanding, however, the church had
simply done its duty and thereby brought a new life to the
secular world which, for the first time, was able to assume
an important place in Christian history because of its newly
orthodox religious character. Glenn F. Chesnut devoted a
chapter of The First Christian Histories to placing Eusebius'
treatment of kingship within the context of Hellenistic

33 There he traced the idea of sacral king-

understanding.
ship from the time of Alexander the Great, suggesting that
'[i]t was simply part of the general intellectual atmosphere"

of the Romano-Hellenistic world, and that Eusebius ”linked

 

3?§§, i. 5. Cf. however, iv. 26, where he quotes
Melito of Sardis' mid second-century statement of Augustan
"theology." Although Eusebius shared this belief in the di-
‘Vine juxtaposition of Christ and Augustus and expressed it in
(other works, he did not do so in the Historia ecclesiastica.
Cf. Theodor E. Mommsen, "St. Augustine and the Christian Idea
of Progress: The Background of The City of God,” in Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, pp. 281ff.; Chesnut, First Christian
:Histories, pp. 100-101.

33'Hellenistic Kingship and the Eschatological Con-
stantine,“ pp. 133-166. Cf. also Jean-Marie Sansterre, "Eu-
sébe de Cesarée et la naissance de la théorie 'césaro-
papiste," Byzantion, 42 (1972-1973), 131-195, 532-594.

 

I -. Ir“
V.

.l :1 ‘.v

30

himself firmly to 1t.'34

Pagan political theorists had

long considered that, 'Monarchy was . . . the imitation of
God: the good ruler imitated God and thereby took on a kind
of powerful reflected divinity himself. In this way the king
or emperor was also turned into a kind of savior figure."3S
This notion had received wide acceptance in Roman imperial
politics and, in the first century A.D. got a Jewish imprima-
tur when Philo used it as part of his hermeneutic for under-
standing such Old Testament figures as Moses and Joseph.
Philo believed that, as a priest and prophet, a king's pri-
mary responsibility to his people was religious rather than

political.36

The change that occurred within the Roman
government when it converted to Christianity was the legiti-
mizing of a centuries-old bastard sacral kingship. Hence-
forth the emperor was to be an orthodox priest, an icon37
of the 5523 God. The state had become part of the church and
the emperor became, in practical terms, a bishop. Book x of
the Historia ecclesiastica includes much documentation de-
monstrating the rulers' role as priests of the church. Not

only did Constantine and his co-ruler Licinius state that

 

34First Christian Histories, p. 151.

35;p;g., pp. 135-136.

35;p;g., pp. 147-151; cf. p. 148 n. 71.

37;p;g., p. 151, quoting Eusebius' Vita Constantini,
.i. 5, and his De laudibus Constantini, l. Chesnut does not

apply the orthodoxy interpretation as I do nor does he dis-
cuss the state in purely ecclesiological terms.

9‘5

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31

orthodox Christianity was to be the sole religion of the
empire and grant money to the church, but they also called
synods and attempted to bring about unity among the bishops.
In other words, they appear in these documents carrying out
ecclesiastical administrative duties.38
Once the Roman empire was the church, Eusebius was a1-
1owed to detect in the political world the kinds of qualities
which he had previously found solely with the church. The
empire, personified by its rulers, bravely suffered persecu-
tion and rigorously battled heretics. The persecutor was
chiefly the eastern emperor Maximin who was predisposed
against the Christians and who had been seduced by magical
arts to establish an anti-church. This persecution even in-
spired the use of documents forged to discredit Christ.39
The last pagan persecutors of the church met with the same
fate as the Jews, who were the first. God, ”the great and

40 intervened to

heavenly defender of the Christians,"
topple the enemies of the church. In the western part of the

empire, Maxentius and his armies, whose pontoon bridge

 

33§§, x. 5-7. This had been foreshadowed by Aurel-
ian's intervention to end an episcopal dispute. That matter,
.however, may have involved the emperor's judicial rather than
sacral role as the arbitration was necessary because Paul,
the heretical bishop of Antioch, following his excommunica-
tion, refused to vacate church property (vii. 30).

39%, ix. 2-5; cf. Vol. II, p. 213 n. l of Defer-
rari's edition.

49§§, ix. 8. For the Jews, cf., for example, iii.
5.

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32

collapsed, played pharaoh and his chariots to Constantine's
Moses and Miriam. Although Licinius conquered the persecutor

Maximin in the East,41

his moment of glory was to be short-
lived. Having been praised as one of the Christian rulers of
Rome, Licinius became Eusebius' last heretic.

Licinius, as Constantine's co-ruler, shared both the
triumph over Maxentius and Maximin and the glorification of
the church following their victories: “These [two], . . . in
a manner conscious of the blessings bestowed upon them by God
displayed their love of virtue and of God, and their piety
and gratitude to the Deity by their legislation in behalf of

Christians."42

Like Constantine, he had been one of the

few described in the Historia ecclesiastica as having been
chosen by God to promote the welfare of the church. As such,
his later opposition to Constantine and the Christian empire
was an act of heresy. Licinius, therefore, fulfilled one
qualification of the heretic, because he was part of the
Christian ecclesia before going astray. He also shared with
the doctrinal heretics a lack of volition and a failure of
rationality. In his case, these two qualities in Eusebius'
account were virtually inseparable because the devil's manip-
43

ulation was considered to be madness, loss of reason.

Licinius became the agent of evil to disrupt the celebrations

 

41%, 11!. 9-110
42§§, ix. 11.

43cr. £13.: ii. 13; v. 14; vii. 31

33

of the pax ecclesiastica by irrationally becoming a tyrant.
His treasonous program was recounted in traditional theologi-
cal terms as well, a fact that can serve to reiterate Euse-
bius' view that the Christianized state was the church. His
legislation was described as "new” and ”revolutionary“ in
contrast to Rome's orthodox political and legal doctrines
which had their origins in antiquity. He was heretically in-
novative because he dared 'to annul the ancient laws of the
Romans, which were established well and wisely, and introduce
in their stead certain barbarous and crude regulations, law-
less laws that were really contrary to law." This reminds
one of Eusebius' belief that the post-Edenic world was in a
state of barbarous incivility. The devil, through Licinius,
was trying to see mankind once again expelled from the Gar-

den.44

This time, however, good triumphed quickly over
evil. Constantine, having “summoned his prudent reasoning,”
joined the long succession of the defenders of orthodoxy and
came to the aid of those suffering under Licinius' rule.
With the defeat and execution of this heretic, the kingdom
came, the world was “cleansed . . . of hatred for God," and
the Historia ecclesiastica closed.4S
Although, until Books IX and X, the state played a

quite neutral and minor role in the Historia ecclesiastica

 

44g, x. 3; cf. i. 2.

45§§, x. 9, which covers the account of the heresy
and end of Licinius. '

RU»

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wit... u,\....

34

Eusebius' use of the state was probably one of the more
significant contributions of his model for historical writ-
ing. Robert M. Grant suggested that this juxtaposition of
church and state may have been the key to the contemporary
usefulness of the Historia. He, in fact, considered that the
Historia as a whole anticipates collaboration between church

and state.46

Nonetheless, even when it persecuted the
church, as the Roman government did several times during the
first Christian centuries, Eusebius was not really interested
in the secular motivation but was rather concerned to outline
the ecclesiastical response. Persecutions were important be-
cause they inspired great courage in Christians as well as
tremendous witness to the truth of the gospel. These pro-
grams of persecution were noticeable not because of the gov-
ernment which instituted them, but because of the church
which was the object of them. Only when the government had
become the church were its political, military, and legal ex-
periences of historical significance. Due solely to its con-
version to orthodox Christianity did the state acquire the
potential for having a past worthy of interpretation.

This belated historical value of the state is due to

the fact that all topics included within the Historia eccles-

 

iastica were subjugated to Eusebius' over-arching concern

 

46Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian, p. 167. He
suggests that the main correlation between Eusebius' Chroni-
212 and his later Historia is "the basic imperial-episcopal
framework" (p. 6).

35

with the church and its orthodoxy. The state was of little
note until it converted to Christianity and became part of
the church. At that point the emperor became an orthodox
sacral king, in a sense a priest of the church, and whatever
he did thenceforth as a function of his rulership had the
potential for being considered a defense of the Christian
church. The state, in Eusebian historiography, acquired both
a past and a significant present only when it became an arm
of the church, its historical importance being due to its
newly-found orthodoxy. Eusebian historiography was not only
unified by its theme of orthodoxy, and it was given a new
historical methodology because of it. Applying to historical
writing the methodology of theological debate and its empha-
sis on rational and tangible proof, Eusebius included docu-
mentation in the Historia ecclesiastica. If the present was
legitimate because of its connection to the past, a major
tenet of orthodox apologetic, it was important that the or-
thodox historian, using the documentary methodology of the
orthodoxy debate, attempt to link the present with signifi-
‘cant portions of the past.

A century after Eusebius wrote his Historia ecclesias-
.Eigg, Orosius produced another kind of Christian apologetic
‘which also assumed that the past could help identify the pre-

sent“ Orosius' Historia adversus Paganos libri VII47 was

 

47Ed. by Carl Zangenmeister (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner,
1889); Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, tr. by Irv-
ing Woodworth Raymond (New York: Columbia University Press,

0’

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36

written while the western empire was still reeling under
the impact of the Gothic sacking of Rome in A.D. 410. The
pagans blamed Christianity for the rejection and obvious
angering of the traditional gods, complaints which Orosius'
teacher, Augustine of Hippo, apparently thought of as "emp-

ty chatter."48

The means of response chosen was to de-
monstrate to the pagans that, across the centuries, their
gods had not spared the world from an unfortunate existence.
Although Augustine himself had developed much the same kind
of historical interpretation in the opening books of the 23
civitate Dei, his ultimate emphases in that work were on
“the heavenly city, whereas the task [he] assigned . . . to
Orosius was to tell the tale of human misery in his-

tory.'49

What Orosius was to do was to persuade pagans

that they were wrong both about the glories of their own
past and about their assumptions that the present was disas-
trous. By destroying the traditionally proud image of the
pagan past, Orosius wanted to show that Christianity had
been a beneficial pacifying agent for the Roman world.

Because he spoke ultimately to a pagan world he used the

kind of history, military and political history, which would

 

1936). Orosius was born ca. 385 and completed the Historia
adversus Paganos in 418.

48Hist. ad. Pag., dedication. Cf., however, above,
P0 16' no 90

49Mommsen, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, p.
331; cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i-v.

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37

be most easily understood by his audience.50

Orosius was not the kind of sophisticated thinker that

either Augustine or Eusebius were.51

He was a polemical
popularizer who had little room in his argumentation for
either subtlety or logical theory. His technique throughout
the first five books consisted of a repetitive hammering out
of the litany that, regardless of time or place, the pre-
Christian past had been filled with forgotten inhumanity and
suffering. Even pagan historians, he stated, had “describ-
ed nothing but wars and calamities.” Whereas they, how-
ever, had held that these events had provided opportunities
for heroic courage and patriotic fortitude, Orosius saw in
them nothing but misery. He pointed out that it was insuffi-
cient to consider only victories because the reverse of each
was a defeat.52 Therefore, not even the triumphant rise of

republican Rome to world power could be considered an object

of praise. Left on its own, any state exemplified sinful

 

5°Cf. Benoit Lacroix, Orose et ses idées (Publica-
tions de 1'Institut d'Etudes Médiévales, XVIII; Montréal:
Institut d'Etudes Médiévales, 1965), p. 48: "En definitive,
l'Historia adversus Paganos a été concue et preparée a cause
des PaIens. Mais une lecture attentive prouve qu'il s'agit
en fait et plutot d'un livre chrétien ecrit a 1'usage de ceux
qui frequentent les Paiens en général,” Momigliano stated
that, ”Orosius gave what from the medieval point of view can
be called the final Christian twist to the pagan epitome of
Roman history“ (Paganism and Christianity, p. 87).

51Lacroix compares the abilities of Orosius and Au-
gustine thus: '1e talent fragile du disciple et le génie du
maitre' (Orose et ses idées, p. 199).

52Hist. ad. Pag., i. 1; iii. pref.; v. pref.

re
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38

society. Its sole attribute was the ability to create chaos
and disaster, the memory of which it pervertedly preserved as

having been glorious.53

The only hope a state had for true
glory was if God chose to use it for his purposes. For this
reason Rome did have cause for genuine pride, having been se-
lected as the Lord's handmaiden to provide the matrix for the
messianic incarnation. The only cause for the successful as-
semblage of the Roman empire was due to the fact that "God

. . . established the unity of this realm . . . when, He

willed Himself to become known."54

This appropriation of
the state for divine purposes did not, however, signal
additional complexity in Orosius' interpretation of history.
Whereas all had been bad prior to Christ's advent, all
improved because of it. The structure of the argument of the
Historia adversus Paganos allowed Orosius to see only evil or
good. He gave himself no opportunity for interpretive
ambiguity.

Although Orosius' most obvious theme in answer to the
pagans was that the world had improved because of the
Christ's advent, he was deeply concerned to demonstrate that

throughout time the Christian God had been in control of

world events, the recent sacking of Rome being no exception.

 

53Hist. ad. Pag., iv. 6, 20. Cf. Mommsen (in Medi-
eval and Renaissance Studies, pp. 336-337) who points out
that, in contrast to Orosius, Augustine was able to see some
virtue in Rome in and of itself. Cf. however, below, p. 47
n. 75.

54Hist. ad. Pag., v. 2.

39

In the opening paragraphs of the work he stated that "we hold
that . . . the world and man are directed by a Divine Provi-
dence that is as good as it is just," and that the "evils
which existed [in the past], as to a certain extent they
exist now, were doubtless either palpable sins or the hidden
punishments for sin." What good happens in the world is the
gift of God, while misfortune is divine retribution for sin.
The city of Rome lies at the center of the Historia
adversus Paganos. It was a Roman crisis which motivated the
writing of the work, and the point of Orosius' recital of the
misfortunes of ancient times was to enable him to assess
qualitatively the Roman present. The pagans argued that the
traditional deities were responsible for Rome's rise to world
domination and that the setback of A.D. 410 was the fault of
Christian Rome's rejection of her patron gods. Orosius' re-

55 that contemporary memory

sponse consisted of reiterating
had glossed over the sufferings and disasters of the past,

that what good had occurred in pre-Christian times was due to
God's mercy, and that the triumphs of imperial Rome were the
direct results of the Christian dispensation. Using peace as

the criteriOn for military and political success, Orosius

pointed out that, until the reign of Augustus, Rome, "the

 

55Even he apparently became wearied by it: "But I
myself repeat again and again: do the times really need at
this point to be made subject of comparison?" (Hist. ad.
Pag., v. 24) .

40

unhappy city,“ had known only one year of official peace.56

Her pro-Christian history was nothing but a saga of continual
bloodshed which was halted only because God "prearranged“ an
environment of peace and unity to expedite the spread of the
gospel.57
The key figure in this preparation for the advent was
Caesar Augustus who, by implication, was cast in the Historia
as a kind of political John the Baptist figure who prepared

the way for the coming of the Messiah.58

Orosius outlined
three parallels between the Augustan settlement and the life
of Christ. The first was the dual religious and political
nature of the Epiphany, the sixth of January having been the
date on which both Jesus' baptism and the announcement of the

Augustan settlement had occurred;59

the second was the fact
that Christ's birth occurred in the year ”when Caesar, by
God's ordination, established the firmest and truest peace“;

and the third was the census ordered by Augustus which took

 

56Hist. ad. Pag., iv. 12. Mommsen (in Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, p. 333) points out Orosius' limited his-
torical scope: ‘HE showed no interest in the development of
the basic institutions of state and society or in the cultur-
al achievements of the ancient world.“

57Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 1; vi. 1.
58Hist. ad. Pag., vi. 20, 22.

59Cf. Mommsen, 'Aponius and Orosius on the Signifi-
cance of the Epiphany," in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
pp. 313-317. He points out that Orosius held his interpreta-
tion of the Epiphany as the celebration of Jesus' baptism in
harmony with the Spanish church and St. Jerome, but in con-
trast to St. Augustine and the Roman church which believed it
commemorated the adoration of the Magi.

41

Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in time for Jesus' birth. Oro-
sius considered this census to have been doubly illustrative
of the honors God had chosen to bestow upon Rome. It was
”the earliest and most famous acknowledgement which designa-
ted Caesar first of all men and the Romans lords of the
world." More importantly, however, because Jesus chose to be
born at a time when he could be publically enrolled as a Rom-
an citizen, it demonstrated the peerlessness of Rome within
the company of all great powers of the past. Christ had
chosen to become a citizen of Rome, not of any other

state.60

That he showed Christ to have been a Roman citizen de-
monstrated Orosius' belief in the union of the religious and
secular spheres. The concord available through Christ was
made tangible by the harmony established by Augustus. Oro-
sius had tremendous confidence regarding the present because
of this unity. 'I feel,“ he said, "no apprehension over the
outbreak of any disturbance, since I can take refuge any-
where. No matter where I flee, I find my native land, my

61

law, and my religion." Although it was not original ex-

cept in its detailed elaboration,62 Orosius' interpretation

 

60Hist. ad. Pag., vi. 22.
61Hist. ad. Pag., v. 2.

62Cf. Mommsen, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
p. 319. Also cf. Chesnut (First Christian Histories, p. 101)
for his interpretation of Eusebius' understanding of the si-
multaneity of the shift from polytheism and polyarchy to
monotheism and monarchy.

42

of the parallelism of Christ's incarnation and Augustus' set-
tlement helped to cement in the Western mentality the dual
ideas of the beneficial effects of Christianity on society
and the inseparability of the state from the spiritual

realm.63

It was in the context of both the harmony brought
to the world individually by Christ and Augustus and the di-
vinely ordained union of their two grand schemes that Orosius
was able to complete his explanation of what had happened a
few years before when invading armies had entered the city of
Rome for the first time in almost a millennium.

Orosius' argument regarding the significance of the
Gothic invasion rested on his ability to convince his readers
that life in Rome was much better, regardless of what happen-
ed, during the Christian era than it had been before. The
peace experienced was so solid that not even a Caligula could
disrupt it, ”civil wars [were] settled when they [could] not
be avoided," and barbarian enemies became "comrades and

friends."64

In order to come to this conclusion, however,
Orosius, tied as he was to the events of relatively recent

history, had to become increasingly reliant upon “God's

 

63Cf. Orosius' explanation of the reign of Constan-
tius who had adopted Arianism, an idolatry which sought "to
find gods in God” (cf. above, p. 41, n. 62, and p. 45):
“Thus the man who had rent asunder the peace and unity of the
Catholic faith and had, so to speak, dismembered the Church by
civil war, arming Christians against Christians, used, passed,
and expended the entire period of his troubled reign and his
wretched span of life in civil wars which his own kinsmen and
blood relations stirred up" (Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 29).

 

54Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 5, 35, 41.

43

inscrutable judgment“ to explain that even Christian Rome

knew misfortune.65

In the final analysis he was able to
provide no real solution to this dilemma beyond a tacit
acceptance that, whatever would happen, God remained in
control and had cause for allowing its occurrence. Orosius'
line of reasoning in Book VII, consequently, is filled with
contradictions and some remarkably far-fetched justifications
invented to help his argument maintain its integrity. He
would have done well to have pursued the route of Saint
Augustine who ended his career rejecting the applicability of
any theological significance to post-incarnation history.
Orosius, however, was neither a great nor an original think-
er. He operated firmly and simplistically within the context
of fourth-century imperial theology and thus was not at all
susceptible to the conclusion R. A. Markus considers Augustine
to have reached, namely, that “the Roman achievement, for all
its nobility, is unavailing. Taken by itself, it is neu-

tral."66

To the end, Orosius remained convinced that God

had blessed a sinful state and then found it necessary to
maintain reminders to keep it thankful for the greatness that
had been thrust upon it.

The Historia adversus Paganos is strangely silent

about theology except in the most general terms. Orosius

 

65Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 37.

66R. A. Markus, Saeculum:. History and Society in
the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: University Press,
1970), pp. 55, 58.

44

accounted only for the changes Christianity had made in the
world, but told very little about what Christianity itself
was. The bare rudiments of Christian theology were there,
but no real explanation of them was offered: the God of the
Christians was in full control of human history; his son
Jesus had lived and died as a human being and, because of his
resurrection, offered salvation to believers; and the Chris-
tian community was to preach the gospel to the world. Euse-
bius had elaborated little more about theology in his gig-
toria ecclesiastica, but one does glean from that work some
of the organization and concerns of the Christian church.
Were Orosius' book our sole source for early Christian his-
tory, we would know hardly anything about the community prior
to the fourth century, and only little from then on.67
Eusebius considered that heresies began with Simon Ma-
gus in apostolic times and from then on had been virtually
ever-present. Orosius, in contrast, mentioned no heresy be-
.yond that of Arius which had begun during Constantine's
reign. Because he viewed history only from the perspective
of the state, heresies were inconsequential until they had
the potential for political as well as religious divisive-
ness. This, of course, would have been impossible prior to

the creation of Christianity as the state religion.68

 

67The reason for this is, of course, due to the fact
that he had a very different purpose in writing than Eusebius
had had.

68Markus suggested (in Materials, Sources, and

45

Until the time of Constantine, idolators had been the chief
threats to Christians, but the doctrine of the fourth-century
heretic Arius made idolators of Christians. Orosius inter-
preted Arianism as promoting the idea "that there are certain
gradations in God,‘ or that there are "gods in God." Arius
is, in fact, presented in Book VII in direct contrast to Con-
stantine. The emperor who established monotheism throughout
the world had to contend with the heretic who had brought
polytheism to Christianity.

The advent of heresy as a matter of state concern pro-
vided Orosius with a new explanation for misfortune within
the Christian empire. Although one wonders how convincing
such an argument would have been to pagans, to Christians
heresy was an obvious motivation for divine retribution.
Constantius, for instance, who adopted Arianism and thus
sought to divide the church, was rewarded with the upheaval

of political civil wars throughout his reign.69

The fiery
death of Valens at the hand of the Goths was also perfectly
justifiable. He had not only brought indignities to the

church but, when requested to send missionaries to the Goths,

 

Methods, p. 8) ”that none of Eusebius' successors thought it
worth their while to offer a new account of the period cover-
ed by Eusebius,‘ his work being "the definitive account of
pre-constantinian church history.” Could it be that Orosius
saw himself as a member of the "diachronic syndicate" of
church historians who picked up on ecclesiastical matters
only where the master had left off?

69Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 28-29. Cf. above, pp. 41-
42’ 1111. 62-630

46

he had sent them Arians. ”Therefore, by the just judgment of

God Himself, valens was burned alive by the very men who,

through his action, will burn hereafter for their heresy."7o
As the church moved from its quiet role as interces-

sory petitioner with God on behalf of the empire71

to being
the major constituent of Roman imperial society, Orosius
changed his attitude toward the state, moving in his inter-
pretation of Rome closer to the kind of ecclesiastical empire
Eusebius had understood. Orosius began to interpret fortune
and misfortune in religious rather than in political terms.
As has been seen, heresy by the Christian state was inter-
preted as a reasonable cause for political failure. Smugness
and laxness on the part of the Christian empire was also seen

as motivation for divine reprimand.72

In this context, the
sacking of Rome by Alaric and the Goths was simply a gentle
separating of the wheat from the tares within the Roman
church.73
Faced with the knowledge that the various Germanic
tribes were infiltrating themselves into Roman government and
society, Orosius, as a realist, was able to make what seems

on the surface to be a rather radical modification to his

 

7oHist. ad. Pag., vii. 33.

71Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 8; cf. vi. 1.

721n much the same way, Eusebius had accounted for
Diocletian's persecution on the basis of the quarrelling
within the church (HE, viii. 1).

73Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 37, 39.

 

47

interpretation of the imperially salvific role that Rome had
had during the Christian era. In a sense, however, it was
simply an elaboration of the character he had assigned Augus-
tus as the forerunner preparing the way for Jesus' coming.
Silently echoing John the Baptist's comment from Herod's pri-

74 Orosius

son that “He must increase, but I must decrease."
stated that if, by their contact with Rome, the numerous Ger-
manic peoples were to become Christians, “it would seem that
the mercy of God ought to be praised and glorified, in that
so many nations would be receiving, even at the cost of our
weakening, a knowledge of the truth which they could never

have had but for this opportunity.'75

Throughout most of
the Historia adversus Paganos Orosius presented a Rome made
omnipotent to carry out God's wishes in world history. What
he suggested here at the end of the work was that political
weakness, at least understood as such from the traditional
perspective, need not jeopardize Rome's role as a divine
agent. To be a Christian missionary was as noble a role as
to be a Christian king.- Orosius was also suggesting, how-
ever, that what might seem on the surface to be weakness,
namely, the incursions of the Germans into positions of power
within the empire, might well be a process of guaranteeing

for Rome a future of strength.

An important part of Orosius' imperial theology was

 

74John 3:30 King James Version.

75Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 41.

48

concerned with the unity which Christianity and its imperial
environment brought to all parts of the world. Everywhere he
went, Orosius said he found his "native land, . . . law, and

'76 He believed that Christian Rome had the

. . . religion.
same impact upon the non-Roman world, because Christianity was
to be equated with Roman-ness. It was inconceivable that any-
one who was Christian could be un-Roman, Christ himself having
been Roman. Even though the Germanic peoples were by nature
cruel and uncivilized barbarians, as they came in contact with
Rome and converted to Christianity they became increasingly
like the Romans. The Burgundians serve as an example of this.
As they moved into Gaul, the “power and destructiveness of
their tribes [was] manifest.“ However, “they . . . all re-
cently [became] Christians, embracing the Catholic faith and
acknowledging obedience to our clergy, so that they live
mild, gentle, and harmless lives, regarding the Gauls not as
their subjects but in truth as their Christian brethren."77
Christian barbarians not only made good neighbors and
fellow parishioners, but they were also good enemies. Part
of Orosius' argument against a harsh interpretation of

Alaric's attack on Rome was to compare him with the pagan

Goth Radegaisus who, but for the grace of God, would have

 

76Hist. ad. Pag., v. 2; cf. above, p. 33.

77§i§t. ad. Pag., vii. 32, which also mentions that
persecuted Gothic Christians sought safety with their Roman
Christian ”brethren.“ Cf. Eusebius (HE, i. 2) on the direct
relationship between acceptance of the true religion and the
acquisition of civilization.

49

attacked the city. Alaric “was a Christian and more like a1
Roman, a man, who, through the fear of God, as the event show-
ed, inclined to spare men's lives. The other was a pagan,
barbarian, and true Scythian, who in his insatiable cruelty
loved not so much the fame or the rewards of butchery as he

did slaughter itself."78

It was Alaric's Christianity that
made the difference. Orosius, in fact, described his attack
on the city more as a pilgrimage on a high holy day than as a
military maneuver. The barbarians, who, ”it is true, burned
a certain number of buildings,‘ had become the ”protectors”
of the Romans. As conquerors, in fact, they might even bring
relief to the citizens. The barbarians in Spain had proven
to be no worse rulers than the Romans had been, and as admini- ‘
strators of peace they were superior to them because they did
not force citizens to live with the anxiety of high taxes.79
In the end, Orosius was able to consider the Christian
barbarians as the standard-bearers of not only Roman relig-
ious but also of Roman political idealism. Although the
Gothic king Athaulf died before he could fully implement his
program, he, inspired by his Roman wife Galla Placidia, want-
ed to be remembered as the 'restorer of the Roman Empire."
To that end he sought 'to refrain from war and to promote
peace.“ His successor Wallia retained that emphasis, offer-

ing himself and his armies as the champions of Rome, fighting

 

78Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 37.

79Hist. ad. Pag., vii. 41.

50

to regain the Roman peace. ”In view of these things,‘ Oro-
sius concluded his history, 'I am ready to allow Christian
times to be blamed as much as you please, if you can only
point to any equally fortunate period from the foundation of

80 Orosius considered it to

the world to the present day.”
be a clinching part of his argument regarding the blessings
bestowed on Rome by God that he was able, thanks to Christi-
anity and Roman influence, to present a barbarian king as the
peacemaking heir of the great Augustus.

Orosius was conscious throughout the Historia adversus
Paganos that he wrote at the commission of the author of the

81

De civitate Dei. In contrast to the work of his mentor,

however, he produced what might be called the City of Rome.

 

That city functions as the fulcrum around which all history
is seen to revolve. The purpose of the past was to achieve

Rome: Babylon had died that Rome might live.82

The message
of history was that Rome was superior to other states and
that her present, because of her Christianity, was superior
to her past. The reason for this incomparability of Rome

was that God, who controls all earthly powers, had chosen to

 

8oHist. ad. Pag., vii. 43.

81Cf. his dedication to Augustine and his con-
cluding remarks, presenting the work to him (Hist. ad. Pag.,
ded.; vii. 43). Mommsen believes that the results of Augus-
tine's assignment to Orosius were not necessarily satisfac-
tory to him (in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, pp. 325-
348).

 

82Hist. ad. Pag., i. 3; vii. 2.

51

honor her among nations by making his son her citizen. Al-
though Orosius did not refer to Isaiah's messianic prophe-
cies, his interpretation of Roman history could, quite sim-
ply, be phrased by the prophet's words: "Speak ye comfort-
ably to [Rome], and cry unto her, that her warfare is accom-
plished, that her iniquity is pardoned . . . Prepare ye the
way of the Lord, . . . [for] the glory of the Lord shall be

83 The Ro-

revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.‘
man empire was not merely the stage upon which the cosmic
drama of salvation was acted out, it was itself witness to
God's power and promised peace. Orosius' point in writing
was to defend the positive effects Christianity had had upon
the history of Rome. He saw the empire as a divine agent and
all her political and military activities to have been part
of the divine plan. He was even able, without twisting his
thesis too badly, to provide room in that plan for the bar-
barians who, in the early fifth century, were making an in-
creasingly major impact upon Roman politics and society.
Orosius' historiographical methodology was naively sim-
plistic. He considered history to be a persuasive device, but

rather than develop his argument with careful logic, he used

history repetitively, as a bludgeon. His interpretations

 

83Isaiah 40:2-3, 5 KJV. 'Sacrum romanorum imper-
igm} On ne lit pas longtemps l'Historia adversus Paganos
sans se rendre compte, en effet, que l'empire joue chez Orose
1e rdle d'Israél dans une théologie chrétienne authentique.
L'histoire romaine est devenue 1'épilogue normal de l'his-
toire de l'Ancien Testament" (Lacroix, Orose et ses idées, p.
198).

 

52

occasionally showed little relation to the events they were
supposed to explain. He may well have justified this, how-
ever, by the fact that he was "concerned with preserving for
posterity the meaning of events rather than their descrip-

tion."84

Although he acknowledged his use of other
histories,85 he rarely referred openly to them. Of those
sources, I. W. Raymond commented, "It is disappointing that
Orosius, having a wealth of historical writing of the highest
rank at his command, based so much of his work upon second

rate manuals."86

Orosius did not use primary source mater-
ials as Eusebius had done.

The seeming superficiality of Orosius' treatment of
history may have provided one of its chief attractions for
later generations and helped guarantee for his work a long-

lived influence.87

His position regarding the meaning of
history was easily understood, forthright, and comforting.
More than that, the explanations he offered were concrete and
unambiguous. In the Historia adversus Paganos he boxed the
past for easy transport to the future: God is in control of

all and, if society practices good Christianity, everything

will go well. In the view of Benoit Lacroix, this was in

 

84Hist. ad. Pag., iii. pref. Cf. below, pp. 180-182.
85Hist. ad. Pag., i. 1.

35'Introduction,' Seven Books, p. 15.

87Cf. Lacroix, Orose et ses idées, pp. 18-20, for a

survey of the immense popularity and influence of Orosius in
the Middle Ages and beyond.

53

fact an art and it shows Orosius to have been a poet of tra-
gedy who was able to blend facts in the way that would be the
most positively suggestive.88
Orosius' seemingly facile solutions were not all that
could be appreciated by later students of history, particu-
larly in the West. He had been motivated to write his his-
tory by an Italian crisis and, because he offered both his-
torical and religious explanations for it, he pulled Chris-
tian historiography firmly into the western Mediterranean.
More than that he welcomed the Germanic peoples, who were to
found Rome's daughter civilization, as beneficiaries of
Rome's civilizational heritage: he turned barbarians into
good Romans. Because he also considered that the traditional
ancient history of the Mediterranean world elucidated the
Roman identity, he gave the new “Romans“ an ancestry in pre-
Roman, pre-Christian times as well. Probably one of his most
significant contributions to western historiography, however,
was his unquestioned concentration on the state as the object
of his historical analysis. In the context of ancient his-
toriography this was not at all remarkable. What made it
important was the addition it made to Christian historio-
graphy. The Historia adversus Paganos made very plain that
the state was a potential laboratory for the study of the ac-
tions of God within the human sphere. This helped to enforce

the notion that the study of the history of the state could

 

381bid., p. 75.

54

unquestionably be considered a worthwhile Christian activity.
At first glance it would appear that Eusebius and Oro-
sius disagreed on almost everything about history. Eusebius
wrote only of the church, looking to the past for confirma-
tion of the immutability of truth. A champion of orthodoxy,
he created of the past a machine of proof and persuasion:
he was the first historian openly to use primary source
material to develop his thesis. Geographically, however, he

saw only dimly beyond the eastern Mediterranean.89

Orosi-

us, on the other hand, wrote a great deal about the actions

of God in history but scarcely mentioned the church. His sub-
ject matter was solely political and military history, and
his goal was to establish for a pagan audience that great
changes and improvements had occurred in those areas as
Christianity became more solidly established within the

world. He was a polemicist and a popularizer who saw God as
the puppeteer of history, a deus ex machina. Methodologi-
cally, he declaimed history rather than proving it. The city

of Rome was his chief protagonist and he considered that the

 

3980 also those Christian historians of the fifth

and sixth centuries--Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Eva-
grius--who worked strictly within the boundaries of Eusebian
ecclesiastical history. Cf. Chesnut, First Christian Histor-
‘igg, pp. 206-207, 218-221, where the comment is made that the
eastern empire seemed to have no intellectual comprehension
of what was happening in the west. Those direct successors
of Eusebius saw the western defeats only as opportunities for
“general moralizing' (p. 206). He suggests that the stance
taken by the eastern church historians is "important in help-
ing to show why the progressive disintegration of Roman cen-
tral authority in Western Europe during this period was a1-
1owed to occur so casually“ (p. 221).

55

spotlight of history had moved irreversibly west.
What gave these two seemingly dissimilar historians
common cause was that they both had great confidence in the

validity of Christianity and never doubted its on-going tri-

umph,90

even despite possible setbacks. This led both to
conclude that the church and the state were increasingly in-
separable because they could not avoid seeing religious tri-
umph in political terms. Eusebius demonstrated that the
state had become the church and the emperor a bishop. By so
doing, he allowed himself the option of studying the history
of the state because it had become in essence the history of
the church. Orosius concurred. Throughout the Historia
adversus Paganos the state was presented as a highly honored
ambassador commissioned by God to bring peace and progress to
the world. The description of the state as divine diplomat
could, however, easily become one of the state as Christian
evangelist, a shift which, in fact, occurred in Orosius'
thinking as he wrestled with the problem of the increasing
Germanic presence in the Roman world. As such, he moved more
closely toward Eusebius' comprehension of the state as church.
Eusebius, having taken an ecclesiastical route, and
Orosius, looking from the perspective of the secular world,
both reached the same conclusion: the salvation of the world

was visible in the history of the Christian state. This

 

90Their theme was that of Christian progressivism.
So Mommsen, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, p. 343.

56

belief was probably more responsible than anything else for
imprinting upon the Western mentality its fascination with
history. History was a matter of practical theology.91

These two important Christian historians shared not
just their belief in the salvific illuminations of history,
they also derived much of their approach to history from the
argumentative nature of Christianity. Jesus had made many of
his points about the gospel in disputations with Jewish lead-
ers, and over the centuries his followers often felt the need
to defend themselves and their positions against opponents.
Together Eusebius and Orosius, although their techniques dif-
fered, honed the argument from history into an effective wea-
pon of persuasion. They both also built their works upon the
belief that the study of the past would enhance the identity
of the present. Although the history of the past for its own
sake had no place in the thinking of either of these histor-
ians, by considering it at all, they unlocked the door for
the curious.

Approaching history from opposite directions, Eusebius

and Orosius reached the same destination. They agreed that

there was a relationship between God and society, and they

 

91One wonders what kind of historical mentality the
West would have had had the Augustinian belief that history
after Christ had no comprehensible theological significance
dominated throughout the Middle Ages. Certainly one could
have had less impetus to study one's own history. Cf. Ches-
nut, ‘The Pattern of the Past: Augustine's Debate with Euse-
bius and Sallust,‘ in Our Common History as Christians. Es-
says in Honor of Albert C. Outler, ed. by John Deschner, gt
21, (New Ybrk: Oxford university Press, 1975), pp. 69-95.

57

both found history to be acclimatized easily to the environ-
ment of debate. Both had arguments to win and found the past
to be favorable evidence. Because they arrived at these com-
mon conclusions by dissimilar means, they bequeathed to the
West a flexible historiographical model rich with possibility.

Gregory of Tours, thus, absorbed three important
points from his major historiographical predecessors: the
past is a matter of immediacy and identity for the present;
orthodoxy can be fashioned into an historiographical art
form; and the church and its host state are significantly in-
tertwined. With Gregory, however, in contrast to Eusebius
and Orosius, these three topics cannot be treated indepen-
dently. The uniqueness of his craft lies in his ability to
synthesize the three themes, particularly those of orthodoxy
and church and state in order to develop a portrait of a
Christian society.

In the Decem libri Historiarum Gregory analyzed and
discussed the past and the present, orthodoxy and heresy, the
ideal society and the one that most often was. Regardless of
topic, however, he never deviated from his unquestioned as-
sumption that the church and the state were partners whom God
had joined together. This acceptance by Gregory of the in-
separability of church and state has significance not only in
terms of early Christian historiography but indicates also
the evolutionary strides Christian society had taken in the

centuries since Eusebius and Orosius had charted the first

58

tentative historical and historiographical steps taken in

92 One wonders if the historiography writ-

that direction.
ten by these two formative thinkers might not have been in-
fluential in helping to impress the desirability of this co-

operative union upon the western mentality.

 

92Cf. Roger D. Ray, Viator, 5 (1974), 36: "through
1200 there was . . . no one with reasons to resist the cen-
trifugal force of heilsgeschichtes thought in order to focus
cum the church as something intellectually separable from the
.larger history of its relevant world" (see also his n. 8,

(ibid.).

Chapter II

ORTHODOXY AND THE GOOD SOCIETY

In Book I of the Decem libri Historiarum Gregory of
Tburs interpreted the restoration of the Jerusalem temple
following the Babylonian captivity as a spiritual allegory
and concluded his remarks with a prayer. The soul, he said,
would be doomed to enslavement and exile in sin "unless some
Zerubbabel, that is Christ Himself, can rescue it." Because
of this redemption there would be a restructuring and a deco-
rating of the Christian spirit, and to that end he prayed:
May He then build for Himself a temple within us, in
which He may deign to dwell, where faith may shine as
bright as gold, where the word of the preacher may
gleam like silver and where all the ornaments of that
other visible temple may be seen clearly in the integ-
rity of our hearts. May He grant a successful outcome

to our good intentions for 'Except the Lord build the
house, they labour in vain that build it.‘1

 

,1Hist., i. 15, using Lewis Thorpe's translation
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974). The original reads:
'Sed haec captivitas typum illius captivitatis, ut poto
gerit, in qua anima peccatrix abducitur, quam nisi Zoroba-
bil, id est Christus, liberaverit, horribiliter exsulavit.

. . . Ipse enim sibi in nobis templum, in quo dignitur habi-
tare, constituat, in quo fides ut aurum luceat, in quo elo-
quium praedicationes ut argentum splendeat, in quo omnia vi-
sibilis templi illius ornamenta in nostrorum sensuum hones-
tate clariscant. Bonae etiam voluntate nostrae ipse salu-
brae effectu indulgeat, quia: nisi ipse aedificgverig:do-
mum, in vanum laborant qui aedificant ea [Ps. 127:1].'

A significant contribution would be made by the ex-
istence of a solid Latin-English edition of the Historiae,
such as is available in German, edited and translated by
Rudolf Buchner (Gregor von Tours, Zehn Bucher Geschichten [2
vols.; Berlin: 'Rfltten & Leoning, n.d.]). The English reader
- can choose between 0. M. Dalton's King James English (Th3
History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours [2 vols.; Oxford:

59

60

There has always been a close relationship between the
religious desire for salvation and the more secular hope for
a good society. Alfred Braunthal has stated that even 'es-
chatological' religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam have combined the two goals: ”At the same time as the
longing for salvation was directed toward redemption from
sins or from life's burdens, it was also aiming for a world

of peace, harmony and justice."2

As can be seen in Greg-
ory's comments inspired by Zerubbabel and the rebuilding of
the temple, these two themes are of unquestioned importance
in the Historiae, and are supported by his most basic assump-
tion that there was redemption available through Christ. His

primary emphasis throughout the work was on the human response '

 

Clarendon Press, 1927]) and Thorpe's more colloquial trans-
lation. The standard French translation is that of Robert
Latouche (Gregoire de Tours. Histoire des Francs). My gen-
eral practice has been to use Thorpe's translation in the
body of the text. The full Latin context will be provided in
the notes.

2Salvation and the Perfect Society. The Eternal

uest (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1979), p.
x 1. Cf. Etienne Delaruelle ('Sainte Radegonde, son type de
sainteté et la Chrétienté de son temps," in Etudes mérovin-
giennes. Aotes des Journées de Poitiersl ler- 3 mai 1952
[Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard, 1953], p. 71) who comments
on 'le probléme de l' idee de chretiente' and the challenge to
the historian of the sixth century to discover "comment a une
epoque de guerres fratricides et deja de particularisme feo-
dal, ou l' Occident commence a se dissoudre en une poussiére
de principautés, od 1' anarchie tend a s 'installer dans

l' Eglise comme dans 1e royaume, comment 1' idée d' une sociéte
temporelle, unie par la foi, de peuples divers surmontant
leurs oppositions pour se découvrir des interéts communs,
a-t-elle pu survivre?‘ Cf. also the importance given to
Christendom in Denys Hay, Europe, the Emergence of an Idea
(Edinburgh: University Press, 1957).

61

to the Christian potential, on the faith, ”the word of the
preacher,‘ and "the integrity of our hearts." Encapsulated,
Gregory's thesis in the Historiae is that if Christian be-
iliefs were to be well implemented within earthly society, the
individual Christian, having participated in that endeavor,
would need fear nothing with regard to either Judgment or
eternity. Encouraging the Christian and motivating his
desire for goodness is the loving God, the ultimate builder
of the house, who asks only that he be believed and obeyed.
By rearranging Braunthal's sentence, one can understand
clearly Gregory's message in the Historiae: were there a
world of peace, harmony, and justice, there would be re-
demption from sins and from life's burdens. This chapter
will analyze the ways in which Gregory developed the theme of
orthodoxy--in the context of the other two themes of Eusebian-
Orosian historiography, the past and the church-state rela-
tionship--in order to suggest what the ethical construction
of Christian society should be.

Gregory laid the groundwork for this interpretation of
history in Books I and II of the Historiae. A chief concern
there was that he establish the nature and extent of God's
law and explain the responsibilities of human authorities in
seeing that the divine will be carried out in society at
large. He began with a pointed and summary history of Old

Testament times,3 but moved quickly to show that the same

 

3For the importance of the Old Testament in the

62

principles that determined Israel's fate would apply wherever
or whenever there were those who professed belief in God.4
One must believe what is truly God's law. The loss of
paradise by Adam and Eve and Enoch's gain of it illustrate
the gravity of the issue.5 For that reason, Gregory was at
pains to clarify his own credentials at the start of his
book. If his catholicity were in question, then his argu-
ments in the Historiae would have no weight and, far more im-
portantly, redemption could be available neither to him nor
to anyone he convinced with his reasoning. Upon orthodoxy of

belief-~in, namely, the Trinity as defined by the Nicene

Creed, the virginity of Mary, the immortality of the soul,

 

development of the medieval "sacral Christendom,” see Yves
Congar, "The Sacralization of Western Society in the Middle
Ages,“ in Sacralization and Secularization, ed. by Roger
Aubert (Concilium: Theology in ag_Age of Renewal, 47; New
York: Paulist Press, 1969), pp. 55-64. Gregory's Gallic
predecessor, Caesarius of Arles, also used the biblical cho-
sen people rather than the Roman empire as his social mo-
del. Cf. William J. Daly, “Caesarius of Arles, a Precursor
of Medieval Christendom," Traditio, 26 (1970), 11, 27-28.

4Seen in this light, it becomes clear that Greg-
ory's own title for his great work, Decem libri Historiarum
(x. 31), is more appropriate than the title Historia Franc-
orum by which it is more commonly known. It is true that
Franks figure predominantly in the work, but they do so as
exempla. Gregory's concern was to illustrate by means of
relevant and attractive history the social implications of
Christian orthodoxy. His methodology could thus be adapted
to make use of any era or peoples as exempla. Cf. Wattenbach-
Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsguellen im Mittelalter, I
(Weimar: Hermann Bdhlaus Nochfolger, 1952), 101; and, for
example, Peter Brown, Relics and Social Status, p. 3 n. 1.
Buchner entitled the German edition of the work Zehn Bflcher
Geschichten.

 

5Hist., i. 1, 3.

63

and the eventual end of the world preceded by the coming of
Antichrist--rested the sinner's only hope of salvation.
One's beliefs must be pure so that pardon for sin might be

obtainable from God.6

Lapses of belief and action, how-
ever, might not immediately doom the sinner to perdition be-
cause the God of the Historiae is first and foremost a re-
deemer who demands compensation only when his patience has
been too severely tried, but who even then will allow for re-
formation. Gregory explained this by means of his account of
Noah's flood. Heretics, he said, ask “why the Holy Scripture
says that God lost His temper. They should realize that God
did not show anger as a man would do: He is moved to anger

. . . so that He may call us back, He is enraged so that He
may reform us.“7 History demonstrates how this works. The
Hebrews, who had been redeemed out of Egypt and claimed their
promised land only after having spent forty years in the de-
sert studying the law, “ceased to observe God's commandments
and were often forced to submit to the domination of foreign
peOples."8 Gregory saw the Babylonian captivity, for in-

stance, as well as the Hebrews' loss of independent hegemony

 

6Hist., i. praef.

 

7Hist., i. 4: 'Increpant nobis hic heretici, cur
Scripture sancta Dominum dixissit iratum. Cognoscant ergo,
quia Deus noster non ut homo irascitur: commovetur enim ut
terreat, pellet ut revocet, irascitur ut emendit."

 

8Hist., i. 10-12. "Post cuius transitum, dum prae-
cepta, divina postponunt, saepe in alienigenarum servitio sub-
iugantur' (i. 12).

64

following the restoration as direct punishments for sin. The
Israelites persisted in pursuing idolatry and '[a]s long as
they continued to scorn God's prophets, they were left in the
power of the Gentiles, and enslaved and put to death.“ In
keeping, however, with the good character of God, it was pre-
cisely into that context of sin and subjugation that Christ
was born for the redemption of all people.9
Gregory outlined Jesus' mission on earth as first

and foremost having been a preaching of repentence,10 a

11 The reward

calling back to the true keeping of the law.
for acceptance of such belief was the promise of “the heaven-
ly kingdom to all nations.” The Hebrews had spent forty
years preparing themselves for the promised land by learning
the law, and Jesus spent the forty days between his re-

surrection and ascension "discussing the Kingdom of God

with his disciples."12 The disciples were then to invite

 

9Hist., i. 16: 'Reversi autem per Zorobabil, si-

cut dixemus, nunc contra Deum murmorantes, nunc post idola
conruentes vel abuminationes, quae gentes exerceunt, imita-
tes, dum Dei prophetas contempnunt, gentibus traduntur, sub-
iugantur, intercedunt; donec ipse Dominus patriarcharum pro-
phetarumque vocebus repromissus, virginis Mariae utero per
Spiritum sanctum inlapsus, ad redimptione nasci tam illius
gentes quam omnium gentium dignaretur.‘

10Hist., i. 20: ”Domino autem Deo, nostro Iesu
Christo paenitentiam praedicante, . . .'

llAlthough Gregory did not specifically explain
penitence as such, in the light of his build-up to the com-
ing of Christ, it seems appropriate to suppose him agreeing
with such a definition.

12Hist., i. 20: '. . . caelestem regnum cunctis
gentibus promittente . . .'; i. 24: ”Resurgens autem

65

the world to enter into this promise.

Although Gregory had found in the Old Testament numer-
ous foreshadowings of the Christian church, the most important
connection between the past and present was that, with
Christ's creation of the church, the kingdom became attainable
not by just a limited group, but by all people. Although they
might be in the midst of idolatry and the punishing enslave-
ments of sin, redemption could be acquired not only by the He-
brews--God's traditional chosen people--but also by the pa-
gans, be they Romans or Franks. The new Christian church,
like its predecessor Israel, was not free from difficulties,
however, because it had to endure persecution by idolators

and wrenchings apart by heretics.13

During the reign of
the emperor Constantine, though, it had been given peace;
Saint Martin was born, the True Cross was found, and Eusebius
and Jerome were at work on their histories.14
In his review of Old Testament history Gregory had
stressed that when God's people failed to obey the divine com-
mandments they were punished in clear-cut cases of cause and
effect. If, however, throughout their experience, the Hebrews

had been politically punished for ignoring belief in God, the

Christian Romans, because of their belief, were triumphant.

 

Dominus, per quadraginta dies cum discipolis de regno Dei
disputens, . . .'

13Hist., 1. 25-35

14Hist., i. 36.

66

To illustrate this, Gregory used the example of the emperor
Theodosius who 'put all his hope and all his trust in the
mercy of God . . . [and] held many peoples in check, more
by vigils and prayer than by the sword . . . [810 he
strengthened the Roman state and was able to enter the city

of Constantinople as a conqueror,'15

The lesson Gregory
drew from the Hebrews and the Christian Romans was that
belief and action in accordance with the law of God would
make a tangible difference in the nature of political so-
ciety. To obey that law and to become part of the Christian
church was to allow for the establishment on earth of the
kingdom of God. That having been accomplished, it had to be
maintained or it would suffer enslavement by Babylonians
rather than Theodosian victories. Because of the mission of

16

Saint Martin, the challenge of the kingdom had been

thrust upon the inhabitants of Gaul; after 5500 years the

17 The Gallic

promise of Eden had been brought to Tours.
kingdom of God having been once established, though, it was
deemed necessary by Martin's episcopal heir to preach

the absolute necessity of the keeping of God's law as the

 

15Hist., i. 42: 'Hic Theodosius omnem spem suam
atque fidutiam in Dei misericordiam ponit, qui multas gentes
non tam gladio quam vigiliis et oratione conpescuit, rem
publicam confirmavit, Constantinopuli urbem victor ingressus
est.‘

16Cf. Hist., i. 39: "Hic enim fana distruxit, her-
esem oppraessit, eclesias aedificavit . . ."

l7Hist., i. 48.

qui

th
it
ho
tu
th.
is
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67

guarantee of that kingdom's continued independence.

One aspect of the law that Gregory stressed throughout
the Historiae was the exercise of and respect for the author-
ity of spiritual and political leaders. It was in Book II,
however, that he specifically explored the multi-faceted na-
ture of Christian episcopal and royal authority and outlined
their delicate interrelation within the context of the Frank-
ish take-over of Gaul and the conversion to Christianity un-
der Clovis. Gregory considered recognition of the authority
of bishops and kings to be a function of adherence to ortho-
dox belief and he demonstrated this most pointedly by means
of the experiences of Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris of Clermont-
Ferrand and of King Gundobad of Burgundy. With these two
narratives he also had an Opportunity to comment upon the
fact that, on the one hand, underlings are obligated to obey
and support their superiors, and that, on the other, superi-
ors have no ultimate choice but to take full advantage of the
power and responsibilities given to them with regard to those
they rule.

The bishops of Book II were good men who cared dili-
gently for their flocks, counselling them to remain true to

19

orthodox beliefs,18 healing the sick, praying for the

safety of their people in times of attack,20 practicing

 

13Hist., ii. 3.
19Hist., ii. 1, 3.

2Oaist., ii. 7.

iii

ir

li

ie:

ver
of

'to
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dea-

men:

68

21

eloquence and charity, gaining the victory over their own

weaknesses,22 and converting pagans23 as well as attempt-

ing to dissuade heretics}4 Among these a bishop whom
Gregory singled out for special attention was Sidonius Apol-
linaris, a man of wide political as well as spiritual exper-
ience who was blessed with the quality of immense generosity.
Despite his goodness, however, he had to endure a rebellion
on the part of two of his priests who ”removed from him all
control over the property of his church, reduced him to a
very straitened way of life and submitted him to every kind

of indignity."25

One of these men, on the day he planned

'to drag Sidonius out of his own church,” died instead in the
privy. Gregory was quick to point out the similarity to the
death of the arch-heretic Arius and to make a strong state-

ment with regard to the sin of rebellion:

 

211135., ii. 15-17, 22.
22H_i_s_t_., ii. 21.
23111545., ii. 31.
“gigs” ii. 34.

25Hist., ii. 23 (Thorpe and Dalton): 'Cumque ad
officium dominicum fuisset mancipatus et sanctam ageret in
saeculo vitam, surrexerunt contra eum duo presbiteri, et ah-
latam ei omnem potestatem a rebus ecclesiae, artum ei victum
et tenuem relinquentes, ad summam eum contumeliam redig-
erunt.‘ Roger Séve (”La seigneurie episc0pale de Clermont,
dés origines a 1357," Revue d'Auvergne 194 [1980], 97) points
out that the seizure of the res ecclesiae from the bishop
indicates that already by the fifth century the episcopacy of
Clermont was on its way to becoming an independent seigneurie
within the Auvergne (cf. ibid., 85). Another such seizure
occurred following the death of Saint Gall in the mid-sixth
century (Hist., iv. 5).

 

 

69

From this we may deduce that this man was guilty of

a crime no less serious than that of Arius . . .

This, too, smacks of heresy, that one of God's bish-

Ops should notlbe obeyed in his own church, the man

to whom had been entrusted the task of feeding God's

flock, and that someone else to whom nothing at all

had been entrusted! either by God or by man, should

have dared to usurp his authority.
Following the death of Sidonius, the surviving conspirator
carried out the plans to take over the bishopric. He seized
diocesan property and acted as if he were the bishop despite
having enjoyed no election to the position. Only a week
after the bishop's death, he gave a great feast for the towns-
people, lording over them all. During the dinner, though,
his cupbearer told of a vision he had had of Sidonius
bringing the already dead rebel to judgment and incriminat-
ing the man still preening in Clermont. That second priest
died immediately, and Gregory had no question as to the
meaning. "The Lord passed this earthly judgement on these
two unruly priests: one suffered the fate of Arius and the
other was dashed headlong from the very summit of his pride,
like Simon Magus at the behest of the Holy Apostle. . . .
[T]hese two who plotted together against their holy Bishop
26

now have their place side by side in nethermost hell."

By means of this narrative, Gregory left no doubt whatsoever,

 

26Hist., ii. 23 (emphasis mine): 'Unde indubita-
tum est, non minoris criminis hunc reum esse quam Arrium il-
lum, cui similiter in secessum fuerunt interna deposita per
partis inferioris egestum, quia nec istud sine heresi potest
accipi, ut in ecclesiam non obaudiatur sacerdos Dei, cui ad
pascendum oves commissae sunt, et ille se ingerat potestati,
cui neque a Deo neque ab hominibus aliquid est commissum.

70

about the intolerability of rebellion against that authority
'entrusted . . . by God or by man." He saw it, not as insti-
tutional disruption and instability, but as sin of the first
order. It not only flew in the face of God's law and charac-
ter like the awful heresy of Arius, but it was also a parodic
ascension into heaven of the evil of Simon Magus--and, by

implication, of Antichrist.27

The fate of the rebel who
broke God's law by ignoring duly appointed authorities was
destruction.

As Gregory used the example of an ecclesiastical re-
bellion to provide a broadening of the definition of God's
law or orthodoxy, so he employed orthodoxy to examine the
role and responsibilities of Christian kingship. The Burgun-
dian king Gundobad, who had connections with Clovis and the

Franks both familially and politically, eventually accepted

 

'. . . Haec eo loquente, exterritus presbiter, elap-
sum de manu calicem, reddidit spiritum; . . . Tale iudicium
super contumaces clericos Dominus in hunc praetulit mundum,
ut unus Arrii sortiretur mortem, alius tamquam Simon Magus
apostoli sancti oratione ab excelsa arce superbiae praeceps
allideretur. Qui non ambiguntur pariter possidere tartarum,
qui simul egerunt nequiter contra sanctum episcopum suum.‘

For the sources and evolution of the legend of Arius'
death, see Alice Leroy-Molighen, "La mort d'Arius,' Byzan-
tion, 38 (1968), 105-111. She points out that Arius was seen
as a Judas figure, a comparison that would certainly apply in
Gregory's use of the allusion.

27Unlike Eusebius who treated Simon Magus as the
protoheretic, Gregory used him in terms of his hubristic at-
tempt to imitate Christ's ascension, an activity which is
associated with the figure of Antichrist. For the connec-
tion between Simon Magus and Antichrist, see Richard Kenneth
Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages. A Study of Medie-
val Apocalypticism, Art and Literature (Seattle: University
of washington Press, 1981), pp. 27-28, cf. p. 75.

71

the superiority of orthodox Christianity over that of Arian-

ism. His request, however, that Saint Avitus of Vienna bap-

28

tize him secretly inspired that bishop to a determined

effort to convince him of his obligation as king to lead his

people publicly into orthodoxy. Avitus declared to Gundobad:
'You are a king, and you need not fear to be taken in
charge by anyone: yet you are afraid of your subjects
and you do not dare to confess in public your belief
in the Creator of all things . . . Do you not realize
that it is better that the people should accept your
belief, rather than that you, a king, should pander to
their every whim?’

He continued to say that, as a king leads his forces into

war, so should he lead them into salvation.29

So far as Gundobad was concerned, Avitus' arguments
were in vain because the king never was convinced to declare
publicly his belief in the Trinity. .For Gregory, however,

the bishop's points were highly significant.30 Those to

 

28Or Gregory of Tours himself. Cf. Felix Thdrle-
mann (Der historishe Diskurs bei Gregg: von Tburs. 1Topoi und
Wirklichkeit [Bern: Herbert Lang, 1974], p. 49): 'Dass
Fremd- und Eigenrede von Gregor unterschiedlos behandelt
werden.‘

29Hist., ii. 34: "Tu vero cum sis rex et ad nul-
lo adpraehendi formidas, seditionem paviscis populi, ne .
Creatorem omnium in publico fateares. Relinque hanc stulti-
tiam, et quod corde te dicis credere, ore profer in plebe.
. . . Metuens enim populum, o rex, ignorans, quia satius est,
ut populus sequatur fidem tuam, quam tu infirmitate faveas
populari. Tu enim es capud populil non populus capud tuum
[emphasis mine]. Si enim ad bellum proficiscaris, tu prae-
cedis catervas hostium, et ille quo abieris subsequuntur.
Unde melius est, ut te praecedente cognoscant veritatem, quam
pereunte permaneant in errorum."

3°In the preface to Book III where he catalogued
the rewards of those who believed in the Trinity and the
punishments of those who did not, Gregory included Gundobad

in

th

72

whom authority had been legitimately entrusted must shoulder
their responsibilities to carry out whatever task would best
serve those they ruled. A king was to be a military and po-
litical leader but, when given the opportunity to promote the
kingdom of GOd among his people, he, in partnership with the
clergy, must become a spiritual leader as well. With the
founders of the Frankish ruling family, Clovis and Clothild,
Gregory was more fortunate. In close cooperation with
churchmen, these two powerful secular rulers were able to ex-
pose the superior authority of the Christian God over the pa-

31 and then to convert their people to orthodox

gan gods
Christianity.

Clovis began his career in the Historiae by killing an
insubordinate soldier who refused to obey him and return to
the bishop of Soissons a vase which had been taken from his

cathedral as booty.32 Although he was not yet converted,

 

with Godigisel and Godomar as kings who "lost their homeland
and their souls at one and the same moment.“

31Cf. the arguments of Gregory (Hist., ii. 10),
Clothild (ii. 29), and, finally, Clovis (ii. 30) on this
subject.

32Hist., ii. 27. For the historiographical and
ideological evolution of this episode, see Henri Duranton,
FEflépisode du vase de Soissons vu par les historiens du
XVIIIe siécle,‘ Revue de Synthése, 96 (1975) , 283-316. 'La
:mésaventure de Clovis, qui n'est plus aujourd'hui qu'une
anecdote colorée, fut ainsi pour tout 1e XVIIIe siécle
.l'occasion de vives confrontations idéologiques' (p. 303).
The eighteenth-century interpretation that the episode indi-
cated the power of the monarch over his realm may not, ac-
tually, have been far from the intentions of the sixth-
century historian of the event.

73

Clovis thereby demonstrated his understanding of the recipro-
cal authority of religious and secular leaders without which
a Christian society could not be structured. He was also
able to show the importance for political and military lead-
ers of the point made with regard to the rebellion against
Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris, namely, that those in authority
must be able to expect obedience from those under their rule.
Clovis, in practical terms, was converted to Chris-
tianity because he perceived the Christian God to be a God of
action. In battle with the Alamanni, the king informed God
that he would like to believe and be baptized but, right
then, he needed to win a battle and his own gods were ob-
viously not coming to his aid.33 He won the day, and
Christianity won a convert. God having given him a victory,
Clovis wanted to reciprocate and announced that the eradica-
tion of Arianism was the motivation for his move against the
Visigoth Alaric.34 He then sought the guidance and protec-
tion of Saint Martin, and his efforts bore fruit. A miracu-
lous deer showed the army a ford across the flood-swollen

Vienne, a Shekinah-like pillar of fire signalled Saint Hil-

ary's--and the Hbly Spirit's35--approva1 of the war, and

 

33Hist., ii. 30.

34There is much literature on this battle, a sam-
pling of which can be found in Wattenbach-Levison, Deutsch-
lands Geschichtsguellen, I, 103-104, n. 226. Cf. also
Wallace-Hadrill, Long-Haired Kings, pp. 63-66.

35Cf. Hist., i. 10: ”Colomna vero ignis typum
sancti Spiritus praetulit.“

74

the walls of Angouléme fell down for the troops like those of

36

Jericho had for the Israelites. Clovis returned from

battle and was honored with investiture as a_Roman consul.37
Although Gregory tried to be convincing that, "Day in
and day out God submitted the enemies of Clovis to his domin-
ion and increased his power, for he walked before Him with an
upright heart and did what was pleasing in His sight,“38
the historian does not really succeed in his efforts. The
Clovis of ii. 40-42 was a warrior of great cupidity and ruth-
lessness who, in the end, 'in his cunning way . . . hoped to
find some relative still in the land of the living whom he
could kill."39 One suspects that Gregory's non-judgmental-
ism with regard to Clovis' last manipulative wars may be due
to two facts. The first is that, as Gregory suggested in
Book I, religious correctness was considered to be prerequi-

site to political success. Clovis was an orthodox Christian

and he was politically successful, therefore, God must have

 

35Hist., ii. 37.

37Hist., ii. 38. Roman imagery appears only twice
in the Historiae, both times with regard to Clovis. He be-
came a Roman consul and, at his baptism, 'Procedit novos
Constantinus ad lavacrum' (ii. 31). The almost total lack of
historiographical 'Romanity' in Gregory's Historiae is even
more striking when compared to the extensive use of it by
Bede and Otto of Freising.

38Hist., ii. 40: 'Prosternebat enim cotidiae Deus
hostes eius sub manu ipsius et augebat regnum eius, eo quod
ambularet recto corde coram eo et facerit quae placita erant
in oculis eius.”

39Hist., ii. 42: '. . . sed dolo dicebat, si forte
potuisset adhuc aliquem repperire, ut interficeret."

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75

blessed him. The second fact, which is probably the more
convincing, is that even Clovis' strikingly secular maneuver-
ings allowed Gregory to make yet another point about author-
ity. In Book II he had discussed the respect due episcopal
authority, the cooperation that must exist between church and
state authorities, the superior authority of the Christian
God over those of the pagans, and the religious and military
responsibilities that are part of the authority of kings.
Gregory's account of Clovis' war against the king of the
Ripuarian Franks, Sigibert, and his son, Chloderic, is a
recital of Clovis' dastardly double-dealings followed by his
totally dishonest protestations of innocence as he attempted
to convince the subjects of the now dead king and prince that
he should be their successor. "When they heard what he had
to say, they clashed their shields and shouted their approv-
al. Then they raised Clovis up on a shield and made him
their ruler."40 Regardless of how he had arranged for the
event to occur, Clovis was given his power over the Ripuarian
Franks by means of the accepted and legitimate procedure. It

may well have been because this authority had been properly

 

4oHist., ii. 40: "At ille ista audientes, plau-
dentes tam parmis quam vocibus, eum clypeo evectum super se
regem constituunt.‘ Cf. Janet L. Nelson, “Symbols in Con-
text: Rulers' Inauguration Rituals in Byzantium and the West
in the Early Middle Ages“ (in The Orthodox Churches and the
West, ed. by Derek Baker [Studies in Church History, 13;
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976], pp. 102-103) where the

military (not necessarily royal) aspect of this ritual is
noted.

76

“entrusted . . . [to him] by man,"41

that Gregory was able

to conclude his account of that campaign with the sentiment
that God came to Clovis' aid because of his pleasing acts.

In purely secular terms, Clovis' expansionistic rule--in this
case alone, for Gregory did not implicate God in any of those
other last wars--had been lawfully acquired.

In Books I and II, using the history of the distant
past, Gregory built the superstructure of the Historiae.
Because salvation has been offered through Jesus Christ,
God's people must respond to it by believing and practicing
everything that they know about God. This is the keeping of
the law. To reject the authority of the law is to jeopardize
one's independence and future success. God's law, however,
does not pertain only to theological-matters. It makes a
significant difference in the very functioning of political
society. On the one hand, failure to keep the law can lead
to political defeat. On the other hand, there are leaders
V within the community whose power and authority have been
given to them by God and man. These are the bishops and the
kings, and God's law demands that they be obeyed. A sub-
ordinate, therefore, has no right of rebellion against them.
Neither do these leaders, however, enjoy the possibility
of shirking their responsibilities toward their subordi-
nates. This practice of good rule can be best achieved when

bishops and kings work together, bishops guiding and kings

 

41Hist., ii. 23; of. above, p. 69 n. 26.

 

i ll :1! lurks-ii EZtfi/fi

77

implementing.42

The law of God and the exercise of belief
in it involves two parallel sets of mutual obligations. God
provides salvation in response to which humanity will obey
and serve him, and an important aspect of this serving of God
is the recognition of duly appointed earthly authorities.
These authorities, however, must act always in the best
interests--both earthly and eterna1--of those over whom they
rule. Throughout the rest of the Historiae Gregory sought to
decorate the temple, to continue elaborating and expanding
these definitions of law and authority, both of which he
considered to be matters of orthodox belief.

The great sin of the Hebrews had been their idolatry.
Repeatedly they had failed to keep God's commandments, reviv-
ing their love of material deities, and had consequently fall-
en under the control of their enemies. Although, because of
Clovis' conversion to orthodox Christianity, the Franks had

43

rejected their early idolatry, Gregory was not convinced

that they had totally forsaken the worship of tangible gods.

 

42Henry G. J. Beck has noted that the close work-

ing relationship between bishops and kings extending to the
royal appointment and/or sanction of episcopal candidates was
an innovation of the sixth-century Merovingian world (Th3.
Pastoral Care of Souls in South-East France during the Sixth
Century [Analecta Gregoriana, 51; Rome: Gregorian Univer-
31ty, 1950), pp. 20-24. Gregory cited and approved of sev-
eral such instances in the Historiae (cf. iv. 6, 7, 11, 15,
26, 35). Cf. also Marc Reydellet, 'Pensée et pratique poli-
tiques chez Grégoire de Tours,“ Gregorio di Tours, pp. 171-
205. ’

43Cf. Gregory's homily against early Frankish idol-
atry in Hist., ii. 9.

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78

This reflects not simply the long-lived influence of natural
paganism even within Gregory's own diocese,44 a topic which
did not concern him in the Historiae, but rather a far more
subtle preoccupation among his contemporaries with material
goods as well as materialism in general. The Christian
Franks were as tempted by idolatry as had been the ancient
Hebrews. Gregory feared that his own people could also face
political defeats. He concentrated on these problems in Book
V of the Historiae.

The preface to that book is a sermon to the grandsons
of Clovis aimed at persuading them to preserve the patrimony
he had provided for them. These royal brothers, however, had
already accumulated a grim history of destructiveness.4S
Gregory felt that there was some possibility that these fra-
tricidal wars could be a signal of the end of time, but he ap-
pears not to have been satisfied with what might have been
too simple a solution. The situation demanded action not pas-
sive resignation. What was needed was that the kings repent

of their greed and conflict and learn to live harmoniously

 

44Cf. C. E. Stancliffe, "From Town to Country: The
Christianisation of the Touraine 370-600," in The Church in
Town and Countryside, ed. by Derek Baker (Studies in Church
History, 16; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), pp. 43-59. He
states (p. 56) that “when we read Gregory [of Tours'] miracle-
stories, we see him at work in trying to teach people, trying
to wean them away from their pagan practices and turn them to
Christianity.‘ Cf. also Jacques LeGoff, "Culture clericale
et traditions folkloriques dans la civilisation mérovingi-
enne,‘ Annales, 22 (1967), 780-791.

 

45Cf. especially Hist., iv.

79

together. History, he wrote, is filled with stories of
discord and subsequent defeat. Romans, Carthaginians, and
even ancestral Franks had met their just rewards. ”Beware,
then, of discord, beware of civil wars, which are destroying
you and your people. As things are, what else can you look
forward to, except that . . . [you will be] conquered by en-

emy peoples.'46

The sole purpose of war, he explained, is

to establish peace, and Clovis had done exactly that. Peace,
however, was being harried into oblivion by his grandsons'
intense acquisition of mundane goods and their lust for even
more. Clovis had fought his wars backed up by little trea-
sure. They, however, already had everything they could de-
sire except peace, and that was unattainable because they
kept grabbing the possessions of each other. Discontent with
one's already excessive property, theft of what belonged to

others, and desire for more beyond that were the bases for

these wars.47 Gregory concluded the preface by suggesting

 

46Hist., v. praef.: 'Cavete discordiam, cavete
bella civilia, quae vos populumque vestrum expugnant. Quid
aliud sperandum erit, nisi cum exercitus vester caeciderit,
vos sine solatio reliciti atque a gentibus adversis oppressi
protinus conruatis?‘ Throughout the work Gregory appears as
being ambivalent about what would probably have been his
easiest explanation of Frankish history, namely, that he and
his contemporaries were living during earth's last days.
Although he made references or allusions to such a possibil-
ity (e.g., i. praef., vi. 45; as well as v. praef.; and the
Antichristological comparisons in ii. 22; iv. 12; vi. 46; x.
25), the overall tone of the Historiae is one which presup-
poses that history still has a future. This preface to Book
V is a good illustration of his basic attitude.

47§1§£., v. pgggf.: Et cum hoc facerit, neque

80

that if conflict were so delectable, it should be waged spir-
itually rather than physically. It should be a war of the
virtues against the vices, and the results of such a combat
would be freedom in Christ. Should the love of the material

be allowed to win, though, the future would hold nothing but

48

enchainment and servitude to 'the root of all evil.“ The

biblical reference is to I Timothy 6:10. In many ways, the
broad context of Saint Paul's counsel there is exactly what
Gregory hoped to express in his warnings against the idolatry

of materialism.

They think religion should yield dividends; and of
course religion does yield high dividends, but only

to the man whose resources are within him. We

brought nothing into the world; for that matter we
cannot take anything with us when we leave, but if we
have food and covering we may rest content. Those who
want to be rich fall into temptations and snares and
many foolish harmful desires which plunge men into
ruin and perdition. The love of money is the root of
all evil things, and there are some who in reaching

 

aurum neque argentum, sicut nunc est in thesauris vestris,
habebat. Quid agetis? Quid quaeritis? Quid non habunda-
tis? In domibus dilitiae supercrescunt, in prumptuariis
vinum, triticum oleumque redundat, in thesauris aurum
atque argentum coacervatur. Unum vobis deest, quod, pacem
non habentes, Dei gratiam indegetis. Cur unus tollit
alteri suum? Cur alter concupiscit alienum?‘

That Gregory should have stressed the importance of
peace is not surprising when his work is placed in the
context of his Christian historiographical predecessors.
Orosius, in particular, was vitally concerned to interpret
history in terms of peace rather than in the traditional
terms of war. Cf. above, pp. 36-41, 49-50.

48Hist., v. praef.: 'Si tibi, o rex, bellum ci-
vili delectat, illut quod apostolus in hominem agi meminit
exerce, ut spiritus concupiscat adversus carnem et vitia
virtutibus caedant; et tu liber capite tuo, id est
Christo, servias, qui quondam radicem malorum servieras
conpeditus.‘

Al

81

for it have wandered from the faith and spiked them-
selves on many thorny griefs.

But you, man of God, must shun all this, and pur-

sue justice, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude, and
gentleness. Run the great49race of faith and
take hold of eternal life.

In this preface to Book V Gregory used very comprehen-
sible concrete examples to make a vital but difficult and ab-
stract point. The civil disorders plaguing the Frankish
Christian community were symptomatic of the much larger prob-
1em of mistaking the tangible for the real. What was real
for the Christian was that one believe orthodox truth and act
accordingly, and that reality would be flatly repudiated when
one's efforts were directed at such activities as the snatch-
ing away of another's rights and property with shows of avar-
ice, injustice, and unconcern for the welfare of others.
Concentration on the material would result in the denial of
the spiritual, and only there lay all those qualities which
gave life substance. Gregory must have appreciated Saint
Paul's further advice to Timothy that he should

[ilnstruct those who are rich in this world's goods
not to be proud, and not to fix their hopes on so un-
certain a thing as money [or other goods], but upon
God, who endows us richly with all things to enjoy.
Tell them to do good and to grow rich in noble ac-
tions, to be ready to give away and to share, and so
acquire a treasure which will form a good foundation
for the future.50Thus they will grasp the life which
is life indeed.

Although Gregory could well have included this quotation in

 

491 Timothy 6:5-12 New English Bible.

501 Timothy 6:17-19 NEB.

82

his text, he did not. In essence, though, he elaborated on
it throughout the Historiae by means of extended exegesis.
What probably made Gregory hopeful about the Frankish
kingdom of God was that, given the right set of circum-
stances, even the seemingly worst pe0p1e in the realm could
be counted on to remember the essentials of Christianity.
Faced with the imminent death of her two young sons from an
epidemic, King Chilperic's cruel wife Fredegund became un-
characteristically distraught over spiritual matters. Before
convincing Chilperic that they should hurl their tax books
into the fire as penance for their sins, she is quoted as
having made a speech concerning the excesses of their avari-
cious mistreatment of those whom they trampled in order to
get more wealth. They were losing their children as divine
punishment for the anguish their greed had caused others.
They were being judged in compensation for their having pro-
voked "'the tears of paupers, the laments of widows, and the
sighs of orphans.”51 Fredegund then went on to express
the same sentiments Gregory had written in the preface to
Book V about the superfluity of wealth by asking rhetorically:

'Were our cellars not already over-flowing with wine?

 

51Hist., v. 34: "Eccei iam eos lacrimae pauperum,
lamenta viduarum, suspira orfanorum interimunt, . . ." (my
translation). As Buchner notes (Zehn Bdcher Geschichten,
I, 344 n. 1): ". . . auch hier spricht danach in Wirklich-
keit wohl Gregor selbst, nicht Fredegunde." Cf. also
Thflrlemann's similar comment in Der historische Diskurs
bei Gregor von Tours, p. 49 (for the quotation, see above,
p. 71 n. 28).

If. I.

. :1 . u ., .14 aka Cs 9 1H.“ H4 ud
aqphrw 19(M\ln~\wi‘tfiu\t

83

Were our granaries not stuffed to the roof with corn?
Were our treasure-houses not already full enough with
gold, silver, and precious stones, necklaces and every
regal adornment one could dream of? Nowszwe are losing
the most beautiful of our possessions!‘
Fredegund and Chilperic were being deprived of their sons'
lives because they had been concerned to stockpile only goods
on earth and in so doing had deprived others of what was
rightfully theirs. The children were losing their earthly
lives; unless they repented and kept God's commandments, the
parents would lose their eternal lives.

Fredegund may have been a useful voice to recount the
evils of materialism on a simple level. For more profound
elaborations on the subject, however, Gregory quoted himself.
His opposition to materialism was based upon the doctrine of
the Trinity and he illustrated his ideas by the record of two
debates he had on the subject, one with the Arian Visigoth
Agilan and the other with the theoretically orthodox Chil-

peric.53 The discussion with Agilan began with the

 

. 52Hist., v. 34: “Numquid non exundabant prumptu-
aria vino? Numquid non horrea replebantur frumento? Num-
quid non erant thesauri referti auro, argento, lapidibus
praeciosis, monilibus vel reliquis imperialibus ornamentis?
Ecce quod pulchrius habebamus perdimus!”

53Hist., v. 43 and 44, respectively. "There is
little evidence that he [Gregory] was much affected by the
great doctrinal writers of the third and fourth centuries"
(William C. McDermott, Gregory of Tours, Selections from the
Minor Works [Philadelphiaz University of Pennsylvania Press,
1949), p. 3. Cf. M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in
Western Europe, A.D. 500 to 900 (New York: DiaL Press,
1931), pp. 99-100. Laistner is generally quite unsympa-
thetic to Gregory of Tours. Pierre Riché (Education and
Culture in the garbarian West, Sixth through Eighth Cen-
turies, tr. by John Contreni [Columbia: University of South

 

84

VisigothS4 stating that it was clear that Christ was less
than equal with the Father because he himself stated that
“the Father is greater than I," and submitted himself to God
at the time of his crucifixion. Gregory countered this by
saying that the problem consisted solely of the fact that
Christ said and did those things while in the weakness of the
flesh, a state he had assumed so as to bring about redemption
by means of humility rather than power.55 What Gregory

felt was wrong with Arianism was that it underestimated the
infinitude and potential of the Godhead by regarding Christ
predominantly in his form of finite matter. It was a cutting
down of deity to human scale and composition, a demanding

that what was by nature beyond comprehension be made fully

 

Carolina Press, 1976], p. 271) states that "Gregory believed
more in the power of miracles than in the success of extend-
ed proof." .

54Hist., v. 43. Gregory was less than charitable in
his opinion of this man: ". . . virum nulli ingenii aut
dispositiones ratione conperitum, sed tantum voluntatem in
catholica lege perversum." This was, in the light of Greg-
ory's arguments against Arianism, a somewhat fitting descrip-
tion of that belief's adherents, though, because he felt that
the heresy was a fundamental failure to recognize the need
to stretch the human mind to the frontiers of its capabili-
ties.

SSHist., v. 43: "'Quod autem eum dixisse ais:
Pater maior me est, scias, eum hoc ex adsumptae carnis
humilitate dixisse, ut cognuscas, non potestate, sed humili-
tate fuisse redemptum. . . . Nam et mortis timor et commen-
datio spiritus ad infirmitatem corporis est referenda, ut,
sicut verus Deus, ita et verus homo credatur'." Cf. Mark
Dorenkemper, The Trinitarian Doctrine and Sources of SE;
Caesarius of Arles (Fribourg: The University Press, 1953),
p. 41, for the popularity of this Arian use of JOhn 14:28 and
for the traditional grounding of Gregory's explanation.

 

85

graspable by the human understanding. This fact was under-
scored by the Arian denigration of the Hely Spirit to a posi-
tion below that of Christ. For the Arian, trapped by his ma-
terialism and paltry imagination, there had to be three sep-
arate, distinct, and tangible components of God, individual
not only spatially but also temporally. The orthodox, on the
other hand, was not enslaved by such literalism. He had a

far wider range of possibility because he dealt with the
qualities shared by the three, rather than being stymied by
whatever relationship they might have. He found that concen-
tration on the attributes of the Godhead automatically resolv-
ed the question of that relationship. As Gregory stated it:
"'In the three there is one will, one power, and one action:
one God in trinity and three in unity. Three persons, but ‘
one rule, one majesty, one power, and one omnipotence.”56
What made the question of relationship superfluous was that
the Trinity was unified by a singleness of purpose and by a
set of commonly shared characteristics, namely, wisdom, light.

life, truth, and justice.57 .

 

56Hist., v. 43: "'Una in tribus est voluntas, po-
testas, operatio: unus Deus in trinitate et trinus in uni-
tate. Tres personae, sed unum regnum, una maiestas, una po-
tentia omnipotentiaque'."

57Hist., v. 43: "Ad haec ego interrogo, si cred-

erit, Iesum Christum filium Dei esse, si eundemque esse Dei
sapientiam, si lumen, si veritatem, si vitam, si iustitiam
fateretur. Qui ait: 'Credo, haec omnia esse filium Dei'.
Et ego: 'Dic ergo mihi, quando Pater sine sapientia, quando
sine lumine, quando sine vita, quando sine veritatem, quando
sine iustitia fuerit. Sicut enim Pater sine istis esse non
potuit, ita et sine Filio esse non potuit. Quae maximae ad

86

In terms of Gregory's argument with Agilan, the arch-
heresy Arianism, a system with which he was in dispute
throughout the Historiae, was a materialistic and thus a fi-
nite explanation of a phenomenon which he believed to be in
essence qualitative. The human being could never hope to
know God, let alone know how to obey and serve him, if he did
not first make the effort to recognize that in order to do so
he must somehow struggle to escape the mental servitude im-
posed by his mundane and finite materialism. Were he to fail
to acknowledge this, any beliefs about God which he prided
himself as having would be nothing but foolishness.

If the Arian erred on the side of too strong distinc-
tions for the persons of the Godhead, Chilperic, in a flight

of theological fancy that took him near the ancient heresy of

 

dominice nominis mistirium coaptantur'.‘ This argument
shares similarity with that of Saint Ambrose and particular-
ly Caesarius of Arles (Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrine, p.
182). It is interesting that in these debates Gregory did
not deal with the shared "essence" (homoousios) within the
Godhead, a factor that had been crucial in the fourth cen-
tury christological debates as well as in the sixth-century
synod of Braga (cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the
Catholic Tradition [100-6921 [Chicago and London: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1971], pp. 181-182). His argument
solely focuses upon the abstract qualitative attributes of
the Trinity. For a thorough-going discussion of the nature
and implications of Arianism and its scheme of redemption,
see Rogert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism. A
View of Salvation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981). For
the changes that had occurred in Arianism by the sixth
century, see Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrines, pp. 13-15.
Dorenkemper dealt extensively with the emphasis on the at-
tributes of the Trinity in both the guicumque, or Athanasian
Creed, and the trinitarian writings of Caesarius of Arles
(see especially, the chapter entitled, "The Consubstantial-
ity and Sequels,” pp. 13-82).

 

87

Sabellianism,58 wanted to make too little. The logic behind
this was that he felt it would be unseemly to "speak of a Per-
son in the case of God, as if he were a man of flesh and
blood. He [Chilperic] affirmed that the Father was the same
as the Son, and that the Ho1y Ghost was the same as the Fa-
ther and the Son."59 Although Gregory had outlined in his
debate with Agilan that the Trinity was unified by means of
shared attributes, he clarified here that the three had also
each assumed different roles vis-a-vis humanity and for that
reason could not be blended into a single entity. What he
was attempting to illuminate was that the motivation of Chil-
peric's idea, which exposed its ultimate similarity to Agil-
an's, was his reliance upon material definitions. Although
he endeavored to escape the materialism of seeing the Godhead
as persons, the king ironically attempted to construe divine
unity in terms of physical oneness. In response, Gregory em-
phasized that to understand God one must simply be able to
move beyond the basic restrictions of materialism because

whichever way a material or physical explanation of the

 

58Cf. Pelikan, Emergence of the Catholic Tradi-
tion. PP. 178-179. So also Wallace-Hadrill, Long-Haired
*
Kings, p. 58.

 

59Hist., v. 44: "Per idem tempus Chilpericus rex
o o T—fi' . . o

scripsit indicolum, ut sancta Trinitas non in personarum
distinctione, sed tantam Deus nominaretur, adserens indignum
esse, ut Deus persona sicut homo carneus nominetur: adfir-
mans etiam, ipsum esse Patrem, qui est Filius, idemque ipsum
esse Spiritum sanctum, qui Pater et Filius." Caesarius of
Arles had been concerned to clarify that the "Trinitatem
(facit) proprietas personarum" (cited in Dorenkemper, Trini-
tarian Doctrine, p. 83).

88

Godhead might be articulated, it would be plainly inadequate.
Although Gregory himself was somewhat hard-pressed to find
words and images to describe the Trinity,60 the thing of
which he was absolutely certain was that, “'What you say
about the Persons must be interpreted spiritually, not physi-
cally. In these three Persons there is thus one glory, one
eternity and one omnipotence.”61
In practical terms--and I believe that he had very
practical intentions when he included these debates in Book
V--Gregory stated that the spiritual must always be given
precedence over the material. The infinite potential of the
spiritual must never be restricted by the limitations of the
material. As with the moon and the sun, the material can
only achieve its value or true substance because of the ener-
gy it receives from the attributes of the spirit. This un-
derstanding of the superiority of the spiritual over the ma-
terial aids not merely the human comprehension of the Trin-
ity, but has a direct impact as well upon the individual
Christian's relationship with material goods. Wealth, for

instance, would become the means for the great dispensing of

the divine qualities of charity and justice were its use

 

6oGregory did not, for instance, follow the organ-
izational structure of the Quicumque in his trinitarian ex-
planation as Dorenkemper has demonstrated that Saint Cae-
sarius did (Trinitarian Doctrine, especially pp. 13-82).

 

61Hist., v. 44: "'De personis vero quod ais non
corporaliter, sed spiritaliter sentiendum est. In his ergo
tribus personis una gloria, una aeternitas, una potestas'."

89

motivated by the spirit. Separated from the spiritual, it
would inspire nothing but the implementation of evil, in es-
sence, of idolatry. It was this idea which underlay the ex-
planation attributed to Fredegund as to why her sons were dy-
ing.

The 'gods' of the Franks were the goods and property
of others. They were willing to wage destructive wars to ac-
quire them and were, most of the time, unaffected by the
tears, laments, and sighs of their victims. What they really
acquired by so doing was discord and the threatened loss of
eternal life. Their obsession with materialism could even
lead them theologically to hold positions dangerously close

to those of the worst heretics.62

Concentrating on the
physical definitions of God they could miss the whole point
of the divine character. They could fail to see that the
three personalities, each of which manifested itself to man

in unique ways, were one because of their singleness of

 

62Orosius had defined Arianism as polytheism (Hist.
ad. pag., vii. 28-29; of. above, p. 45). Ironically, the
whole doctrine of the Trinity may initially have been attrac-
tive to the polytheistic Hellenistic world because of its
very pluralism (William R. Schoedel, "A Neglected Motive for
Second-Century Trinitarianism,” Journal of Theological Stu-
dies, n.s. 31 [1980], 356-367. Mark Dorenkemper (Trinitarian
Doctrine, p. 31) has noted that, "The possibility for the bar-
barians to understand the Christian doctrine in a polytheis-
tic sense was greater now [fifth and sixth centuries] that the
Church had to defend the perfect divinity of all three Persons
against the Arians.‘ Dorenkemper commented also that, "A fre—
quent ad hominum argument employed by the Archbishop [Caesari-
us of Arles] is the accusation of the Arians having fallen
back into paganism in their rejection of the unity of the di-
vine substance' (ibid.); cf. also, p. 131.

 

90

purpose and their unity of will. The Godhead was not, as the
materialistic Chilperic suggested, one person, but was rather
'one rule, one majesty, one power, and one omnipotence.“ In
the preface to Book V Gregory had warned that continued civil
war would merit the Franks takeover by foreign enemies. This
was what had happened to the Hebrews whenever they rejected
the law of God, ignored the prophets, and took up idolatry.
In Gregory's understanding, Frankish materialism, such as
causing wars and grasping after goods, was as much the break-
ing of God's commandments as worshipping literal idols,
rebelling against authority, or refusing to be an exemplary
king. In fact, it was no different from pursuing actual

heresy of belief.63

And there was no question but that,
like_the idolatry with which it had similarity, the pursuit
of heresy was a defiance of the law.

If discord, greed, and materialism were heresies in

company with Arianism, and could be equated with idolatry,

 

63The mortal illness of Chilperic's and Fredegund's
sons which inspired Fredegund's speech against materialism is
set in an interesting context in Hist., v. 34, where civil
war and an epidemic of dysentery are tightly juxtaposed,
events which had been preceded by prodigies. Gregory could
well have been enhancing his argument that war and material-
ism are, in essence, heretical by connecting them closely
with a killing disease. R. I. Moore has pointed out that in
the twelfth century, ”The language of disease . . . was used
to describe the nature of heresy itself" (”Heresy as Dis-
ease,” in The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages, ed. by W.
Lourdaux and D. Verhelst [Leuven: University Press, 1976],
p. 10). Would it be too far-fetched to wonder if Gregory's
use of dysentery in this instance is in any way allusively
connected to the tradition that Arius died in the privy,
spilling out his entrails? Cf. above, p. 69 n. 26.

91

their opposites--harmony, charity, and spirituality--must be
orthodoxy. In that case, the key to what orthodox belief
truly entails should lie within the Godhead itself. Greg-
ory's description of the Trinity is couched in political
terms, a fact which would seem to strengthen the connection
between his anxiety over political materialism and his con-
cern for theological accuracy. The three members of the God-
head have “'one will, one power, one action, . . . one rule,
one majesty, . . . one glory, one eternity and one omnipo-

tence.”64

They are "one God in Trinity and three persons
in unity.” Should not the Trinity, therefore, serve as the
example for the orthodox believers? Should not they be able
to put aside their quarrels and their lust for treasure and
live in the kind of harmonious community that would show them
to be truly in the image of God? Fraternal kings following
this example would surely benefit as regards power, action,
rule, majesty, glory, and, eventually, eternity should they
be able to share peaceably together the patrimony of Clovis.
The example of orthodox rule that Gregory held before
these Frankish kings was their eastern contemporary Tiberius
who was at first Byzantine Caesar under the insane Justin and
then emperor in his own right. Tiberius understood the re-
1ation of the ruler to his subjects and recognized, as did
hardly any of the Franks, that power and wealth should be

used for the betterment of the realm. Gregory described him

 

54Hist., v. 43, 44.

92

as “a capable man, energetic and wise as well as generous, a
fine defender of the unfortunate . . . [He] was a great
Christian and a faithful one: as long as he continued to
take pleasure in distributing alms to the poor our Lord went
on providing him with more and more to give.”65‘ God did

not merely give Tiberius more wealth so that he could be more
generous: in addition, he also gave the emperor political
confidence and wisdom. Whereas Chilperic bullied the citi-
zens of Limoges into paying exorbitant taxes and then quelled
their riot of protest with cruelty and executions, Tiberius
was able to foil a conspiracy against him by going to pray at
holy shrines prior to his coronation rather than parading
himself before the crowds at the hippodrome as was the cus-
tom. He was later able even to make peace with the conspira-
tors. Like no political leader of Gregory's personal acquain-
tance, Tiberius was able to confound his enemies because he
had placed his hope in God.66

As far as the Franks were concerned, they seemed to

 

65Hist., v. 19 (Latouche and Thorpe): “. . .
strinum atque sapientem, aelymosinarium inopumque optimum
defensorum. . . . Et quia, ut diximus, magnus et verus
christianus erat, dum hilare distributione pauperibus opem
praestat, magis ac magis ei Dominus subministrat." Note that
this chapter praising Tiberius immediately follows that about
Praetextatus' trial when Gregory had to remind Chilperic with
great force of argument about his obligations as a Christian
king (of. below). In iv. 40 Gregory also praised Tiberius
for his justice, charity, military success, and, above, all,
Christianity.

65Hist., v. 28, 3o : ". . . nihil homini, qui in
Deo spem posuerat, adversare valentes (v. 30)." For Tiber-
ius' eulogy, see Hist., vi. 30.

93

remember God and the qualities of good chiefly when their own
natural attributes of evil had gotten them into difficul-
ties. While Tiberius could be unafraid of political machina-
tions and could react to them with a spirit of amnesty be-
cause he practiced kindly but firm Christianity as an essen-
tial part of his rule, the Franks, who kept forgetting their
charitable and ethical obligations, degenerated into skepti-
cal and untrustworthy antagonists as plots thickened around
them. In fact, the only other rulers whom Gregory did praise
in a manner somewhat similar to the way he praised Tiberius
were King Solomon from the Old Testament who preferred wisdom
to riches: Queen Clothild, Clovis' wife who was more God's
handmaiden than she was royalty: and Theudebert who had died
twenty years before the events of Book V. Although he was
far from impeccable in terms of his active participation
in the family disorders and civil wars, Theudebert was a
king who generally showed justice and charity toward his
realm,67 and Gregory believed him to have been

a great king, distinguished by every virtue. He

ruled his kingdom justly, respected his bishops, was

liberal to the churches, relieved the wants of the

poor and distributed many benefits with piety and

friendly goodwill. With great generosity he remitted

to the churches in Clermont-Ferrand all the tribute
which they used to pay to the royal treasury.68

 

67Hist., iii. 28, 31; 24-25, 34. He had, however,
two feisty ministers and appointed a greedy and hated tax
collector who was killed by a mob after his death (iii.
33, 36). For Solomon, Hist., i. 13: Clothild, Hist., iii.
18. ‘—-—'

6§§i55., iii. 25: "At ille in regno firmatus, magnum

94

Gregory had warned his own contemporaries in the preface to
Book V of the possibility of foreign invaders, but he appears
not to have anticipated so complicated a scenario. The
Franks had no Solomons, Clothilds, Tiberiuses, or Theudeberts
living among them and they did have all the attributes neces-
sary to destroy themselves. With guidance and repentance,
however, they should nonetheless be able to continue estab-
lishing the good society. The prime requisite was that bish-
ops and kings cooperate to guarantee that the Christian com-
munity would live in accordance with God's law by renouncing
the idolatry of materialism and would exercise the kind of
proper authority that would maintain the lawfulness of that,
society. Were those goals achieved, the redemptive society
on earth would foreshadow the final redemption of the saints
in heaven.

By means of the examples provided by the heretic King
Gundobad and the orthodox Clovis, Gregory had demonstrated in
Book II what the working relationship between bishops and
kings should be. Bishops were to warn kings of their errors
and to inspire them to the practice of true Christianity.

Several times throughout the rest of the Historiae Gregory

 

made obvious that the bishops of Tours were particularly bold

 

se atque in omni bonitate praecipuum reddidit. Erat enim reg-
num cum iustitia regens, sacerdotes venerans, eclesias mun-
erans, pauperes relevans et multa multis beneficia pia ac dul-
cissima accomodans voluntate. Omne tributo, quod in fisco suo
ab eclesiis in Arvernum sitis reddebebatur, clementer indul-
sit.”

95

and definite in implementing this responsibility. At the be-
ginning of Book IV Gregory recorded an attempt Clovis' son
Lothar had made to tax the churches under his rule for one—
third of their incomes. The king would have succeeded in his
efforts but for the stand taken by Injuriosus, bishop of
Tours. Using an argument which Gregory had employed with re-
gard to the Hebrews in Book I, Injuriosus informed the king
that if he were to take the property of God, God would see
that he quickly lost his kingdom. Lack of respect for spiri-
tual authority and rights would result in political punish-
ment. The bishop continued to tell the king that he should
feed the poor from his own supplies, not rob them of that
which others had given. The place of a king was to provide,
not to steal. To do otherwise would be a serious misappro-

priation of royal authority.69

Injuriosus, with the help

of Saint Martin, convinced Lothar to rescind his order, but
the point of this chapter was directed not just at kings.
Injuriosus' remarks were as damning of his fellow bishops as
they were of Lothar. Although the other bishOps had suffered
extreme discomfiture because of the king's intentions, none
had had the courage to state or explain his convictions.

Saint Martin's successor served as a salutary force to remind

both church and state of their responsibilities toward one

 

69Hist., iv. 2: ”'Si volueris res Dei tollere, Do-
minus regnum tuum velociter aufret, quia iniquum est, ut pau-
peres, quos tuo debes alere horreo, ab eorum stipe tua horrea
repleantur'."

96

another. The two were to have a mutually supportive rela-
tionship. The state was not to act with arrogance or greed
toward the church, and the church was to counsel the state as
to the results of its intended actions. For the majority of
the bishOps to have acquiesced to the king in this instance'
was as much a failure of their authority as Lothar's scheme
to tax the churches was a travesty of his.

In the course of his own career Gregory had the op-
portunity to make much the same speech to both his episcopal
colleagues and King Chilperic. The setting was the treason
trial of Bishop Praetextatus of Rouen. Praetextatus had be-
come involved with Chilperic's independent son Merovech and
his wife Brunhild, the widow of his uncle Sigibert. Chil-
peric considered that the bishop had thus aided the enemy
and, as a result, subjected him unfairly to trial. Although
the bishop of Rouen in the end was tricked into confessing
complicity with Merovech, the evidence Chilperic used to pro-
secute him and justify his banishment from his see was nei-
ther just nor convincing. After the king left the chamber so
as to allow the bishops to confer together regarding the
judgment on their unfortunate peer, Aetius, the archdeacon of
Paris, was unable to stir his colleagues to action when he
urged that the verdict be made only in accordance with right
rather than the king's pleasure. Gregory alone took up the
challenge, expressing orally many of the-same points he made

in written form in the Historiae. His message to his fellow

97

churchmen was that they should not fail in their responsibil-
ities to Chilperic. ”'Ybu must not be silent,'" he warned.
"'You must speak out and parade his sins before the King's
eyes, lest some calamity should occur, in which case you will

be responsible for his soul.""70

The historian in life as
on paper, he then cited the example of Chlodomer's fate for
his mistreatment of Sigismund71 as well as the judgment
that hounded the emperor Maximus for his ill-use of Saint
Martin. Although he did not, he could have included the
positive example of how his own predecessor Injuriosus had
succeeded in convincing Lothar not to sin against the

church.72

Gregory's words were quickly reported to the king and
he was summoned to explain himself. ”Afraid that the verdict
might go against him, Chilperic accused Gregory of being un-
just toward the king because he had reminded the bishops of
their duty, and threatened to hire agitators in Tours to
shout that if a king could not receive justice from the bish-
op what could mere commoners expect. Gregory was unconcern-
ed and responded that Chilperic would be the one discredited
by such an act, not he. He then informed the king: "'What

more can be said? You have the law and the canons. You must

 

7oHist., v. 18: "'Ergo nolite silere, sed praedi-
cate et ponite ante oculos regis peccata eius, ne forte ei
aliquid mali contingat et vos rei sitis pro anima eius'."

 

71C£. Hist., iii. 6.

72Hist., iv. 2. Cf. above, p. 95 n. 69.

98

study them diligently. If you do not carry out what they
say, you will be menaced by the judgement of God.”73 In
one Latin sentence, Gregory stated an important practical

concern characteristic of the Historiae at large. Operating

 

within the context of the church counselling the state, he
reminded Chilperic of the law, his authority to enforce it,
and the judgment which would come to him should he fail in
his obligation. When Chilperic tried to placate him with
food, Gregory told him that nourishment must come from do-
ing God's will: the material must not be allowed, even
symbolically, to assume greater importance than the spirit-
ual and the ethical. Once Chilperic had sworn to uphold
the law, Gregory felt free to share the king's bread and
wine.74

The keeping of the law and the canons did not, how-
ever, only involve kings' treatment of bishops. The effects
of orthodox authority had to be felt throughout society. The

reason this should be done was again the Trinity. Gregory's

 

73Hist., v. 18 (Latouche and Thorpe): "'Sed quid
plura? Habes legem et canones, haec te diligenter rimari
oportet, et tunc quae praeciperint si non observaberis, nov-
eris, tibi Dei iudicium imminere’."

 

74Hist., v. 18: "'Noster cibus esse debet facere
voluntatem Dei et non in his diliciis dilectare, ut ea quae
praecipit nullo casu praetermittamus. Tu vero, qui alios de
iustitia culpas pollicire prius, quod legem et canones non
omittas: et tunc credimus, quod iustitiam prosequaris'. Ille
vero, porrectam dexteram, iuravit per omnipotenti Deo, quod
ea quae lex et canones edocebant nullu praetermitteret
pactu. Post haec, accepto pane, hausto etiam vino, disces-
si."

99

arguments in Book V with Agilan and Chilperic75 had concen-

trated on the inadequacies of considering the Trinity as hav-
ing a too materially comprehensible nature. In contrast, he
pointed out in Book VI to the Jew Priscus that an overly
spiritualized view of God could be erroneous as well. Were
one to reject the existence of Christ and his assumption of
human nature, one could ignore the possibility of a restored
’relationship between God and sinful humanity.76 The human-
ity of Christ brought to mankind the possibility of restora-
tion and rehabilitation to its full potential. Because
Christ had become man, "'[wJe were reborn by His baptism,
cured by His wound, raised up by His resurrection, glorified
by His ascension. . . . [T]here was every need for Him to

'“77 Christ had reconciled

come to heal our infirmities.
humanity with God. Were his people truly to accept that re-
demption, they would be reconciled with their fellows as well
and all the wounds festering within their communities could
be healed.

Because of his enthusiastic participation in the cult

of saints, especially of Saint Martin, Gregory spent his

 

76Gregory had alluded to this in his debate with
Chilperic (v. 44) in favor of distinctions of persons in the
Godhead. His thrust there, however, was to argue against
overly materialistic interpretations of the nature of God.
Cf. vi. 40, for a similar debate, only with an Arian.

77Hist., vi. 5: "'Cuius nos nativitati renati,
(baptismo abluti, vulnere curati, resurrectione erecti, as-
censione glorificati sumus. .Quod autem morbis nostris med-
ere venturus erat, propheta tuus ait: Livore eius sanati
sumus'."

 

100

episcopal career actively involved in the literal healing of
wounds. He was himself troubled with frequent illness, or

fear of it, and relied often upon the cures of saints.78
When he chose to offer his most favorable extended descrip-
tion of his contemporary King Guntram, it was to say that,

like saints and bishops, he was considered by the people to
have powers of miraculous healing.79 Although in his sev-

eral works Gregory wrote much about the physical cures

wrought by saints, many of the interventions of these figures

 

78Cf. Peter Brown, Relics and Social Status, pp.
6-7, 16.

79Hist., ix. 21: "Ipse autem rex, ut saepe dixi-
mus, in elymosinis magnus, in vigiliis atque ieiuniis prump-
tus erat. Nam tunc ferebatur, Masiliam a luae inguinaria
valde vastare et hunc morbum usque ad Lugdunensim vicum Oc-
tavum nomine fuisse caeleriter propalatum. Sed rex acsi bo-
nus sacerdus providens remedia, qua cicatrices peccatoris
vulgi mederentur, iussit omnem populum ad eclesiam convenire
et rogationes summa cum devotione celebrare et nihil aliud in
usu vescendi nisi panem ordeacium cum aqua munda adsumi,
vigiliisque adesse instanter omnes iobet. Quod eo tempore
ita gestum est. Per triduum enim ipsius elimosinis largius
solito praecurrentibus, ita de cuncto populo formidabat, ut
iam tunc non rex tantum, sed etiam sacerdus Domini putar-
etur, totam spem suam in Domini miseratione transfundens et
in ipso iactans cogitationes, quae ei superveniebant, a quo
eas effectui tradi tota fidei integritate putabat."

This is a particularly ironic passage, because in the
next chapter Gregory described the actions of Bishop Theo-
dore of Marseilles in that same epidemic. The real bishop,
whom the king had done much to humiliate (cf. below, p. 158),
and the king, who was acting like a bishop, carried on at
that time in similar fashion. “Episcopus tamen urbis acces-
sit ad locum et se infra basilicae sancti Victoris saepta
continuit cum paucis, qui tunc cum ipso remanserant, ibique
per totam urbis stragem orationibus ac vigiliis vacans, Do-
mini misericordiam exorabat, ut tandem cessante interitu
populo liceret in pace quiescere" (ix. 22). I suspect that
ix. 21 actually tells more about bishOps than it does about
the king. That chapter is the first of a sequence of four
bishop narratives (ix. 21-24).

101

in the Historiae are notably different. Saint Martin, who in
many ways was almost Gregory's alter ego, provides the most
important example.80
Jean Leclercq, in his article on Saint Martin and med-
ieval monastic hagiography, commented that, until the time of
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century, Saint Mar-
tin had been viewed almost exclusively as a thaumaturge.
This, he noted, was particularly so in the sixth century, the
time of Gregory of Tours. Saint Bernard, in contrast, stress-
ed the imitable in Martin's life, "the gentleness, the thirst
for justice, the mercy, the purity of heart."81 A survey
of the miracles or interventions of Saint Martin which appear
in the Historiae, however, indicates that even Gregory of
Tours was vitally concerned with Martin's imitableness, parti-
cularly with his “thirst for justice." Gregory expressed this
pointedly in the context of one of the surprisingly few heal-

ing miracles of the saint which appear in the Historiae.

 

Gregory recounted the story of the Archdeacon of Bourges'

cure for cataracts. Although Saint Martin had restored his

 

80See Sara Hansell MacGonagle, The Poor in Gregory
g£_Tours. A_Study of the Attitude of Merovingian Sociepy
Towards the Poor, as Reflected in Ehe Literature of the Time
(New York: Columbia University, 1936), pp. 66-94. Her sur-
vey of the effects of Saint Martin on Merovingian society and
the poor covers especially Gregory's De Virtutibus Sancti
Martini, although she drew also from the Historiae.

 

 

 

81"S. Martin dans l'hagiographie monastique du moyen
age,“ in Saint Martin et son temps, p. 185: translated quote,
p. 187. Saint Caesarius of Arles recommended the imitation
of Christ's character, not of his healing miracles (cf. Henry
G. J. Beck, Pastoral Care of Souls, p. 276).

102

sight, Leunast consulted a Jewish physician upon his return
home from Tours. He became blind again as a result and not
even a second pilgrimage to Martin's shrine healed his eyes.
Located as this account is in the anti-materialistic Book V,
it is not surprising that Gregory interpreted this particular
episode as teaching that earthly cures, such as that of the
Jew, have no place competing with spiritual healing. How-
ever, he prefaced this miracle story with words that explain
a belief in Saint Martin's broader concerns. "Saint Martin's
power,” he stated, ”is shown just as much by the punishment
meted out to fools as it is by the grace accorded to those
who have been cured."82
Without doubt, Saint Martin did not suffer fools glad-
ly. Cato, a priest who wanted so much to be bishop of Cler-
mont that he insulted Saint Martin by refusing to accept the
see of Tours, never got to be a bishop anywhere.83 Death
came to those who sought to violate the sanctuary of Saint
Martin's church in pursuit of their prey.84 The saint, in
contrast, pursued with vigor and good results those who stole

goods from his property:85 struck deaf, dumb, and insane a

 

82Hist., v. 6: "Hic tantum, quid neglegentibus ev-
enerit, qui post virtutem caelestem terrena medicamenta quae-
sierunt, exsolvam, quia, sicut per gratiam sanitatum, ita et
in castigationem stultorum virtus eius ostenditur."

83Hist., iv. 11.

84Hist., iv. 18: v. 1, 4.

85§125.. iv. 48: vi. 10: vii. 21.

103

man who materialistically accused him and Saint Martialis of
having emptied the royal treasury:86 and caught perjurers
who stupidly attempted to clear themselves by means of his

87

relics. Ambition, violation and theft of church proper-

ty, misunderstanding of the importance of almsgiving, and
dishonesty were simply not tolerated by Gregory's Saint
Martin and he acted in some of these cases as sheriff and
judge in bringing criminals to punishment.

Martin's reactions to disregard for ecclesiastical
sanctuary and the inspiration he provided involved a much
greater ethic than the simple detection of lawbreakers. They
involved justice, mercy, and human decency. In one of these
cases, a pursuer of Austrapius attempted to starve him out of
sanctuary in Saint Martin's church and merited immediate ill-
ness and death. Gregory remarked that, ”After this miracle
everyone hastened to provide Austrapius with the necessities
of life."88 In another case, Gregory himself plead with
King Guntram for the lives of two supporters of the disrup-
tive pretender Gundovald who had also sought sanctuary in
Saint Martin's church. When the king proved unaffected by
his efforts, Gregory said that his master had sent him with

this message, and that his master was Saint Martin. The men

 

86Hist., iv. 16.
87Hist., viii. l6.

88Hist., iv. 18: ”Post istud miraculum omnes ei
opolentissime quae erant necessaria detulerunt."

 

104

were restored to the king's favor.89 Even thieves benefit-
ted from Martin's mercy. A group of men who had burgled his
church later quarrelled over the loot and one of them was
killed. Having thus been discovered, they were ordered to ap-
pear bound before King Chilperic. Gregory, fearing that they
would be executed, followed the example of Saint Martin "who
while he was on earth had so often begged for the life of

condemned criminals” and won them pardon.90 When Gregory

 

89Hist., viii. 6. This case is especially noteworthy
because it involves not just mercy and forgiveness but politi-
cal and financial reinstatement to the king's favor as well.
Referring to this episode, F. L. Ganshof (”La 'gratia' des
monarques francs," Anuario de estudios medievales, 3 [1966],
18) stated that, "11 fallait jouir de la gratia pour avoir
accés a des charges publiques: si on l'avait perdue, la
récuperer était la condition nécessaire pour obtenir a nou-
veau ces charges ou pour en recevoir d'autres. L'octroi ou
la concession nouvelle de la bienveillance royale, s'accom-
pagnait d'autres faveurs. Nous pouvons imaginer que celles-
ci consistaient en donations fonciéres ou en presents mobi-
liers puisés dans le trésor royal. Perdre la gratia entrain-
ait des destitutions et des confiscations." Ganshof sug-
gests further (p. 23) that the royal ratia had its origins
in the Christian religion, as an earthly mirroring of the
gratia of God. "Mais il est une constatation bien plus im-
portante: que la gratia royale, bienveillance gratuite,
condition nécessaire de tout don, de l'octroi de tout droit
ou de tout privilege, est parfaitement paralléle a la gratia
de Dieu, bienveillance gratuite, et seule source du salut:
que les agents et les sujets du roi n'ont aucun titre a
recevoir ses dons, pas plus que les hommes en general n'ont
de droit au salut ou aux autres dons de Dieu." It is, there-
fore, not surprising to witness Saint Martin and Gregory of
Tours, as representatives of God, interceding in this case in
order to inspire a restoration of the royal gratia.

90Hist., vi. 10: "Tunc ego metuens, ne ob illius
causam homines morerentur, qui vivens in corpore pro perdit-
orum vita saepius deprecatus est, epistolam regi precationis
transmisi, ne, nostris non accusantibus, ad quos persecutio
pertinebat, hi interficerentur. Quod ille benigne suscip-
iens, vitae restituit." At Praetextatus' trial (v. 18),
Gregory referred to Saint Martin's efforts to convince the

105

himself was on trial for alleged slander against Queen Frede-
gund, Saint Martin released from prison the carpenter who
bravely defended him.91
Saint Martin was influential in providing justice and
mercy not only for individuals. He could intervene to pro-
tect entire kingdoms and localities. Often this was accom-
plished ironically by the gentle saint because of the fear of
retaliation he could arouse in the guilty. The armies of
Clovis were kept from unjustly foraging in the countryside of
Tours lest Saint Martin be offended prior to an important bat-

tle.92

The saint responded favorably to prayers offered by
Clovis' widow Clothild that warfare cease among her sons.93

He was also believed to have been instrumental in bringing
about the pacification of the Rhinelanders, Sigibert's fierce
allies in civil war, and in helping them to decide to return
home.94 When a representative of the Count of Bourges at-
tempted to fine Saint Martin's monks for their failure to pro-
vide military service, he lost all his strength and was cured
by the saint only upon his repentance. Martin, in company

with Saint Hilary and the martyr Polyeuctes, was a "guarantor"

that none of the kings with whom Gregory was contemporary

 

emperor Maximus to spare the lives of men condemned to death.
91§i_s£., v. 49.
92M” ii. 37.
93E” iii. 28.

94Hist., iv. 49.

106

would enter Paris without the permission of the others.95

Martin was not, however, just the patron of peace and justice.
He was also a manipulator of governmental fiscal policy, for
he was effective in the quelling of kings' urges to tax.
Lothar, Charibert, Sigibert, and Childebert II all refrained
from taxing ”out of respect for Saint Martin."96
This saint, who was well-known for his power to cure
people, appears in the Historiae as a healer of another sort.
He was actively involved in the creation and maintenance of
an orderly, law-abiding, just, and merciful society. The
wounds he ministered to in the Historiae were those of the
community. In describing Martin's career, Gregory stated
that, ”By his many miracles he overcame the disbelief of the
Gentiles and made it clear to the people that Christ, the Son

97

of God, is Himself the true God." The Saint Martin of

the Historiae constantly pointed to Christ the redeemer who

had come to earth "'to heal our infirmities.”98

Gregory
intended to demonstrate that orthodox Christian society
should receive its ultimate inspiration and definition from

the attributes of the Trinity. He emphasized that especially

 

95Hist., vii. 6.
96Hist., iv. 1: ix. 30.

97Hist., i. 39: "Tunc iam et lumen nostrum exori-
tur, novisque lampadum radiis Gallia perlustratur, hoc est eo
tempore beatissimus Martinus in Gallias praedicare exorsus
est, qui Christum, Dei filium, per multa miracula verum Deum
in populis declarans, gentilium incredulitatem avertit."

93§125.. Vi. 5: cf. above, p. 99.

107

in the Historiae by means of his accounts there of the

 

miracles of Saint Martin. Both the Trinity and its great
Gallic defender declared that orthodoxy of belief demanded
actions that would result in respect for the rights and goods
of others, as well as generosity, peace, harmony, mercy, re-
demption, and justice to the community at large.

As can be seen in some of the interventions of Saint
Martin in human affairs, the healing of communal wounds could
involve the maintenance of the seemingly secular machinery of
government and justice. Gregory balanced these miracle
stories with accounts of historical events which proved simi-
lar points. Not only did treaties such as the Treaty of An-
delot, which in 587 established harmony between Guntram and
his nephew Childebert 11,99 illustrate healing of this
sort, but even a classic Germanic bloodfeud provided an un-
likely demonstration of orderliness.

This particular conflict centered on Sichar and the
family of Chamnesind, a man who later became both his friend
and his killer.loo An important aspect of this feud is
that throughout the conflict the forces of law and justice,

one of whose representatives was Gregory himself, were

continually interjected in attempts to end the dispute.

 

99Hist., ix. 20.

looCf. Erich Auerbach's rhetorical and linguistic
analysis of this episode and Gregory's work in general in
Mimesis. The Representation offiReality in Western Litera-
ture, tr. by Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
81'. ty Press, 1953), pp. 77-95.

108

Interestingly enough, however, it was the compensation
charged by the law which fueled the second phase of the
feud. For a while, though, it looked as if peace had been
achieved. Then Sichar made the mistake of telling Chramne-
sind how fortunate he should feel that the conflict had oc-
curred. He apparently drunkenly boasted that Chramnesind was
now financially comfortable because of the fine he had been
charged for having killed Chamnesind's relatives. That was
too much for Chramnesind to take, and he decided that he must
avenge his relatives' deaths by killing Sichar on the spot.
In the end, he was able to clear himself of this deed before
King Childebert because he was successful in proving "that he
had taken life in order to avenge an affront."101 One
could not say that the machinery of the law worked smoothly
in this case, but at least all concerned bowed to its author-
ity on numerous occasions throughout the dispute.102
A case in which the powers of law and authority
were more successful was that regarding the revolt of

nuns at Saint Radegund's foundation of the Holy Cross in

Poitiers.103 Again, Gregory was a participant in the

 

101Hist., vii. 47; ix. l9 : "Chramisindus vero it-
erum ad regem abiit, iudicatumque est ei, ut convinceret su-
per se eum interfecisse. Quod ita fecit" (ix. 19).

102The legality of this case benefits greatly by com-
parison with a similar feud "settled" by Fredegund by invit-
ing the combatants to dinner and stationing axe-men behind
their seats to execute them (Hist., x. 27).

103Hist., ix. 39-43; x. 15-17, 20, 22.

109

settlement. The account of this revolt is a particularly
important part of the Historiae because Saint Radegund's and
her nuns, bishops, and kings serve to portray the Frankish
world in miniature. In that world were several levels of au-
thority, all of which should function responsibly so as to
guarantee the maintenance of order. The authority of par-
ents, represented by the abbess, should never be challeng-

ed.104

Bishops and nobles must keep the peace within their
immediate spheres of influence because, should they fail,
disaster would likely become epidemic and thus involve many
more people than those immediately concerned with the issue.
The ultimate responsibility for peace in society lay with the
kings who, first and foremost, had to work together. Once
there was a union of royal purpose, they, in accordance with
the advice of the bishops, could exercise their power to
implement the machinery of justice and order. Law must be
the basis of every action. The revolt was begun by nuns who
broke the monastic rule: it was settled by kings and bishops
who based their decision on acknowledged law and on Christian
decency and charity. When authorities suffer disrespect--or
fail to accept their responsibilities--and when the laws are
broken, chaos and disorder are the consequences. When au-

thorities seek to interpret and uphold the law with clemency,

peace and harmony can be restored. That this episode was

 

104Two stories of mother-daughter disputes precede
the account of the convent revolt: (Hist., ix. 33-34: cf. ix.
38).

110

significant for.Gregory can be seen in the fact that it is

the only one thoroughly documented in the Historiae. His ac-

 

count includes four entire primary documents which indicate
not only the situation regarding the revolt and its settle-
ment but also establish the context in which the monastery

was founded.105

The rebellion at Saint Radegund's erupted when two
royal cousins, Clothild and Basina, the daughters of Chari-
bert and Chilperic, tried to oust their abbess and fled the
convent with some forty other nuns seeking redress from King
Guntram for wrongs allegedly done to them. The case was a
delicate one because the convent's founder, Radegund, a wife
of King Lothar, was a woman associated by her contemporaries
with Saint Martin.106 It was also touchy because at the
root of the trouble probably lay the failure of the bishop of
Poitiers to assume his lawful and expected responsibility for
a foundation located within his diocese. Gregory, who became

an immediate party to the issue when the escaped nuns sought

asylum in Tours,107 was disturbed not only by the revolt

 

105The bishops' letter to Saint Radegund (Hist., ix.
39): the letter from Gundigesel, Bishop of Bordeaux, to the
bishops in council with Guntram, explaining the excommuni-
cation of the rebels (ix. 41): Radegund's letter to the
bishops about her intentions regarding the convent (ix. 42):
and the text of the judgment settling the revolt (x. 15).

106Hist., ix. 39. The comparison of Radegund with
Saint Martin was made in the letter to her from seven bishops.

107The prioress, who sided with the abbess, was
Gregory's niece, Justina, a fact not, however, specified in
the text (Hist., x. 15).

111

itself but also by the fact that the nuns were insisting on
ignoring proper channels and bypassing ecclesiastical au-
thorities in pursuit of a royal hearing. Because the ap-
propriate chain of command was not followed, much time
elapsed before the king could gather bishops to discuss the
dispute. During that period some nuns married and the rest
returned to Poitiers and established themselves in Saint
Hilary's church along with "a gang of burglars, murderers,

adulterers and criminals of all sorts.”108

Four bishops,
including Maroveus of Poitiers, went to Saint Hilary's hoping
to encourage the rebels to return to their convent. Meeting
with obstinacy, they passed a sentence of excommunication
upon them. This action prompted the nuns and their henchmen
to a bloody attack on the bishops, a storming of the monas-
tery, and a kidnapping of the abbess. Soon the entire town
was involved and the Easter celebrations, including the
baptisms of catechumens, were jeopardized.109 At that

point the kings Guntram and Childebert initiated an of-
ficial episcopal court "in an attempt to end the revolt by

u 110

canon law. Macco, the count of Poitiers, was given

royal orders to quell the riot with force and Clothild,

 

108Hist., ix. 40: “. . . congregatis secum furi-
bus, homicidis, adulteris omniumque criminum reis . . ."

109Hist., ix. 42: x. 15.

110Hist., x. 15: “Haec autem Childebertus rex aud-
iens, legationem ad Gunthramno regum direxit, ut scilicet
episcopi coniuncti de utroque regno, haec quae gerebantur
sanctione canonica emendarent."

112

the ringleader, was called to judgment.

Gregory included in the Historiae the document which

 

the bishops sent to Guntram and Childebert describing the
trial and advising on the sentence. It clearly outlines what
Gregory considered to be the proper working relationship be-
tween ecclesiastical and secular authorities and indicates as
well the principles upon which those authorities should base
their decisions. Since this was an ecclesiastical matter,
the bishops carried out the trial, but they did so at royal
command in the knowledge that their judgment would be af-
firmed by the kings and that Guntram and Childebert would be
responsible for the restitution of monastic property. The
judgment stated that, “with the agreement of Providence, re-
ligion rightly confides her judgements in the pious and Cath-
olic kings who had been set over the people and to whom sov-
ereign power has been granted:111 . . . the Church recog-
nizes that, with the help of the Holy Ghost, she is confirmed
and strengthened in her authority by the jurisdiction of

u 112

those in power. Having presented accounts of the test-

imony from both sides in the dispute, the bishops advised

 

llJ-Cf. the statement Gregory made with regard to the
revolt against Sidonius Apollinaris in Hist., ii. 23, that
legitimate power is "entrusted . . . either by God or by man."
Cf. above, p. 69 n. 26.

112Hist., x. 16 (Latouche and Thorpe): "Propitia
Divinitate, piis atque catholicis populo datis principibus,
quibus concessa est regio, rectissime sues causas patifecit
religio, intellegens, sacrosancto participante Spiritu, eorum
qui dominantur se sociari et constabiliri decreto."

113

that the abbess be fully reinstated and that the rebellious
nuns be continued as excommunicants until satisfactorily per-
forming penance. The document closes with a reiteration that
the bishops met at royal bidding and "with due respect for
the Church's authority and after having consulted the canons

. . . without respect for persons.“113

They also counsel-
led the kings that all property and grants should be restored
to the convent on the principle that a judgment based on the
Fathers and the canons would result in benefits for both
church and government.114 As to the two fomenters of the
revolt, at royal request both were eventually pardoned by the
church. Basina returned to Saint Radegund's and Clothild re-
mained in secular life.115

Gregory of Tours' concern throughout the Historiae was

 

to outline the components essential for the structuring of a
society that would be truly and thoroughly orthodox in its
adherence to and respect for the totality of God's law, and
that would demand of its citizens lifetimes of dedication to
Christian attributes and to the communal implementation of

them. Both the Trinity and the saints served as guides to a

 

ll3Hist., x. 16: ”Haec nos pro vestra iussione, quod
eclesiasticum pertenuit ordinem, circumspectis canonibus, abs-
que personarum aliqua acceptione suggerimus peregisse."

114Hist., x. 16: "[SJub catholicis regibus totum
adqueratur Deo, nihil perdat relegio: ut status conservatus
tam patrum quam canonum nobis proficiat ad cultum, vobis
propagetur ad fructum.“

115Hist., x. 20.

114

world without end of harmony, generosity, and justice. To
accept this offer, the Christian community must shun idolatry
in all its forms and respect those leaders whose power de-
rives from either God or man. Those authorities must always
act in accordance with the law and the canons-~enacting har-
mony, generosity, and justice--lest they "be menaced by the

"116

judgement of God. In earthly terms, the Last Judgment

was seen as providing the necessary discipline for the lives

Of ‘11 Christians. not just of society's rulers.117

Greg-
ory made this point emphatically in a debate he had with one
of his own priests who denied the validity of the resurrec-

tion of the body.118

The priest believed, as did the Sadducees, in the fi-
nality of death, and quoted Genesis 3:19 as proof that dust
is the essence of man's beginning and end. To counter him,
Gregory used numerous Old Testament texts to argue in favor
of the resurrection preliminary to invoking the most impor-
tant proof available to the Christian, namely, Christ's per-
sonal and salvific victory over death. The priest replied

that, while he accepted the truth and reality of Jesus'

 

116Gregory to Chilperic in Hist., v. 34: cf. above.
pp. 86-88.

117Benoit Lacroix, L'historien auimoyen age-(Mont-
réal: Institute d'Etudes Médiévales, 1971), pp. 97-98: "La
veritable obsession des historiens du moyen age, si nous
voulons absolument leur en trouver une, serait, a notre avis,
celle du jugement dernier et du sort reserve a chaque vie
humaine dans l'au-dela."

118Hist., x. 13.

115

experience, he failed to see what difference it would make
for the future of humanity. ~This was a challenge to the
whole theology of redemption, and the bishop's response was
an elaboration of his earlier arguments on the subject given

to his Jewish debater, Priscus:119

“'What need was there,
then,‘ I asked him, 'for the Son of God to come down from
heaven, to be incarnate, to suffer death and to descend into
Hell, if it were not that He would not permit man, whom He
had himself created, to be condemned to death eternal?”120
Rather than convincing the priest, however, this led him to
raise a whole series of questions about the physical and
spiritual changes which happen to the dead and to see these
as obstructions to resurrection. When he referred to the
statement in Psalm 146:4 to the effect that the dead suffer
the extinction of their thoughts as well as the decay of
their bodies, Gregory was given the opportunity to offer
another, this time ironic, warning against materialism:
"'When the breath has left a man's body and that body
lies dead, he will think no more of the things which
he has left behind On earth. As you imply, he no
longer thinks of building, planting, cultivating the

soil: he no longer thinks of amassing gold and silver,
or the riches of this world.121

 

119Hist., vi. 5; cf. above. p- 99.

120Hist., x. 13: "Ft ego: 'Et quae fuit necessitas
Filio Dei de caelo discendere, carnem adsumere, mortem adire,
inferna penetrare, nisi ut hominem, quem plasmaverat, non
permaneret in mortem perpetuam derelinqui?'"

121Hist., x. 13: "Ad haec ego: 'Bene ais, quia,
cum egressus fuerit ab homine spiritus et iacuerit corpus
mortuum, non cogitat de his quae in mundo relinquit, acsi

 

116

Gregory had suggested at length earlier that materialistic
concerns-sparticularly the "'amassing of gold and silver'"-—
often distracted people from their pursuit of the Christian

122

life. An inability to think of them in death would be a

blessing: He reminded the priest that, according to Saint
Paul,123 incomprehensible changes will occur within the in-
dividual as he moves from life to death to resurrection, and
it would only be expected that his thought processes would
undergo transformation as well. But how that happened was not
really important. Gregory considered that belief in the re-
surrection and the judgment which would follow it had so many
implications for the living of the Christian life, that the
priest's worries over difficult details were beclouding a cru-
cial point. There had to be a resurrection so that the judg-
ment could occur. "'If there is to be no resurrection, what
will it profit the just that he has done well, how will be
harm the sinner that he has done ill? If there is no Judge-
ment Day to come, all men can follow their own petty desires,

each of us can do exactly as he wishes.'"124

 

verbi causa dicas: Non cogitat aedificare, plantare, agrum
excolere: non cogitat congregare aurum, argentum vel reli-
quas divitias mundi'."

122Cf. Hist., v. praef., 34: and above. PP- 78'90-

12’3Hist., x. 13, quoting such texts as I Corinthians
15 3 51-520

 

124Hist., x. 13: "'Si enim resurrectio futura non
est, quid proderit iustis bene agere, quid nocebit peccatori-
bus male? Decedant ergo cuncti in voluptatibus suis, et faci-
at unusquisque quae placuerit, si iudicium futurum non erit'."

117

It was not the mere doing of good deeds that Gregory
had in mind here. He wrote ten books of histories in support
of two points. God's intention for the creatures made in his
image is that they live together in peaceful orthodoxy re-
flecting in their attitudes toward one another the divine
qualities of authority, unity, charity, and justice. Such is
the keeping of the law. His second point will be considered
in the next chapter, namely, that, left to their own devices,
sinful peOple are not likely to lead the kinds of lives they
should. That is the reality of history. The fact that
people will be called to account for themselves in the Last
Judgment is the kind of mundanely practical and humanly un-
derstandable control that might be successful in convincing
them to behave decently. To minds entrapped in materialism,

it offered a substantial and concrete reason125

for the re-
sponsibilities of being Christian. Taken out of context,
Gregory's belief in the necessity of the judgment might seem
like a cruel and harsh goad. He had, however, expended much
energy in the Historiae to elucidate the character of God and
to show, by means of finely honed theological and ethical ar-
guments, its significance and implications for the lives of

human beings. The truly orthodox Christian would not find

the Last Judgment to be a frightening rite of passage. To be

 

125Dorenkemper (Trinitarian Doctrine, p. 48) states:
"Arianism has been called, not without good reason, a form of
rationalism. Fundamentally the Arian broke from the orthodox
Trinitarian faith because of an unwarranted rationalization of
revealed truth."

118

truly orthodox meant that an individual would lead the kind
of godly life which would remove all apprehensions he might
otherwise have of the judgment and which would give him con-
fidence of his access to eternal redemption. Because the or-
thodox would themselves be redemptive, salvation and the good
society would inevitably be synonymous.

Gregory concluded not only this debate with the Sadduc-
cean priest but also the lengthy and complex exposition which
had occupied him for hundreds of pages by stating the central
issue of his message forthrightly and succinctly. He said
to his priest, "'Let the Apostle Paul give you your answer,
just as he did for other unbelievers: "And if Christ be not
risen, then is our teaching vain, and your faith is also

I. I "126

vain. What Gregory demonstrated in the Historiae had

 

been the social and political applications of the gospel to
the lives of Christians. The beliefs which gave meaning as
well as the goal to the religion and its daughter community

of faith was that Christ had already proven that life would
indeed conquer death at the resurrection, and that the believ-
er must anticipate and prepare for that event. If there was
to be no resurrection and subsequent judgment there would be
no ultimate point in creating and maintaining the just and

ethical society which is the exhibit of the attributes of

 

126Hist., x. 13: "'Respondeat ergo tibi Paulus
apostolus, sicut aliis incredulis, dicens: Si Christus non
resurrexit, inanis est praedicatio nostra, inanis est et
fides vestra'“ (I Corinthians 15:14).

 

119

Christianity, for Christianity itself would be meaning-

less.127

If there was to be neither resurrection nor judg-
ment, all Gregory's teachings about the gospel of healing and
redemption and its effects on society would have been in vain
as well, and so would his faith.

Gregory of Tours, however, suffered no such failure of
confidence. He trusted in the coming eternal vindication of
the righteous and he knew that on earth the machinery of
Christian society did, in fact, work to overpower the forces
of evil. The chapters following his discourse on the resur-
rection and the Last Judgment demonstrate this by means of ac-
counts of the juridical resolutions of the ecclesiastical
strife in the Saint Radegund's monastic revolt and of the
long-standing political crises and disruptions with which
Bishop Egidius of Rheims had been involved over the years as
a conspirator.128 Gregory also saw around him signs, at the
same time frightening and encouraging, pointing to the end of
time. There were plagues, famines, false Christs, heavenly

fire punishing sabbath-breakers, and deaths of saintly

miracle-workers.129 Gregory saw, however, both an eternal

 

127The modern notion that the creation of a humane
society, such as one founded on the Christian ethic, could be
a laudable end in itself, resurrection and judgment being
superfluous to its meaning, would most likely have been for-
eign and repugnant to Gregory. In the light of his arguments
in the Historiae, he would undoubtedly have considered such
an idea to be un-Christian.

128Hist., x. 15-17, 20, 22; 19. Cf. below, p. 167.

129Hist., x. 25, 30, 29; ix. 6. Gregory did not

120

future and an earthly one, and warned his episcopal succes-
sors that, at risk of jeopardizing their hopes for paradise,
they were to protect his books and keep them intact, neither
omitting nor amending anything he had included in them.130
Although he knew that the end of history loomed in the dis-
tance, he believed that there was still time to preach the
need to prepare for the judgment and to announce the joyous
news that Christian society, wherever it might be found,

could indeed be structured in the image of God. When that
would happen, the Lord would truly have built the house and
the labor of the builders would surely not have been in

vain.131

 

interpret the death of Abbot Aredius (x. 29) as the removal
of God's gracious spirit from the earth--he made a point of
mentioning the miracles that occurred after his death-~but

the context of the last chapters of Book X could imply at
least the possibility of such an idea.
13oHist., x. 31.

131Hist., 1. 15; of. above, p. 59 n. l.

Chapter III

THE REALITIES 0F HISTORY

Gregory of Tours' use of history in the Decem libri
reveals him to have been an idealist, a moralist, and a real-
ist. By means of the orthodoxy theme which was presented in
the preceding chapter, Gregory was able to express his hopes
for the potential of Christian society. Although history
provided him no golden age of Christian lawfulness, he none-
theless found in the past and in the ideas revealed there
enough components of the good society to support his conten-
tion that such a redemptive community could not only be es-
tablished but could also be maintained.

When he analyzed times of crisis in the past, times
when Christian society had failed itself, Gregory projected
the stern demeanor of a moralizing Old Testament prophet.
History illuminated the weaknesses of humanity. It spot-
lighted mankind's tendencies to greed, pride, dishonesty, and
untrustworthiness. It demonstrated that, even within a
Christian world, there could be "more weeping in the churches
. . . than there had been at the time of Diocletian's perse-

cution."l

Exemplars of evil or of mere obstinacy and wrong-
headedness flowed easily from Gregory's pen as he warned of

the need to avoid the heresy of disorder. The history of the

 

1Hist., iv. 47: 'Fuitque tempore illo peior in
eclesiis gemitus quam tempore persecutionis Diocliciani."

121

122

Frankish kingdoms between the deaths of Clovis and his grand-
son Sibigert provided him in Books III and IV with his great-
est opportunities to focus on error. The past was well sup-
plied with characteristics and activities that should be shun-
ned, not emulated. Although he did not explicitly state this
intention, Gregory believed that, to use the words of the
eighth-century Northumbrian historian Bede,

Should history tell of good men and their good es-

tate, the thoughtful listener is spurred on to imi-

tate the good: should it record the evil ends of

wicked men, no less effectually the devout and ear-

nest listener or reader is kindled to eschew what is

harmful and perverse, and with greater care pursue

those things which he has leaSned to be good and

pleasing in the sight of God.

Although Gregory was convinced that history had a
clear-cut homiletic function, he did not thereby deny himself
awareness of the complex circumstances and pragmatic neces-
sities governing much of human action. This ability to be
not only a commentator upon history but also a realistic re-
porter of it is apparent primarily in his treatment of events

with which he was contemporary and of which he was often an

eyewitness. In the latter part of the Historiae, primarily

 

in Books VII to X, he served as an analytic observer, and
this stance contrasts sharply with his attitude toward the
past visible in such books as III and IV.

In order to demonstrate that Gregory of Tours could

 

2Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, praef., in
Bede's Egglesiastical History of the English People, ed. by
Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969).

 

123

approach history as both moralist and realist, this chapter
will present an extended reconstruction of Books III and IV,
as well as an analysis of his treatment of Guntram's reign.
Book IV plays an important role in the Historiae not only be-
cause of the opportunities for moralizing which_the events
recorded there presented, but also because, by outlining what
was wrong with society, Gregory was able to affirm what
should be the good about the Christian world, especially re-
garding the relationship between the church and the state.

In other words, Book IV provides a reversed image of the good
society which Gregory was ultimately praying for throughout
the Historiae. By contrast, his account of Guntram's reign
is presented in a strikingly different way. Guntram was bet-
ter intentioned than many of the kings Gregory wrote of, and
he was able to comment favorably of him. The circumstances
of his monarchy, however, created an environment where even
an acknowledged good man could hardly be faulted for having
become suspicious, feisty, and occasionally cruel. In Books
VII to X Gregory described this environment and recounted
what the king did. Many of Guntram's actions were quick-
tempered and harsh, but Gregory appears to have understood
why the king could have felt it necessary to act the way he
did. On the other hand, Guntram was, without question, a
force for unity, charity, and justice. He could, therefore,
serve as perhaps unlikely proof of the actual viability of

the good society. Gregory's realistic attitude toward life

124

and history is illustrated by the fact that, proven historical
idealist and moralist though he was, he did not attempt to
smooth over the dilemmas of Guntram and his reign. That Greg-
ory was able to achieve this is not due to historiographical
inconsistency on his part. It has to do chiefly with his un-
derstanding of the differences between the interpretive po-
tential of the relatively distant past with that of more re-
cent events. For that reason, this chapter will also examine
the nature of history as Gregory understood it and will place
him within the context of his historiographical predecessors
Eusebius and Orosius.

Before beginning the analyses of Books III and IV and
VII to X, however, it would be well to establish their posi-
tions in the ideological and organizational make-up of the
Historiae. Although Gregory's fundamental structural device
was the chronological sequence, most of the events he chose
to record fit into an over-all philosophical pattern that
supersedes their mere temporal relationship. It would thus
be inadequate to consider him only as a ”simple expositor'
who transformed facts into accounts to be heard or read, as
Benoit Lacroix has suggested is the nature of the medieval

historian's task.3 J. M. Wallace-Hadrill has offered the

 

3L'historien au moyen age, p. 16. On p. 18 Lacroix
summarized Gregory of Tours' historical work by stating that
in it, "Tout arrive, tout se dit, tout peut étre récit." One
is reminded also of V. H. Galbraith's opinion, rephrased by
Nancy F. Partner, that medieval histories in general are "just
one damn thing after another" (Serious Entertainments, p. 194,
referring to Galbraith's "Good Kings and Bad Kings in Medieval

125

important reminder that, “we use . . . [Gregory (and Bede)]
so often, because we must, as storehouses of information that
we forget that they are historians: they controlled the in-
formation available to them, put it in a way that suited
them, and left us a picture of their past that is an arte-
fact."4
It has been suggested earlier that Gregory wrote his
Decem libri with the belief constantly in mind that "Christ
Himself is ourtrue end, who in His full grace will give us
eternal life, if we become converted to Him": that the Hig-
toriae is, in essence, a call to repentance and redemption.
Because its purpose was to publicize an important Christian

argument, the work was carefully constructed in accord with a

logical progression.S Books I and II, concerned with the

 

English History," Histogy [new series], 30 [1945], 119-132).
Cf. also, however, Partner's valuable analysis of the paratac-
tic or Eggan a tiroirs literary style of medieval histories
(pp. 194-211), commentary that is, in fact, helpful for under-
derstanding much that Gregory wrote. Cf. also Erich Auerbach,
Mimesis, pp. 77-95: Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, ”Gregory of
Tours and the Monk of St. Gall: the Paratactic Style of Medi-
eval Latin," Latomus, 39 (1980), 173-190.

4In Early Medieval History, pp. 96-97. For recent
analyses of the importance of the variety of philosophical and
attitudinal perspectives available to historians in the Middle
Ages, see such important studies as Nancy F. Partner, Serious
Entertainments: Beryl Smalley, Historians in the Middle Ages
(London: Thames & Hudson, 1975): and R. W. Southern,“Aspects
of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 1. The
Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth: 2.
Hugh of St Victor and the Idea of Historical Development: 3.
History as Prophecy: 4. The Sense of the Past," Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society (fifth series), 20-23 1970-
1973), 173-196, 159-179, 159-180, 243-263.

5Hist., i. praef. The arguments in this study

126

relatively distant past, established the obligation placed on
God's people to obey the law. A crucial aspect of the law is
the need to acknowledge and give allegiance to properly es-
tablished authorities whose task should be to guarantee that
their subordinates would fully keep the law.6 Failure to
implement lawfulness would result in divine punishment most
likely occurring in the form of political defeat. Books III
and IV, as will be seen, analyze the disasters which had be-
fallen the Frankish Christians of the couple of generations
following Clovis because of their frequent misappropriation
of their divinely sanctioned authority. Books V and VI con-
tain a pointed demand for repentance, for a rejection of the
idolatry of materialism, with the orthodox doctrine of the
Trinity and the true nature of Christ and his mission being
elevated as the model which Gregory's contemporaries should
imitate. Book VI, which contains his interpretation of the
healing aspect of Christ's redemption, concludes with the as-
sassination of King Chilperic, a man to whom Gregory perhaps
exaggeratedly assigned a character of evil as "the Nero and

Herod of our time."7 Chilperic's death left the field

 

regarding the singleness of purpose and organizational integ-
rity of the Historiae stand in clear contradiction to such no-
tions about the nature of Gregory's craft as that of Dalton,
who believed the work to be "artless, [with] easy-going
methods, . . . [and a] lack of arrangement and logical plan.

. . . [IJts structure is irregular and the thread of narra-
tion is often hard to follow" (History of the Franks, I, 25).

5Cf. above, pp. 67-73.

7Hist., vi. 46. Gregory followed that chapter

127

clear for the dominance of his half-brother Guntram who is
the most important royal figure throughout the remaining four
books of the Historiae. This rise of Guntram to pre-eminence
was to provide a more likely environment for political heal-
ing than had been possible when Chilperic was alive.

{The last four books of the Historiae exhibit a very

 

different tone from the first six.8; Those earlier books
were cast in an ideological mode whereby Gregory of Tours
discussed the nature and structure of the Christian community
and showed how its leaders and citizens should support it and
how they had failed to do so in the past. They are fundamen-

tally books of instruction stressing the authority of the law

 

with words which one suspects expressed very succinctly his
true feelings about Chilperic's removal from the world:
"EXPLICIT IN CHRISTI NOMINE HISTORIARUM LIBER SEXTUS. DEO
GRATIAS. AMEN.“ Cf. Buchner's use of this chapter to
illustrate Gregory's historical subjectivity in Zehn Bficher
Geschichten, I, xxx-xxxi. Nero and Herod are Antichristo-
logical figures. Cf. Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle

Ages, p. 26.

8Could there be any relationship between this
thematic division of Books I-VI and VII-X and the fact that
the early manuscript tradition separated the books in pre-
cisely the same way? ”Of the surviving manuscripts, some of
the earliest contain only the first six books of the Hig-
toria (that is, to the death of Chilperic in 584), with the
remaining four books added later: while others--notably‘ga§-
inensis 275, of the twelfth century--contain the ten books
complete. No one questions that, whatever his plan of re-
vision may have been, and whether he added to or subtracted
from an original version of the first six books, all ten
books--allowing for interpolations--are from the pen of
Gregory of Tours" (J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Long-Haired Kings,
p. 51). See the discussion of the manuscripts in Bruno
Krusch‘s Introduction to the 1951 Egg edition of the Histor-
iae, pp. xxii-xxxv: and Wallace-Hadrill's review of it in the
English Historical Review, 67 (1952), 402-404.

 

 

128

and the orthodoxy of keeping it. With Guntram's rise, how-
ever, Gregory leaned more toward an analysis of events in
their own right, rather than employing them to illustrate his
theories. The notions about the good society that he had so
painstakingly developed earlier appear in these last books,
but primarily as the underlying foundation for his acCount of
the actions of the last decade of his and Guntram's lives.9
An important way in which these ideas announce their presence
is in the kinds of historic events which Gregory recounted in
detail. The settlement of the revolt at Saint Radegund's
monastery in Poitiers,10 for example, enabled Gregory at

the end of the work to draw together in synthesis many of the

points he had made throughout the Historiae. In these last

 

books he also explored thoroughly the personality of King
Guntram. He was a man who could do much good but whose en-
vironment forced him to become increasingly skittish and sus-
picious. The careful charting of Guntram's assumption of the
role of avenger led up to the crescendo in Book X where Greg-
ory concluded the Historiae with what was probably, from his
perspective, his most important warning throughout the work.
There he presented in strong words his reminder that, what-

ever Christians might do during their lifetimes, they must

 

9Book VII begins with St. Salvius' death in 584.
Guntram died in 593 (an event unrecorded in the Historiae)
and Gregory probably died the next year.

 

10Hist-. ix. 39-43: x. 15-17, 20, 22. Cf. above,
pp. 108-113.

129

remain constantly aware that the cosmic blood-feud between
good and evil will one day end and that they must thus pre-
pare themselves to stand before the divine judge and to ac-
cept whatever compensation he will charge or award them in

accordance with what their roles will have been in the con-

flict.11

Thus, while the Historiae is unquestionably chronolog-
ically organized and episodal in nature, it has an overarch-
ing message of redemption and reformation which provides in-
tegrity and cohesion to the work. In Books I, II, V, VI, and
X can be found Gregory's statements regarding the potential
of Christian society. As will be seen, Books III and IV are
recitals of Christian failures, while Books VII to X provide
a discussion of the conflicts between good Christian inten-
tions, supported by sound political and judicial machinery,
and the powerful forces of distrust and dissension inherent

in the world. ;
In Book III of the Historiae Gregory is seen taking
'his first tentative steps toward development of a notion
which might be called political heresy. Unlike his pointed
comments in Book II regarding the orthodoxy of authority, his
interpretation is only implied that the misappropriation of
authority is heretical. It seems fair, though, to say that

this concept of political heresy is nonetheless present. The

first clue to Gregory's intent lies in the distinctive nature

 

1¥§125.. x. 13. Cf. above, pp. 114-119.

130

of the preface to Book III. Whereas the four other prefaces

in the Historiae12 deal in some fashion with the broad

theme of conflict, that of Book III shows a narrowing of that
theme to conflict of beliefs. There Gregory presented solely
the contrast "between the happy outcome of the Christians who
believed in the Holy Trinity and the disasters which have be-

fallen those who sought to destroy it.»l3

He pointed out

the significance of this in political terms. Although he
conceded that evil could befall the righteous, he maintained
that they had hope of restitution. Heretics had no such hope
and stood to lose absolutely everything. The examples he
used were the Arian Burgundian kings Godigisel, Gundobad, and
Godomar who, he said, "lost their homeland and their souls at

one and the same moment."14

The statement regarding the
fate of these kings is followed by Gregory's personal affir-
mation of the complex and all-powerful Trinity. He had sug-
gested in Books I and II that the kingdom of God is known by
its orthodox acknowledgement of the law in all its aspects

and by its subsequent governance in accordance with proper

authority. In Book I he had also been at pains to make clear

 

12The praefatio prima, and those to Books I, II, and
V.

l3Hist., iii. praef.: "Vellim, si placet, par-
umper conferre, quae christianis beatam confitentibus Trini-
tatem prospera successerint et quae hereticis eandam scin-
dentibus fuerint in ruinam."

14Hist., iii. raef.: "Probavit hoc Godigisili,
Gundobadi atque Godomari interitus, qui et patriam simul et
animas perdiderunt."

131

that disobedience to God's law would result in punishment,
often appearing in the form of foreign domination. The issue
raised in Book III is whether a kingdom historically charac-
terized by orthodox belief, the specific doctrine of the
Trinity being both crucial and illustrative, and by legiti-
mately established Christian authority could survive when
that authority would be used for illegitimate purposes.
Although Book III concentrates on the activities of
Clovis' sons, from the beginning Gregory placed them in the
geo-political context of their enemies. They were surrounded
by such foreigners as the Danes, the Thuringians, and the
Burgundians,15 as well as the Arian Visigoths of Spain into
whose ruling family a Merovingian princess was married.16
The threat of these foreigners to the Franks was far
more subtle than straight-forward invasion. The Thuringians
and the Burgundians, in particular, because of treachery
within their own royal families, set the stage for the disin-
tegration of unity among the Merovingians. The action occur-
red with a frightening kind of domino effect. Drawn in by
false promises, Clovis' son Theuderic became involved in Her-
manfrid's attempt to wrest control of the Thuringian kingdom
from his brothers. When Hermanfrid broke his treaty of good

faith with Theuderic and cruelly murdered the hostages left

with him, Theuderic called his own brother Lothar to be his

 

15Hist., iii. 3; 4, 7-8; 5-6.

16Hist., iii. 1.

132

ally in a war of vengeance against the Thuringians. Al-
though the Franks were victorious, while they were engaged in
that campaign, Theuderic mounted a plot against Lothar. An
additional result of that war was that the people of Clermont-
Ferrand, erroneously believing that Theuderic had been kill-
ed, invited yet another brother, Childebert (I), to rule
them. Although Childebert left the city when he heard that
his brother was still alive, this event planted seeds of en-
mity between the two and gave Theuderic the excuse later to
mount a punishing and desecrating attack upon the‘City and

17

its religious establishments.

Meanwhile, the Burgundian king Sigismund killed his
own son at the instigation of the boy's step-mother and di-
vine vengeance followed quickly to punish him.18 The Mero-
vingian queen Clothild was reminded that revenge had never
been carried out against her uncle Gundobad for the murder of
her parents years before.19 At her request, her eldest son
Chlodomer led his brothers in an avenging attack against Sig-
ismund and Godomar, Gundobad's successors. Godomar escaped,
but Sigismund and his family were taken captive. Later, when
Chlodomer had to leave for Burgundy to fight the resurgent

Godomar, he decided for safety's sake to kill Sigismund

first. Although, under the circumstances, there was certain

 

17Hist., iii. 4, 7-13, 15.
18Hist., iii. 5.

19Hist., iii. 6; of. ii. 28.

133

justification for his ordering the death of a hostage enemy
king, Chlodomer was counselled by Abbot Avitus of Saint-
Mesmin de Micy to show clemency toward Sigismund out of re-
spect for God. This, the abbot said, would result in a di-
vinely aided victory. If, however, Chlodomer disregarded his
advice--which, in the end, he did--whatever happened to the
captive king and his family would happen to him. The path of
mercy was not taken, Chlodomer died in battle against the
Burgundians, and two of his three sons were murdered in one
of the worst cases of Frankish family feuding recorded in the
Historiae.20
Following Chlodomer's death, the dowager queen Clo-
thild became the guardian of his children, and it was her ap-
parent favoritism to the little prinCes which provoked their
uncles to become jealous of their potential for territorial
control and to decide either to strip them of their royalty
or to kill them. Childebert and Lothar forced their mother
into making this choice for them by sending her a pair of
scissors and an unsheathed sword. She had the choice of de-
ciding whether she preferred to see her descendants' hair cut
and their royalty thus shorn or their lives ended. One horn
of her dilemma was the denial of her royal grandsons' inheri-
ted honor and authority. The other was her own participation

by consent in her sons' commission of a crime against the

 

20Hist., iii. 6: cf. iii. 18. The third son, who
was to become Saint Cloud (Thorpe, History of the Franks, p.
182 n. 21), tonsured himself and became a priest.

134

family. Her solution was to support royal authority even if
it meant death to the children. Although she was '[bleside
herself with bitter grief and hardly . . . [knew] what she
was saying in her anguish, she answered: 'If they are not to
ascend the throne, I would rather see them dead than with

their hair cut short.”21

Thus, the death of a child with-
in the Burgundian royal family had resulted in the deaths of
two children within the Frankish royal family.

Neither the deaths of Chlodomer's sons nor that of
Theuderic stopped the Frankish royal fighting. Only the pow-
er of Saint Martin, invoked by Queen Clothild, was able to
achieve that. Childebert, who failed to agree with Theuderic
and attempted to deny the kingdom to his heir Theudebert,
eventually gave up and allied himself with his nephew. The
two then launched a campaign against Lothar. Hearing of
their attack, Lothar ”took to the woods, built a great circle

of barricades among the trees and put his trust in the mercy

of God."22 His confidence in divine aid coupled with his

 

21Hist., iii. 18: "At illa exterrita nuntio et
nimium felle commota, praecipue cum gladium cerneret
evaginatum ac forcipem, amaritudinem praeventa, ignorans in
ipso dolore quid diceret, ait simpliciter: 'Satius mihi enim
est, si ad regnum non ereguntur, mortuos eos videre quam
tonsus'.‘ Felix Thfirlemann comments (Der historische Diskurs
bei Gregor von Tours, p. 83) with regard to this passage
that, 'Diese enge verbindung von Wort und Handlung hat ganz
den Charakter liturgischer Zeremonien, wie es 2. B. die
Sakramente sind, die als Zusammensetzung von £g§_und verba
definiert werden.‘

22Hist., iii. 28: ”Ille autem haec audiens, aest-
imans, se horum exercitum non sustenire, in silva confugit et
concides magnas in silvas illas fecit, totamque spem suam in

135

mother's prayers to the saint resulted in a furious storm
which devastated the attackers' camp, but left that of the
defender unscathed. Childebert and Theudebert recognized
the significance of what had happened and prayed to God for
forgiveness and to Lothar for peace. These quarrels of the
kings brought long-lasting unrest throughout society. For
one thing, the chaos was congenial for the rising of a pre-
tender, Munderic, who sought to establish his royalty and

right to rule.23

For another, in order to keep the peace
in the rebel city of Clermont-Ferrand following his devasta-
ting attack of it, Theuderic established there a harsh gover-
nor, Sigivald, who misused his power by confiscating private
property and allowing his underlings to commit serious crimes
unchecked.24 Later, the faithless Theuderic turned on his
henchmen as he had on his brothers, killed him, and ordered
his son Theudebert to kill the man's son.25
Theudebert, however, was cut from a significantly dif-
ferent pattern than were his father and uncles. A man of
charity and generosity, he disobeyed his father and allowed

Sigivald's son to escape, telling him that as king he would

 

Dei pietate transfundens."

23Hist., iii. 14.

24Hist., iii. 15; cf. iii. 14. When Sigivald at-
tempted to take over property belonging to the church of
Saint Julian, however, he suffered a fit and, upon his re-
covery, promised to restore twofold all that he had taken.

25Hist., iii. 23.

136

restore the family's wealth to him. When the time came,

Theudebert kept his word.26

In company with Saint Martin and Queen Clothild, Theu-
debert, despite his too frequent contributions to the first
generation of Frankish civil war, provided Gregory with the
only morally favorable episodes of Book III. He was at heart
a Christian king who, like the old queen, exercised much of
the time the kind of legitimate use of authority which should
characterize the kingdom of God all the time.2‘7 More fre-
quently, however, the state of the Frankish realms in the
years following Clovis' death was that of disorder, lack of
confidence, and shaken authority. The ties of family were
forsaken and even the sanctity of royalty was violated. A
question arising from a careful reading of Book III is whe-
ther Gregory felt that the Franks, with the possible excep-
tions of Clothild and Theudebert, were any better than the
neighboring Arians and other enemies. Book IV underscores
that point.

The first major event recorded in Book IV was King
Lothar's attempt to tax the churches. This action motivated
Bishop Injuriosus of Tours forcefully and effectively to re-
mind the king what is the proper relationship between the

church and the state: kings are to give to the church their

 

26Hi$teg iii. 240 Cf. above, p0 93'

27For Clothild, cf. Gregory's praise of her follow-
ing the awful murder of her grandsons (Hist., iii. 18).

137 _

financial and political support and clergy are to correct and
guide political leaders in the pursuit of their Christian
duties.28 That reminder echoes unheeded throughout Book
IV, and the tragedy is that the church written of there was
equally as unfree from blame as was the state. The book is
structured in such a way that disasters occurring internally
to the church appear first and are then placed in the context
of the chaos within the political world. That political dis-
order is then shown as destroying the church from without.
With the help of Sidonius Apollinaris and the two
priests who attempted to overthrow him, Gregory had outlined
in Book II the seriousness of insubordination to one's super-
iors. It was a breaking of God's law and thus amounted to
heresy. It was also an expression of the sin of pride where-
by one attempted to overstep one's own position and pretend
to be what one was not.29 Two other clerics of Clermont-
Ferrand, Cato and Cautinus, whose careers Gregory recounted
in sharp detail, served to explain further the effects of
pride, greed, and ambition upon the clergy and to show the
resultant lessening of the church's ability to carry out its
mission. Following the death of Gregory's uncle, Bishop
Gall, the bishops in the area surrounding Clermont-Ferrand

made a serious political error in deciding that they, with

 

28Hist., iv. 2. Cf. above, pp. 70-71.

29Cf. Hist., ii. 23: and above, pp. 69-70, nn.
26-270

138

the people of the diocese, had adequate authority to elect
the priest Cato to be his successor without obtaining royal
permission to do so. King Theudebald, the late Theudebert's
son, was still a child, and those clergy wrongly acted as if
his authority to approve the appointment of bishops were
likewise immature. Cato, who was convinced that this posi-
tion was deservedly his after his many years of working
through the ecclesiastical ranks, did not move quickly enough
to seek the king's confirmation on his own. In the end, his
overbearing attitude, coupled with the irregularities of his
appointment, deprived him of ever achieving his episcopal
goal. In response to Cato's abusive threats to him, the
archdeacon Cautinus escaped to Theudebald's court, told of
Cato's uncanonical assumption of the bishopric, and received
that office for himself in reward for his report. By means
of this action of king and council, Cato was reduced to being
an insubordinate priest fomenting rebellion against his le-
gally inducted bishop.30 He was later offered the bishop-
ric of Tours, but by that time he had become so obsessed with
claiming what he thought ought to be his in Clermont that he
rudely rejected the invitation to the see which he could
have, and thereby insulted King Lothar and Saint Martin--as
well as the historian who later wrote of the affair. Cato

then went so far as to ally himself with Lothar's son Chramn

 

39§i§3., iv. 6-7. Cf. Henry G. J. Beck, Pastoral
Care, pp. 20-24, and above, p. 77, n. 42.

 

139

who had promised to oust Cautinus in his favor should he as-
sume his father's throne in the near future.31
Although Cato had reached such extreme limits of ar-
rogance and insubordination against his proper bishop that he
sought common cause with a plotting and rebellious prince,
his criticisms of Cautinus, even if they might have been in-
appropriately expressed, were justified because the man was a
reprehensible person. All he had in his favor was that his
episcopal authority had been legally acquired. He drank ex-
cessively, disliked literature, and trafficked commercially
with Jews. His most appalling act, however, was his burial
alive of a man who refused to hand over title-deeds to prop-
erty which he coveted and decided to claim as his own. The
story of Anastasius' burial in a sarcophagus with a still
rotting corpse and his escape from it is one of Gregory's
most graphic in all the Historiae and the stench that the man
endured--so great that he breathed it "through his mouth and
his nose and even, so to speak, through his ears!"32--pro-
voked the horror of his contemporaries, merited the per-

.petrator consideration as being worse than even Nero and

 

31Hist., iv. 11, 15. Following Theudebald's early
death, Lothar had taken over his kingdom (iv. 9).

32Hist., iv. 12: "Manabat enim ex ossibus mortui,
ut ipse erat solitus referre, fetor letalis, qui non solum
externa, verum etiam interna viscerum quatiebat. Cumque
(pallium aditus narium obseraret, quamdiu flatum continere
Ekaterat, nihil pessimum sentiebat: ubi autem se quasi suf-
focari potabat, remoto paululum ab ore pallio, non modo per
08 aut nares, verum etiam per ipsas, ut ita dicam, aures
odorem pestiferum hauriebat."

140

Herod,33 and can still be sensed by the reader almost a
millennium and a half later. But Cautinus remained bishop
and, other than being denied Anastasius' property, the only
censure he received was that which would ultimately come from
God. He and his rival, Cato, both died in the same outbreak
of plague but with markedly different expressions of charac-
ter. When the epidemic hit Clermont, Cato remained in the
city carrying out his priestly duties, while Cautinus, con-
sistent to the end, attempted futilely to save his own life
by running from town to town trying to keep ahead of the dis-
ease. Despite Cato's ambition, Gregory could excuse him for
his past behavior because of his final selfless willingness
to help those in distress.34 He thus concluded his career

as a true Christian. Cautinus, on the other hand, from the
time of his acquisition of the bishopric to that of his own
death, had never really served God, king, or diocese. He had
only served himself, and that was not one of the responsibil-
ities of the episcopal office.

Although the stories of Cato and Cautinus have a kind
of reality lacking in Gregory's somewhat formulaic descrip-
tion of his own contemporary in Clermont-Ferrand, the compar-
ison between the good and bad bishops is striking. Avitus

did not campaign for his position as had both his rival and

 

33And, thus, even worse than King Chilperic whom
Gregory later merely equated with Nero and Herod (cf. Hist.,
vi. 46). Cf. above, p. 126 n. 7.

34Hist., iv. 31.

141

Cautinus. Upon his nomination, in contrast to Cato, he im-
mediately showed his deference to royal authority by peti-
tioning the king to confirm him in office. Once he was bish-
op, he proved himself to be a man who accepted the obliga-
tions of the job, ruling with justice and practicing magnani-
mity to those in need.35
Of the clergy included in Book IV, however, the exemp-
lary ones36 were overbalanced by those who suffered one way
or another from an unwillingness to shoulder obligation.
These included the unimaginable abuse of power exhibited by
Cautinus and the self-advancement attempted by Cato as well
as the gentler but nevertheless disruptive sin of excessive
humility. Gregory illustrated this by means of a story about
a too self-effacing abbot who had to learn to be leader by
means of a vision. In this abbot's dream he saw a narrow
bridge over a river of fire from which most who tried to

cross plunged into the flames. He was told that the reason

for this was that the bridge would guide to safety only he

 

35Hist., iv. 35: "Idem, accepto episcopatu, magnum
se in omnibus praebuit, iustitiam populis tribuens, pauperi-
bus opem, viduis solacium pupillisque maximum adiumentum.
Iam si peregrinus ad eum advenerit, ita diligitur, ut in
eodem se habere et patrem recognoscat et patriam."

 

36Such as Avitus and a novice who prayed away a
storm so as to save a harvest and was kept humble despite
this miracle by his abbot who immediately beat him and made
him fast. Apparently the scheme worked. Cf. Hist., iv. 34.
For another example of a bad bishop, see the story (iv. 36)
of Bish0p Priscus of Lyons and his wife Susanna who harrassed
the associates of the previous bishop Nicetius because of the
loyalty they retained for him. Nicetius' shade, with God's
help, punished them for their misbehavior.

142

who had exercised proper control over those in his charge.
Those who fell off had failed to be as authoritative as they

ought.37

The most serious form of ecclesiastical disruption be-
cause of its potentially far-reaching consequences was cleri-
cal infringement upon royal prerogative. Because kings, like
Lothar in iv. 2, would be frequently tempted to encroach upon
ecclesiastical prerogative, the church should at the least
set an example of proper respect. This point had been made
in connection with Cato's short-lived episcopal reign. The
bishops who advanced him to power had no right to ignore the
role of the king in his appointment. The seriousness of this
offense was underscored again in Book IV in Gregory's account
of an episcopal council which, after King Lothar's death, at-
tempted to expel on grounds of uncanonicity a bishop whom the
late king had appointed. Lothar's successor Charibert was
enraged by this act and severely fined those who usurped roy-
al authority and thus insulted the ruling house.38

For Christian society to have a chance to function
smoothly, the church must be led by worthy peOple who would
show respect both to those whom they ruled and to those under
whose appointment they served. The mission of the church was

to call society to repentance, to adherence to God's law. to

 

37§125.. iv. 33: "'De hoc enim ponte praecipitabi-
tur, qui ad distringendum commissum gregum fuerit repertus ig-
navus: qui vero strenuus fuerit, sine periculo transit . . .'"

38Hist., iv. 26.

143

justice, and to charity. When the church itself was poisoned
by ambition and greed, there would be no dependable voice of
Christian morality. In a world of quarrelling kings and re-
bellious princes, where servant girls could help to murder
queens and then replace them, such a voice was truly needed.
In the midst of that tumultuous world which witnessed
the increasing disrespect for all things dear and sacred as
people scrambled to obey the commands of ambition, the last
great Merovingian father figure, Lothar, stands out as a tra-
gic hero. Although he had had his dramatic moments of vil-
lainy, one of the worst of which was his role in the murder
of his nephews,39 he appeared in Book IV in a different
kind of tragic scene when he marched with grief into battle,

playing David to his son's Absalom and praying that God would

 

39Hist., iii. 18: "Nec mora, adpraehensum Chlotha-
charius puerum seniorem brachium elesit in terra, defixumque
cultram in ascella, crudiliter interfecit. Quo vociferante,
frater eius ad pedes Childeberthi prosternitur, adpraehen-
saque eius genua, agebat cum lacrimis: 'Succurre, piissime
pater, ne et ego peream sicut frater meus'. Tunc Childeber-
thus, lacrimis respersa facie, ait: 'Rogo, dulcissime frater,
ut huius mihi vitam tua largitate concedes, et quae iusseris
pro eius animam conferam, tantum ne interficiatur'. At ille
convitiis actum ait: 'Aut eiece eum a te, aut certe pro eo
morieris. Tu', inquid, 'es incestatur huius causae, et tam
velociter de fide risillis?‘ Haec ille audiens, repulsum a
se puerum proiecit ad eum: ipse vero excipiens, transfixum
cultro in latere, sicut fratrem prius fecerat, iugulavit:
deinde pueros cum nutriciis peremerunt. Quibus interfectis,
Chlothacharius, ascensis equitibus, abscessit, parvi pendens
de interfectione nepotum: sed et Childeberthus in suburbana
concessit." Cf. Augustin Thiérry's comment (in Récits de
temps merovingiens [nouv. ed.: Paris: Michel Levy Fréres,
1868], p. 4) that, "11 faut descendre jusqu'au siécle de
Froissart pour trouver un narrateur qui egale Gregoire de
Tours dans 1'art de mettre en scéne les personnages et de
peindre par le dialogue." Cf. above, pp. 133-134.

 

144

avenge the injustice done him by Chramn's rebellion.4O For-
gotten was the fact that only his fear of Saint Martin had
halted him from taxing his churches or that his extremely ir-
regular marital life included simultaneous marriage to two
sisters.41 The alchemy mixing his age, his survival beyond
his fraternal enemies, and his endurance in the face of his
son's ruses--plus the fact that his death was followed by re-
newed fraternal war--put a shiny patina upon the memory of an
otherwise rather tarnished king. To achieve this seeming
change of character, however, Lothar in old age need not ne-
cessarily have improved much at all. The credit may well all
go to his son Chramn for having mounted a campaign of rebel-
lion against him. The prince's act went against the laws of
God, society, and decency. Even his last ally, Count Chanao
of Brittany, a harsh man who had killed three of his own bro-
thers and barely missed getting the fourth, warned him to
give up the actual battle with his father.42 But Chramn,

who ironically easily followed the advice of poor counsel-
lors, went ahead to war and to his death.43

With Lothar's death a year after Chramn's,44 the

quarrelling began among his surviving sons and their families

 

498335., iv. 20.

4¥§i§5., iv. 2-3.

4%gigg., iv. 4, 20.

43§i§£., iv. 13, l6, 18, 20.

44Hist., iv. 21.

145

which would occupy so much of the remainder of the Historiae.

 

Gregory left no question but that Chilperic and his family
would be the chief troublemakers among the Merovingians. Im-
mediately following his father's burial, Chilperic tried to
appropriate for himself more than was his due. His brothers
chastised him for this attempt at aggrandizement and forced
him to submit to an equal division of the realms. Shortly
thereafter, though, when Sigibert went off to successful bat-
tle with the Huns, Chilperic and his son Theudebert attacked
and captured many of his cities, including his capital at
Rheims.45 Chilperic not only was in competition with his
brother for his kingdom, however. He even coveted the status
of Sigibert's wife.

Like their father, of Lothar's sons, only Sigibert had
a trouble-free marriages. Guntram's eldest son by a mistress
was poisoned by his first wife who, with her own son, died
shortly thereafter. He then married Austrechild who jealously
involved him in a couple of murder plots, one of which was a
malicious deathbed revenge against her doctors.46 Chari-
bert married Ingoberg, but later became infatuated with and
eventually married two sisters who were servants of the
queen. This was complicated by the fact that one of them was
a religious. Another of his mistresses was a shepherd's

daughter who, after his death, tried unsuccessfully to

 

45Hist., iv. 22-23, 29.

46Hist., iv. 25; v. 17, 35.

146

marry Guntram.47 Sigibert, however, was disgusted with his
brothers' tendencies to marry far beneath them, and worked
out a marriage alliance with the Visigothic princess Brunhild
who converted to orthodox Christianity and became for the
rest of her life a powerful force in Merovingian politics.48
But, if Sigibert could marry a princess, so too could the
already much-married Chilperic. His choice was Brunhild's
unfortunate sister Galswinth. Although Chilperic professed
great love for Galswinth and her large dowry, his heart
remained with his former wife Fredegund, and when he could
take Galswinth's complaints about her no longer, he had the
queen murdered.49 Chilperic's return to Fredegund after
Galswinth's death was a significant event in Frankish his-
tory, for the two were well matched as regards their pride,
jealousy, and creativity in pursuing nefarious goals. Be-
tween the two of them, they were for decades to provoke
conflicts, thus involving all of society, including the
church, in their disruptive and insidious machinations.
Chilperic's long-standing quarrels with Sigibert were
exacerbated by his brief marriage with his brother's sister-

in-law, for Fredegund could stand no competition. As she

 

47Hist., iv. 26. Charibert's daughter by Ingoberg
was the Bertha who married Aethelbehrt of Kent, encouraging
his receptivity to St. Augustine's mission in the late 590s.

48Hist., iv. 27.

49Hist., iv. 28. In ix. 33, Fredegund's daughter
Rigunth referred to her mother as a serving-woman. Cf. Dal-
ton's History of the Franks, I, 73.

147

was to be succesful in arranging the deaths of another of
Chilperic's former wives and her sons, so Fredegund was to be
persistent throughout her life in her efforts to bring down
the family of the princess in honor of whose royal blood she
had once been pushed aside. For that matter, she was to plot
the demise of anyone she thought had offended her, regardless
whether that be king, bishop, or daughter.50 To great
extent the blueprint of Frankish history into the seventh
century would be drafted by the increasingly overreaching
Fredegund who, in the end, in one of the seeming great ironic
injustices of history, was to die of old age peacefully in
her bed and be buried with royal dignity in a tomb which
survived to the eighteenth century.51
The world of Lothar's sons and their wives had reper-
cussions upon the church in a way which brings the complex
Book IV full circle. Under the rule of these kings there was
exhibited increasing disrespect for the church and the clergy
by secular leaders. Whereas Bishop Injuriosus and Saint Mar-
tin had been able to frighten Lothar out of his desire to tax
the church at the beginning of Book IV, the political leaders

of later years written of in the last chapters of the book

 

50E.g., Hist., iv. 51 (Sigibert): viii. 44 (Gunt-
ram): x. 18 (Childebert II, Sigibert's and Brunhild's son):
viii. 31 (Praetextatus): ix. 33 (Rigunth).

51Dalton, History of the Franks, I, 79. Gregory of
Tours' tomb was destroyed two hundred years before the French
Revolution by pillaging Huguenots (cf. Thorpe, History of the
Franks, p. 54).

148

were unaffected by either the dignity of the church or the
arguments of her clerics. Although, as has been seen, the
clergy during this time were less than praiseworthy in all
their actions, that was not just cause for the seemingly
total disruption of harmony between church and state which
Gregory had to recount at the close of the book. Already in
the reign of Lothar, the rebellious Chramn and his henchmen
had made light of the church and ignored its sanctity, and
had merited divine judgment in consequence.52 The suffer-
ings of the church in the time of Lothar, however, were none-
theless proven to have been superficial in contrast with what
happened during the wars of his sons. Those kings did not
even respect the church enough to allow her to carry on her
responsibility to be their counsellor and guide.

During a renewed outbreak of fighting between Guntram
and Sigibert, Guntram called an episcopal council in hopes
that their differences could be arbitrated. In the end, this
was almost worse than if the advice of the bishops had not
been sought at all. The civil war between the kings contin-
ued as before but only after they had committed the sin, as
Gregory styled it, of failing to heed the bishops' counsel.
The whole procedure of calling them together, listening to
their deliberations, and then blatantly disregarding their
guidance amounted to an insult and a denigration of the

church, as well as a denial of the proper relationship

 

52Hist., iv. 13, 16, 18, 20.

.149

between church and state of which Injuriosus' speech to Lothar
at the beginning of the book was a prime example. From that
point on as the fire of war spread, enflaming Chilperic and
his son Theudebert in addition to the others, the countryside
of central Gaul was devastated and the church, the would-be
protector of Christian society, was itself ravaged in every
imaginable way. There was no need for an enemy attacker, an
Arian or a pagan. The campaign against the Christian world
was mounted by Christians themselves, and "[tJhere was even
more weeping in the churches at this period than there had
been at the time of Diocletian's persecution."53 These

wars were characterized by shifting alliances and hostilities
among the brothers. Guntram allied himself first with Chil-
peric, then with Sigibert, then again with Chilperic, and
back to Sigibert. The nature of the warfare and its des-
tructiveness to the towns and villages was intensified when
Sigibert called in Rhineland tribes to help him and they

turned out to be largely uncontrollable. Only Saint Martin

 

53Hist., iv. 47: Cf. above, p. 121 n. 1. For the
aftermath of the abortive episcopal arbitration (ibid): "Sed
ut bellum civili in maiore pernicitate crescerit, eos audire,
peccatis facientibus, distulerunt." Some "figures represent
Antichrist because their deeds resemble those expected of the
deceiver in the last days. For example, Diocletian, Domitian,
and Julian are types of the final persecution of the church
'in tempore Antichristi'." (Emmerson, Antichrist in the
Middle Ages, p. 27) In these wars the dead were violated as
well as the living. The monastery containing Saint Martin's
relics was pillaged, but the marauders' ship fell apart as
they left and all but the one who disapproved of the group's
action were killed by their own lances as they scrambled to
escape the sinking boat (iv. 48).

 

150

had adequate power to convince them to sue for peace and
agree to return home,54
The Franks themselves, however, proved to be imper-
vious to the insinuations of Christian decency and reason.
Despite the earlier failure of the episcopal council to halt
the hostilities between the brothers, Bishop Germanus made
one last attempt to convince the now domineering Sigibert to
rely on clemency rather than to practice brutality in his
conquest of Chilperic. Using reasoning reminiscent of the
exchange between Saint Avitus and King Chlodomer more than a
generation before, he told Sigibert that, if he went into
battle determined to spare Chilperic's life, he would be vic-
torious; otherwise he would die. But the king, 'in his sin-

55 While

fulness,‘ once again disregarded Christian counsel.
he was at Vitry marshalling his troops for the attack, he was
stabbed to death by two thugs hired by Fredegund to assas-

sinate him.56

By this murder Fredegund spared the brothers
the sin of actual fratricide, and that was one of the few
faults which could not be laid at the door of the immediate

royal family in Book IV.

 

54Hi8te’ 1V. 49-500

55§i§£., iv. 51: "Quad ille, peccatis facienti-
bus, audire neglexit.‘ Cf. iii. 6.

56Sigibert's Chamberlain was killed at the same time.
Gregory's opinion of him was that "death came to thwart him
in his own plans, after he had spent his life thwarting those
of others” (Hist., iv. 51: '. . . cui talis fuit vitae
exitus, ut non meriritur voluntatem propriam mortem inminente
conplere, qui aliorum voluntates saepe distruxerat."

151

In the three decades which are covered in Book IV, the
various Merovingian kings and princes had over-stepped the
bounds of family and position in numerous different ways.
They had violated the church materially, rejected it spiritu-
ally, and, by so doing, jeopardized the sanctity of all with-
in the realm. Christian society could function only when a
recognized balance would be maintained by all its members.
When individuals upset the equilibrium their punishments
were, in Gregory's mind, swift in coming and clearly evident:
kings were not excepted. Sigibert's murder was placed se-
curely in the context where improper action--in this case,
merely planning for improper action--would effect judging
punishment. By the end of Book IV the Frankish Christian
world was in shambles, being demolished from within. The
church and the state, however, the gift of divinely vested
power, and the knowledge of the law still existed. It may
have been to reinforce that idea that Gregory concluded the
book with an elaborate chronological summary of the history
of the kingdom of God. Its authority had been created 5774
years before, had been passed through Israel to Christ and
the saints of the church, and had finally been bequeathed to
the kings of the Franks.57 Thus far, and perhaps despite
itself, the kingdom remained intact.

In fact, the Frankish kingdom of God even survived the

remaining years and wars of Chilperic, "the Nero and Herod of

_

57Hist., iv. 51.

152

ourtime."58 Although his brother Guntram, basically a good

man, was his dominant successor, political life in late sixth-
century Gaul continued to be complex and challenging. Greg-
ory, however, approached the recording of it differently than
he had the earlier history. The conflicts he had outlined in
Books III and IV, as well as his handling of historical mater-
ial in Books V and VI, appear almost as set pieces. The chi-
canery is too unrelenting and inexplicable. He stated that
wars occurred, but provided no reasons for them. The state-
ment itself is required to serve as explanation: "Chilperic
was the next to fly into a rage":59 "the Kings were quarrel-
ling with each other again and once more making preparations
for civil war":60 [i]n the sixth year of his reign King
Childebert [II] broke the peace which he had made with King
Guntram and formed an alliance with Chilperic."61 A charac-
teristic of Books VII to X is that in them, although many of
the events he recorded there were of a familiar disruptive
nature, Gregory was forthcoming with descriptions and analyses

of the context in which they occurred. One can see operating

in these last books a sense of cause and effect which was

 

58Hist., vi. 46.

59Hist., iv. 47: "Chilpericus autem in ira commo-
tus, . . “

60Hist., v. 34: "Nam et discordantibus reges et
iterum bellum civile parantibus, . . ."

 

61Hist., vi. 1: "Anno igitur sexto regni sui Chil-
deberthus rex, reiectam pacem Gunthchramni regis, cum Chilper-
ico coniunctus est."

153

lacking in the first six books of the Historiae.

 

Of the rivals to Guntram's power following Chilperic's
assassination, the dead king's son Lothar was not a threat be-
cause he was an infant and his mother Fredegund recognized
that the protection of her brother-in-law was essential to

both of them.62

gflilQSBEEt' Sigibert's adolescent succes-
sor, presented more difficulties because of his history of
making alliances with his uncle and then breaking them. Gunt-
ram proved initially to be very leery of accepting Childe-
bert's word of friendship, and this led the young king and his
entourage to act with bravado toward him, at one point even
threatening that an axe would eventually find his head.63
What mended the breach between the two kings was the serious
threat posed by the pretender Gundovald who had been invited
to Gaul by a party of disgruntled nobles and clergy.64
Guntram recognized that it was essential that royalty present
a united front so as to deny the conspirators opportunity to
exploit differences between them. For that reason, he for-

mally made Childebert his heir and promised him his kingdom

in its entirety.55 Events were to prove, however, that the

 

628ist., vii. 4-5.
638ist., vii. 6, 14.

64cr. Hist., vii. 10, 14, 26, 32, 33; viii. 2, 7,
20; ix. 28: cf. vi. 24, 26.

65Hist., vii. 33: ”Post haec, rex Gunthchramnus,
data in menu regis Childeberthi hasta, ait: 'Hoc est indic-
ium, quod tibi omne regnum meum tradedi. Ex hoc nunc vade et
omnes civitates meas tamquam tuas proprias sub tui iuris

154

political situation recorded in Books VII to X was far too
complex to have been solved simply by an alliance between the
two leaders of the Merovingian world.

Much of Book VII is concerned with the uncovering of
Gundovald's plans for the take-over of Gaul, the attack
against him by Guntram's army, and his double-crossing by his
chief supporters which led to him defeat and death.66 Al-
though Gregory expressed no specific sympathy for this man
who attempted to challenge the Frankish order of Christendom,
he did present him in the end as a tragic figure, a victim of
the perfidy of untrustworthy traitors who had rejected legi-
timate authority and had brought him to prominence. When the
turncoats Mummolus, Bishop Sagittarius,67 and Waddo urged
Gundovald to leave the security of the fortress-like city of
Comminges to seek a supposed audience with Guntram, he "knew
he was being tricked,

'It was at your invitation that I came to Gaul,‘
he cried. . . . 'Next to God's help I placed all my
hope in you. I gave you my full confidence.

Through you I hoped to become King. If you have
deceived me you must explain your actions to God,

 

dominatione subice. Nihil enim, facientibus peccatis, de
stirpe mea remansit nisi tu tantum, qui mei fratris es fili-

us. Tu enim heres in omni regno meo succede, ceteris exhere-
dibus factis'."

56Hist., vii. 1o, 14, 26-28, 30-32, 34-38. Chap-

ters 39-40, 43 deal with the fates of those traitorous sup-

porters, some of whom found their ways to Fredegund's court
(43) . ‘

67A villain of long standing: cf. Hist., iv. 24; v.
20, 27.

155

for it is He who must judge my case.‘68

As the deserted pretender walked to what he knew was certain
death, he prayed that his mistreatment would be avenged by
God.69 Gundovald received a speedy death, but his real and

suspected supporters were pursued doggedly by Guntram

throughout many succeeding chapters of the Historiae. The

 

treachery and deceit of those who flattered Gundovald's pre-
tensions to power were responsible not only for that unfor-
tunate man's death, but also for much of the nervousness ex-
hibited by Guntram during his years of rule. Gundovald dis-
covered too late that he could not trust those by whom he was
surrounded. Guntram, in contrast, wanted to guarantee that
he would meet with no such lethal surprises. Gundovald had

been too trusting: Guntram came to trust hardly anyone.

 

68Hist., vii. 38: "At ille intellegens dolum eorum,
lacrimis perfusus, ait: 'Invitationem vestram in his Galliis
sum delatus, thesauros vero meos, in quibus inmensum pondus
argenti continetur et auri ac diversarum specierum, aliquid
in Avennica urbe retenetur, aliquid Gunthchramnus Boso diri-
puit. Ego vero, iuxta Dei auxilium spem omnem in vobis posi-
tam, vobis consilium meum credidi, per vos regnare semper ob-
tavi. Nunc cum Deo vobis sit actio, si quid mihi mendacii
dixeritis: ipse enim iudicet causam meam'."

69Hist., vii. 38: "'Iudex aeterne et ultio vera

innocentium, Deus, a quo omnes iustitia procedit, cui men-
dacium non placet, in quo nullus dolus neque versutia mali-
tiae continetur, tibi commendo causam meam, dipraecans, ut
sis velociter ultor super eos, qui me insontem in manibus
tradiderunt inimicorum'." This speech, like many of the
others Gregory recorded--or constructed--in the Historiae,
adds a significant dimension to the understanding of the
. character of God as developed thus far in the work, and cer-

tainly is indicative of the goal toward which he pointed as
the conclusion of his argument, namely, his warning of the
coming judgment.

 

156

By the time it was necessary for the king to flush out
those who had supported Gundovald, he had already proven
himself under different circumstances to be an effective
avenger. Following Chilperic's assassination and prior to
the reconciliation with Childebert, Guntram had asserted his
influence over the realms of both. Although he claimed
rights to the parts of Childebert's territory which included
the cities of Tours and Poitiers, he had difficulty subduing
them and finally had to use incendiary and plundering armies
against them.70 I

Guntram's stance toward Childebert's kingdom, prior to
his recognition of that nephew as his sole heir,71 was one
of power and the imposition of dominance. Toward Chilperic's
realm he assumed the role of the clement restorer and pro-
vider of justice. He returned to their owners property and
goods which Chilperic and his followers had wrongfully taken,
and brought to completion legal business which his brother

72 He was also legitimately

had conveniently disregarded.
concerned to avenge Chilperic's death. Fredegund, from whom

Guntram attempted to distance himself,73 aided him in this

 

70Hist., vii. 13, 12, 24. The rationale used by the
Tourangeaux to justify to the Poitevins their eventual
capitulation was that Guntram stood as guardian and adoptive
father to his nephews, the heirs of his dead brothers Sigi-
bert and Chilperic, and thus had become, for all practical
purposes, sole ruler as his father Lothar had been before him.

“£95.. vii. 33. 72Hist., vii. 7, 19.

73Hist.. vii. 19-20. This did not necessarily a

157

last regard. Eberulf, Chilperic's treasurer, had refused her
amorous advances and, in a spirit of revenge, she accused him
of having led the plot which resulted in Chilperic's death.
Upon hearing this, ”King Guntram swore before his leaders
that he would destroy not only Eberulf himself but his chil-
dren down to the ninth generation, so that by their death an
end might be put to an abominable habit and no more kings be
assassinated."74 Although it was never shown in the H13-
toriae exactly who was responsible for Chilperic's death,
Eberulf was killed and there were in fact no more royal as-
sassinations recorded. The threat of them, however, conti-
nued to demand constant wariness on the part of the kings75
and made Guntram anxious to stamp out whatever threats of
insubordination and insurrection might exist on any front.
Living in such an environment of potential treachery,

Guntram was especially single-minded in his efforts to track

down whoever might have supported the pretender Gundovald.

 

pacifying effect. The widowed queen was insulted by this
treatment because her enemy Brunhild, Childebert's widowed
mother, remained in favor. In protest, Fredegund launched
one of her assassination attempts against her former sister-
in-law. It failed.

74Hist., vii. 21: "Tunc rex iuravit omnibus opti-
matibus, quod non modo ipsum, verum etiam progeniem eius in
nonam generationem deleret, ut per horum necem consuetudo
anferretur iniqua, ne reges amplius interficerentur." Cf.
vii. 22, 29.

75Cf. Hist., viii. ll, 29, 44: ix. 3, 9, 38: x. 18.
Three of these assassination attempts were instigated by Fre-
degund, two of them against Childebert and one against Gunt-
ram.

158

The process of asserting his dominance over the realms of
Chilperic and Sigibert had pitted him against fairly large
population groups, wooing Chilperic's kingdom and subduing
parts of Childebert's. His pursuit of peace after Gundo-
vald's conspiracy, in contrast, was directed against indivi-
duals and his revenge, in some cases, seemed to approach the
excessive.

Gundovald's plot to assume the throne brought together
the two powers within Christendom, for both clergy and no-
bility had supported his bid for power. With bishops about
whom he harbored no suspicions, Guntram exhibited fine rap-
port.76 On occasion he could even act like a bishop and
was considered, like the saints, to have powers for miracu-
lous healing.77 Toward those cler9Y. however, who he felt
had sided with the pretender, Guntram made obvious his dis-

gust, and publicly denounced some of them with sarcasm.78

 

76_H_1:8t°l ix. 20; Cf. Viiie 4' 300
77%., iXe 210 Cf. above, p. 100 no 79.

78Hist., viii. 2. Guntram to Bertram of Bordeaux:
"'Gratias', inquid, 'agimus, quod sic custodisti fidem gene-
rationi tuae. Scire enim te oportuerat, dilectissime pater,
quod parens eras nobis ex matre nostra, et super gentem tuam
non debueras inducere pestem extraneam'." To Palladius of
Saintes: "'Nec tibi, o Palladi episcope, nimium sunt gratiae
referendae. Tertio enim mihi, quod de episcopo dici iniquum
est, periurasti, mittens indicolos dolositate plenus. A me
excusabaris per epistolas, et germanum meum cum scriptis
aliis invitabas. Iudicavit enim Deus causam meam, cum ego
provacare vos semper tamquam aeclesiae patres studui et vos
circa me semper egistis dolose'. Nicasio autem et Antidio
episcopis dixit: 'Quid vos, o sanctissimi patres, pro
regiones utilitate vel regni nostri sospitate tractastis,
edicite'. Illis quoque tacentibus, ablutis rex manibus,

159

When one of the accused, Palladius, was chosen by his fellow
bishops to celebrate mass for the king, Guntram threatened to
leave the service “rather than hear . . . [his] enemy
preach."79
The bishop who particularly aroused Guntram's ire was
Theodore of Marseilles. The king not only considered him to
have been a collaborator with Gundovald, but accused him and
the other conspirators of having arranged Chilperic's death
as well.80 Gregory recorded that, "King Guntram continued _
to do all he could to persecute Bishop Theodore,“ and that
this harsh stance was unmerited. The bishop, Gregory felt,
was "a man of great sanctity and assiduous in his prayers,"
a.man against whom the devil had no power.81 Guntram's

negative position toward Theodore even threatened the har-

mony between him and his nephew Childebert in whose kingdom

 

,accepta a sacerdotibus benedictione, ad mensam resedit laeto
vulto et hilare faciae, quasi nihil de contempto suo fuisset
effatus.“

79Hist., viii. 7: "Fratres vero consacerdotesque,
qui aderant, locum Palladio episcopo ad agenda festa praebu-
erunt. Quo incipiente prophetiam, rex interrogat, quis es-
set. Cumque Palladium episcopum initiasse pronuntiassent,
statim commotus rex ait: 'Qui mihi semper infidelis et perfi-
dus fuit, ille nunc sacrata verba praedicavit? Egrediar prur-
sus ab haec aeclesia, ne inimicum meum audiam praedicantem'."

80Hist., viii. 5.

81Hist., viii. 12: "Denique cum rex maxima inten-
tione Theodorum episcopum iterum persequi conaretur. . . .
Theodorus vero episcopus a Gunthchramno rege detentus est,
sed nihil ei rex nocuit. Est enim vir egregiae sanctitatus
et in oratione assiduus, . . . tamen qualis esset sacerdus,
de quo haec daemon condolens declamabat, apparuit."

160

Theodore's see lay.82 The bishop was eventually restored
to his city, but only after Guntram became so sick that there
was some thought that he would not live. Gregory had no
question as to the significance of this illness: ”In my
opinion this was God's providence, for he [Guntram] was plan-
83

ning to send a great number of the bishOps into exile."

It must not be suggested that Gregory did not believe that

 

32Hist., viii. 13.

83Hist., viii. 20: ”His etinem diebus Gunthchram-
nus rex graviter aegrotavit, ita ut potaretur a quibusdam non
posse prorsus evadere. Quod, credo, providentia Dei fecis-
set. Cbgitabat enim multus episcoporum exsilio detrudere.
Theodorus itaque episcopus ad urbem suam regressus, favente
omni populo, cum laude susceptus est.“ This is the sole in-
stance where Gregory suggested that there had been a divine
reaction to Guntram's individual actions.

Gregory's stance with regard to Gundovald's campaign
and his partisans real and suspected is intriguing. He seems
not to have been troubled by the fates of the secular ring-
leaders of the attempted coup, particularly Mummolus and
Guntram Boso, and clearly he disapproved of the actions of
Bishop Sagittarius and the non-canonical episcopal appoint-
ment of Faustianus which Gundovald had inspired. He skimmed
over the episcopal council which was to try those who had par-
ticipated in that investiture, however, concentrating on a de-
bate which had occurred there regarding whether "woman" was
included in the term "man." The bishop who received the most
generous consideration from Gregory was Theodore of Mar-
seilles. By Gregory's own account he was indubitably im-
plicated with the pretender's partisans because when Gundo-
vald arrived in Gaul he went to Marseilles and sought out the-
bishop who gave him horses and sent him to Mummolus (vi. 24).
Yet the historian was at pains, following Gundovald's defeat,
to place himself securely in opposition to Guntram's harrass-
ment of Theodore. He may, of course, simply have found it im-
possible, in the end, to approve the wholesale undercutting
and exile of a large proportion of the Gallic episcopacy, be-
lieving that God had sent Guntram's potentially terminal ill-
ness to prevent such an action being carried out (viii. 20).
That he did not side with traitorous bishops simply because
they were bishops can be seen in his account of the confession
of Bishop Egidius of Rheims in x. 19.

161

traitors should be punished, for he expressed no qualms
about the death sentence passed on the noble conspirator

Guntram 3080.84

He firmly believed that it was necessary
that lawful authority maintain its sovereignty by squelching
challenges to it, but he appears to have been troubled by
the apparent excesses of harrassment to which Guntram seemed
to have been driven in his desire forkvengeance.85
The large context of Guntram's reign may go a
long way toward explaining why he would have been less
than generous with anyone he suspected of treason. One
of the most touching events recorded in the Historiae is
Guntram's request, shortly after Chilperic's death, to the
citizens of Paris that he be spared assassination for at

least three years so that the realms would not be left

without an adult ruler.86 Although his request was

 

84Hist., ix. 10: 'Fuit autem hic in actu levis,
avariciae inhians, rerum alienarum ultra modem cupidus, om-
nibus iurans et nulli promissa adimplens. . . . Ariolus ac
sortis saepius utebatur, ex quibus future cognoscere cup-
iens, remansit inlusus.‘ Cf. Gregory's previous description
of his character in v. 14.

85Gregory himself had argued before Guntram in fav-
or of pardon for two of Gundovald's partisans who had sought
sanctuary in St. Martin's church following the defeat at
Comminges (Hist., viii. 6). Cf. above, pp. 103-104, n. 89.

86Hist., vii. 8: "Adiuro vos, o viri cum mulieri-
bus qui adestis, ut mihi fidem inviolatam servare dignimini
nec me, ut fratres meus nuper fecistis, interematis, liceat-
que nihi vel tribus annis nepotis meus, qui mihi adoptivi fac-
ti sunt filii, enutrire, ne forte contingat, quod Divinitas
aeterne non patiatur, ut illis parvolis, me defuncto, simul
pereatis, cum de genere nostro robustus non fuerit qui defen-
sit'.‘

162

87

honored, disorder abounded. The infamous Duke Rauching

planned an intricate campaign to kill Childebert in the

name of Chilperic's infant son Lothar,88

and Bishop Egidi-

us of Rheims was found to have been involved in it. Although
the bishop initially cleared himself, he later confessed

that he had been party not only to this plot but also to
Chilperic's were against his nephew and brother. He con-
ceded that, ”‘It . . . [was] is the direct result of . . .
[my] plotting that many battles . . . [have] been waged and

many districts of Gaul devastated."89

Egidius was

stripped of his office and wealth and sent into exile.

While the kings had been able to maintain the upper hand

in all of these plots, such a tenuous state of control could
easily become elusive. Fredegund, for one thing, was un-
fettered and, although she was unsuccessful in her as-
sassination plots against the kings, she did manage to

have murdered her old enemy Bishop Praetextatus of Rouen

who had sided years before with her rebellious stepson

 

87Assassination plots, however, did not cease, cf.
above, p. 37 n. 75.

88Hist., ix. 9. The kings had Rauching and his
chief conspirators Berthefried and Ursio killed (ix. 12).
For another account of Rauching's life and character, of. v.
3.

89Hist., ix. 14: x. 19: ”At ille confusus ait: 'Ad
sententiam dandam super culpabilem ne moremini; nam ego novi,
me ob crimen maiestatis reum esse mortis, qui semper contra
utilitatem huius regis matrisque eius abii, ac per meum
consilium multa fuisse gesta certamina, quibus nonnulla Galli-
arum loca depopulata sunt'" (x. 19).

163

Merovech.90 Guntram, for another, was frequently wary and

nervous. This can be seen not just in his reactions to the
clergy who had sided with Gundovald, but also in his refusal
to negotiate peace with the newly orthodox Visigoths of Spain
and his displeasure when Childebert did, as well as in his
treatment of his unfortunate Chamberlain.

In Books VIII and Ix the Arien Visigoths of Spain be-
gan to send regular official peace missions to Guntram. He
rebuffed them three times. Shortly thereafter Recared, their
king, tested the arguments presented in debate between ortho-
dox and Arien bishops, became convinced of the soundness of
orthodoxy, and converted to Catholicism. He then renewed his
overtures to Guntram who remained unimpressed. He said that
he would not receive their envoys because they were his ene-

mies.91

The diplomats fared considerably better at Childe-

bert's court, however, where the king and his mother Brunhild,
herself a Visigoth, were agreeable even to a marriage alliance
between Childebert's sister Chlodosind and Recared, dependent

upon Guntram's approval.92 This friendliness between

 

90Hist., viii. 31: cf. v. 18, for Praetextatus'
trial which resulted in exile; and vii. 16, for his restora-
tion: and above, p. 96. '

918ist., viii. 35, 38; ix. 1, 15, 16: "'Non re-
cipio ergo legationem Richeridi, donec me Deus ulcisci iubeat
de his inimicis'" (ix. l6).

9ZHist., ix. 16, cf. ix. 25. Childebert's and Brun-
hild's agreement with this proposal is remarkable in light of
the fact that another sister, Ingund, met with persecution and
eventual death at the hands of that family. Recared, how-
ever, had not been immediately involved (cf. Hist., v. 38:

164

Childebert and the Visigoths made Guntram extremely nervous,
even though he approved of the agreement. He saw this
alliance with a kingdom by whose armies he had recently been
badly defeated93 as threatening the good faith between him
and his nephew and began to make unreasonable accusations
about Childebert's political and diplomatic integrity. He
blockaded the roads between the two kingdoms and said that
Childebert was trying to overthrow him. In Gregory's
opinion, "no such idea had ever entered Childebert's head."
Guntram also announced his belief that Brunhild had been
planning to marry one of Gundovald's sons and called a church
council to discuss the issue. The bishops who. travelled to
get to the meeting had only to return home because the queen
mother quickly cleared herself of all charges. That settled,
Guntram removed the blockade.94 He had jumped to erroneous
conclusions, been prodigal in his accusations, inconvenienced

numerous people, and, in the end, been proven wrong.

He later did the same kind of thing to Chundo, his

 

vi. 40, 43: viii. 18, 28). Guntram's reason for his refusal
to meet with Recared's envoys was that he had to avenge his
niece's mistreatment. This consideration apparently did not
trouble her mother and brother.

93Hist., ix. 31.

94Hist., ix. 20, 32: "Addita est etiam huic causae
aliud amaretudinis incendium, quod Childeberthus rex filium
suum seniorem Theudoberthum nomine Sessonas dirigere cogita-
bat: quae res suspicionem fecerat Gunthchramno rege dicente
eo, quia: 'In hoc filium suum nepus meus Sessonas dirigit,
ut Parisius ingredi faciat regnumque meum auferre cupiat'.
Quod numquam Childeberthus vel in cogitatione, si dici fas
est, habere potuit."

 

165

Chamberlain, that time, however, with deadly results. Gun-
tram's altercation with him began when the king found that
some wild oxen had been killed in his forest. When pressed
to name the poacher, his forester accused Chundo, who heat-
edly denied having ever done such a thing. Guntram announ-
ced that the judicial decision would be made in a trial

by combat, Chundo's nephew standing in for him. Both
combatants were killed, and Chundo was caught before he

was able to reach sanctuary. His fate was death by ston-
ing. This episode would be little more than an interest-

ing and tragic anecdote in the Historiae were it not for

 

the conclusion which Gregory gave to it: "Afterwards the
King was sorry that he had lost his temper and that for
such a trifling offence he had recklessly killed . . . a
faithful and indispensable servant."95 This account in
a succinct fashion encapsulates the character of Guntram
as Gregory delineated it in the last books of the Histor-
iae. He was a hot-headed man, quick to seek combat, sus-
picious, vengeful. He could not be dismissed as wicked,

however, because he could recognize his own faults and was

at heart a fair and just ruler,96 a genial host,97 a

 

.

95“Hist., x. 10 (Thorpe and Latouche): "Multum se
ex hoc deinceps rex paenitens, ut sic eum ira praecipitem red-
didisset, ut pro parvolae causae noxia fidilem sibique virum

necessarium tam celeriter interemissit.

9§§3§5., vi. 33,39; vii. 7; viii.1, 5, ix, 3,

97Hist., viii. 3-4.

166

generous provider,98 and, above all, a saint capable of

healing the sick.99

The root of Guntram's problem was that, by the time of
his reign, there had been generations of disruption in the
Frankish world. He recognized that this lack of respect for
the machinery of Christian society was sinful and that for
his family's realms to achieve their potential, there had to
be repentance and renewed adherence to the law and to Chris-
tian authority. To bring that about, the king, on one oc-
casion, threatened that only those "'prepared to observe the
law'“ should be permitted to live.100 Despite the fact
that Guntram's concerns were, unfortunately, well founded in
reality, the last books of the Historiae do indicate that
legal procedures and respect for them were nonetheless in
evidence during the reigns of Guntram and Childebert.

A treaty, for instance, was negotiated between the two

kings and Childebert's mother Brunhild101 wherein the three

 

9?§i§£-. vi- 36: vii- 40: viii. 3; ix. 21.

 

99Hist., ix. 21. Dalton (History of the Franks, I,
52) quotes Michelet's description of Guntram: “ce bon roi 8
qui on ne reprochait que deux ou trois meutres." Guntram was
canonized after his death.

100Hist., viii. 30: "'Si quis sequitur iustitiam,
vivat: si quis legem mandatumque nostrum respuit, iam pereat,
ne nus diutius hoc blasphemeum prosequatur'."

101For the continuing political importance of Brun-
hild beyond the majority of her son and especially for her
regency following Childebert's death in 596, see Janet L.
Nelson, "Queens as Jezebels: The Careers of Brunhild and
Balthild in Merovingian History," in Medieval Women, ed. by
Derek Baker (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, I: Oxford:

167

pledged friendship and an end to all disputes among them.
”[IJt was settled, approved and mutually agreed, by the grace
of God, and with the approval of their bishops and their
military leaders that . . . they should maintain good faith
one with another in pure loving kindness and singleness of

heart."102

In this treaty territorial lines were estab-
lished, the heritable devolution of rights was determined,
and the relationships between the kings and their own and
each other's fighting men were acknowledged. The treaty
concluded with oaths sworn ”in the name of God Almighty, and
by the inseparable Trinity, by all things divine and by the

awful Day of Judgement."103

An additional threat to the
political stability of the realms was removed as well when
Bishop Egidius of Rheims confessed to his long-standing role

as political conspirator and was convicted and denied office

 

Basil Blackwell, 1978), pp. 41-45. See also, Pauline
Stafford, "Sons and Mothers: Family Pblitics in the Early
Middle Ages," in ibid., pp. 87-88.

102Hist., ix. 20: "Cum in Christo nomen praecel-
lentissimi domni Gunthchramnus et Childebertus regis vel
gloriosissima domna Brunechildis regina Andelao caritates
studio convenissent, ut omnia, quae undecumque inter ipsis
scandalum poterat generare, pleniori consilio definirent, id
inter eos, mediantibus sacerdotibus atque proceribus, Deo
medio, caritates studio sedit, placuit atque convenit, ut,
quamdiu eos Deus omnipotens in praesenti saeculo superesse
voluerit, fidem et caritatem puram et cimplicem sibi debeant
conservare." The phraseology is not dissimilar to that used
by Gregory to describe the relationship of the members of the
Trinity (cf. Hist., v. 43-44).

103Hist., ix. 20: "His itaque omnibus definitis.‘
iurant partes per Dei omnipotentes nomen et inseparabilem
Trinitatem vel divine omnia ac tremendum diem iudicii, . . ."

168

by a council of his fellow bishOps.104

105

The blood-feud
between Sichar and Chramnesind and the settlement of the
nuns' revolt at Saint Radegund's convent in Poitiers,106
which were discussed in the previous chapter, also showed the
forces of constraint and justice intervening, albeit with
varying degrees of success, to arbitrate quarrels and to
restore peace. There was no question that lawlessness
existed within the Merovingian world of the late sixth cen-
tury, but documented history proved that it was by no means
unchallenged.

Gregory's realistic treatment of Guntram's reign could

lead one to suggest that toward the end of the Historiae he

 

made a truce with history. For reasons unstated he decided
to respect it as a human phenomenon.= This can be seen in the
complexity he recognized history as having and in his ability
to accept the fact that the misfortunes and disorder that do
occur in a Christian world are often caused by forces uncon-
trollable by either theology or belief. It is visible as
well in his use of the mechanism of divine intervention and
judgment.

There are over sixty instances in the Historiae where

divine intervention or judgment were interpreted as having

 

104Hist., x. 19. See above, p. 162. n. 89-
105Hist., vii. 47: ix. 19. See above, pp. 107-108.

1°5Hist., ix. 39-43; x. 15-17. 20. 22. See above:
pp. 108-113e

169

occurred.107

Of these, only fourteen such examples appear
in Books VII to x and, in most of these, reference is made to
divine vengeance as a probable event or as a threat rather
than as actual fact. Exceptions to this are the death of the

108

murderer Veudast, and the fates of those who violated or

misused the church.109

Nearly half of the cases of judg-
mental divine intervention which are presented as historical
fact are to be found in Books I to IV in what, to Gregory, was
the past, time which either entirely preceded his own life or
which came before his professional leadership involvement in
the Merovingian world. More than three-fourths of them ap-
pear in those books of the Historiae, Books I to VI, wherein
he outlined his philosophical and theological arguments re-

garding the nature of Christian society and the dynamic of

good and evil functioning within it.110 It was the history

 

107Cf. Book I (three examples): 12, 16, 34; Book II
(nine): 3, 4, 6, 20, 23, 24, 37, 40, 42; Book III (seven):
praef., 5, 6, 12, 16, 31, 36: Book IV (eleven): 2, 4, 13, 14,
16, 18, 20, 36, 39, 48, 51: Book V (twelve): praef., l, 3, 4,
5, 15, 17, 18, 20, 36, 38, 46: Book VI (five): 3, 6, 10, 28,
32; Book VII (four): 3, 6, 29, 38; Book VIII (six): 12, 19,
20, 30, 31, 40; Book Ix (one): 30: Book x (three): 2, 15,
22. This list includes the use of saints as divine agents as
well as the use of the threat of divine intervention which
brought about the desired results.

1°3Hist., vii. 3.
1°9Hist., vii. 29; viii. 12, 19, 4o.

110Giselle de Nie has written a useful analysis of
Gregory's use of natural phenomena and prodigies in the gig-
toriae, recognizing because of them similar divisions among
the ten books as I have: i.e., I-IV and V-VI; VII-x. She
considers that his most definite assignment of meaning to
those phenomena occurred in Books I-IV, and interprets his

170

of which he was an eye-witness and a participant that was al-
lowed moral neutrality and realistic humanity. He found that
one's ability to extrapolate divine participation in history
benefitted from hindsight.111
The fact is, however, that Gregory had always consi-
dered history to be a human phenomenon. What changed be-
tween the first six and the last four books was his use of
history, not his understanding of its fundamental machinery.
What caused the difference between the two parts of the Hig-
toriae was that in Books I to VI Gregory sought to explore

the wide-ranging potential of Christian society. In Books

VII to X he sharpened his focus to examine its details.

 

use of them in Books VII-X as having eschatological signifi-
cance. Although the judgment and prodigy motifs are roughly
parallel in Books I-VI, the similarity breaks down with re-
gard to Books VII-X. See “Roses in January: A Neglected
Dimension in Gregory of Tours' Historiae," Journal of Medie-
val History, 5 (1979), 259-289.

 

 

111Nothing could better point out the differences of
historical approach between Gregory and Bede than the fact
that the Northumbrian included fewer miracle stories or cases
of divine intervention in what was to him the distant more
pagan past than he did in his history of the recent Christian
past. Joel T. Rosenthal has suggested that for Bede the mira-
cle stories proved that, "The tension between the demons of
paganism, heresy, and schism on the one hand and the true
faith on the other was finally over" ("Bede's Use of Miracles
in 'The Ecclesiastical History,'" Traditio, 31 [1975], 330.
See also Laurence Stearns Creider, "Bede's Understanding of
the Miraculous" (Diss. Yale University, 1979): Calvin B. Ken-
dall, "Bede's Historia ecclesiastica: The Rhetoric of Faith,"
in Medieval Eloquence. Studies in the Theory and Practice of
Medieval Rhetoric, ed. by James J. Murphy (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 145-172;
Roger Ray, "Bede's VeraLex Historiae," Speculum, 55 (1980),
1-21, Benedicta Ward, "Miracles and History: A Reconsidera-
tion of the Miracle Stories Used by Bede," in Famulus Christi,
ed. by Gerald Bonner (London: SPCK, 1976), pp. 70-76.

 

 

171

Although nowhere in the Historiae did he offer an explanation
of what history was and how he intended to use it, he manip-
ulated it in ways that indicate that he had clear and con-
sistent ideas of its nature. These ideas were inextricably
linked to his understanding of God and of redemption. The
roles of deity in the Historiae were to promise the gift of
redemption and to evaluate those who sought it--or those who
should have sought it. The action of history consisted of
mankind's efforts to accept or reject salvation. God offer-
ed eternal life, humanity responded to that offer, and God
then reacted to the response. God was the Lord of time and
eternity: mankind held history in usufruct. God and the
saints did not intervene in history except to evaluate human
actions which had already occurred. sThis was as much the
case with Guntram's life-threatening illness while he was

112

harrassing the clergy as it was with Israel's domina-

tion by foreigners when they lapsed into idolatry.113
What Gregory considered to be the importance of the
Last Judgment was equally applicable to all of these judg-

ments within history: "'If there is no Judgement Day to

 

112Hist., viii. 20.

113Hist., i. l2, 16. The most unusual example of
this divine reaction was probably the assassination of Sigi-
bert following his mere intention to rout his brother Chil-
peric. Gregory gave every indication, however, that the
circumstances were such that Chilperic anticipated the worst
from his brother. If he knew what Sigibert had the strength
to do, it should probably not be surprising that God did as
well, and that this intervention was as much reaction as any
of the others (Hist., iv. 51).

172

come, all men can follow their own petty desires, each of us

can do exactly as he wishes."114

God is the critic, not
the instigator, of historic action on earth. He has made
available to human beings by means of the revelation of his
own character what should be the motivation of their lives.
He will decide at the end whether or not they took advantage
of their possibilities. Anticipating such an evaluation of
himself by God, the individual is obliged to assume the re-
sponsibility to order his life and his history accordingly.
Gregory believed that history was a textbook to which
one could turn in order to learn about the structure and
stresses of Christian society. By the recitation of this
historical material, one would gradually become more effec-
tive in the defense against evil. In the distant past could
be found an exhibit of what the whole course of human his-
tory is with examples of success and failure visible in high
relief. While one could not be certain of the meaning of
events in the present or the recent past, because the dis-
tant past was thoroughly complete, one could assess its
meaning. This interpretive process was, in fact, vital be-
cause the past was the creator of the present as well as its
example and guide. That the temporal continuum existed Greg-
115

ory made clear with his several chronological summaries.

Were one to have analyzed the past, one should be better able

 

114Hist., x. 13.

1158ist., i. 48; iii. 37; iv. 51; x. 31-

173

to make wise decisions regarding one's actions in the present
and thus disclose for oneself some of the mysteries of the
future. The judgment at the end of life and the world would
not inspire fear and apprehension in the Christian were he
fully cognizant of how and under what circumstances such
events had been made evident in the past.

As with so much in his Historiae, Gregory's under-
standing and use of history is similar to yet quite differ-
ent from that of Eusebius and Orosius. A close comparison of
the historical machinery employed by Gregory of Tours with
that of Eusebius and Orosius emphasizes the sixth-century
historian's inherent philosophical sophistication and the
strikingly human orientation of his history.

The views of Eusebius on history are complex and
philosophical, and are difficult to present succinctly. Al-
though he was an historical theorist and Gregory of Tours was
not, the sixth-century writer operated implicitly in accord-
ance with many of the historical principles Eusebius devel-
oped explicitly. The major difference between them is that
Gregory considered all people, be they good or evil, liable
for their own actions, an interpretation which may well
reflect the primary influence of his own nearly contem-

porary countryman Saint Caesarius of Arles.116 In essence,

 

116Caesarius had a "very reserved explanation of
predestination" (Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrine, p. 223).
“Tb him, the story of the Prodigal meant that man's fall
resulted from his choice to depart from virtue and good
deeds" (William J. Daly, Traditio, 26 [1970], 21).

 

174

however, Eusebius and Gregory of Tours gave the same defini-
tion to history.

Eusebius' confidence regarding the truth and ortho-
doxy of the church was due to the antiquity of its beliefs.
This searching into eternity for the church's origins forced
him to deal with the distinction between eternity and time
because the church itself existed within time, that "mortal,

transitory state”117

into which humanity had fallen at the
first sin. To be able once again to comprehend the truth of
eternity, sinful humanity had to be patiently civilized from

"wild and savage brutality . . . to mildness."118

This was
carried out, Eusebius believed, by the Hebrews but was not
completed until Jesus' birth during Caesar Augustus' reign.
At that point eternity superimposed itself upon history and
became known in terms of chronological and calculable time
because of the appearance of “that same teacher of the
virtues, the assistant of the Father in all good things, the
divine and heavenly Word of God, in a human body in no way
differing in substance from our own nature."119

Eusebius considered that while the church had been

founded in primeval eternity it had been confirmed in

 

117§§, i.2, using the translation of Williamson. Cf.
Glenn F. Chesnut, First Christian Histories, p. 92.

118g, i. 2.

119§§, i. 2. Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theo-
l of Histo - (2nd ed.: New York: Sheed & Ward, Inc.,
1963 , p. 0, where Christ's incarnation is described as a
"descent into history.“

175

”historic eternity' when the ngg§_had allowed himself to
become entrapped in time, an event which had taken place
relatively recently. For the Christian, eternity was not
merely that blissful state which preceded time, it had been
present within time when Christ lived on earth. That first-
century period provided an example of eternity comprehensible
not only because it had happened within human time, but also
because it was a fact of Roman, that is, contemporary, his-
tory. Although he had quite majestically established in the
early pages of his work the incredible scope of Christian
antiquity, Eusebius was content for practical purposes to
view the age of Jesus and the apostles as the foundation in
eternity of the true church of which he was a bishop.

The life of Jesus, however, was given no place in the
Historia, but the time when that life occurred was solidly
established because it identified from whence the church in
its present form had evolved. The existence of the nggg in
eternity created the spiritual church; his entry into history
initiated the organized church. The point of significance
was to determine when that happened. Eusebius was concern-
ed only to place firmly within time the 212g; of Christ's
life, and to prove it by means of documentation.120 That
event was important because it motivated the apostles to
structure the church, and they began the heroic action of the

Historia ecclesiastica. Christ remained, despite his temporal

 

lzqgg, i. 5-7, 9-11, 13.

176

experience, the superhuman nggg, the creator and originator
of the church, the reason for its existence. anetheless he
was outside it, having left history for eternity.

By interpreting Christ's time as being important be-
cause of the human time which it intersected, Eusebius stat-
ed that, in terms of practical understanding, history is hu-

man, it is not divine.121

Acknowledging that within the
recent past, eternity had touched time, he nonetheless placed
his emphasis on time. Jesus Christ, eternal Word of the
Father, was the source of the church's power, but the insti-
tution itself was human and those responsible for its organ-
ization were those men who had known the Word. Christ in-
spired the spread of the gospel, but what actually founded
churches was ”the teaching of His disciples and their won-

'122 Eusebius believed, as Glenn F. Chesnut

derful works.
has pointed out, that ”human beings in history had free will,
and [that] the social order could be reformed from a Chris-

tian pespective."123

God influenced history, but did not
dictate it.

In contrast to his understanding of the motivation of

 

121Cf. Chesnut (First Christian Histories, p. 249),
who says that for Eusebius, "History . . . was the reflec-
tion of the eternal into the world of time."

122g, 11. 3.

123First Christian Histories, pp. 35, 61-90; and
idem, Our Common History as Christians, pp. 69-95. My fol-
lowing comments owe much foundation to Chesnut's work, al-
though the points I make and the examples I use are not drawn
from his material unless specifically mentioned as such.

177

the apostles' actions, however, Eusebius could not allow to
heretics the free will available to the orthodox. Heretics
were “poisonous reptiles“ of the devil who carried out their
attacks on the church at his instigation. The “[eJnemy of
man's salvation" sent Simon Magus to Rome in advance of the
Christian missionaries, and the founder of the Manichaeans
began his work ”when the Devil . . . put the man forward for
the destruction of many."124
Lest it be construed that Eusebius credited demonic
powers with having a more tangible role in human affairs than
the divine, the heretical puppets were invariably confounded
by those ecclesiastics who had freely chosen to defend the
gospel. God was understood also to intervene to protect the
church. Eusebius records three instances when that occur-
red: the destruction of the Jews, the conversion of Rome,
and the staying of Aurelian's threatened persecution. In the
latter case, Eusebius considered that the emperor's arms were
held so that he could not sign the decrees and that this pre-
sented "for all to see the fact that never would it be easy
for the rulers of the world to proceed against the churches
of Christ, unless the hand that defends him in divine and
heavenly judgment permits this to be done for the sake of
discipline and correction, at whatever times it should ap-

prove."125

 

124gg, v. 14; ii. 13; vii. 31.

125§§' vii. 30. Cf. Chesnut, First Christian

 

178

Eusebius thus comprehended three types of superhuman
influence in history: the nggg-inspired free will of the
orthodox, the demonic manipulation of the heretics, and the
divine oversight of the affairs of state and church. Of the
three, the most dominant in the Historia ecclesiastica, a
work devoted to the history of orthodoxy, was that of ortho-
dox nggg-inspired free will. Although the ultimate motiva-
tion may well have been divine, the Historia operated accord-
ing to the principle that knowable historic action is human.

The importance of the ggggg as the ultimate influence
in history, however, cannot be underestimated for it gave to
history logic, rationality, and comprehensibility. As Ches-
nut has stated, for Eusebius '[t]o say that human history had
a lgggg was therefore to say that there was meaning to
history. It was susceptible to human analysis, both logi-

cally and morally."126

In addition, because truth was in-
volved, the analysis could be carried out in a demonstrably
persuasive manner. In contrast, Eusebius' quotation of
Rhodo's disputation with the heretic Apelles is illustrative
of the unprovability of error: "[W]hen I adjured him to
speak the truth, he swore that he spoke the truth when he
said that he did not know how the unbegotten God is one, but

that he believed it. And I laughed and looked down on him

 

Histories, p. 162, where he discusses the Hebraic notion of
divine foreordination of such as Constantine who would be
agents of salvation.

126Chesnut, First Christian Histories, p. 123.

179

because, when he professed to be a teacher, he did not know

how to confirm what he taught."127

Eusebius wrote the
history of the true, nggg-inspired church, therefore, his-
tory for him was a tangible, provable human phenomenon.

If Eusebius' analysis of history was more complicated
and better developed than Gregory of Tours', that of Orosi-
us was exactly the opposite. Gregory's view of history, as
explained above, was simple, yet profound; Orosius' was sim-
plistic. The fourth-century historian's basic assumption
about history was that “the world and man are directed by a
Divine Providence that is as good as it is just,” and that
the 'evils which existed [in the past], as to a certain ex-
tent they exist now, were doubtless either palpable sins or
the hidden punishments for sin."128

To suggest, as one must, that Orosius did not deal
with the concept of free will in the Historia adversus pa-
ggggg is not necessarily to say that in general terms he de-
nied the possibility of such. The topic of his work simply
was not concerned with the abilities of human beings to make
moral choices. His emphases were the grand events of his-
tory, the rise and fall of nations, and he saw the state as
an agency of God for both punishment and salvation. As he

explained it, if "all power and all government . . . are the

gift of God, all the more so are the kingdoms from which all,

 

mpg, v. 13.

128Hist. ad. pag., i. l.

180

powers proceed." Empires are allowed to exist in order to
keep rival kingdoms in check.129 Because its God-given
power is coupled with its sinfulness, however, a state could
not be allowed to have free will by a merciful God because
the destruction wrought would be too thorough. In a sense,
it is as if God kept the state on a leash so that he could
bring it to heel when necessary. As Theodor E. Mommsen has
suggested by means of a different image, "Orosius evidently
believed that for the most part God used the various pagan
nations, regardless of their actual unworthiness, as mere
puppets or tools for the furtherance of His divine pur-
poses.“l3o The same could also be said for his treatment
of the Christian state.

The chief methodological similarity between Orosius
and Gregory of Tours was that they both used the phenomenon
of divine judgment as historical explanation. In contrast to
Gregory's reasoned and pointed use of divine judgment and
intervention, however, Orosius seemingly offered it when he
had nothing else to suggest.

Because he was concerned with the identity of the di-
vinely blessed Roman empire, Orosius was challenged to ac-
count for such misfortunes as persecutions which were wrought

by that especially privileged State. Nero's massacre pre-

sented no difficulties as it was simply one more fillip from

 

129Hist. ad.ppeg-. ii- 1-

13oln Medieval and Renaissance Studies, p. 339.

181

an altogether dispicable life. Trajan was such an otherwise
good emperor, however, that his persecution was interpreted
as having been somewhat of an aberration of which he later
repented. Orosius rather amazingly managed to excuse his
fellow Spaniard by shifting back to Nero the blame for this
anti-Christian program. He recounted that "the Golden House
at Rome, which Nero had built . . . , was suddenly burned to
the ground. Thus it was made plain that, though the perse-
cution was set in motion by another, the punishment fell most
heavily upon the buildings of that man who first began the-
persecution and who was the real author of it." That Orosius
was reduced to finding a building the object of divine jus-
tice illustrates the weakness of his hermeneutic: With val-
erian, however, he had a much easier time because that emper-
or's reward for persecuting Christians was to spend the re-
mainder of his life as a footstool for the Persian king, "an
unmistakable judgment of God."131
2 These were minor problems compared to that presented
to him by Diocletian, however, a fact of which he was well
aware.132 The persecution of that emperor "was longer and

more cruel than any other that had preceded it," but Diocle-

tian and his co-emperor Maximianus "laid aside their office

 

131Hist. ad. pag., vii. 7, 12, 22.

. 132"At this point somebody suddenly runs up to me
and dancing with joy taunts me, saying: 'Aha1 we have long
waited for you and at last you have fallen into our trap

. . . (Hist. ad. pag., vii. 26).

182

and found rest as private citizens, a lot that men consider
the greatest blessing and highest good of a life well lived."
Orosius' scheme demanded that persecutors be personally pun-
ished for their crimes, but no such thing had occurred in
this instance. Rather than admit the limitations of his
historical scheme, he launched into a highly imaginative
comparison of the Roman persecutions with the plagues of
Egypt. The persecutors, like pharaoh, might consider them-
selves free from responsibility for their actions but, in the
end, they and their chariots would be caught in the sea of
fire and would “burn in eternal torment."133
In contrast, Gregory of Tours had only one excursion
into this particular kind of judgmental explanation. It
occurred in his telling of the story of Clovis' Arien niece
Amelasuntha, the daughter of the Ostrogoth Theodoric, who, he
claimed, committed at least two serious crimes on her way to
a miserable death. She married a slave, an act of lése-
majesté, and then poisoned her mother by means of the com-
munion chalice in revenge for her having brought about the
death of the unfortunate husband. As a result, Amalasuntha
herself was killed by being suffocated in a steam bath.
Gregory's comment upon the daughter's sacramental poisoning

of her mother was to assign ultimate blame for this heinous

 

133Hist. ad. pag., vii. 25, 27. Saint Augustine
denounced this kind of interpretation in De civitate Dei,
xviii. 52. My thanks to Professor Richard Kenneth Emmerson
for drawing my attention to this.

183

sin upon the devil and to suggest that one could expect lit-
tle better of Arians, for "the Devil is present even at their
altar." Had the mother been Catholic, however, all could
have been different, for, he claimed, "We Catholics, . . .
who believe in the Trinity, co-equal and all-powerful, would
come to no harm even if we were to drink poison in the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, one true God-
head."l34
Although they shared some important characteristics of
historical approach, the ultimate goals of Eusebius, Oro-
sius, and Gregory of Tours determined that they would not use
history in the same ways. All three, for instance, con-
sidered that history was a smooth-working, unvarying machine.
HOw the machine was described as operating varied in accord-
ance with the needs and temperament of each historian. All
believed that God was deeply concerned with what happened
within history, but each placed that concern at a differ-
ent level. Knowledge of what had happened in the distant
past provided each with comprehensible definitions of the

nature and potential of the present and the future, but each

 

134Hist., iii. 31: "Erant autem sub Arriana secta
viventes, et quia consuetudo eorum est, ut ad altarium veni-
entes de alio calice reges accepiant et ex alio populus mi-
nor, veninum in calice illo posuit, de quo mater commonica-
tura erat. Quod ille hausto, protinus mortua est. Non enim
dubium est, tale maleficium esse de parte diabuli. Quid con-
tra haec miseri heretici respondebunt, ut in sanctam eorum
locum habeat inimicus? Nos vero Trinitate in una aequalitate
pariter et omnipotentia confitentes, etiam si mortiferum bi-
bamus, in nomine Patres et Filii et Spiritus sancti, veri et-
que incorruptibilis Dei, nihil nos nocebit."

184

presented the past in his own unique manner.

For Eusebius history proved the existence of the un-
changing church from its origins in eternity to its evangel-
istic triumphs in his own day. What the church was and had
always been as well as the truths it promoted could be re-
tionally proven because God inspired with ultimate reason
those who freely chose to serve him. To Orosius the past was
invaluable because he needed it to convince the pagans that
throughout history, although they might not have recognized
it, God had always been in control of events. Whether for-
tune or misfortune occurred depended upon the particular
function in the grand cosmic scheme of history God had as-
signed to a given state or people. God was, therefore, in as
much control of Roman history in the time of Alaric as he had
been in the time of Augustus. For Gregory of Tours history
was the arena within which human beings determined for them-
selves whether they would accept or reject the divinely prof-
fered gift of redemption. The process of making that choice
was admittedly difficult because of the complexities and ob-
stacles within human life and circumstances. The discrete and
knowable past, however, provided a microcosm of the totality
of history against which one could measure one's own experi-
ence so as to know what to expect in the Last Judgment. Greg-
ory of Tours was in many ways not methodologically distant
from the historiographical techniques of Eusebius and Orosius.

When he is placed in comparison with them, though, it becomes

185

clear why, unlike them--and unlike some of their medieval
successors such as Bede and Otto of Freisin9135--he achieved
such unique historical realism: he unabashedly emphasized the
mundane everyday human response to God.

This chapter has dealt on several levels with Gregory
of Tours' understanding of the realities of history. As a
practical and realistic Christian leader, he had to recog-
nize the fact that perfection of behavior cannot be achieved
by human beings. Despite what benefits of Christian know-
ledge and experience they might have, people are most likely
to act toward God and each other in a combative manner.
Gregory as a moral realist manipulated this fact in Books III
and IV by recounting it as a liturgical recitation of seeming-
ly unending and unexplained conflict. He became an historical
realist in Books VII to X because he broadened his discussion
of these conflicts in order to articulate their mitigating
circumstances and to allow for significant positive events to
intermingle naturally with them.

In the first part of the work, good most often occur-
red on an individual level and made only a generalized impact
upon the immediate community, be it monastery or diocese.

Maurilio, bishop of Cahors, can serve as an example. "He was

a man of great charity. . . . He was just in his decisions and

 

135For the line of inheritance between Eusebius and
Bede see L. W. Barnard, "Bede and Eusebius as Church Histor-
ians," in Famulus Christi, pp. llOff. For Orosius and Otto
of Freising see Mommsen, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
pp. 325-348: and Lacroix, Orose et ses idées, pp. 199-207.

 

   

186

. . . he protected the poor of his diocese from the hand of

unfair judges."136

Although Gregory described in some de-
tail Maurilio's severe asceticism, he did not specify the
nature and beneficiaries of his charity or his decisions. We
can only speculate how Maurilio "protected the poor of his
diocese from the hand of unfair judges," and wonder what the
circumstances were when this occurred and what effects such
action might have had upon the way judges acted in the future.
In the last books, however, good, as illustrated not just by
saintly people but also by means of treaties and judicial set-
tlements, was thus institutionalized, documented, and employed
to announce the studied intentions of government and society.
Even personal charity, such as Guntram's dispersal to the poor
of much of Mummolus' treasure after his death in the defeat

of the pretender Gundovald, was given a specificity of circum-

stance that made it an event of political consequence for the

realm.137

In all these cases, Gregory of Tours demonstrated an
acceptance of the realities of human existence and history.
What changed within his narrative from beginning to end was
the degree of emphasis he placed upon the various aspects of
that reality. The methodological foundation which gave him

the solid base from which to maneuver in this manner was his

 

136Hist., v. 42: "Fuit autem valde elemosinarius,
. . . Fuit etiam et in iudiciis iustus ac defendens pauperes
ecclesiae suae de manu malorum iudicum iuxta illud lob."

137Hist., vii. 40.

187

reliance upon the assumption that the machinery of history it-
self has a reality whose dependability can be known. Without
the benefit of that particular reality of history, the bishop

might well not have decided to become an historian.

Chapter IV

THE HISTORIAN AS BISHOP

The world Gregory of Tours presupposed was a good
one. He intellectually envisioned its potential reality and
historically demonstrated its recognizable practicality. Or-
thodox belief, reflecting the law of God, defined what the
character of that Christian world should be. What that law
was could be known and Christian society had leaders who
were equipped both to interpret it and to implement adher-
ence to it. History dependably testified that society
benefitted whenever those within it acted in accordance with
the law and that it suffered when the law was ignored. The
Trinity, the font of law and orthodoxy, expanded the motive-
tion for acceptance and application of truth beyond history
into eternity because of its offer of redemption and its
intention to final judgment. The goal of Gregory's 23335
libri Historiarum was to state the goals of Christian soci-
ety and to provoke action toward them. In his mind, their
achievement was unquestionably possible, and history should
be able to record significant progress.

Gregory was not unique in his expectation of histori-
cal progress because his historiographical mentors had oper-
ated firmly within such a context. For Eusebius, although
ostensibly no change ever occurred within the church's na-

ture or identity, its evangelization of the Roman empire was

188

189

a matter of infinite triumph. All history had pointed to
this grand finale when true unity was achieved in the world.
The usually unsubtle Orosius, imbued with the spirit of
fourth-century progressivism,1 provided at the conclusion
of his Historia a subtle qualitative account of victorious
Roman survival. The divinely blessed empire would go into
the future triumphantly because it would convert its German-
ic conquerors and thereby turn them into true Romans. What
brought these Christian historians to their unquestioning
affirmation of success and progress in earthly history was
their ultimate belief that an eternal force outside history
motivated its events. Eusebius relied ultimately upon the
inspiration of God for the free will actions of the godly.
Orosius simply believed that God directly manipulated all.
history. In the schemes of both these historians, it was
thus inevitable that whatever God controlled would tri-
umph.2 .

Most of Gregory's fellow medieval historians gave an-
other potent interpretation of the triumph of history. Un-
like Eusebius and Orosius who were strikingly uneschatologi-
cal in their presentation of historical ideas, historians
like Bede in the eighth century and Otto of Freising in the

twelfth explicitly considered that the ultimate explication

 

lSo Theodor E. Mommsen, in Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, p. 343. Cf. above, p. 55 n. 90

 

2For the full context of Eusebius' and Orosius' uses
of history, see above, pp. 173-183

190

of history lay in the final escape from it.3 Scarcely a

soul in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum anti-
cipated death with regret, for instance, having rather an
all-consuming eagerness to reach heaven and the life beyond.
Otto of Freising's Historia sive de duabus civitatibus, al-
though it provides an extensive outline of history from prim-
eval to the author's own times, concludes with the entire fi-
nal book devoted to an elaborate analysis of last day events
and the second advent of Christ.4 All four of these histor-
ians, although they did not all employ eschatology in their
interpretations of history, shared the belief that history
was ancillary to eternity and that consequently what happened
of significance within history was ultimately motivated from

without for ahistorical reasons.5

 

3C. A. Patrides, The Grand Design of God. The Liter-
ary Form of the Christian View of History (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 22: "eschatology . . . was until the
fifteenth century to remain a capital interest of Christian
historiography."

 

 

4Otto's explanation of history is not as simple as
it might seem in the De duabus civitatibus because of his
later writing of the far more worldly history of his nephew
Frederick Barbarossa's reign, the Gesta Friderici. Both
works have been interpreted as sharing important character-
istics despite their seeming differences of historical ap-
proach. Cf. Karl F. Morrison, "Otto of Freising's Quest for
the Hermeneutic Circle," Speculum, 55 (1980), 207-236.

 

 

5This fundamental ahistoricalness of these writers,

however, did not lead them to deny history. They simply
considered its logic to be exterior to it. R. W. Southern
has suggested that this "Creation, Fall and Redemption" view
of history had within it the need for movement and develop-
ment, and created an intellectual environment wherein, be-
cause "[t]he end was in sight almost as clearly as the begin-
ning," history “was the story of a tight and compact world,

191

Gregory of Tours, as has been discussed in the pre-
ceding chapter, was like these other historians in many
ways. What made him, in the final analysis, a true indivi-
dual when placed in their company was his choice of inter-
pretive emphasis. Gregory shared the Christian progressiv-
ism of his third and fourth century precedessors and he
looked into the same eternal future as Bede, Otto, and many
other medieval historians were later to do. What made Greg-
ory unique, however, was that, while he firmly believed in
triumph and progress, with the exception of the Last Judg-
ment and the inarticulated heavenly bliss it would introduce,
where or when that triumph and progress would occur was not
foreordained but was wholly subject to human volition. The
ultimate reason for progress in history did lie outside his-
tory, but the action of bringing it about was firmly within
history because it was human. It was this understanding of
the dynamic of history and of history's relationship to
eternity that defined the nature of the practical minded
bishop's historical task. Marshalling exempla from the past
--conflicts, saints, sinners of all social classes, wars,

interlopers, documents, debates--in order to remind bishops,

 

of which the main outlines could be grasped without any dis-
turbing uncertainty. . . . [M]en knew [what] they knew with-
out ambiguity“ (Transactions of the Royal Histgrical Society,
(fifth series) 21 (1971), 159-160. Gerald A. Press has ar-
gued that the Christian linear scheme of historical develop-
ment may probably be in a continuum with Graeco-Roman histor-
ical understanding than separate from it ("History and the
Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity," History and
Theory, 16 [1977], 288).

 

192

kings, parishioners, and readers of future generations, the
Bishop of Tours preached throughout his ten books of his-
tories that which must be imitated and that which must be
avoided so that progress can indeed occur within history.
The past for Gregory, as has been seen, was a con-
crete illustration of what all time would be. Its successes
and failures could be clearly known. In it could be found
wise and unwise rulers, selfless and ambitious clergy, indi-
viduals of decency and charity as well as those of greed and
insufferable cruelty.6 There were warnings of the final
judgment as bad people met within history with well deserved
ends. But most importantly of all, because of the illumina-
tions of God and his law that were visible in the past, one
could find there all the guidelines necessary to guarantee
Christians successful pursuit of progress and the redemption
that would be its reward. When the thoughtful person, as
practical as Gregory was himself, would contemplate the con-
trasting results of peaceful generosity and those of war and
distrust, he would acknowledge the reasonableness of Chris-

tianity and be quick to convert to it and thereby help to

 

6One of Gregory's better examples of an evil man is
Duke Rauching who was particularly despicable because of his
ingenious and shameful treatment of his servants and slaves.
Rauching thus served an ironically useful and positive func-
tion in the Historiae by becoming an example of how a super-
ior should not behave toward his subordinates (Hist., v. 3).
King Gundobad of Burgundy provided a similar example in ii.
34. With Gundobad and Rauching Gregory was able to stress
the responsibilities of governorship from the loftiest in
society to the lowliest.

193

save society as well as himself. The social logic and power
of Christianity gave to Gregory a sense of fine optimism
about history. As he had written in his interpretation of
Zerubbabel's restoration of the Jerusalem temple, when Christ
would build his temple within Christian society, it would
have within it three kinds of decoration: faith would "shine
as bright as gold," the “word of the preacher" would ”gleam
like silver," and there would be resultant integrity of
hearts. In such a context of faith, preaching, and integ-
rity, society's "good intentions" and actions would meet with
success.

In the Decem libri Historiarum, Gregory of Tours him-
self was a preacher and the topic of his sermon was redemp-
tion and Christian community. By the medium of history, he
preached to his generation and to generations yet unborn a
message of faith, integrity, and triumphant action. The

stance he assumed throughout the Historiae was that of a

 

working sixth-century bishop whose career, as J. M. Wallace-
Hadrill has noted, was one of "ceaseless activity as admini-
strator, builder, evangelist, and (though some will not have
it) politician."8 This chapter will show that to recognize

Gregory as a bishop of his particular century is to have gone
far toward a comprehension of the message, goal, and style of

the Historiae. It is only in that professional and temporal

 

7Hist., i. 15. Cf. above, p. 59, n. 1.

8The Long-Haired Kings, p. 52.

194

context that the unique contribution of Gregory of Tours to
the development of the Western historiographical tradition
can begin to be appreciated.

The Historiae is in many ways an intensely personal
work. Gregory the bishop was not only the author but is
also an important character of the history, assuming in
essence the role of the 'relieble narrator“ Wayne C. Booth
has identified in such fictional works as Henry Fielding's
JOseph Andrews and Tum Jones.9 The spokesman of the
prefaces and the debates, the courageous bishop at the trial
of Praetextatus of Rouen, the outraged victim of false accusa-

10

tion, and the ethical and moral judge and public defender

is the guide who tells us what are his most important points
of argument. Within the Historiae Gregory thus fulfills what
Booth stated is '[tlhe most obvious task of a commentator"

by telling ”the reader about the facts that he could not

[so] easily learn otherwise."11 Gregory's repetitious

references to Trinitarian orthodoxy are ”directed to

 

9The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago and London:
university of Chicago Press, 1961). I would like to thank my
colleague Professor Kent Daniels Seltman for discussing the
device of the "reliable narrator" with me in the context of
his work on Henry Fielding. The eighteenth-century novelist,
like the sixth-century historian, was a preacher.

loHist., v. 49; cf. also the account of Felix of
Nantes' accusations against Gregory's murdered brother Peter,
a deacon of Langres (v.5). As an antidote to the view of
Felix in the Historiae see William C. McDermott, "Felix of
Nantes: A Merovingian Bishop," Traditio, 31 (1975), 1-24.

11Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 169, emphasis mine.

195

reinforcing values which most readers, one would think, al-

ready take for granted."12

Christian character is repeat-
edly affirmed in the Historiae,13 and Gregory sought
throughout to mold "the reader's judgment on one scale of

values."14

Gregory's message in the Historiae was that orthodoxy
is far more than doctrinal belief, that Christianity is a

religion whose doctrines should make a difference in the way

 

12Ibid., p. 177. If Dorenkemper's assessment of the
state of acceptance of Trinitarianism in the time of Saint
Caesarius of Arles is correct, Gregory may have been
reinforcing values that were not yet totally solidly estab-
lished. The fact that the supposedly orthodox Chilperic
could lean toward Sabellianism would seem to indicate this.
Cf. Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrine, pp. 31, 131: and
Hist., v. 44.

13E.g., Gregory's affirmation of his own orthodoxy
(Hist., i. praef.: iii. praef.) his sermon against idolatry,
ii. 10: his equation of rebellion against a superior with
heresy, ii. 23: his praise of such rulers as Clothild (ii.
43: iii. 18), Theudebert (iii. 25), Tiberius (iv. 40: v. 19,
30: vi. 30): his interpretations of supernatural interven-
tions (e.g., Chramn in iv. 20: Palladius' suicide in iv. 39:
burglars of Saint Martin's monastery in iv. 48: war between
the Saxons and Swabians in v. 15: Eberulf's downfall in vii.
22: Guntram's illness in viii. 20): his sadness over histor-
ical events, iv. 48, 50: his refusal to allow ecclesiastical
sanctuary to be violated, v. 4, 14: his courage vis-a-vis
Chilperic at Praetextatus' trial, v. 18: his sorrow for the
deaths of children, v. 34: his debates in favor of orthodoxy
with two Arians and with Chilperic (v. 43-44: vi. 40): his
judicial vindication as a superior over a subordinate, v. 49:
his debate about Christ with the Jew Priscus, vi. 5: his
pleas for clemency for accused criminals (vi. lO: viii. 6:
ix. 6): his rational evaluation of what he considered to be
Guntram's wild accusations, ix. 32: his counsel to the re-
bellious nuns of Poitiers, ix. 39: his affirmation of the
resurrection, x. 13: his evaluation of his career and
writings, x. 31.

 

14Rhetoric of Fiction, p. 197.

196

people act and governments carry out their rule. That he
preached such a message is due to the fact that he was a
bishop.15 The role of the bishop in sixth-century society
was to serve as the interpreter of Christianity and as the
conscience and caretaker of the community. Bishops were to
deal charitably with the poor and helpless, and to comfort
society when it was in distress. They were also to be the
public's champions when its political and military leaders
sought to exploit it. Gregory allied himself firmly with
these provocative and prophetic obligations and with the
historical tradition of episcopal responsibility. Herein
rests the basis of his dependable narratorship of the gig-
toriae.

Gregory's predecessor Saint Martin of Tours is an
ever-present force in the Historiae, if not a real histori-

16

cal personality. Gregory's description of Martin's mis-

sion is indicative of the duties the good bishop was to per-

form:

By his many miracles he overcame the disbelief of the
Gentiles and made it clear to the people that Christ,
the Son of God, is Himself the true God. He destroyed
pagan temples, suppressed heresy, built churches and
earned great renown for many miracles. . . . He per-
suaded Maximus against the war which he was planning
in Spain in an attempt to wipe out the heretics, con-
sidering it sufficient for them to be expelled from

 

15J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Medieval History, p.
102: "It is a bishop who writes.’

16Cf. above, pp. 101-107, for Gregory's use of Saint
Martin's supernatural powers in the Historiae.

 

197

Catholic churches and from Catholic communion.l7

There were two specific ways in which Gregory profession-
ally modelled himself upon Saint Martin. As was seen
earlier, because he considered heresy and idolatry to be
closely intertwined, his attacks on the early paganism of
the Franks, on the materialism and greed of his contempo-
raries, and upon erroneous interpretations of God and the
Trinity18 can be considered to be in harmony with Martin's
task of confounding Gentiles and eradicating paganism and
heresy. He also, in company with Saint Avitus of Saint-
Mesmin de Micy,19 his own predecessor Injuriosus, and
Bishop Germanus of Paris, assumed the courageous role of
giving unsolicited and undesired advice regarding mercy

and charity to a king which went directly counter to

 

17Hist., i. 39: "Tunc iam et lumen nostrum exori-
tur, novisque lampadum radiis Gallia perlustratur, hoc est eo
tempore beatissimus Martinus in Gallias praedicare exorsus
est, qui Christum, Dei filium, per multa miracula verum Deum
in populis declarans, gentilium incredulitatem avertit. Hic
enim fana distruxit, heresem oppraessit, eclesias aedificavit
et, cum aliis multis vertutibus refulgeret, ad consummandum
laudes suae titulum tres mortuos vitae restituit": and x.
31: "Hic prohibuit Maximum, ne gladium in Hispania ad inter-
ficidestinaret haereticos, quibus sufficere statuit, quod a
catholicorum ecclesiis erant vel communione remoti." Cf.
Hist., v. 18, for further details about the difficult rela-
tionship between Maximus and Saint Martin, Martin being in
the role of mercy-seeker.

18Hist., ii. 10; v. praef., 43-44; vi. 5, 4o. Cf.
above, pp. 77-91.

 

19This man was an abbot rather than a bishop but was
nonetheless “magno tunc tempore sacerdote." The king he un- .
successfully counselled was Clovis' son Chlodomer (Hist.,
iii. 6).

198

the ruler's inclinations and intentions.20

Gregory also linked himself closely with other bish-
Ops besides Saint Martin and his immediate emulators. He
associated himself indubitably with the work of the Trini-
tarian clarification and preaching carried out by the episco-
pal council of Nicaea and Saint Hilary of Poitiers, and
elaborated on the Trinitarian creed throughout the Histor-
igg.21 By means both of his episcopal profession in his
lifetime and of his long-lived historiographical achievement,
he sought to continue the work of large-scale conversion
which Saint Remigius of Rheims had begun when he baptized
Clovis.22 As Bishop Avitus of Vienne had attempted to
instruct King Gundobad of Burgundy regarding the significance
of orthodoxy, so Gregory endeavored as well to convince
Chilperic to be an orthodox king.23 Gregory's own career
even included an opportunity to reinforce one of his more
unusual identifications of heresy. He shared with Sidonius
Apollinaris of Clermont-Ferrand the misfortune of suffering
an attempted take-over of his see. Gregory had made plain

with regard to the earlier historic event that such a

 

20Injuriosus with Lothar, Hist., iv. 2 (ultimately
the only successful such encounter): Germanus with Sigibert,
iv. 51: Gregory with Chilperic, v. 18.

21Hist., i. praef.: iii. praef., 31; v. 43-44; vi.

 

5, 40.
22Hist., ii. 31.

23Hist., iii. 34; v. 18, 44.

199

rebellion by a subordinate amounted to heresy.24

At his

own trial for alleged treason against Chilperic and Fredegund
witnesses were not, in the end, brought against him because
by unanimous decision the episcopal court stated that, “'It
is not right to accept the evidence of an inferior against a

Bishop.”25

It could be argued that Gregory used these narratives
of bishops at work in the way he did because he saw all simi-

lar events as being typologically identical.26

It could be
suggested as well that he engaged in personal justification
by discovering past bishops carrying out precisely the same

role as he; that, rather than being a vehicle of programmatic

 

24§;§;., ii. 23. Cf. above, pp. 68-69.

25Hist., v. 49: 'Tunc cunctis dicentibus: 'Non
potest persona inferior super sacerdotem credi." Gregory
had interpreted one of the rebels against Sidonius Apolli-
naris as a Simon Magus figure. The man Riculf who would
have become bishop of Tours following his own expulsion from
his see "seemed [to him to be] as proud as Simon Magus"
(ibid.: 'Sed Riculfus presbiter, qui iam promissionem de
episcopatu a Leudaste habebat, in tantem elatus fuerat, ut
magi Simonis superbia aequaretur.'). In both these cases
Simon Magus was used in ways alluding to the attempt Anti-
christ would make to ascent to heaven. Cf. Richard Kenneth
Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages, pp. 27-28, of. p.
75. Cf. above, p. 70 n. 27. Gregory attributed the suicide
and subsequent burial in unconsecrated ground of Palladius,
count of Javols, as punishment for his wronging of his bishop
(Hist., iv. 39).

Like Saint Martin, Gregory was a force for mercy even
toward one of his accusers. Although he was unsuccessful in
sparing the man from gruesome torture (during which he made a
confession favorable to Gregory). he did keep him from be-
ing executed.

26Cf. Felix Thfirlemann, Der historische Diskurs bei
Gregor von Tburs, pp. 85 ff.

200

religious philosophy, the Historiae is an apologiappro vita
gus. While neither of these possibilities, particularly the
latter, can be discarded, there is great attraction as well
as likelihood in the notion that, by recording himself as
having participated in activities consistent with those of
bishOps of the past, he sought to establish his own episcopal

legitimacy for carrying out the whole range of duties he had

assigned himself.27

Were this the case, when he wrote of events in which
he had either been an eye-witness or a participant, he would
thus be allowed to recount not merely personal memoir but
professional evaluation as well. Gregory the episcopal his-
torian would have thus given himself the authority to write
of Gregory the bishop as a dependable example of the role and
impact within society that bishops should achieve. If he
operated within such a rhetorical framework, when Gregory the
historian recalled a debate Gregory the bishop had had with
King Chilperic on the distinctions of the persons of the God-
head, he would lead his auditor or reader to understand more
about how a bishop was professionally and theologically obli-
gated to relate to a king than about what were his own per-

sonal abilities in debate. Another advantage that this

 

27Another way of stating this would be to suggest
that, in order to emphasize the importance of the contempor-
ary episcopal role, he saw it as having always been similar-
ly identifiable. Regardless of how this interpretation would
be stated, the result of such a rhetorical technique would be
to enhance the power of his own voice.

201

device would have provided him as a narrator was that, because
he was able to accredit himself as a bishop and because it
could be established that bishops were in positions to know
what happened within society, he could be trusted as a cre-
dible observer of events not directly connected to his epis-
copal position. An additional episcopal advantage could ac-

crue as well. In the latter books of the Historiae, Gregory

 

wrote of having participated in events unlike those in which
bishops of the past were recorded as having been involved.
Due to the fact, however, that he had already been able to
portray himself in recognizably episcopal positions,28 he
was able to invest the interest thus earned in other activi-
ties, such as negotiating ends to bloodfeuds or adjudicating
and documenting monastic revolts, thereby concretely estab-
lishing and reinforcing them as legitimate episcopal occupa-
tions.

With a recognition of the role Gregory had given
himself as historian/narrator of the Decem libri, an under-
standing of his intentions regarding the subject matter of
history and its organization is more easily acquired. Al-
though he proved himself capable of political and social
realism and observation, that craft was wholly subordinated

to his enthusiastic desire to be a molder of values. J. M.

 

28It is noteworthy that the events or specifically
stated attitudes of his own career which mirror those in the
careers of his illustrious professional forebears are record-
ed in Books I to VI wherein he stated his theories about the
nature of Christian society.

202

Wallace-Hadrill has rightly reminded us that we must not for-
get Gregory's historiographical selection of material.29
Gregory was not, however, motivated in this selection primar-
ily because he was an historian, although he was indeed a fine
and in many ways a profound one. He selected material in the
way he did because he was a bishop and because he had a clear
and highly refined vision of what were a bishop's responsibil-
ities for the pastoral care of souls in a real world. Al-
though he found good and bad people useful as exempla, he was

not content with the mere identification and description of

good and evil. Nor did he consider that the historical odds

 

.necessarily favored good--a characteristic which, again, sets
him apart from a medieval historian like Bede. He did not ad-
vocate that the Christian life in society was easily achieved.
He was concerned rather to analyze--as in Book IV especially--
the complex relationship between good and evil, nevertheless
stating implicitly that, despite complex and difficult cir-
cumstances there remains a specific Christian goal too signi-
ficant both in history and in eternity to be forgotten. It
was to that end that Gregory stated that he would "describe
the wars waged by kings against hostile peoples, by martyrs
against the heathen and by the Churches against the here-

tics."30 He chose to deal with the fact that the church

 

29Early Medieval History, pp. 96-97. Cf. above. PP.

3OHist., i. praef.:' "Scripturus bella regum cum

203

was both attacked and protected, that there were simultane-
ously true Christians and lukewarm ones, and that "no sooner
. . . [were] the church-buildings endowed by the faithful
than they . . . [were] stripped bare again by those who . . .

[had] no faith.31

By means of these analyses of conflict,
Gregory, from his position of episcopal authority, sought to
underscore the challenge and practical importance of the
ideals of Christianity for society.

Gregory of Tours had a well-supported and finely arti-
culated vision of what Christian society could be. He also
had no allusions about what it most often was like and why.
From his stance as bishop of Tours and spokesman for Gaul's
most celebrated saint, he accepted the mission to preach as
effectively as he could a message of orthodoxy and social
morality. One way he chose to do this was through the medium
of history, serving as the guide to the complexities of the

past and of the human experience in general. He identified

himself in the Historiae, announced unambiguously what his

 

positions and purposes would be, and remained throughout the
work a consistent advocate of redemptive and harmonious Chris-

tianity. Even in the last four books of the work where his

 

gentibus adversis, martyrum cum paganis, eclesiarum cum her-
eticis."

31Hist., praef. prime: ". . . eclesiae inpugnar-
entur ab hereticis, a catholicis tegerentur, ferveret Christi
fides in plurimis, tepisceret in nonnullis, ipsae quoque
eclesiae vel ditarentur a devotis vel nudarentur a perfides,

204

magisterial voice is not present as it was in the first six
books, Gregory retained a dependability of direction. Rather
than providing there the kind of immediate explanations and
solutions to historical problems that he had earlier, he
subtly demanded that the auditor or reader weigh the issues
himself, testing his own knowledge of Christian principles
against the realities of history. In the last books, Gregory
interjected himself formally as an obvious guide only once to
state that, "'If there is to be no resurrection, what will it
profit the just that he has done well, how will it harm the
sinner that he has behaved ill? If there is no Judgement Day
to come, all men can follow their own petty desires, each of

us can do exactly as he wishes.”32

By that interjection
he informed his audience that, even though he had ceased
writing prologues to the books or linking himself to great
clergy of the past, his moral position remained the same.
Throughout the Decem libri, Bishop Gregory of Tours,
the historian/narrator, proclaimed the immediacy of the need

for the true conversion of society and for its consequent re-

placement of charity and harmony for greed and conflict.33

 

32Hist., x. 13.

33In the light of my assessment in this study of
Gregory's historical and religious ideas, I must question
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill's statement that, "Bella regum . . .
struck Gregory as a distinct strand of history, an activity
characteristic of kings. Such were were neither good nor bad
in themselves, however: they could be either, depending on
their objectives. Gregory liked peace within the kin but was
less certain than Bede that absence of war was sometimes a
good in itself that should cost a king no loss of dignity“

 

205

His appropriation of history as the means for making that
proclamation was due to his unshakable belief that history is
a moral science.34 Because history illuminates the suc-
cesses and failures of the past in ways that can be exploited
homiletically and pedagogically, a bishop could legitimately
be an historian without digressing in the least from his
episcopal duty to encourage society to be more Christian. In
fact, by becoming an historian he might be able to achieve
~his goals more substantially. The effectiveness of his epis-
c0pal effort to preach historiographically, however, rested
upon his practical sensibility to write of and to a recogniz-
ably genuine world. Hence, despite the fact that Gregory's

primary reason for becoming an historian seems likely to have

 

(Early Medieval History, p. 98). He stated further that the
reason 'the bells civilia of his own day shocked Gregory so
much [was thatjthey diverted strenuitas, energy, into fruit-
less channels. He had no objection in principle to kings
shedding blood, so long as it was the right blood. If it was
the wrong blood, then kings were activated by whim: they were
behaving as if they were ordinary people, whose offices had
never been explained to them by bishops" (ibid., p. 100).
What I have tried to argue is that, while Gregory recognized
the inevitability and frequent necessity of war, he did not
invest it with moral significance in and of itself. Follow-
ing the example of Saint Martin, he and the bishops he wrote
of in fact plead for mercy when belligerence would have seem-
ed to be the more politically expedient and royally sagacious
course of action. Cf. Hist., x. 31, iii. 6, iv. 51: and
above, pp. 189-190.

 

 

34Cf. Gordon Wright's presidential address to the
American Historical Association, "History as a Moral Sci-
ence," American Historical Review, 81 (1976), 1-11. Wright's
analysis of the stance and responsibility that the liberal-
tempered modern historian should assume is not fundamentally
dissimilar from that taken by Gregory of Tours in the Hig-

toriae.

206

been directed by his devotion to his episcopal mission, it
was that very mission that demanded that in his writing of
history he utilize skills of keen observation and analysis.
For a sixth-century bishop to preach redemption and to study
events of historic significance was for him to engage in mut-
ually enhancing activities.

Erich Auerbach has stressed the importance of the fact
that Gregory was a bishop and hence concerned with the devel-
opment of "Christian ethical attitudes," that he had the need
to be practical in the pursuit of duties “in which the cure
of souls might at any moment be combined with political and
economic questions." As a churchmen, Gregory found that “any
aesthetic separation of the realms of the sublime and tragic
on the one hand and of the everyday and real on the other is
of course out of the question." Auerbach's most significant
accolade, and one clearly borne out by this study, was his
remark that Gregory "is one of the first examples of that
actively practical sense of reality which we so often have
occasion to admire in the Catholic church and which, devel-
oping early, made Christian dogma into something that would
function in the realm of life on earth."35

An important source of Gregory's inspiration in this
regard may well have been his fellow sixth-century bishop

Saint Caesarius of Arles, a possibility that has been noted

 

35Mimesis, pp. 91-92.

207

by J. M. Wallace-Hadrill.36

Saint Caesarius, who lived ca.
470-543, was a man of great religious practicality. Mark
Dorenkemper has suggested that "if we seek one word to char-
acterize the sermons of Saint Caesarius, it is undoubtedly
the word practical." By that he meant not merely that the
sermons are directly provocative of moral action, but also
that Caesarius "was able to conjoin and interrelate doctrine
and moral. . . . [HJis preaching is directed to one end

. . . , the inculcation of the true Christian life in his
flock."37 This effort of the archbishop of Arles toward

the creation of a profoundly Christian society has led Wil-
liam M. Daly to conclude that Caesarius may well have been
one of the founders of medieval Christendom in company with,
and perhaps in precedence of, such other sixth-century fig-
ures as Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Saint Benedict. "[HJe
made the Christian People an activist community, earning its
salvation by following the pattern of life he saw as its goal
and hallmark. The resulting ethos seems closer to the spirit
of Charlemagne's Europe and of the crusades than it does to

the mood of Augustine's City of God."38

 

Saint Caesarius' primary medium for the communication

 

36In the following sentence: 'He comes within mea-
surable distance, whether consciously I cannot be sure, of the
teaching tradition of Caesarius of Arles" (Early Medieval His-

tory, p. 102).

 

37Trinitarian Doctrine, pp. 6-7.

38Traditio, 26 (1970), 1-2, 28.

 

208

of his view of Christianity and its effects upon society was
the sermon. Preaching was, in fact, the way he defined his
own mission. It was his means of carrying out his divinely
given responsibilities and of preparing himself to stand be-
fore God. He said that, “Whenever I humbly suggest to you

some words of advice for the health of your soul, I relieve

my conscience.'39

The ultimate goal of Caesarius' preach-
ing was to prepare the Christian community to succeed in the
Last Judgment. Gustave Bardy has stated that almost all of
his sermons conclude with an exhortation regarding Christian
truths and the judgment, that Inothing is more present in his

thought than the tribunal of God."40

Caesarius was con-
sumed with the belief that a bishop must preach, warn, cor-
rect, and denounce. The bishop, he said, "does not have the
right to be one of those mute dogs who does not know how to
bark."41 Whatever the means used might be, an original
sermon or one borrowed from the Fathers, Christians must be

told, in words they could easily understand, the significance

of Christian faith and action.42

 

39My translated quotation from Sermo V, given by
Gustave Bardy in “La prédicetion de Saint Cesaire d'Arles,"
Revue d'histoire de l'église de France, 29 (1932), 228-227.

40'[N]ulle n'est plus présente a sa pensée que’celle
du tribunal de Dieu. Inutile ici de multiplier les refer-
ences; elles seraient trop nombreuses' (ibid.).

41Translating from Sermo I, as quoted in Bardy,
ibid., 206.

42Bardy, ibid., 205-208. '[Jle demande humblement
que les oreilles instruites se contentent de supporter sans

209

As their model for the Christian life and as an aid in
preparing for the judgment, Caesarius drew his listeners' at-
tention to Christ. Henry G. J. Beck has written that, '[p]es-
sionately, he reminded his flock that it was possible for
them to imitate their Lord and that such imitation meant meek-
ness and humility of heart rather than duplicating the mira-

cles of . . . Christ.'43

This Christian objective would be
fulfilled by a following of the commandment of Jesus to
'[llove the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, with all your mind . . . [and 1]ove your neighbor as
yourself." To love God meant the keeping of the law and, in
institutional terms, the participation in the worship and sec-
raments of the church. As Christ said, however, the second
commandment is like the first: to care for one's neighbor is

to love God.44

Referring to sixth-century sermons in gener-
al, Beck has stated that there was then a widespread under-

standing 'that Christ lives in the needy,'45 and Caesarius

 

se plaindre des paroles rustiques, de telle sorte que tout le
troupeau du Seigneur puisse recevoir la nourriture spiritu-
elle dens un discours simple et terre a terre. Et parce que
les ignorants et les simples ne peuvent pas s'elever a la heu-
teur des savants, que les savants daignent s'abaisser a leur
ignorance, car les hommes instruits peuvent comprendre ce qui
a été dit aux simples, tandis que les simples ne sont pas ce-
pables de profiter de ce qui aurait ete dit aux savants"
(quoting Sermo LXXXVI, ibid., 228).

43Pastoral Care of Souls, p. 276.

44Matthew 22:37, 39-40 NEB. Cf. Beck, Pastoral Care
of Souls, pp. 276-277.

45Pastoral Care of Souls, p. 277.

210

actively promoted the pursuit of social charity. He made
clear as well, though, that the giving of alms must have been
preceded by the development of "a deep-seated love of one's
fellow-man which . . . [would reveal] itself in the willing-
ness to forgive even enemies from the heart."46 As William
M. Daly has pointed out, Caesarius' notion of charity also
implied yet another form of faithful Christian action. "The
true Christian must also bring peace to the quarreling." To
do otherwise was to sin.47
This brief survey of Saint Caesarius' homiletic influ-
ence makes evident the attractiveness of his message. It is
easy to understand why his voice would have resounded through-
out the Middle Ages by means of collections of his sermons.
"COpied, used, reused, and borrowed from, often under the
name of Augustine or others, they intruded into the bedrock
of the medieval sermon tradition his ideas about such topics
as Christian love, the meaning of the Last Judgment, the
rights of the poor, and . . . the notion of Christian so-

ciety."48 His impact was felt not only in the pulpit,

however, for he was an administrator who sought to instill

 

46Ibid., p. 278. Cf. Bardy, “L'ettitude politique
de Saint Césaire d'Arles," Revue d'histoire de l'église de
France, 33 (1947), 241-256.__Ceesarius personally lived and
worked under the Arien and orthodox rules of Burgundians,
Ostrogoths, and Franks.

47Traditio, 26 (1970), 25-26. Cf. above, p. 79, n.

48Traditio, 26 (1970), 8.

211

order and observance of faithful discipline, "not only as
regards the moral life, but also in terms of liturgy, dogma,
and practice."49 He was the first to popularize the
Athanasian Creed,so his monastic rule was an important
precursor of that of Saint Benedict, and his leadership of.
church councils, such as that of Orange in 529, placed his
stamp upon the formal development of Western doctrine and
institutional concerns.51
Even after his death the episcopal councils held in
Gaul pursued a Caesarian task of canonizing Christian prin-
ciples into action. It was legislated that those who would
demand from the church that which they had given to it should
be considered "murderers of the poor"52 because the church

was responsible that mercy be shown to prisoners,53 that

care be taken of lepers,54 that slaves be properly

 

49Bardy, Revue d'histoire de 1'église de France, 29
(1943), 233.

50He has even been considered its author. Cf. Mark
Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrine, p. 222, who denied this.

51Cf. G. de Plinval, “L'activité doctrinale dens
1'église gallo romaine," in Histoire de l'eglise, 4, ed. by
Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1948),
406-419: René Aigrain, "L'église franque sous les merovingi-
ens," ibid., 5 (1947), 329: Jaroslav Pelikan, Emergence of the
Catholic Tradition, p. 327: Dorenkemper, Trinitarian Doctrine.

 

 

 

52Orléans (549) Canon 16: Paris (563) Canon 1, in
Charles Jeseph Hefele, Histoire des conciles, III:l, tr. by
H. Leclercq (Paris: Letouzey et Ane, Editeurs, 1909), pp.
162, 171.

53Orléans (549) Canon 22 (ibid., p. 163).

54Lyon (583) Canon 6 (ibid., p. 207).

212

55

freed, and that widows and orphans be protected from civil

judges.56 Each city was to take care of its own poor so

57

that they would not need to wander. Several of the canons

made potential impositions upon secular government and life.

Royal civil war could not be used as an excuse for the confis-

cation of church property.58

59

Judges and the powerful must

not oppress the poor. False accusations would not be

tolerated,60

61

and the right of sanctuary must be maintain-
ed. That these councils were powerful organizations with
the widespread ability to influence and change the legal and
social structure of Gaul in a permanent way has been shown by
the analyses of the participating dioceses done by Jacques
Champagne and Romauld Szamkiewicz.62
Walter Ullmann has stated that the bishops who met in

these councils "were concerned with . . . the translation of

 

55Macon (585) Canon 7 (ibid.).
55Macon (585) Canon 12 (ibid., p. 210).

57Tours (567) Canon 5 (ibid., p. 185).

 

53Tours (567) Canon 24 (ibid., p. 191).

 

59Tours (567) Canon 26; Macon (585) Canon 14 (ibid.,
pp. 192, 211).

60Macon (583) Canon 18 (ibid., p. 205).

61Macon (585) Canon 8 (ibid., p. 210). Cf. also
Sara Hansell MacGonagle, Poor in Gregory of Tours, pp. 22-31.

62"Recherches sur les conciles des temps méroving-
iens," Revue historique de droit frengais et étranger (4e
serie), 49 (1971), 5-49. Cf. also Carlo de Clercq, La légis-
lation religieuse franque de Clovis a Charlemagne. Etude sur
les actes des conciles et les capitulaires, les statuts

 

213

one of the all-pervading Christian virtues, charity, into a
social-legislative norm.“ He has suggested that the action
of the Council of Tours in 567, for instance, that the poor
be cared for by their own communities established the fact
that 'the sustenance of the poor was a public charge, a mea-
sure which in its basic assumptions was perhaps one of the
most significant acts towards translating a fundamental Chris-
tian precept into a concrete measure.“ In searching for pre-
cedents for such legislative concerns, Ullmann found no-
thing. ”The significance of their measures is only height-
ened when one considers that the synodists had no models or

patterns on which they could have relied.'63

These canon-
ists may not have been able to look to similar corporate ac-
tions of the past, but they did have a vital episcopal guide
in Saint Caesarius of Arles whose reputation and sermons were
well-known. It seems unlikely that a figure of his stature
would not have been influential upon meeting after meeting of
bishops in council. The similarity between many of his con-
cerns and the canons approved by these councils is simply too
striking. These councils may well have been the bishops'
guarantee that their 'berks' would always be heard.

If this suggestion regarding the spiritual and intel-

lectual connection between the preaching of Saint Caesarius

 

diocésains et les régles monastiques (507-814). Louvain:
Bibliothéque de l'Université, 1936.

63In Councils and Assemblies, pp. 5, 7, 9.

 

214

and the legislative actions of the sixth-century episcopal
councils has validity, one must have been able to presuppose
that the archbishop of Arles had a dominating influence upon
the ecclesiastical mentality of his century. He could have
done this not necessarily by name but by the force, defensi-
bility, and practicality of his message. As Daly has written,
his ideas were “intruded into the bedrock of the medieval ser-

mon tradition."64

If the energy of those ideas survived
throughout the medieval centuries, how unlikely it would have
been that his own century would have failed to respond to
their impact. It seems likely that the Decem libri Histori-
‘ergm of Gregory of Tours demonstrates, like the sixth-century
councils, that Caesarius' own century did in fact respond.
Although Gregory is remarkably silent about either
Saint Caesarius or the major charitable legislation of the

65

councils, there are four important ways he handled his

material which show him to have been susceptible to the Cae-

sarian program. He believed that faith leads to action, and

 

54Treditio, 26 (1970), 8.

65Caesarius is mentioned only in connection of the
fact that Saint Radegund adopted his rule for her convent of
the Holy Cross in Poitiers (Hist., ix. 40), 42).

The possibility that Saint Caesarius may have had an
important impact upon the thinking of Gregory of Tours is an
intriguing one which is deserving of further study, namely,
of analysis of Caesarius' sermons with the goal of comparing
them with Gregory's concerns. A relationship between the two
is intentionally handled here as suggestive. It is clear,
however, that Gregory's episcopal role was intrusive in his
writing of history and that this fact can be known from
internal evidence.

215

that Christianity, therefore, has both a practicality and an
applicability to the real life of the community. He had a
clearly articulated understanding of the teaching and preach-
ing function of the episcopacy. And, he was explicitly aware
that the Last Judgment provides an unavoidable discipline for
the living of the Christian life.

Gregory believed that orthodox faith provides the ba-
sis upon which a practical society could be structured. Its
definition and implications are complex. Orthodoxy is the
keeping of God's law and involves, on the one hand, the main-
tenance and respect of proper authority, be it ecclesiastical
or monerchical: and, on the other, an ability to understand
that the relationships within the Trinity are comprehensible
in terms of quality rather than of material. An orthodox
imitation of the Trinity and the consequent permeation of
spiritual values into daily life would alter one's relation
to the material world, for one would thus be allowed to see
goods ultimately as gifts to be given rather than as booty to
be seized. One's fellow human beings would be creatures to
be nourished not exploited. Without an orthodox understand-
ing of human life and possession, one's use of goods and
guest for more would amount to idolatry. With such an ortho-
dox understanding, however, one's use of goods and quest for
more would result in charity. With charity would come the
healing of the community's wounds through peace and justice

as well as the ushering in of redemption.

216

The bishops were to see that this would happen. They
were to love, to preach, to warn, to irritate, and to cooper-
ate with royal authority. To carry out these tasks they had
to have a clear understanding of the realities of the world
in which they lived. They had to be able to recognize and
accept that a man like Guntram could both act like a saint
and behave irrationally hot-temperedly, and try to encourage
him to develop the saintly side of his personality. They
could not force action, but they had an obligation entrusted
to them by God66 to proclaim what that action should be.
Should they weaken under this earthly burden, they would find
themselves bearing it in the Last Judgment. At Praetextatus'

trial, Gregory explained to his fellow bishops how this would

work.

'Listen carefully to what I have to say to you, . . .
saintly men all, God's bishops, and especially those
among you who seem to be in the King's confidence.
Make sure that the advice you give him is holy advice,
and worthy of your rank in the Church, for there is a
danger that by turning his wrath against one of God's
ministers he may destroy himself in his paroxysm and
so lose both his good name and his kingdom. . . . My
Lord Bishops, . . . remember the words of the pro-
phet: "If the watchman see the iniquity of men and
the people be not warned, he shall be guilty for the
soul that perisheth" [Ezekiel 33:6]. You must not re-
main silent. You must speak out and parade his sins
before the King's eyes, lest some calamity should
occur, in which case you will be responsible for his
soul.‘

 

65Hist., ii. 23.

67Hist., v. 18: "'Quibus intentis et ore digitis
conpraementibus, ego aio: 'Adtenti estote, quaeso, sermon-
ibus meis, o sanctissimi sacerdotes Dei, et praesertim vos,
qui familiariores esse regi vidimini: adhibite ei consilium

217

Such advice did not, however, apply only in this specific
circumstance. It was a general principle. Most likely it
was Gregory's assumption of this grave episcopal responsi-
bility to preach and to warn which inspired him to close the
Historiae with the threat to his successors that they pre-
serve his written work intact or face condemnation in the
Last Judgment.68 Should his voice be silenced, a sinner
might not be given an important warning and would thus fall
unimpeded into destruction: "'in which case you will be re-
sponsible for his soul.'“

Gregory's concern for the judgment was expressed in

two major ways in the Historiae. He provided examples of the

 

kind of people and actions that he considered had merited
eternal punishment and he offered numerous counsels about

how to avoid such a fate. Whether he stated it or not,
awareness of the discipline of the judgment was always upper-
most in his mind. It is the topic which, in fact, provides
structural symmetry to the work. In the prologue to Book I
he stated that he wrote "[f]or the sake of those who are

losing hope as they see the end of the world coming nearer

 

sanctum atque sacerdotalem, ne exardiscens in ministrum Dei
pereat ab ira eius et regnum perdat et gloriam'. Haec me
dicente, silebant omnes. Illis vero silentibus, adieci:
'Mementote, domini mi sacerdotes, verbi prophetici, quo ait:
Si viderit speculatur iniquitetem hominis et non dixerit,
reus erit animae pereuntes. Ergo nolite silere, sed praedi-
cate et ponite ante oculos regis peccata eius, no forte ei
aliquid mali contingat et vos rei sitis pro anima eius."

68Hist., x. 31.

218

69

and nearer.“ In other words, he wrote the Historiae in

 

order to give courage to those in fear of the imminent judg-
ment. He sought to present them with a pattern of life that
would give them no need to fear. That this is what he intend-
ed to do he stated precisely in his exhortation to his Sadduc-

cean priest in the final book of the Historiae: "'If there is

 

no Judgement Day to come, all men can follow their own petty
desires, each of us can do exactly as he wishes."70 For

the community of integrity, the judgment set the standard and
provided the means of guaranteeing redemption. Consciousness
of the judgment would inspire the good society and give it
peace, just as in real life judicial machinery could bring
harmony to as troubled and as fearful an environment as the
convent of the Holy Cross in Poitiers.71

The entire tenth book of the Historiae could, in

 

fact, be considered to be like the exhortetion on the judg-
ment with which so many of Saint Caesarius' sermons closed.
The book opens with a sermon of Gregory the Great on the need

to prepare for the judgment,72 it deals historically and

 

69"Illud etiam placuit propter eos, qui adpropin-
quantem finem mundi disperant, . . .

7°Hist., x. 13.
7lHiSte' X. 14.17.

72Owen Chadwick ("Gregory of Tours and Gregory the
Great," Journal of Theological Studies, 50 [1949], 38-49)
wrote that this sermon is probably a later interpolation and
may refer not even to Gregory the Great but rather to the
eighth-century pope Gregory II. For our purposes here, it
does not matter whether or not it is an interpolation. If it

219

analytically with several events of a judicial nature,73

and it closes with Gregory's message to his successors that

they prehis work lest they fail in the judgment.74

The

theme of the judgment was the great synthesizer of the mes-
sage of Gregory's episcopal narrator and it is as well of the
Historiae at large. It seems likely that this demonstrates
the unanimity of purpose the historical Gregory had as both a
bishop and an historian.

Gregory of Tours worked in a century filled with a pro-
phetic spirit of concrete Christian activism, a century uncon-
vinced that proper belief was the sole responsibility of the
Christian. The program of the sixth-century Gallic church,
inspired most likely by Saint Caesarius of Arles, was that
faith must lead to action and that Christianity must charac-
terize communities as well as individuals. The goal of that
century's episcopal preaching, synodal legislation, and--with
Gregory of Tours--Christien historiography was to bring that
about. Placed in juxtaposition with its context, the Egggm

libri Historiarum can be seen as a uniquely sixth-century

work, an 'artefact,‘ to use Wallace-Hadrill's description,75

 

is, that could serve to demonstrate a medieval understanding
of Gregory of Tours' intention to close the Historiae with a
book modelled on the homiletic concluding exhortetion on the
judgment.

 

73Cf. above, pp. 110-113, 119, 162, 166-168.
74Hist., x. 31.

751m EerlyyMedieval History, p. 97.

220

of its time and a memorial to its author's profession. It is
also, however, a tribute to the intellectual ingenuity of one
sixth-century bishop who devised a plan to unite in a con-
crete and practical way the preaching and teaching task of
the bishop with that of the historian. Taking the grand
schemes of Christian history worked out by Eusebius and Oro-
sius, Gregory of Tours blended them with the everyday episco-
pal activity of turning real peOple into good Christians.
This gave him breadth of vision joined with clarity of detail.
It also gave him increased hape and ambition for what the
world might be. The Council of Tours just prior to his own
episcopacy had made each town responsible for the poor within
it. Gregory, as heir to the imperial historians, preached
the need for Christian kingdoms and charted by means of his-
tory the necessity of sympathetic cooperation between church
and state. He was not, however, an imperialist or a royalist
in other ways. Although his historical message was addressed
primarily to the leaders of society, he did not bolster their
expectations of the contented subservience of their subjects
to them. He preached to the leaders rather about their
Christian obligations toward their subjects. He reminded
them of their need to maintain sensitivity to the people of
their realms and, bowing to the requirements of his episco-
pal office, kept himself firmly in touch with the world he
hoped to improve. For this reason, he was not tempted to

launch off the platform of history into elaborate spheres of

 

221

speculation and paradisical longing.76

With Eusebius and
Orosius he shared concerns about the distant past, the defini-
tion of orthodoxy, the nature of the Christian state, and the
relation of God to human affairs. With subtle precision he

transformed them into a wide-ranging anecdotal sermon, and

thereby into a portrait of the realities and goals of his age.

 

76Cf. for example, Georges Duby, The Three Orders:
Feudal Society Imagined, tr. by Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago
and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978). Duby's late
Carolingian bishops, despite their similar definition of their
episcopal task (pp. 15-16), advised kings to operate as if an
ideal world in fact existed, whereas their sixth-century pre-
decessors advised kings to do what they could to try to cre-
ate a better world.

CONCLUSION

Gregory of Tours was the author of one of the more
significant works of early medieval historiography. The
kind of history he wrote stands firmly within the Christian
historiographical tradition established in the fourth cen-
tury by Eusebius of Caesarea and modified a century later by
Orosius. He shared with these historians an integrated view
of past and present and of church and state. With Eusebius,
he considered orthodox belief to be the single most impor-
tant factor defining Christian institutions.

Gregory was, however, no slavish follower of the ma-
jor historiographical models available to him. His manipu-
lation of these forms may well be based, on the one hand, on
the fact that he possibly had no immediate access to the
texts of Eusebius and Orosius and relied on the reputations
of these works rather than on their realities. On the other
hand, and far more significantly, he was a man of his own
time, a bishop of sixth-century Gaul with a clear sense of
his own public moral responsibilities. He was imbued with
the spirit of reformation and practicality which character-
ized the century noted for Saint Caesarius of Arles' sermons
on the living of the Christian life and for the enactment of
the first large-scale social legislation in Western history.

While Gregory of Tours may not have been an original thinker,

222

223 ‘

he was a powerful synthesizer who single-mindedly blended the
form and general themes of Christian historiography with the
administrative and homiletic goals of the Gallic episcopacy.

Trinitarian orthodoxy was the fulcrum of Gregory's
history. By orthodoxy, however, he meant no mere simple and
concrete statement of doctrine. To believe in the Godhead
was to reject the finitude of materialism as well as to ded-
icate oneself to the maintenance of a Trinity-like harmony,
unity, and orderliness. This orderliness would make of the
society of believers a community notable for peace and gen-
erosity. The discipline inspiring such action was the Last
Judgment: to be able to succeed in the judgment and to ac-
cept Christ's redemption, the believer himself must have been
redemptive. That such a society, modelled on the Trinity,
could be created and cultivated was Gregory's ideal and the
goal toward which he wrote.

Idealistic though he was, the strength of Gregory's
message rested on his acknowledgement of the complexities of
human realities and of the inevitable juxtaposition in soci-
ety of Christian idealism and mundane expediency. Gregory of
Tours was not an exponent of the formulaic answer. While the
Christian life was one which adhered to established princi-
ples, the application of those principles to the unpredict-
able circumstances of the real world was a challenge to be
met with vigor and flexibility. History provided exempla of

problems and possibilities as Christian society and its

224

individual members strived and often failed to live up to the
ideals established by the Godhead. History, therefore, served
as the preacher's extended and long-lasting homiletic illus-
tration. But the sermon had as its goal the Christian con-
version of society, and history, thus, became the benefic-
iary of the preacher's practical need to direct his message
to a recognizably tangible world. Although God, and occas-
ionally the saints who were his agents, was the motivator and
final evaluator of Christian behavior, each individual was
fully responsible for his own actions his history. Were the
situation otherwise, the preacher would have had difficulty
convincing his audience of its need to be converted, and the
historian might have been tempted to subjugete his history to
eschatology.

This study has primarily taken Gregory of Tours at his
own word, and it has investigated the Decem libri Histor-
igrum as a whole in order to determine whether it has struc-
tural cohesion and philosophical integrity. I have not been
concerned here with the nature of Gregory's immediate sources
for the Historiae, the accuracy of his facts, or the quality
of his linguistic means of expression. These are approaches
that have largely dominated past scholarship on Gregory of
Tours. I have analyzed Gregory's major work in an effort to
discover what Gregory considered to be important about his-
tory and why. In so doing, I have also explored what he

considered to be important about Christianity and Christian

225

society, for, to Gregory, history was a useful tool in the
construction of a Christian world. It is hoped that this
study will thus have contributed to the understanding of both
the rich variety of the medieval historiographical tradition,
and the mentality and concerns of a vigorous and formative

era of European civilization.

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