Chapter IV: Introduction (1)

The _History of the Franks_ by Gregory, bishop of Tours, is an historical record of great importance. The events which it relates are details of the perishing of the Roman Empire and the beginning of a great modern state and for these events it is often the sole authority. However although Gregory was relating history mainly contemporaneous or recent, we must allow largely for error and prejudice in his statements of fact. It is rather as an unconscious revelation that the work is of especial value. The language and style, the intellectual attitude with which it was conceived and written, and the vivid and realistic picture, unintentionally given, of a primitive society, all combine to make the _History of the Franks_ a landmark in European culture. After reading it the intelligent modern will no longer have pleasing illusions about sixth-century society.

Gregory’s life covers the years from 538 to 594. He was a product of central Gaul, spending his whole life in the Loire basin except for brief stays elsewhere.[1] The river Loire may be regarded as the southern limit of Frankish colonization and Gregory therefore lived on the frontier of the barbarians. He was born and grew up at Clermont in Auvergne, a city to which an inexhaustibly fertile mountain valley is tributary. In this valley his father owned an estate. Its wealth brought Clermont much trouble during the disorderly period that followed the break-up of Roman rule, and Gregory gives a hint of the eagerness which the Frankish kings felt to possess this country.[2]

After 573 Gregory lived at Tours in the lower Loire valley. This city with its pleasant climate and moderately productive territorial background had more than a local importance in this age. It lay on the main thoroughfare between Spain and Aquitania and the north. Five Roman roads centered in it and the traffic of the Loire passed by it. The reader of Gregory’s history judges that sooner or later it was visited by every one of importance at the time. It was here that the Frankish influences of the north and the Roman influences of the south had their chief contact.

However the natural advantages of Tours at this time were surpassed by the supernatural ones. Thanks to the legend of St. Martin this conveniently situated city had become “the religious metropolis” of Gaul. St. Martin had made a great impression on his generation.[3] A Roman soldier, turned monk and then bishop of Tours, he was a man of heroic character and force. He had devoted himself chiefly to the task of Christianizing the _pagani_ or rural population of Gaul and had won a remarkable ascendancy over the minds of a superstitious people, and this went on increasing for centuries after his death. The center of his cult was his tomb in the great church built a century before Gregory’s time just outside the walls of Tours. This was the chief point of Christian pilgrimage in Gaul, a place of resort for the healing of the sick and the driving out of demons, and a sanctuary to which many fled for protection.[4] In a time of dense superstition and political and social disorder this meant much in the way of securing peace, influence, and wealth, and it was to the strategic advantage of the office of bishop of Tours as well as to his own aggressive character that Gregory owed his position as the leading prelate of Gaul.

Gregory does not neglect to tell us of his family connections and status in society.[5] He belonged to the privileged classes. Of his father’s family he tells us that “in the Gauls none could be found better born or nobler,” and of his mother’s that it was “a great and leading family.” On both his father’s and his mother’s side he was of senatorial rank, a distinction of the defunct Roman empire which still retained much meaning in central and southern Gaul. But the great distinction open at this time to a Gallo-Roman was the powerful and envied office of bishop. Men of the most powerful families struggled to attain this office and we can therefore judge of Gregory’s status when he tells us proudly that of the bishops of Tours from the beginning all but five were connected with him by ties of kinship. We hear much of Gregory’s paternal uncle Gallus, bishop of Auvergne, under whom he probably received his education and entered the clergy, and of his grand-uncle Nicetius, bishop of Lyons, and of his great-grandfather Gregory, bishop of Langres, in honor of whom Gregory discarded the name of Georgius Florentinus which he had received from his father. Entering on a clerical career with such powerful connections he was at the same time gratifying his ambitions and obeying the most strongly felt impulse of his time.

In spite of all these advantages, under the externals of Christianity Gregory was almost as superstitious as a savage. His superstition came to him straight from his father and mother and from his whole social environment. He tells us that his father, when expecting in 534 to go as hostage to king Theodobert’s court, went to “a certain bishop” and asked for relics to protect him. These were furnished to him in the shape of dust or “sacred ashes” and he put them in a little gold case the shape of a pea-pod and wore them about his neck, although he never knew the names of the saints whose relics they were. According to Gregory’s account the miraculous assistance given to his father by these relics was a common subject of family conversation. After his death the relics passed to Gregory’s mother, who on one occasion extinguished by their help a great fire that had got started in the straw stacks on the family estate near Clermont. While on a horseback journey from Burgundy to Auvergne Gregory himself happened to be wearing these same relics. A fearful thunderstorm threatened the party, but Gregory “drew the beloved relics from his breast and lifted them up against the cloud, which at once separated into two parts and passed on the right and left, and after that did no harm to them or any one else.” In spite of himself Gregory could not help being somewhat elated at the incident and he hinted to his companions that his own merit must have had something to do with it. “No sooner were the words spoken than my horse shied suddenly and threw me heavily on the ground; and I was so shaken that I could scarcely get up. I understood that my vanity was the cause of it, and it was a lesson to me to be on my guard against the spur of pride. And if thereafter I happened to have the merit merely to behold miracles of the saints I would say distinctly that they had been worked by God’s grace through faith in the saints.”[6]

The number of miracles at which Gregory “assisted” was great. A picturesque and significant one is the following: “It happened once that I was journeying to visit my aged mother in Burgundy. And when passing through the woods on the other side of the river Bèbre we came upon highwaymen. They cut us off from escape and were going to rob and kill us. Then I resorted to my usual means of assistance and called on St. Martin for help. And he came to my help at once and efficiently, and so terrified them that they could do nothing against us. And instead of causing fear they were afraid, and were beginning to flee as fast as they could. But I remembered the apostle’s words that our enemies ought to be supplied with food and drink, and told my people to offer them drink. They wouldn’t wait at all, but fled at top speed. One would think that they were being clubbed along or were being hurled along involuntarily faster than their horses could possibly go.”[7]

The reality of this incident need not be doubted. The highwaymen were as superstitious as Gregory, probably more so. When they found what they had against them they fled in a panic. The peculiar wording of the last sentence makes it seem likely that Gregory for his part thought that the highwaymen had demons to help them and that these in their urgent flight before the superior “virtue” of St. Martin were responsible for the appearance he describes.

* * * * *

Of Gregory’s education and literary training we receive scanty details. At the age of eight he was beginning to learn to read.[8] The books he read were naturally the Scriptures and works of Christian writers and his contact with pagan literature of the classical period must have been slight; he appears to have read Virgil and Sallust’s _Catiline_ but probably did not go beyond these.[9] His attitude toward pagan literature was the conventional one of his age,--fear of the demonic influences embodied in it;[10] he expresses it thus: “We ought not to relate their lying fables lest we fall under sentence of eternal death.”[11] Among Christian writers Sulpicius Severus, Prudentius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Fortunatus were the only ones to exercise a genuine influence on his style.

The question has been much discussed whether sixth-century education in Gaul included a knowledge of the liberal arts. Gregory gives us no definite information on the point. It is true that he is explicit as to his own case. He says, “I was not trained in grammar or instructed in the finished style of the heathen writers, but the influence of the blessed father Avitus, bishop of Auvergne, turned me solely to the writings of the church.”[12] Gregory does indeed mention Martianus Capella’s work on the seven liberal arts and seems to have had some notion of the scope of each one,[13] but in the face of his repeated confessions of ignorance of the most elementary of them as well as the actual proof of ignorance which he constantly gives, the conclusion must be that they were not included in his education. As to the general situation the only evidence is furnished by Gregory’s famous preface in which he declares that “liberal learning is declining or rather perishing in the Gallic cities,” and no one could be found sufficiently versed in the liberal arts to write the _History of the Franks_ as it ought to be written. We may feel certain that Gregory’s idea of the qualifications for historical writing were not high; correct spelling, knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic as laid down in the text-books would be sufficient. But, as he tells us, no person so qualified could be found to undertake the task. Again we hear of bishops who were illiterate. It is plain that the trend of the evidence is all in one direction, namely that in Gaul by this time the liberal arts had disappeared from education.

Gregory’s Latin presents many problems. Its relation to sixth-century linguistic development is not well understood although it has been closely scrutinized. Gregory’s vocabulary does not show the decadence that might be expected. It is extremely rich and varied and contains a moderate number of Celtic, Germanic, and Hunnish additions. Old Latin words, however, often have new and unexpected meanings. In the field of grammar the situation is different. Judged by anything like a classical standard Gregory is guilty of almost every conceivable barbarity. He spells incorrectly, blunders in the use of the inflections, confuses genders, and often uses the wrong case with the preposition. In addition he is very awkward in handling the Latin verb: the different voices, tenses, and modes are apt to look alike to him. His constructions, too, are frequently incorrect. In all this he seems very erratic; he may use the correct form ten times and then give us something entirely different. No method has so far been traced in his vagaries.

Gregory’s literary style is as peculiar as his language. It is often vigorous and direct, giving realistic and picturesque delineations of events. Within his limitations he well understood the complexity of human motives and actions, and now and then he shows a trace of humor. However, offending elements often appear; sometimes his realism verges on a brutal plainness. He is also by no means free from literary affectation; indeed by his choice of expressions, his repetitions and unnatural arrangement of words, he is almost always striving for effect. In his day the tradition of literary workmanship was quite dead but it would seem as if its ghost tortured Gregory. On the whole his literary style is uncouth, awkward, and full of rude surprises.

There are well-marked variations in the style. At times we have the conventionalized jargon of the church, in which Gregory was proficient and which was always in the back of his mind ready to issue forth when other inspiration failed. At the opposite extreme from this is the easy, clear narrative in which the popular tales, both Frankish and Roman, are often recited. It is believed that in some of these we have a version of epic recitals of Frankish adventures. Then there are the passages, like the baptism of Clovis[14] or the tale of the two lovers, which Gregory labored to make striking. These do not offend; they are so naïvely overdone that they are merely amusing.

In the light of these conclusions, objectively reached,[15] as to Gregory’s language and style, how shall we interpret the confessions in regard to them which he repeatedly makes? In these confessions there are two leading notions: first, that he is without the qualifications to write in the literary style; second, that the popular language can be more widely understood. The inference is always therefore that Gregory writes in the language of the day. This, however, cannot be so. A language spoken by the people would have something organic about it, and it would not defy as Gregory’s does the efforts of scholars to find its usages. It would be simpler than the literary language and probably as uniform in its constructions. We must decide then that Gregory’s self-analysis is a mistaken one, correct in the first part but not in the second. He knew he could not write the literary language but in spite of this he made the attempt, and the result is what we have, a sort of hybrid, halfway between the popular speech and the formally correct literary language.

* * * * *

In the Epilogue of the _History of the Franks_ written in 594, the year of Gregory’s death, he gives us a list of his works: “I have written ten books of _History_, seven of _Miracles_, one on the _Lives of the Fathers_, a commentary in one book on the _Psalms_, and one book on the _Church Services_.”[16] These works represent two sides of Gregory’s experience,--his profession, and his relations with the Merovingian state.

In the former sphere the overshadowing interest was the miraculous. We have eight books devoted to miracles and it may be said that as a churchman Gregory never got very far away from them. It is idle to discuss the question whether he believed in them or not. It is more to the point to attempt to appreciate the part they played in the thought and life of the time. They were considered as the most significant of phenomena. They seemed a guarantee that the relations were right between the supernatural powers on the one hand and on the other the men who possessed the “sanctity” to work miracles and those who had the faith or merit to be cured or rescued by them. Gregory’s eight books of _Miracles_ were thus a register of the chief interest of his day, with an eye of course to its promotion, and it is much more remarkable that he wrote a _History of the Franks_ than that he compiled this usually wearisome array of impossibilities.

A brief glance at the practical situation that lay back of the four books which Gregory devotes to the miracles wrought by St. Martin will be enlightening. The cult of St. Martin was a great organized enterprise at the head of which Gregory was placed. In the sixth century St. Martin’s tomb was a center toward which the crippled, the sick, and those possessed by demons flowed as if by gravity from a large territory around Tours. The cures wrought there did much “to strengthen the faith.” They passed from mouth to mouth and brought greater numbers to the shrine and it was to aid this process that the four books of St. Martin’s miracles were written. Gregory is here a promoter and advertiser. To get at the practical side of the situation we have only to remember that St. Martin’s tomb was the chief place of healing among the shrines of Gaul, and that the shrines of the sixth century stood for the physicians, hospitals, drugs, patent medicines, and other healing enterprises of the twentieth.

The _History of the Franks_ is Gregory’s chief work. It was written in three parts. The first, comprising books I-IV, begins with the creation, and after a brief outline of events enters into more detail with the introduction of Christianity into Gaul. Then follow the appearance of the Franks on the scene of history, their conversion, the conquest of Gaul under Clovis, and the detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigibert in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours two years. The second part comprises books V and VI and closes with Chilperic’s death in 584. During these years Chilperic held Tours and the relations between him and Gregory were as a rule unfriendly. The most eloquent passage in the _History of the Franks_ is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic’s character is unsympathetically summed up. The third part comprises books VII-X. It comes down to the year 591 and the epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory’s death. The earlier part of the work does not stand as it was first written; Gregory revised it and added a number of chapters. It will be noticed that from the middle of the third book on, Gregory was writing of events within his own lifetime, and in the last six books, which are of especial value, of those that took place after he became bishop. For the earlier part of the work he depended on various chronicles, histories and local annals,[17] and also on oral tradition.

For the task undertaken by Gregory in the _History of the Franks_ no one else was so well qualified. His family connections were such as to afford him every opportunity of knowing the occurrences of central Gaul, while his position as bishop of Tours with all that it entailed brought him into touch with almost every person and matter of interest throughout the country. His frequent journeys and wide acquaintance, his leadership among the bishops, and his personal relations with four kings, Sigibert, Chilperic, Gunthram, and Childebert and also with most of the leading Franks, gave him unsurpassed opportunities for learning what was going on. Perhaps his most realistic notions of the working of Frankish society were obtained in dealing with the political refugees who sought refuge in St. Martin’s church. Though these people must have always been interesting to talk with, they were the cause of some of Gregory’s most harrowing and at the same time informing experiences. This varied contact with the world about him made Gregory what every reader feels him to be, a vivid and faithful delineator of his time.

The _History of the Franks_ must not be looked upon as a secular history. The old title, _Ecclesiastical History of the Franks_, is a better one descriptively. It is written not from the point of view of the Gallo-Roman or the Frank, but solely from that of the churchman, almost that of the bishop. Gregory does not take a tone of loyalty to the Frankish kings, much less of inferiority. His attitude toward them is cold unless they are zealous supporters of the church, and he speaks with the utmost disgust of their civil wars, which seemed to him absolute madness in view of the greater war between the good and evil supernatural powers.[18] On the other hand his loyalty to his worthy fellow-bishops is often proved. No doubt the words he quotes from Paulinus expressed his own feelings: “Whatever evils there may be in the world, you will doubtless see the worthiest men as guardians of all faith and religion.”[19] Everywhere we can read in the lines and between the lines Gregory’s single-minded devotion to the church and above all to the cult of St. Martin.

* * * * *

The great value of Gregory’s writings is that we get in them an intimate view of sixth-century ideas. At first sight, perhaps, we seem to have incongruous elements which from the modern viewpoint we cannot bring into harmony with one another. Credulity and hard-headed judgment appear side by side. How could Gregory be so shrewd and worldly-minded in his struggle with Chilperic and at the same time show such an appetite for the miraculous? How could he find it necessary to preface his history, as no other historian has done, with an exact statement of his creed? And how could he relate Clovis’s atrocities and then go on to say, “Every day God kept laying his enemies low before him and enlarging his kingdom because he walked with right heart before him and did what was pleasing in his eyes”? These apparently glaring incongruities must have some explanation.

The reason why they have usually passed as incongruities is perhaps that it is difficult for us to take an unprejudiced view of religious and moral phenomena that are in the direct line of our cultural descent. If we could regard the Franks and Gallo-Romans as if they were alien to us, living, let us say, on an island of the southern Pacific, and believing and practising a religion adapted to their general situation, the task of understanding the _History of the Franks_ would become easier. It is really a primitive society with a primitive interpretation of life and the universe with which we have to deal.

Look at the conception of religion held by Gregory. It seems most explicable, not by the creed he thrusts at us or by any traditional elements interpreted in a traditional sense, but by the living attitude toward the supernatural which he held. Two words are always recurring in his writings; _sanctus_ and _virtus_,[20] the first meaning sacred or holy, and the second the mystic potency emanating from the person or thing that is sacred. These words have in themselves no ethical meaning and no humane implications whatever. They are the key-words of a religious technique and their content is wholly supernatural. In a practical way the second word is the more important. It describes the uncanny, mysterious power emanating from the supernatural and affecting the natural. The manifestation of this power may be thought of as a contact between the natural and the supernatural in which the former, being an inferior reality, of course yielded. These points of contact and yielding are the miracles we continually hear of. The quality of sacredness and the mystic potency belong to spirits, in varying degrees to the faithful, and to inanimate objects. They are possessed by spirits, acquired by the faithful, and transmitted to objects.

There was also a false mystic potency. It emanated from spirits who were conceived of as alien and hostile, and, while it was not strong as the true “virtue,” natural phenomena yielded before it and it had its own miracles, which however were always deceitful and malignant in purpose. This “virtue” is associated with the devil, demons, soothsayers, magicians, pagans and pagan gods, and heretics, and through them is continually engaged in aggressive warfare on the true “virtue.”[21]

For the attainment of the true mystic potency asceticism was the method. This was not a withdrawal from lower activities of life to gain more power for higher activities, but it was undertaken in contempt of life, and in the more thoroughgoing cases the only restraint was the desire to avoid self-destruction, which was forbidden. Almost every known method of self-denial and self-mortification was practised. Humility of mind was insisted on as an always necessary element. Fasting was part of the prescribed method. The strength of the motive behind asceticism may be judged from the practice of immuring,[22] several specimens of which are related by Gregory. In this the ascetic was shut in a cell and the door walled up and only a narrow opening left to hand in a scanty supply of food. Here he was to remain until he died. Such men were regarded as having the true “virtue” in the highest degree. In reality their life must have made them distinctly inferior in all the ordinary virtues of a natural existence.[23]

As asceticism was the method by which mystic potency was attained, so miracles were the product, and the proof that it had been acquired. Of course in theory the main object of the mystic was to assimilate himself to the supernatural and not expressly to work miracles. Still to society in general the miracles were the important thing. In the first place they served the immediate purpose for which a miracle might be needed, healing the sick or driving out a demon or something of the sort; in the second place they encouraged society by evidencing the fact that things in general were right and that their spiritual leaders had the right “medicine.” Incredulity is not to be expected in such a situation. The miracle played an integral part in the life-theory of the time. It was the proof of religion and it did not need to be proved itself. Furthermore many miracles were real; for example, the cessation of a pain or natural recovery from a sickness would be regarded as a miracle.

Some mention should be made of the transmissibility of the mystic potency. The case of St. Martin is a good example. During his lifetime he acquired this power in a large degree. When he died on November 8, 397, at a village half-way between Tours and Poitiers, the inhabitants of these cities were all ready to fight for his body, when the people of Tours managed to secure it by stealth. This was because of the sanctity and mystic “virtue” inherent in it. It was carried to Tours and buried there and proved the greatest asset of the city. The mystic potency resided in the tomb and the area about it, and was transmitted to the dust accumulated on it, the wine and oil placed on it for the purpose, and was carried in these portable forms to all parts of Gaul. Gregory himself, for example, carried relics of St. Martin on his journeys and records that they kept his boat from sinking in the river Rhine.

The system of superstition just outlined is the greater and more real part of Gregory’s religion. There was the right mystery and the wrong mystery; and both were of a low order; men had to deal with capricious saints and malignant demons. It was a real, live, local religion comparable with that of savages. By the side of this and intertwined with it the elements of traditional Christianity in a more or less formalized and ritualized shape were retained. Here the great stress was laid on the creed, not, however, that it amounted to anything in Gregory’s mind as a creed. He was no theologian. His acceptance of it and insistence on it was ritualistic. However, although he accepted it as he tells us with _pura credulitas_,[24] that is, without a critical thought, it was not mere formality. He felt, no doubt, that it was a sort of mystic formula, especially the Trinitarian part of it,--for putting men into the right relation with the supernatural. If they believed in the creed they had the right “medicine”; if they did not, they had not.

This system of superstition was not calculated to nourish delicate moral sensibilities. Life had gone too far back to the primitive. The word applied to the adept in this religion was _sanctus_, and it indicated not moral excellence at all but a purely mystic quality. The “virtue” which this person possessed was mystic potency, which was not moral but a supernatural force. The orthodox of course called the saint good, but this was merely because they were on the same side, just as Cicero for example six centuries before called the members of his political party the _boni_. Gregory’s moral praise or blame is distributed in the same way. When he praises a man we must look for the service done by this man to the church, and when he blames one we must look in like manner for the opposite. Outside of the interests of the orthodox group Gregory is not morally thin-skinned; he shared in the brutality of his contemporaries, as we can see in many recitals. His portrait of Clovis throws no false light back on Gregory. Clovis was a champion and favorite of the right supernatural powers in their fight with the wrong ones, and any occasional atrocities he committed in the struggle were not only pardonable but praiseworthy.[25]

* * * * *

Secular activities and the state of mind just indicated could not coexist in the same society. We have noticed already how education was desecularized. It is of interest to note also what had happened to the secular professions of medicine and law.

The profession of medicine had almost completely disappeared. It is true indeed that we hear of a few physicians. For example when Austrechild, king Gunthram’s wife, was dying, she accused her two physicians of having given her “potions” that were proving fatal, and asked the king to take an oath to have them executed. He did so and kept his word and Gregory remarks with what seems excessive moderation, “Many wise men think that this was not done without sin.”[26] Again we hear of Gregory’s own illness, when he sent for a physician. He soon decided that “secular means could not help the perishing,” and sent for some dust from St. Martin’s tomb which he put in water and drank, and was soon cured.[27] Such tales indicate the status of the medical profession.

The truth was that the condition of the people’s minds made the profession an impossibility. Disease was looked upon as supernatural. The sick man thought he had a better chance if he called the priest rather than the doctor. Gregory tells us of Vulfilaic, who was suddenly covered from head to foot with angry pimples; he rubbed himself with oil consecrated at St. Martin’s tomb, and they speedily disappeared. He reasoned that if they had been driven away by St. Martin, they had plainly been sent by the devil.[28] This meant to him that the whole thing was supernatural and that the true mystic power had driven out the false which had caused the trouble.

Perhaps this was not the reasoning in every case, but at any rate the people went to the shrines and churches to be healed. In some cases the diagnosis was quite clear as with a patient at Limoges. The priest put holy oil on his head and “the demon went down into his finger-nail; seeing this the priest poured oil on the finger and soon the skin burst, blood flowed from the place, and the demon thus took his departure.”[29]

Such practices were not isolated or unusual, but typical. Mystical healing was adjusted to an everyday basis as many “cases” cited by Gregory indicate. Many like the following are found: “Charigisil, king Clothar’s secretary, whose hands and feet were made helpless by a humor, came to the holy church, and devoting himself to prayer for two or three months, was visited by the blessed bishop[30] and had the merit to obtain health in his crippled limbs. He was later _domesticus_ of the king I have mentioned, and did many kindnesses to the people of Tours and the officials of the holy church.” An analysis of this record reveals the typical elements, with the exception of fasting which is usually mentioned. The miraculous properties of St. Martin were thus reënforced by change of scene, prolonged treatment, and a rigorous mental and physical regimen.

With such a state of mind prevailing no rivals of the clergy in the healing art were to be found except among those healers who used a “virtue” of another kind--the false virtue of the magicians and demons; the few physicians who remained were not real competitors.

The administration of justice was also affected by the same causes which brought about the disappearance of medicine. There was little inducement to look for evidence when an appeal could be made to superstitious fear. Hence the importance of the oath. Gregory himself, when he was charged with slandering queen Fredegunda, had to take oath to his innocence on three altars. We have also other appeals to the supernatural in the trial by combat and the ordeal. Another interference in the domain of law was a peculiar one; holy men seemed to have a particular desire to set prisoners free. Gregory himself begs them off. We hear of one dead bishop whose body sank like lead on the street before the jail and could not be moved until all in the jail were let loose.[31] Another holy man tried to secure the pardon of a notorious criminal, and failing, brought him back to life after he was executed.

In the _History of the Franks_ attention is given from time to time to natural phenomena. With few exceptions these passages deal with prodigies. Gregory tells for example of the prodigies of the year 587. Most of them are given from his own personal observation.[32] Mysterious marks which could not be deleted in any way appeared on dishes; vines made a new growth and bore deformed fruit in the month of October after the vintage; at the same time fresh leaves and fruits appeared on fruit trees; rays of light were seen in the north. In addition Gregory mentions from hearsay that snakes had fallen from the clouds, and that a village with its inhabitants and dwellings had disappeared entirely. He goes on to say, “Many other signs appeared such as usually announce a king’s death or the destruction of a country.” In the same way he tells us of the signs preceding plagues. Sometimes he relates the prodigies without giving any sequel to them. In one case he says, “I do not know what these prodigies foretold.” It is evident that the idea which Gregory had of the phenomena of nature was such as to prevent his giving any intelligent attention to them. The supernatural came between him and objective realities in such a way as to prevent the latter from having a natural effect upon his mind.

The inhibiting and paralyzing force of superstitious beliefs penetrated to every department of life, and the most primary and elementary activities of society were influenced. War, for example, was not a simple matter of a test of strength and courage, but supernatural matters had to be taken carefully into consideration. When Clovis said of the Goths in southern Gaul, “I take it hard that these Arians should hold a part of the Gauls; let us go with God’s aid and conquer them and bring the land under our dominion,”[33] he was not speaking in a hypocritical or arrogant manner but in real accordance with the religious sentiment of the time. What he meant was that the Goths, being heretics, were at once enemies of the true God and inferior to the orthodox Franks in their supernatural backing. Considerations of duty, strategy, and self-interest all reënforced one another in Clovis’s mind. However, it was not always the orthodox side that won. We hear of a battle fought a few years before Gregory became bishop of Tours between king Sigibert and the Huns,[34] in which the Huns “by the use of magic arts caused various false appearances to arise before their enemies and overcame them decisively.” It is very plain that one exceedingly important function of the leader of a sixth-century army was to keep in the right relation with the supernatural powers. Clovis is represented as heeding this necessity more than any other Frankish king.[35]

It is clear that in the sixth-century state of mind in Gaul nothing was purely secular. As far as possible all secular elements had been expelled. Men did not meet the objective realities of society and of nature as they were; there was a superstitious interpretation for everything. The hope in such a condition of things lay only in unconscious developments which might break through the closed system of thought before the latter realized that it was on the defensive.

The most promising element in the situation was the Frankish state. Apparently the Frankish kingship was not to any large extent a magico-religious institution, but simply a recent development arising out of the conquest. As an institution it was not grounded in the superstitious past, and the cold hostility of the bishops kept it from the development usual in a benighted society. To this chance we may perhaps attribute a momentous result; in it lay the possibility and promise of a secular state.

In the case of King Chilperic we apparently have a premature development in this direction. We must read between the lines when Gregory speaks of him. Gregory calls him “the Nero and Herod of our time,” and loads him with abuse. He ridicules his poems, and according to his own story overwhelms him with an avalanche of contempt when he ventures to state some new opinions on the Trinity. The significant thing about Chilperic was this, that he had at this time the independence of mind to make such a criticism, as well as the hard temper necessary to fight the bishops successfully. “In his reign,” Gregory tells us, “very few of the clergy reached the office of bishop.” Chilperic used often to say: “Behold our treasury has remained poor, our wealth has been transferred to the churches; there is no king but the bishops; my office has perished and passed over to the bishops of the cities.”[36] Chilperic was thus the forerunner of the secular state in France.

E. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Besides Clermont and Tours in which cities Gregory
spent most of his life we hear of stays at Poitiers,
Saintes, Bordeaux, Riez, Cavaillon, Vienne, Lyons,
Chalon-sur-Saône, Châlons-sur-Marne, Rheims, Soissons,
Metz, Coblentz, Braine, Paris, Orleans. Monod, _Sources
de l’histoire Mérovingienne_, p. 37.

[2] Childebert the elder is represented as saying: _Velim
unquam Arvernam Lemanem quae tantae jocunditatis gratia
refulgere dicitur, oculis cernere._ _H. F._ III, 9.

[3] In France, including Alsace and Lorraine, there are
at the present time three thousand six hundred and
seventy-five churches dedicated to St. Martin, and four
hundred and twenty-five villages or hamlets are named
after him. C. Bayet, in Lavisse, _Histoire de France_,
=2=1 p. 16.

[4] C. Bayet, in Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, =2=1, pp.
13 ff.

[5] Monod, _op. cit._ pp. 25 ff. See pp. 13, 84, 109, 140.

[6] _Gloria Martyrum_, c. 83.

[7] _De Virtut. S. Mart._ I, 36.

[8] _Vitæ Patrum_, VIII, 3.

[9] Bonnet, _Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours_, pp. 48-76.

[10] Speaking of Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva, Venus, a
character in the _Vitæ Patrum_, XVII, 5, says,
_Nolite, o viri, nolite eos invocare, non sunt enim
dii isti sed dæmones_.

[11] _Gloria Martyrum_, Pref.

[12] _Vitæ Patrum_, II, Pref.

[13] See p. 240.

[14] See p. 40.

[15] They are substantially the conclusions of Bonnet in
_Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours_, Paris, 1890.

[16] See p. 247. In the Arndt and Brusch edition in the
_Monumenta Germaniæ Historica_ we have all these
titles included. The commentary on the _Psalms_
however is in a fragmentary condition, and the _Lives
of the Fathers_ appears as one of eight books of
_Miracles_. The book on _Church Services_ is there
entitled _Account of the Movements of the Stars as
they ought to be observed in performing the Services_.
It is really a brief astronomical treatise the purpose
of which was in the absence of clocks to guide the
church services at night.

[17] The list as given by Manitius is as follows:
Chronicles of Jerome, Victor, Sulpicius
Severus; history of Orosius; church history of
Eusebius-Rufinus; life of St. Martin by Sulpicius
Severus; letters of Sidonius Apollinaris and
Ferreolus; writings of Avitus; histories of Renatus
Profuturus Frigeridus and Sulpicius Alexander
(not elsewhere known); annals of Arles, Angers,
Burgundy. _Geschichte der Lateinischen Litteratur des
Mittelalters_, p. 220.

[18] III, Pref. and IV, Pref.

[19] _H. F._, II, 13. Cf. V, 11. p. 113.

[20] Nunc autem cognovi quod magna est virtus eius beati
Martini. Nam ingrediente me atrium domus, vidi virum
senem exhibentem arborem in manu sua, quae mox
extensis ramis omne atrium texit. Ex ea enim unus me
adtigit ramus, de cuius ictu turbatus corrui. VII, 42.

[21] See pp. 38, 162, 185, 205.

[22] For an objective account of immuring as the climax of
religious practice see vol. II, chap. 1, Sven Hedin’s
_Trans-Himalaya_, 1909. The following is his account
of an immured monk who was brought out from his cell
after a long time. “He was all bent up together and
as small as a child and his body was nothing but a
light-gray parchment-like skin and bones. His eyes had
lost their color, were quite bright and blind. His
hair hung round his head in uncombed matted locks and
was pure white. His body was covered only by a rag for
time had eaten away his clothing and he had received
no new garments. He had a thin unkempt beard, and had
never washed himself all the time or cut his nails.”

[23] pp. 147-150, 158, 198-199.

[24] _H. F._, I, Pref.

[25] See pp. 47-50.

[26] p. 130.

[27] _De Virtut. S. Martin._, II, 1.

[28] p. 196.

[29] _Glor. Conf._, c. 9.

[30] St. Martin.

[31] _De Virtut. S. Martin._, I, 21, 25.

[32] IX, 5.

[33] See p. 45.

[34] _H. F._, IV, 29.

[35] pp. 36-38, 40, 45, 53-54.

[36] See p. 166.

HISTORY OF THE FRANKS

BY GREGORY BISHOP OF TOURS

HERE BEGINS GREGORY’S FIRST PREFACE

With liberal culture on the wane, or rather perishing in the Gallic cities, there were many deeds being done both good and evil: the heathen were raging fiercely; kings were growing more cruel; the church, attacked by heretics, was defended by Catholics; while the Christian faith was in general devoutly cherished, among some it was growing cold; the churches also were enriched by the faithful or plundered by traitors--and no grammarian skilled in the dialectic art could be found to describe these matters either in prose or verse; and many were lamenting and saying: “Woe to our day, since the pursuit of letters has perished from among us and no one can be found among the people who can set forth the deeds of the present on the written page.” Hearing continually these complaints and others like them I [have undertaken] to commemorate the past, in order that it may come to the knowledge of the future; and although my speech is rude, I have been unable to be silent as to the struggles between the wicked and the upright; and I have been especially encouraged because, to my surprise, it has often been said by men of our day, that few understand the learned words of the rhetorician but many the rude language of the common people. [A]I have decided also that for the reckoning of the years the first book shall begin with the very beginning of the world, and I have given its chapters below.

HERE BEGIN THE CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK

1. Adam and Eve.
2. Cain and Abel.
3. Enoch the Just.
4. The flood.
5. Cush, inventor of idols.
6. Babylonia.
7. Abraham and Ninus.
8. Isaac, Esau, Job and Jacob.
9. Joseph in Egypt.
10. Crossing of the Red Sea.
11. The people in the desert and Joshua.
12. The captivity of the people of Israel and the generations to
David.
13. Solomon and the building of the Temple.
14. The division of the kingdom of Israel.
15. The captivity in Babylonia.
16. Birth of Christ.
17. The various kingdoms of the nations.
18. When Lyons was founded.
19. The gifts of the magi and the slaughter of the infants.
20. The miracles and suffering of Christ.
21. Joseph who buried Him.
22. James the apostle.
23. The day of the Lord’s resurrection.
24. The ascension of the Lord and the death of Pilate and Herod.
25. The suffering of the Apostles and Nero.
26. James, Mark and John the evangelist.
27. The persecution under Trajan.
28. Hadrian and the heretics’ lies and the martyrdom of Saint
Polycarp and Justin.
29. Saints Photinus, Irenæus and the rest of the martyrs of Lyons.
30. The seven men sent into the Gauls to preach.
31. The church of Bourges.
32. Chrocus and the shrine in Auvergne.
33. The martyrs who suffered in Auvergne.
34. The holy martyr, Privatus.
35. Quirinus, bishop and martyr.
36. Birth of St. Martin and the finding of the cross.
37. James, bishop of Nisibis.
38. Death of the monk Antony.
39. The coming of St. Martin.
40. The matron Melania.
41. Death of the emperor Valens.
42. Imperial rule of Theodosius.
43. Death of the tyrant Maximus.
44. Urbicus, bishop of Auvergne.
45. The holy bishop Hillidius.
46. The bishops Nepotian and Arthemius.
47. The chastity of the lovers.
48. St. Martin’s death.

IN CHRIST’S NAME HERE END THE CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST
BOOK

IN CHRIST’S NAME

HERE BEGINS THE FIRST BOOK OF THE HISTORIES

[B]As I am about to describe the struggles of kings with the heathen enemy, of martyrs with pagans, of churches with heretics, I desire first of all to declare my faith so that my reader may have no doubt that I am Catholic. I have also decided, on account of those who are losing hope of the approaching end of the world, to collect the total of past years from chronicles and histories and set forth clearly how many years there are from the beginning of the world. But I first beg pardon of my readers if either in letter or in syllable I transgress the rules of the grammatic art in which I have not been fully instructed, since I have been eager only for this, to hold fast, without any subterfuge or irresolution of heart, to that which we are bidden in the church to believe, because I know that he who is liable to punishment for his sin can obtain pardon from God by untainted faith.

I believe, then, in God the Father omnipotent. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord God, born of the Father, not created. [I believe] that he has always been with the Father, not only since time began but before all time. For the Father could not have been so named unless he had a son; and there could be no son without a father. But as for those who say: “There was a time when he was not,”[37] reject them with curses, and call men to witness that they are separated from the church. I believe that the word of the Father by which all things were made was Christ. I believe that this word was made flesh and by its suffering the world was redeemed, and I believe that humanity, not deity, was subject to the suffering. I believe that he rose again on the third day, that he freed sinful man, that he ascended to heaven, that he sits on the right hand of the Father, that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe that the holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, that it is not inferior and is not of later origin, but is God, equal and always co-eternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial in its nature, equal in omnipotence, equally eternal in its essence, and that it has never existed apart from the Father and the Son and is not inferior to the Father and the Son. I believe that this holy Trinity exists with separation of persons, and one person is that of the Father, another that of the Son, another that of the Holy Spirit. And in this Trinity I confess that there is one Deity, one power, one essence. I believe that the blessed Mary was a virgin after the birth as she was a virgin before. I believe that the soul is immortal but that nevertheless it has no part in deity. And I faithfully believe all things that were established at Nicæa by the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But as to the end of the world I hold beliefs which I learned from our forefathers, that Antichrist will come first. And Antichrist will first propose circumcision, asserting that he is Christ; next he will place his statue in the temple at Jerusalem to be worshiped, just as we read that the Lord said: “You shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.” But the Lord himself declared that that day is hidden from all men, saying: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no one not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father alone.” Moreover we shall here make answer to the heretics[38] who attack us, asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of this day. Let them learn then that Son here is the name applied to the Christian people, of whom God says: “I shall be to them a father and they shall be to me for sons.” For if he had spoken these words of the only-begotten Son he would never have given the angels first place. For he uses these words: “Not even the angels in heaven nor the Son,” showing that he spoke these words not of the only-begotten but of the people of adoption. But our end is Christ himself, who will graciously bestow eternal life on us if we turn to him.

[C]As to the reckoning of this world, the chronicles of Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, and of Jerome the priest, speak clearly, and they reveal the plan of the whole succession of years. Orosius too, searching into these matters very carefully, collects the whole number of years from the beginning of the world down to his own time. Victor also examined into this in connection with the time of the Easter festival. And so we follow the works of the writers mentioned above and desire to reckon the complete series of years from the creation of the first man down to our own time, if the Lord shall deign to lend his aid. And this we shall more easily accomplish if we begin with Adam himself.

1. In the beginning the Lord shaped the heaven and the earth in his Christ, who is the beginning of all things, that is, in his son; and after creating the elements of the whole universe, taking a frail clod he formed man after his own image and likeness, and breathed upon his face the breath of life and he was made into a living soul. And while he slept a rib was taken from him and the woman, Eve, was created. There is no doubt that this first man Adam before he sinned typified the Redeemer. For as the Redeemer slept in the stupor of suffering and caused water and blood to issue from his side, he brought into existence the virgin and unspotted church, redeemed by blood, purified by water, having no spot or wrinkle, that is, washed with water to avoid a spot, stretched on the cross to avoid a wrinkle. These first human beings, who were living happily amid the pleasant scenes of Paradise, were tempted by the craft of the serpent. They transgressed the divine precepts and were cast out from the abode of angels and condemned to the labors of the world.

2. Through intercourse with her companion the woman conceived and bore two sons. But when God received the sacrifice of the one with honor, the other was inflamed with envy; he rushed on his brother, overcame and killed him, becoming the first parricide by shedding a brother’s blood.

3. Then the whole race rushed into accursed crime, except the just Enoch, who walked in the ways of God and was taken up from the midst by the Lord himself on account of his uprightness, and freed from a sinful people. For we read: “Enoch walked with the Lord, and he did not appear for God took him.”