Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks
The History of the Franks by Gregory, bishop of Tours, is an historical
record of great importance. The events which it relates are details of the perishing of the
Roman Empire and the beginning of a great modern state and for these events it is often the
sole authority. However although Gregory was relating history mainly contemporaneous or recent,
we must allow largely for error and prejudice in his statements of fact. It is rather as an
unconscious revelation that the work is of especial value. The language and style, the
intellectual attitude with which it was conceived and written, and the vivid and realistic
picture, unintentionally given, of a primitive society, all combine to make the History
of the Franks a landmark in European culture. After reading it the intelligent modern will
no longer have pleasing illusions about sixthcentury society.
Gregory's life covers the years from 538 to 594. He was a product of central
Gaul, spending his whole life in the Loire basin except for brief stays elsewhere. 
The river Loire may be regarded as the southern limit of Frankish colonization and Gregory
therefore lived on the frontier of the barbarians. He was born and grew up at Clermont in
Auvergne, a city to which an inexhaustibly fertile mountain valley is tributary. In this valley
his father owned an estate. Its wealth brought Clermont much trouble during the disorderly
period that followed the breakup of Roman rule, and Gregory gives a hint of the eagerness
which the Frankish kings felt to possess this country .
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.  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.  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.  He belonged to the privileged classes. Of his father's family he
tells us that "in the Gauls none could be found better born or nobler," and of his
mother's that it was "a great and leading family." On both his father's
and his mother's side he was of senatorial rank, a distinction of the defunct Roman empire
which still retained much meaning in central and southern Gaul. But the great distinction open
at this time to a Gallo-Roman was the powerful and envied office of bishop. Men of the most
powerful families struggled to attain this office and we can therefore judge of Gregory's
status when he tells us proudly that of the bishops of Tours from the beginning all but five
were connected with him by ties of kinship. We hear much of Gregory's paternal uncle
Gallus, bishop of Auvergne, under whom he probably received his education and entered the
clergy, and of his granduncle Nicetius, bishop of Lyons, and of his greatgrandfather Gregory,
bishop of Langres, in honor of whom Gregory discarded the name of Georgius Florentinus which
he had received from his father. Entering on a clerical career with such powerful connections
he was at the same time gratifying his ambitions and obeying the most strongly felt impulse of
In spite of all these advantages, under the externals of Christianity Gregory was
almost as superstitious as a savage. His superstition came to him straight from his father and
mother and from his whole social environment. He tells us that his father, when expecting in
534 to go as hostage to king Theodobert's court, went to "a certain bishop" and
asked for relics to protect him. These were furnished to him in the shape of dust or "
sacred ashes " and he put them in a little gold case the shape of a peapod and wore hem
about his neck, although he never knew the names of the saints whose relics they were.
According to Gregory's account the miraculous assistance given to his father by these relics
was a common subject of family conversation. After his death the relics passed to Gregory's
mother, who on one occasion extinguished by their help a great fire that had got started in the
straw stacks on the family estate near Clermont. While on a horseback journey from Burgundy to
Auvergne Gregory himself happened to be wearing these same relics. A fearful thunderstorm
threatened the party, but Gregory "drew the beloved relics from his breast and lifted
them up against the cloud, which at once separated into two parts and passed on the right and
left, and after that did no harm to them or any one else." In spite of himself Gregory
could not help being somewhat elated at the incident and he hinted to his companions that his
own merit must have had something to do with it. "No sooner were the words spoken than my
horse shied suddenly and threw me heavily on the ground; and I was so shaken that I could
scarcely get up. I understood that my vanity was the cause of it, and it was a lesson to me
to be on my guard against the spur of pride. And if thereafter I happened to have the merit
merely to behold miracles of the saints I would say distinctly that they had been worked by
God's grace through faith in the saints." 
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." 
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.  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.  His attitude toward pagan
literature was the conventional one of his age,-fear of the demonic influences embodied in
it;  he expresses it thus: "We ought not to relate their lying fables lest
we fall under sentence of eternal death."  Among Christian writers Sulpicius
Severus, Prudentius, Sidonius Apollonaris, and Fortunatus were the only ones to exercise a
genuine influence on his style.
The question has been much discussed whether sixthcentury education in Gaul
included a knowledge of the liberal arts. Gregory gives us no definite information on the
point. It is true that he is explicit as to his own case. He says, " I was not trained
in grammar or instructed in the finished style of the heathen writers, but the influence of
the blessed father Avitus, bishop of Auvergne, turned me solely to the writings of the
church."  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, 
but in the face of his repeated confessions of ignorance of the most elementary of them as
well as the actual proof of ignorance which he constantly gives, the conclusion must be that
they were not included in his education. As to the general situation the only evidence is
furnished by Gregory's famous preface in which he declares that "liberal learning
is declining or rather perishing in the Gallic cities," and no one could be found
sufficiently versed in the liberal arts to write the History of the Franks as it ought
to be written. We may feel certain that Gregory's idea of the qualifications for historical
writing were not high; correct spelling, knowledge of the rules of grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectic as laid down in the textbooks would be sufficient. But, as he tells us, no person
so qualified could be found to undertake the task. Again we hear of bishops who were illiterate.
It is plain that the trend of the evidence is all in one direction, namely that in Gaul by this
time the liberal arts had disappeared from education.
Gregory's Latin presents many problems. Its relation to sixth-century
linguistic development is not well understood although it has been closely scrutinized.
Gregory's vocabulary does not show the decadence that might be expected. It is extremely
rich and varied and contains a moderate number of Celtic, Germanic, and Hunnish additions.
Old Latin words, however, often have new and unexpected meanings. In the field of grammar
the situation is different. Judged by anything like a classical standard Gregory is guilty
of almost every conceivable barbarity. He spells incorrectly, blunders in the use of the
inflections, confuses genders, and often uses the wrong case with the preposition. In addition
he is very awkward in handling the Latin verb: the different voices, tenses, and modes are
apt to look alike to him. His constructions too, are frequently incorrect. In all this he
seems very erratic, he may use the correct form ten times and then give us something entirely
different. No method has so far been traced in his vagaries.
Gregory's literary style is as peculiar as his language. It is often vigorous
and direct, giving realistic and picturesque delineations of events. Within his limitations he
well understood the complexity of human motives and actions, and now and then he shows a trace
of humor. However, offending elements often appear; sometimes his realism verges on a brutal
plainness. He is also by no means free from literary affectation; indeed by his choice of
expressions, his repetitions and unnatural arrangement of words, he is almost always striving
for effect. In his day the tradition of literary workmanship was quite dead but it would seem
as if its ghost tortured Gregory. On the whole his literary style is uncouth, awkward, and full
of rude surprises.
There are wellmarked variations in the style. At times we have the conventionalized
jargon of the church, in which Gregory was proficient and which was always in the back of his
mind ready to issue forth when other inspiration failed. At the opposite extreme from this is
the easy, clear narrative in which the popular tales, both Frankish and Roman, are often recited.
It is believed that in some of these we have a version of epic recitals of Frankish adventures.
Then there are the passages, like the baptism of Clovis  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,  as to
Gregory's language and style, how shall we interpret the confessions in regard to them
which he repeatedly makes? In these confessions there are two leading notions: first, that he
is without qualifications to write in the literary style; second, that the popular language can
be more widely understood. The inference is always therefore that Gregory writes in the language
of the day. This, however, cannot be so. A language spoken by the people would have something
organic about it, and it would not defy as Gregory's does the efforts of scholars to find
its usages. It would be simpler than the literary language and probably as uniform in its
constructions. We must decide then that Gregory's self-analysis is a mistaken one, correct
in the first part but not in the second. He knew he could not write the literary language but
in spite of this he made the attempt, and the result is what we have, a sort of hybrid, halfway
between the popular speech and the formally correct literary language.
In the Epilogue of the History of the Franks written in 594, the year of
Gregory's death, he gives us a list of his works: "I have written ten books of
History, seven of Miracles, one on the Lives of the Fathers, a commentary
in one book on the Psalms, and one book on the Church Services." 
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 History of the Franks is Gregory's chief work. It was written in
three parts. The first, comprising books IIV, begins with the creation, and after a brief
outline of events enters into more detail with the introduction of Christianity into Gaul.
Then follow the appearance of the Franks on the scene of history, their conversion, the conquest
of Gaul under Clovis, and the detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of
Sigibert in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours two years. The second part
comprises books V and VI and closes with Chilperic's death in 584. During these years
Chilperic held Tours and the relations between him and Gregory were as a rule unfriendly.
The most eloquent passage in the History of the Franks is the closing chapter of book
VI, in which Chilperic's character is unsympathetical1y summed up. The third part comprises
books VIIX. It comes down to the year 591 and the epilogue was written in 594, the year of
Gregory's death. The earlier part of the work does not stand as it was first written;
Gregory revised it and added a number of chapters. It will be noticed that from the middle
of the third book on, Gregory was writing of events within his own lifetime, and in the last
six books, which are of especial value, of those that took place after he became bishop. For
the earlier part of the work he depended on various chronicles, histories and local annals
, and also on oral tradition.
For the task undertaken by Gregory
in the History of the Franks no one else was so well qualified. His family connections
were such as to afford him every opportunity of knowing the occurrences of central Gaul, while
his position as bishop of Tours with all that it entailed brought him into touch with almost
every person and matter of interest throughout the country. His frequent journeys and wide
acquaintance, his leadership among the bishops, and his personal relations with four kings,
Sigibert, Chilperic, Gunthram,and Childebert and also with most of the leading Franks, gave
him unsurpassed opportunities for learning what was going on. Perhaps his most realistic
notions of the working of Frankish society were obtained in dealing with the political refugees
who sought- refuge in St. Martin's church. Though these people must have always been
interesting to talk with, they were the cause of some of Gregory's most harrowing and at
the same time informing experiences. This varied contact with the world about him made Gregory
what every reader feels him to be, a vivid and faithful delineator of his time.
The History of the Franks must not be looked upon as a secular history.
The old title, Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, is a better one descriptively. It
is written not from the point of view of the GalloRoman or the Frank, but solely from that of
the churchman, almost that of the bishop. Gregory does not take a tone of loyalty to the
Frankish kings, much less of inferiority. His attitude toward them is cold unless they are
zealous supporters of the church, and he speaks with the utmost disgust of their civil wars,
which seemed to him absolute madness in view of the greater war between the good and evil
supernatural powers.  On the other hand his loyalty to his worthy fellowbishops
is often proved. No doubt the words he quotes from Paulinus expressed his own feelings:
"Whatever evils there may be in the world, you will doubtless see the worthiest men as
guardians of all faith and religion."  Everywhere we can read in the lines
and between the lines Gregory's single-minded devotion to the church and above all to the
cult of St. Martin.
The great value of Gregory's writings is that we get in them an intimate view
of sixthcentury ideas. At first sight, perhaps, we seem to have incongruous elements which from
the modern viewpoint we cannot bring into harmony with one another. Credulity and hardheaded
judgment appear side by side. How could Gregory be so shrewd and worldlyminded in his struggle
with Chilperic and at the same time show such an appetite for the miraculous? How could he find
it necessary to preface his history, as no other historian has done, with an exact statement of
his creed? And how could he relate Clovis's atrocities and then go on to say, "Every
day God kept laying his enemies low before him and enlarging his kingdom because he walked with
right heart before him and did what was pleasing in his eyes"? These apparently glaring
incongruities must have some explanation.
The reason why they have usually passed as incongruities is perhaps that it is
difficult for us to take an unprejudiced view of religious and moral phenomena that are in the
direct line of our cultural descent. If we could regard the Franks and GalloRomans as if they
were alien to us, living, let us say, on an island of the southern Pacific, and believing and
practising a religion adapted to their general situation, the task of understanding the History
of the Franks would become easier. It is really a primitive society with a primitive
interpretation of life and the universe with which we have to deal.
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,  the first meaning sacred or holy,
and the second the mystic potency emanating from the person or thing that is sacred. These words
have in themselves no ethical meaning and no humane implications whatever. They are the keywords
of a religious technique and their content is wholly supernatural. In a practical way the second
word is the more important. It describes the uncanny, mysterious power emanating from the
supernatural and affecting the natural. The manifestation of this power may be thought of as
a contact between the natural and the supernatural in which the former, being an inferior reality,
of course yielded. These points of contact and yielding are the miracles we continually hear of.
The quality of sacredness and the mystic potency belong to spirits, in varying degrees to the
faithful, and to inanimate objects. They are possessed by spirits, acquired by the faithful, and
transmitted to objects.
There was also a false mystic potency. It emanated from spirits who were conceived
of as alien and hostile, and, while it was not strong as the true "virtue," natural
phenomena yielded before it and it had its own miracles, which however were always deceitful
and malignant in purpose. This "virtue" is associated with the devil, demons, soothsayers,
magicians, pagans and pagan gods, and heretics, and through them is continually engaged in
aggressive warfare on the true " virtue." 
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 selfdestruction, which was forbidden. Almost every known method of selfdenial
and self mortification was practised. Humility of mind was insisted on as an always necessary
element. Fasting was part of the prescribed method. The strength of the motive behind asceticism
may be judged from the practice of immuring,  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. 
As asceticism was the method by which mystic potency was attained, so miracles were
the product, and the proof that it had been acquired. Of course in theory the main object of the
mystic was to assimilate himself to the supernatural and not expressly to work miracles. Still to
society in general the miracles were the important thing. In the first place they served the
immediate purpose for which a miracle might be needed, healing the sick or driving out a demon or
something of the sort; in the second place they encouraged society by evidencing the fact that
things in general were right and that their spiritual leaders had the right "medicine."
Incredulity is not to be expected in such a situation. The miracle played an integral part in the
life-theory of the time. It was the proof of religion and it did not need to be proved itself.
Furthermore many miracles were real; for example, the cessation of a pain or natural recovery
from a sickness would be regarded as a miracle.
Some mention should be made of the transmissibility of the mystic potency. The case
of St. Martin is a good example. During his lifetime he acquired this power in a large degree.
When he died on November 8, 397, at a village halfway between Tours and Poitiers, the inhabitants
of these cities were all ready to fight for his body, when the people of Tours managed to secure
it by stealth. This was because of the sanctity and mystic "virtue" inherent in it. It
was carried to Tours and buried there and proved the greatest asset of the city. The mystic
potency resided in the tomb and the area about it, and was transmitted to the dust accumulated
on it, the wine and oil placed on it for the purpose, and was carried in these portable forms
to all parts of Gaul. Gregory himself, for example, carried relics of St. Martin on his journeys
and records that they kept his boat from sinking in the river Rhine.
The system of superstition just outlined is the greater and more real part of
Gregory's religion. There was the right mystery and the wrong mystery; and both were of a
low order; men had to deal with capricious saints and malignant demons. It was a real, live,
local religion comparable with that of savages. By the side of this and intertwined with it the
elements of traditional Christianity in a more or less formalized and ritualized shape were
retained. Here the great stress was laid on the creed, not, however, that it amounted to anything
in Gregory's mind as a creed. He was no theologian. His acceptance of it and insistence on it
was ritualistic. However, although he accepted it as he tells us with pura credulitas,
 that is, without a critical thought, it was not mere formality. He felt, no doubt,
that it was a sort of mystic formula, especially the Trinitarian part of it, for putting men
into the right relation with the supernatural. If they believed in the creed they had the right
"medicine"; if they did not, they had not.
This system of superstition was not calculated to nourish delicate moral sensibilities.
Life had gone too far back to the primitive word applied to the adept in this religion was
sanctus and it indicated not moral excellence at all but a purely mystic quality. The
"virtue" which this person possessed was mystic potency, which was not moral but a
supernatural force. The orthodox of course called the saint good, but this was merely because
they were on the same side, just as Cicero for example six centuries before called members of
his political party the boni. Gregory's moral praise or blame is distributed in the
same way. When he praises a man we must look for the service done by this man to the church,
and when he blames one we must look in like manner for the opposite. Outside of the interests
of the orthodox group Gregory is not morally thinskinned; he shared in the brutality of his
contemporaries, as we can see in many recitals. His portrait of Clovis throws no false light
back on Gregory. Clovis was a champion and favorite of the right supernatural powers in their
fight with the wrong ones, and any occasional atrocities he committed in the struggle were not
only pardonable but praiseworthy. 
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."  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.
 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.  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. 
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  and had the merit to obtain health
in his crippled limbs. He was later domesticus of the king I have mentioned, and did
many kindnesses to the people of Tours and the officials of the holy church." An analysis
of this record reveals the typical elements, with the exception of fasting which is usually
mentioned. The miraculous properties of St. Martin were thus reinforced by change of scene,
prolonged treatment, and a rigorous mental and physical regimen.
With such a state of mind prevailing no rivals of the clergy in the healing art
were to be found except among those healers who used a "virtue" of another kind-the
false virtue of the magicians and demons; the few physicians who remained were not real competitors.
The administration of justice was also affected by the same causes which brought about
the disappearance of medicine There was little inducement to look for evidence when an appeal
could be made to superstitious fear. Hence the importance of the oath. Gregory himself, when he
was charged with slandering queen Fredegunda, had to take oath to his innocence on three altars.
We have also other appeals to the supernatural in the trial by combat and the ordeal. Another
interference in the domain of law was a peculiar one; holy men seemed to have a particular desire
to set prisoners free. Gregory himself begs them off. We heal of one dead bishop whose body sank
like lead on the street before the jail and could not be moved until all in the jail were let
loose.  Another holy man tried to secure the pardon of a notorious criminal and
falling, brought him back to life after he was executed.
In the History of the Franks attention is given from time to time to
natural phenomena. With few exceptions these passages deal with prodigies. Gregory tells for
example of the prodigies of the year 587. Most of them are given from his own personal observation.
 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,"  he
was not speaking in a hypocritical or arrogant manner but in real accordance with the religious
sentiment of the time. What he meant was that the Goths, being heretics, were at once enemies
of the true God and inferior to the orthodox Franks in their supernatural backing. Considerations
of duty, strategy, and self-interest all reinforced one another in Clovis's mind. However,
it was not always the orthodox side that won. We hear of a battle fought a few years before
Gregory became bishop of Tours between king Sigibert and the Huns,  in which the
Huns " by the use of magic arts caused various false appearances to arise before their
enemies and overcame them decisively. " It is very plain that one exceedingly important
function of the leader of a sixthcentury army was to keep the right relation with the supernatural
powers. Clovis is represented as heeding this necessity more than any other Frankish king.
It is clear that in the sixthcentury state of mind in Gaul nothing was purely
secular. As far as possible all secular elements had been expelled. Men did not meet the
objective realities of society and of nature as they were; there was a superstitious interpretation
for everything. The hope in such a condition of things lay only in unconscious developments which
might break through the closed system of thought before the latter realized that it was on the
The most promising element in the situation was the Frankish state. Apparently
the Frankish kingship was not to any large extent a magicoreligious institution, but simply a
recent development arising out of the conquest. As an institution it was not grounded in the
superstitious past, and the cold hostility of the bishops kept it from the development usual
in a benighted society. To this chance we may perhaps attribute a momentous result; in it lay
the possibility and promise of a secular state.
In the case of King Chilperic we apparently have a premature development in this
direction. We must read between the lines when Gregory speaks of him. Gregory calls him "the
Nero and Herod of our time," and loads him with abuse. He ridicules his poems, and according
to his own story overwhelms him with an avalanche of contempt when he ventures to state some new
opinions on the Trinity. The significant thing about Chilperic was this, that he had at this time
the independence of mind to make such a criticism, as well as the hard temper necessary to fight
the bishops successfully. "In his reign," Gregory tells us, "very few of the
clergy reached the office of bishop." Chilperic used often to say: "Behold our treasury
has remained poor, our wealth has been transferred to the churches; there is no king but the
bishops; my office has perished and passed over to the bishops of the cities." 
Chilperic was thus the forerunner of the secular state in France.
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, Châlon-sorSaône, ChâlonssurMarne, Rheims, Soissons, Metz, Coblentz, Braine, Paris,
Orleans. Monod, Sources de l'histoire Mérovingienne, p. 37.
 Childebert the elder is represented as saying:
Velim unquam Arvernam Lemanem quae tantae jocunditatis gratia refulgere dicitur, oculis
cernere. H. F. III: 9.
 In France, including Alsace and Lorraine, there are at the present time three
thousand six hundred and seventyfive churches dedicated to St. Martin, and four hundred and
twentyfive villages or hamlets are named after him. C.
Bayet, in Lavisse, Histoire de France, 221, p. 16
Bayet, in Lavisse, Histoire de France, 21, pp. 13 ff.
 Monod, op. cit. pp. 25 ff. See pp. 13, 84, 109, 140.
 Gloria Martyrum, c.83
 De Virtut. S. Mart. I, 36.
 Vitae Patram, VIII, 3.
 Bonnet, Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours, pp. 4876
 Speaking of Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva, Venus, a character in the
Vitae Patrum, XVII, says, Nolite, o, viri, nolite eos invocare, non sunt enim dii
isti sed daemones.
 Gloria Martyrum, Pref.
 Vitae Patrum, II, Pref.
 See p. 240.
 See p. 40.
 They are substantially the conclusions of Bonnet in Le Latin de Gregoire de
Tours, Paris, 1890.
 See p. 247. In the Arndt and Brusch edition in the
Monumenta Germania Historica we have all these titles included. The commentary on the
Psalms however is in a fragmentary condition, and the Lives of the Fathers
appears as one of eight books of
Miracles. The book on Church Services is there entitled Account of the
Movements of the Stars as they ought to be observed in performing the Services. It is
really a brief astronomical treatise the purpose of which was in the absence of clocks to
guide the church services at night.
 The list given by Manitius is as follows: Chronicles of Jerome Victor, Sulpicius
Severus; history of Orosius; church history of EusebiusRufinus; Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius
Severus; letters of Sidonius Apollinaris and Ferreolus writings of Avitus; histories of of
Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus and Sulpicius Alexander (not elsewhere known), annals of of
Arles, Angers, Burgundy. Geschichte der Lateinischen Litteratur, p. 220
 III, Pref, and IV Pref.
 H.F., II, 13. Cf. V, 11, p. 113
 Nunc autem cognovi quod magna est virtus eius beati Martini. Nam ingrediente me atrium
domus. Vidi virum senem exhibentem arborem in manu sua, quae mox extensis ramis omne atrium
texit. Ex ea emm unus me adtigit ramus, de cuius ictu turbatus corrui. VII:42
 See pp. 38, 162, 185, 205.
 For an objective account of immuring as the climax of religious practice see
Vol II, chap. I, Sven Hedin's TransHimalaya, 1909. The following is his account
of an immured monk who was brought out from his cell after a long time. "He was all
bent up together and as small as a child and his body was nothing but a lightgray parchment
like skin and bones. His eyes had lost their color, were quite bright and blind. His hair
hung round his head in uncombed matted locks and was pure white. His body was covered only
by a rag for time had eaten away his clothing and he had received no new garments. He had a
thin unkempt beard, and had never washed himself all the time or cut his nails."
 pp, 147-150, 158, 198-199
 H.F. I: Pref
 See pp. 47-50
 p 130
 De Virtut. S. Martin, II. 1
 p. 196
 Glor. Conf. c.9
 St. Martin
 De Virtut. S. Martin., I, 21, 25.
 IX: 5
 see p. 45
 H.F. IV: 29
 pp 3638, 40, 45, 5354
 see p. 166