Alexander Callander Murray (editor) - Gregory of Tours: The Merovingians (Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures)

GREGORY OF TOURS

READINGS IN MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATIONS AND CULTURES: X

series editor: Paul Edward Dutton

THE MEROVINGIANS

edited and translated by

ALEXANDERCALLANDERMURRAY

2006 Alexander Callander Murray

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, on m5e 1e5is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gregory, Saint, Bishop of Tours, 538-594.
Gregory of Tours : the Merovingians /edited and translated by Alexander Callander Murray.

(Readings in medieval civilizations and cultures; 10)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55111-523-9

1. MerovingiansHistorySources. I. Murray, Alexander C., 1946- II. Title. III. Series.

DC65.G74 2005 944.013 C2005-905166-3

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. Queen Radegund, having left her husband Chlothar, places the symbols of her worldly rank on the altar and enters the religious life (III 7).

. I have taken care of the favor your sweet self asked of me (IV 3). Chlothar announces to Ingund that he has married her sister Aregund.

. The sons of Chlothar I accompany the body of their father to the basilica of Saint Medard in Soissons (IV 21).

. Venantius Fortunatus recites an epithalamium, or wedding oration, before Sigibert and Brunhild.

. In the end, he had her strangled by a slave, and he himself found the corpse on the bed (IV 28). The death of Galswinth.

. Chilperic views the body of his brother Sigibert (IV 51).

. Changing his clothing for the customary garb of the clergy, he was ordained a priest and sent to the monastery at Le Mans called Aninsola to be instructed in the duties of priests (V 14). Merovechs exile.

. Merovech began to shout that I had no right to suspend him from communion without the consent of our brother bishops (V 14). Merovech confronts Bishops Gregory and Ragnemod.

. The trial of Praetextatus (V 18).

. Guntram Boso, with his daughters, encounters Dracolen (V 25).

. Marcus the referendary announces new taxes in Limoges (V 28).

. The punishment of Limoges (V 28).

. The sons of Chilperic and Fredegund are stricken by the epidemic (V 34).

. I see the sword of divine wrath unsheathed and hanging over this house (V 50). The prediction of Bishop Salvius.

. Taking Priscus gently by the hair, the king said to me, Come, bishop of God, and lay your hands on him (VI 5).

. Gregory reacts to Chilperics poetry (VI 46).

. At Reuil, Fredegund contemplates assassinating Brunhild (VII 20).

. The king bore the body amidst countless candles to its burial site in the basilica of Saint Vincent (VIII 10). Guntram buries Clovis.

. Lets hope the person who dared do this can be pointed out (VIII 31). Fredegund, Beppolen, and Ansovald visit Praetextatus.

. He waited for a cup, and when he received it, drank its mixture of absinthe, wine, and honey (VIII 31).

. Radegund and Agnes entertain Venantius Fortunatus at the monastery of the Holy Cross in Poitiers.

. The Early Merovingians: Clovis, his Sons, and Grandsons

. The Early Merovingians: Sigibert I, Brunhild, and their Descendants

. The Early Merovingians: Chilperic I, Fredegund, and their Descendants

. The House of Chlothar I and the Visigothic Monarchy

. Bishoprics of Gaul

. Gaul in the Sixth Century

. The Division of 561 (cf. Gregory, Hist. IV 22)

. Regions of Gaul and its Neighbors in the Merovingian Period

. West and East on the Death of Theoderic the Great, a. 526

. West and East around the Deaths of Chlothar I (a. 561) and Justinian (a. 565)

Roman numerals refer to the book numbers, Arabic to the chapter number; IX 2, for example, would be Book Nine, .

Abridging the Histories of Gregory of Tours has a long, and some will think ignoble, history. Gregory gravely anticipated the development. In the last chapter of the Histories, having listed his various writings, he adjured his successors, under threat of having to keep company with the devil at the last judgment, to leave his work intact. As Gregory conceded the privilege of turning selections into verse, his concern may not have been so much abridgement as such as the potential for an epitome to consign the real thing to oblivion. The Histories never found its poet, but not too long after Gregorys death, his history was abbreviated. It was reduced to its first six books, and numerous chapters of an ecclesiastical character excised. The popularity of the epitome seems to have long eclipsed the original. Fredegar in his Chronicle around 660 and the Neustrian author of a History of the Franks (Liber historiae Francorum) around 727 used the six-book epitome, neither aware of the ten-book version that Gregory had feared might suffer diminution. Both authors in turn abbreviated the epitome further in the composition of their own distinctive versions. Fortunately the ten-book version survived, acquiring in the Carolingian period the title