Gregory of Tours


Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of the area that had been previously referred to as Gaul by the Romans. He was born Georgius Florentius and later added the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather. He is the primary contemporary source for Merovingian history. His most notable work was his Decem Libri Historiarum, better known as the Historia Francorum, a title that later chroniclers gave to it, but he is also known for his accounts of the miracles of saints, especially four books of the miracles of Martin of Tours. St. Martin's tomb was a major pilgrimage destination in the 6th century, and St. Gregory's writings had the practical effect of promoting this highly organized devotion.

Biography

Gregory was born in Clermont, in the Auvergne region of central Gaul. He was born into the upper stratum of Gallo-Roman society as the son of Florentius, Senator of Clermont, by his wife Armentaria II, niece of Bishop Nicetius of Lyons and granddaughter of both Florentinus, Senator of Geneva, and Saint Gregory of Langres. Gregory had several noted bishops and saints as close relatives, and, according to Gregory, he was connected to thirteen of the eighteen bishops of Tours preceding him by ties of kinship. Gregory's paternal grandmother, Leocadia, descended from Vettius Epagatus, the illustrious martyr of Lyons.
His father evidently died while Gregory was young and his widowed mother moved to Burgundy where she had property. Gregory went to live with his paternal uncle St. Gallus, Bishop of Clermont), under whom, and his successor St. Avitus, Gregory had his education. Gregory also received the clerical tonsure from Gallus. Having contracted a serious illness, he made a visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Martin at Tours. Upon his recovery, he began to pursue a clerical career and was ordained deacon by Avitus. Upon the death of St. Euphronius, he was chosen as bishop by the clergy and people, who had been charmed with his piety, learning, and humility. Their deputies overtook him at the court of King Sigebert of Austrasia, and being compelled to acquiesce, though much against his will, Gregory was consecrated by Giles, Bishop of Rheims, on 22 August 573, at the age of thirty-four.
He spent most of his career at Tours, although he assisted at the council of Paris in 577. The rough world he lived in was on the cusp of the dying world of Antiquity and the new culture of early medieval Europe. Gregory lived also on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul.
Gaul at the death of Clovis.
At Tours, Gregory could not have been better placed to hear everything and meet everyone of influence in Merovingian culture. Tours lay on the watery highway of the navigable Loire. Five Roman roads radiated from Tours, which lay on the main thoroughfare between the Frankish north and Aquitania, with Spain beyond. At Tours the Frankish influences of the north and the Gallo-Roman influences of the south had their chief contact. As the center for the popular cult of St Martin, Tours was a pilgrimage site, hospital, and a political sanctuary to which important leaders fled during periods of violence and turmoil in Merovingian politics.
Gregory struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Guntram, and Childebert II and he personally knew most of the leading Franks.

Works

Gregory wrote in Late Latin which departed from classical usage frequently in syntax and spelling with relatively few changes in inflection.

''History of the Franks''

Summary
Book I- Begins with the a pronouncement of the author, Bishop Gregorys of Tours faith; that he is a Catholic who follows the Nicence Creed and abhors heresy like those of “wicked”
Arian. The Narrative history begins with a brief epitome of the Biblical Old Testament. This leads into the outline of the Life amd times of Jesus, and the subsequent spread of the Christian Religion. Next Gregory covers the history of Christianity in Gaul and some of the major events in the Roman Empire. Book one ends with the death of Saint Martin of Tours in AD 397.
Book 2- AD 397-511 Covers the beginnings of the Merovingian dynasty. Book two ends with the death of King Clovis in 511, after he has conquered most of Gaul and concerted to Christianity.
Book 3- AD 511-548 Follows the four children of King Clovis who eventually quarrel and fight for supremacy in the kingdom. Despite their disputes, the four brothers can occasionally work together against a outside, such as successful cooperation against the Burgundians in 523. Eventually Clothar becomes the most powerful King in the Frankish realm.Book three ends with the death of king Theudebert I in 548. He is a grandson of Clovis and son to king Theodoric I, who died in 534 bequesting his kingdom to Theudebert. The kingdom after 548 falls to Theudobald I until 555.
Book 4- AD 548-575 The two remaining Sons of Clovis die; King Childebert in 558 and King Clothar in 561. Clothar seizes the entire realm of the Franks by the time of his demise.like Clovis before him, the Kingdom is divided between four sons who subsequently quarrel for control of the entire Kingdom. A truce between the Kingly brothers is maintained until after the death of King Charibert I in 567. Clothars remaining sons Kings Sigibert, Guntram, and Chilperic; fight for the supremacy of the kingdom, with King Sigibert showing the strongest military force.Book four ends with the killing of King Sigbert in AD 575. Gregory of Tours blames Fredegund, the wife of King Chilperic for this assassination. The death leaves King Chilperic as the dominant king. Fredegund has long held a grudge against King Sigibert and his wife Brunhilda.
Book 5- AD 575-581 This book begins the part of the narrative where the author, has much personal knowledge about the events in the Frankish Kingdom. This book and the ones hereafter, are considerably longer and more detailed than previous, whilst covering a smaller amount of time. This book also contains Gregories impressions of ecclesiastical issues he saw in person and had some bearing on. This book describes a possible debate that Gregory had with a rival Arian church leader. Book 5 also introduces Childebert II, the son of recently slain King Sigibert, and of the still living Brunhilda. Childebert is taken along with Brunhilda under the protection of King Gunthram, brother
and sometime rival of King Chilperic.
Book 6-AD 581-584 The young Childebert betrays his alliance with his adoptive uncle Gunthram, with King Chilperic. King Chilperic is murdered under mysterious circumstances in 584. His wife Fredegund is possibly guilty of the crime according to Gregory of Tours.
Book 7- AD 584 Fredegund assumes regency for her young son and future King Clothar II, under the protection of King Gunthram, another surving son of King Clothar I. She remains in power until her death in 597.
Book 8- AD 585
Book 9- AD 586
Book 10- AD 587-591 Around 589, Basina the daughter of King Chilperic I and Clotilda, daughter of King Charibert lead a brief revolt from a nunnery. The 18 Bishops of Tours are named and described. Book ten ends with a summary of Gregorys previous written works.
The Historia Francorum is made up of ten books. Books I to IV initially recount the world's history from the Creation ; but move quickly on to the Christianization of Gaul, the life and times of Saint Martin of Tours, the conversion of the Franks and the conquest of Gaul under Clovis, and the more detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigebert I in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years.
With his fifth book, Gregory embarks on contemporary history, opening “Here, I am glad to say, begins Book V”. This, the second part of his history, books V and VI, closes with Chilperic I's death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense. After hearing rumours that the Bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Fredegund, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason—a charge which threatened both Gregory's bishopric and his life. The most eloquent passage in the Historia is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic's character is summed up unsympathetically through the use of an invective: Herod and Nero are among the comparisons employed.
The third part, comprising books VII to X, takes his increasingly personal account to the year 591, and concludes with a plea for further chroniclers to preserve his work in entirety. An epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory's death.

Problems of interpretation

Readers of the Historia Francorum must decide whether this is a royal history and whether Gregory was writing to please his patrons. It is likely that one royal Frankish house is more generously treated than others. Gregory was also a Catholic bishop, and his writing reveals views typical of someone in his position. His views on perceived dangers of Arianism, still strong among the Visigoths, led him to preface the Historia with a detailed expression of his orthodoxy on the nature of Christ. In addition, his ridiculing of pagans and Jews reflected how his works were used to spread the Christian faith. For example, in book 2, chapters 28-31, he describes the pagans as incestuous and weak and then describes the process by which newly converted King Clovis leads a much better life than that of a pagan and is healed of all the conundrums he experienced as a pagan.
Gregory's education was the standard Latin one of Late Antiquity, focusing on Virgil's Aeneid and Martianus Capella's Liber de Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, but also other key texts such as Orosius' Chronicles, which his Historia continues, and Sallust; he refers to all these works in his own. His education, as was typical for the time, did not extend to a broad acquaintance with the pagan classics, but rather progressed to mastery of the Vulgate Bible. It is said that he constantly complained about his use of grammar. He did not understand how to correctly write masculine and feminine phrases, reflecting either a lack of ability or changes in the Latin language. Though he had read Virgil, considered the greatest Latin stylist, he cautions that "We ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death." By contrast, he seems to have thoroughly studied the lengthy and complex Vulgate Bible, as well as numerous religious works and historical treatises, which he frequently quotes, particularly in the earlier books of the Historia.
The main impression that historians once retained from the Historia focused on Gregory's anecdotes about violence; until recently, historians tended to conclude that Merovingian Gaul was a chaotic, brutal mess. Recent scholarship has refuted that view. Through more careful readings, scholars have concluded that Gregory's underlying purpose was to highlight the vanity of secular life and contrast it with the miracles of the Saints. Though Gregory conveys political and other messages through the Historia, and these are studied very closely, historians now generally agree that this contrast is the central and ever-present narrative device.
, from the Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V, 14th century illumination.

Hagiographies

His Life of the Fathers comprises twenty hagiographies of the most prominent men of the preceding generation, taking in a wide range the spiritual community of early medieval Gaul, including lives of bishops, clerics, monks, abbots, holy men and hermits. St. Illidius is praised for his purity of heart, St. Brachio the abbot for his discipline and determination in study of the scriptures, St Patroclus for his unwavering faith in the face of weakness, and St. Nicetius, bishop of Lyon, for his justice. It is the life of St. Nicetius of Trier, though, which dominates this book; his great authority and sense of episcopal responsibility which is the focus of Gregory's account as his figure, predestined to be great, bestrides the lives of the others. It is told that he felt a weight on his head, but he was unable to see what it was when turning around, though upon smelling its sweet scent he realised that it was the weight of episcopal responsibility. He surmounts the others in the glory of his miracles, and was chosen by God to have the entire succession of past and future Frankish kings revealed to him.
A further aspect of this work to note is the appearance of Gregory himself in certain sections, notably in the life of St. Leobardus. This is for two reasons: Firstly, it creates a distinct link between the temporal and the spiritual worlds, firmly placing the accounts of the lives in a world which is understandable and recognisable, or, seen from the other angle, confirming the presence of miracles in the temporal world. Secondly, the intercession of Gregory serves to set Leobardus straight, after he had been tempted by the devil, and so this act further enhances the authority of bishops as a whole.
In 587 Gregory began writing the Book of the Glories of the Martyrs, which deals “almost exclusively with the miracles wrought in Gaul by the martyrs of the Roman persecutions.” But it also tells the story of one Theodore who made a pilgrimage to India and reported the existence of a large monastery where the body of Thomas the Apostle was first interred and where miracles took place.

Fighting heresy

Gregory's avowed aim in writing this book was to "fire others with that enthusiasm by which the saints deservedly climbed to heaven", though this was not his sole purpose, and he most surely did not expect his entire audience to show promise of such piety as to witness the power of God flowing through them in the way that it did for the fathers. More immediate concerns were at the forefront of his mind as he sought to create a further layer of religious commitment, not only to the Church at Rome, but to local churches and cathedrals throughout Gaul. Along with his other books, notably the Glory of the Confessors, the Glory of the Martyrs and the Life of St. Martin, meticulous attention is paid to the local as opposed to the universal Christian experience. Within these grandiloquent lives are tales and anecdotes which tie miracles, saints and their relics to a great diversity of local areas, furnishing his audience with greater knowledge of their local shrine, and providing them with evidence of the work of God in their immediate vicinity, thus greatly expanding their connection with and understanding of their faith. Attacks on heresy also appear throughout his hagiographies, and Arianism is taken to be the common face of heresy across Europe, exposed to great ridicule. Often, the scenes which expose the weaknesses of heresy focus on images of fire and burning, whilst the Catholics are proved right by the protection lavished on them by God.
This was of great relevance to Gregory himself as he presided over the important see of Tours, where extensive use was made of the cult of St. Martin in establishing the authority of the bishopric with the congregation and in the context of the Frankish church. Gregory's hagiography was an essential component of this. However, this should not be seen as a selfish grab for power on behalf of the bishops who emerge so triumphantly from the Life of the Fathers, but rather as a bid for hegemony of doctrine and control over the practice of worship, which they believed to be in the best interests of their congregation and the wider church.

Gregory's Creed

As an example of Gregory's zeal in his fight against heresy, the Historia Francorum includes a declaration of faith with which Gregory aimed to prove his orthodoxy with respect to the heresies of his time. The confession is in many phrases, each of which refutes a specific Christian heresy. Thus Gregory's creed presents, in the negative, a virtual litany of heresies:

Legacy

The Historia Francorum is of salient historical interest, representing as it does the central narrative with respect to the Franks for the period of transition from Roman to Medieval, and the establishment of the large and important Frankish state. With his lively style, story-telling ability, and skill in conveying human interest, Gregory has been compared to Herodotus; with his detailed interest in, and accounts of, ecclesiastical history and manoeuvrings, to a bloodier Trollope.
Gregory's hagiographies are also an invaluable source of anecdotes and stories which enrich modern understanding of life and belief in Merovingian Gaul. The motivation behind his works was to show readers the importance and strength of Christianity. Alongside Venantius Fortunatus, he is the outstanding literary figure from the 6thC Merovingian world; and his extensive literary output is itself a testimony to the preservation of learning and to the lingering continuity of Gallo-Roman civic culture through the early Middle Ages.

Primary sources

Editions