The History of the Franks

When one of her supporters, Lupus, Duke of Champagne, was threatened and robbed by his rivals Ursio and Berthefried, Queen Brunhild stepped in and argued with them. However, she could not stop them from stealing from Lupus for long, and he was forced to seek refuge at the court of King Guntram. King Chilperic argued about religion with a Jewish noble in his court named Priscus, and Gregory, who was present, entered into the debate as well. After the debate, Priscus “stood there in silence” (332) but he did not convert.

At the town of Nice, a hermit named Hospicius predicted that the Longobards from Italy would strike Gaul. In fact, a Longobard army did march on the region of Provence, where Nice was located. When a Longobard soldier tried to strike Hospicius with his sword, Hospicius was miraculously saved, and the soldier became a monk following Hospicius. Gregory recounts Hospicius’s other miracles, such as healing people and exorcising a woman possessed by demons. When Hospicius died, the worms that tried to consume his body vanished. Gregory also tells the story of another hermit, Eparchius from Angoulême, who, among other miracles, resurrected a thief who was hanged. Some thieves stole from the Church of Saint Martin. Gregory intervened to save the thieves from being executed by King Chilperic, who managed to have the stolen items restored to the church.

Although Guntram and Childebert had made a peace agreement in which Childebert was named Guntram’s heir, they fell out over total control of the city of Marseilles. Chilperic took advantage of this by attacking Guntram’s domains. Meanwhile, Chilperic had some of his Jewish subjects baptized. Still, Gregory complains, “Washed clean as they were in a bodily sense, some of them were not cleansed in their hearts, and they clung to the beliefs to which they had always subscribed” (347). Priscus was imprisoned when he refused to convert. He was later assassinated by a Jewish convert to Christianity, Phatyr, who was himself killed by Priscus’s family.

A former duke named Asclepius killed some of Chilperic’s guards near Paris, which Chilperic blamed on Guntram. Chilperic was ready to once again attack Guntram, but he was convinced to make peace. Gundovald, whose mother claimed he was a son of the late king Lothar but was disinherited and had his hair cut, fled Gual to Constantinople. There, he had a family and was employed painting churches. Eventually he returned to Gaul through Marseilles, where he was helped by Bishop Theodore. Since he helped Gundovald, Theodore was imprisoned by Guntram and was seen with a great light over his head. Later, Theodore and other accused accomplices were found innocent. However, Guntram Boso was later accused and imprisoned for bringing Gundovald to Gaul. Guntram Boso left his son behind as a hostage and was released; he then continued fighting for King Guntram in his war against Childebert.

Next, Gregory describes the nunnery run by Radegund in Poitiers. There, a man possessed by demons claimed to have seen a dying nun named Disciola being escorted to heaven by the archangel Michael. Another nun wanted to become a hermit after having a dream where she drank from a well of living water and received a regal gown sent to her by Jesus. In the Byzantine Empire, the popular emperor Tiberius II died. The office of emperor went to Maurice, who also married Tiberius’s daughter, Sophia.

Back in Gaul, the war between Guntram and Childebert continued. Leudast returned to Tours, and, against Gregory’s advice, went to see King Chilperic to ask for forgiveness. Fredegund not only refused to forgive him, but she ordered him to be tortured to death. Chilperic had arranged for his daughter with Fredegund, Rigunth, to marry a Spanish prince, Recared. However, after another of his sons, Theuderic, died, Chilperic could not bear to separate from his daughter. Instead, he offered one of his daughters with Audovera, Basina, who was sent to become a nun by Fredegund, to marry Recared instead. Basina refused, and she was supported by Ragedund.

Fredegund accused the prefect Mummolus of killing Theuderic through witchcraft. Through torture, she got a number of accused witches to implicate Mummolus. He was brutally tortured and exiled to his home city of Bordeaux, but he died from a stroke along the way. Fredegund then had all the possessions that belonged to Theuderic burned, “so that nothing whatsoever remained intact to remind her of how she had mourned for her boy” (366).

Elsewhere, the bishop of Lisieux, Aetherius, intervened twice to save a priest in Le Mans, who was about to be killed by the families of women he had or attempted to seduce. Despite Aetherius’s kindness to him, the priest got involved in a plot to assassinate Aetherius. However, the priest lost his nerve and confessed the conspiracy to the bishop. Nonetheless, the conspirators and the priest managed to imprison Aetherius and accused him of crimes before King Chilperic. Eventually, he was absolved and freed while a mob of citizens beat the priest and the archbishop who was the mastermind of the scheme.

Meanwhile, Gregory got into another theological debate with a Spanish envoy named Oppila, who had been sent to see King Chilperic. After Childebert and Guntram made peace, Childebert attacked the Longobards of Italy. Rigunth was sent to Spain for her marriage, and Gregory claims that the troops sent to protect her did some pillaging on the way. Afterward, Chilperic, whom Gregory describes as “the Nero and Herod of our time” (379), was assassinated while on a hunting trip. Gregory accuses him of being a bad poet, disrespecting the leaders of the church, and heavily taxing the poor.