 Section 0 of Selections of the History of the Franks. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by B. Tuten. Selections of the History of the Franks by Gregory of Ture. Translated by Ernest Breho. Preface and introduction. Preface. Among the narrative records of civilization inaccessible to those whose reading is confined to English texts, few are of greater historical interest than the History of the Franks by Gregory of Ture. The reason that it has remained so long untranslated into English is clear, however, to anyone who has ever seriously considered the problem of which at least a partial solution is offered here. In the first place, although part of Gregory's narrative deals with events and men of great importance, there are long sections dealing with happenings which in themselves are not worth our remembering. Yet if one views the work as a source for the history of society rather than merely as a narrative of the acts of kings, queens, or saints, it is often these relatively unimportant events which are most instructive and interesting. For Gregory's picture of manners and customs is given by way of a story of what real people actually did and said. It follows from this that if our main interest in the history of the Franks is in its picture of the life and customs of the times, we must find that picture in what is often but a repetition of royal murders, social disorder, and turmoil, lightened only by the equally persistent repetition of saintly virtue. The editorial problem of how much or how little of such data to include is naturally one of considerable difficulty. In the next place, the historical value of the text varies according as Gregory dealt with past or present, so that viewed as a narrative of fact, the later portions have a much greater claim for preservation than the earlier. If one were attempting to show what Gregory contributed to our knowledge, one would be obliged to concentrate therefore upon these later sections and even there the value varies. But viewing the history of the Franks as itself an exhibit of the age which it records, we find ourselves often more interested in what Gregory does not know of the past than in what he does know of the present. In the very limitation of outlook in the choice of incident and arrangement of perspective, the narrative of distant events reveals the state of Merovingian culture in Gregory's day. Hence, for the history of thought and society, the poorest part of Gregory's work ranks in importance with the best. It might be urged that the one solution for these editorial problems would be to offer a translation of the whole of Gregory's work. But this, aside from the cost of publication, seems too great a bulk of text for all but special students of the period who should in any case go to the original. The student of European history in its larger aspects to whom one children bird is like another demands an anthology. For he finds the text so crowded with similar incidents that he is likely not only to lose the thread of the narrative, but also to fail to appreciate the sections most significant for his own purpose. In the circumstances, a middle course has been taken. The chapters omitted are summarized and in cases where they contain any items of special interest, sections of them have been quoted in the summary. This work of excision and condensation has been made with the ever-present sense of the protest sure to come from the medievalist when he sees the work of desecration at last accomplished, which Gregory himself so sadly feared, and upon the authors of which he called down the wrath of heaven throughout all eternity in the forceful words on page 247 of this translation. It is only to be hoped that a new social value, which anthropologists tell us is the basis of the sacred, may justify the sacrilege. With reference to the text itself, the translator has attempted to follow the original as faithfully as possible. It is difficult to render into another language Gregory's combination of literary qualities, the chief of which are vigor, crudity, and a frequent affectation of literary style. But at this we believe Dr. Braho has succeeded in accomplishing to a marked degree. There are chapters which have the charm of Foissar, swift in motion and tinged with romance, but the most romantic figure of all is the Bishop of Tours himself, whose quaint but shrewd outlook penetrates the whole, and this impression of subjectivity the present version seeks to convey. In addition to the text of the history of the Franks, the volume contains some extracts from Gregory's eight books of Miracles, and a short apparatus of notes and aids for further study. JTS Introduction 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 a special 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 combined 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. 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 Alvern, 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 a tour 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 tour at this time were surpassed by the supernatural ones. Thanks to the legend of Saint Martin, this conveniently situated city had become, quote, the religious metropolis of Gaul. Saint Martin had made a great impression on his generation. A Roman soldier turned monk and then bishop of tour. 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 the 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 tour. 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 tour as well 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, quote, in the Gauls none could be found better born or nobler and that of his mother's that it was a great and leading family, unquote. On both his father's and his mother's side he was a 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 bishop of tour 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 Waverne under whom he probably received his education and entered the clergy and of his grand uncle Nisetsius, bishop of Lyon and of his great grandfather Gregory, bishop of Long in honor of whom Gregory discarded the name of Georges Florentinas 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 a hostage to King Theodoburt'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 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 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, quote, 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 anyone else, unquote. 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. Quote, No sooner were the words spoken that 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, unquote. The number of miracles at which Gregory assisted was great. A picturesque and significant one is the following, quote, 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 Béb 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 apostles 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, unquote. 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 Salis' 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, quote. We ought not to relate their lying fables lest we fall under sentence of eternal death, unquote. 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 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, quote, 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, unquote. 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, quote, liberal learning is declining or rather perishing in the Gallic cities, unquote. 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 Hanish editions. 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, blenders 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 delineation 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 inventors. 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 naively 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 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, quote, 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, unquote. 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 to guarantee that their 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 tour. 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 20th. The history of the Franks is Gregory's chief work. It was written in three parts. The first, comprising books one through four, 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 Sigiburt in 575. At this date, Gregory had been bishop of Tours two years. The second part comprises books five and six 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 six in which Chilperic's character unsympathetically summed up. The third part comprises books seven through ten. 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 a special 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 Tor 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, Sigiburt, Chilperik, Gunthrom 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 Saint 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 churchmen, 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 seem 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 fellow bishops is often proved. No doubt the words he quotes from Paulinus expressed his own feelings. Quote, Whatever evils there may be in the world you will doubtless see the worthiest men as guardians of all faith and religion, unquote. 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 Saint Martin. The great value of Gregory's writings is that we get in them an intimate view of 6th 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. Cragulity and hard headed judgment appear side by side. How could Gregory be so shrewd and worldly minded in his struggle with chilparic 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, quote, Every day God kept laying his enemies before him and enlarging his kingdom because he walked with right heart before him and did what was pleasing in his eyes, unquote. These apparently glaring incongruities much 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 Gallaromans as if they were alien to us, living, let us say, on an island of the Southern Pacific and believing in practicing 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 are 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 belongs 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 self-destruction which was forbidden. Almost every known method of self-denial and self-mortification was practiced. 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 emuring 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 quote medicine unquote. 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 mentions should be made of the transmissibility of mystic potency. The case of Saint Martin is a good example. During his lifetime he acquired this power in a large degree. When he died on November 8th 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 around it and was transmitted to the dust accumulated on it. The wine and oil placed on it for that purpose and was carried in these portable forms to all parts of Gaul. Gregory himself for example carried relics of Saint 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 to 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 position 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 bonny. 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 claims 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 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 King Guntherham's wife was dying she accused her two physicians of having given her a quote 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. The physician decided that quote secular means could not help the perishing unquote 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 the philaic 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 shrines and churches to be healed. In some cases the diagnosis was quite clear as with a patient at Limoge the priest put holy oil on his head and quote the demon went down into his fingernail 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 unquote. Such practices were not isolated or unusual but typical. Mystical healing was adjusted to an everyday basis as many cases slighted by Gregory indicate. Many like the following are found. Quote, Charygissel king Clothire'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 Tor and the officials of the holy church unquote. An analysis of this record refills the typical elements with the exception of fasting which is usually mentioned. The miraculous properties of Saint 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 and 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 and 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 Freda Gundah, had to take oath to his innocence on three alters. We have also other appeals to the supernatural in the trial by combat and the ordeal. Another interference in the domain of law was of 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. 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. In the history of the Franks, 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. Fines 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. 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, quote, many other signs appeared such as usually announced a king's death or the destruction of a country, unquote. 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, quote, I do not know what these prodigies foretold, unquote. 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, quote, I take it hard that these Aryans should hold a part of the Gauls, let us go with God's aid and bring the land under our dominion, unquote. 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' mind. 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 Sigibur and the Huns in which the Huns, quote, by the use of magic arts caused various false appearances to arise before their enemies and overcame them decisively, unquote. It is very plain that one exceedingly important function of the leader of a 6th 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. It is clear that in the 6th 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. 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 magical 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 Chilperik 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 of 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 Chilperik 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. Quote in his reign Gregory tells us very few of the clergy reached the opposite of bishop. Chilperik used often to say quote, 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. Chilperik was thus the forerunner of the secular state in France. End of section 0 Recording by B. Tooton Section 1 of Selections of the History of the Franks This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Selections of the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours translated by Ernest Breyhot. Book 1 Here begins Gregory's first preface with liberal culture on the Wayne 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. No grammarians 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 could 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 returition but many the rude language of the common people. I have decided also that for the beginning of the years the first book shall begin with the very beginning of the world and I have given its chapters below. In Christ's name here begins the first book of the histories. As I am about to describe the struggles of kings with the heath and 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 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 which I have not been fully instructed since I have been eager for this to hold fast without any subterfuge or irresolution of the 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 am impotent. 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 I 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 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 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 there is only 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 Nicaea by the 318 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 we 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 no one not even the angels in heaven neither the Son but the Father alone moreover we shall hear and make answer to the heretics who attack us asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of the 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 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 as to the reckoning of this world the chronicles of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea and of Jerome the priest speak clearly and they reveal the plan of the whole secession of years Oroceus 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 one 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 cloud 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 while he swept the rib was taken and the woman Eve was created there is no doubt that this first man Adam before he sin 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 wrinkled that is washed with water to avoid a spot washed 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 two through intercourse with her companion the woman conceived and bore two sons but when God received the sacrifice of the one with the honor the other was inflamed with envy he rushed on his brother overcame him and killed him becoming the first parasite by shedding a brother's blood free then the whole race rushed into a cursed crime except the just Enoch who walked in the ways of God and was taken up from the mist by the Lord himself on account of his uprightness of the people for we read Enoch walked with the Lord and he did not appear for God took him for and so the Lord being angered against the iniquities of the people who did not walk in his ways sent a flood and by his waters destroyed every living soul from the face of the earth only Noah who was most faithful and especially belonged to him he saved in the Ark with his wife and those of his three sons that they might restore posterity here the heretics uprate us because the Holy Scripture says that the Lord was angry let them know therefore that our God is not angry like a man for he is aroused in order to inspire fear he drives away to summon back he is angry in order to amend furthermore I have no doubt that the Ark typified the mother church for passing amidst the waves and rocks of this world it protects us in its motherly arms from threatening ills and guards us with its holy embrace and protection now from Adam to Noah are ten generations namely Adam Seth Enos Canaan Malika Visavam Lamech Noah in these ten generations 2242 years are included the book Joshua clearly indicates that Adam was buried in the land of Enosim which before was called Hebron 5 Noah had after the flood three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth from Japheth issued nations from Ham and from Shem and as ancient history says from these the human race was scattered under the whole heaven the first son of Ham was Cush he was the first inventor of the whole art of magic and of idolatry being instructed by the devil he was the first to set up an idol to be worshiped at the instigation of the devil by his false power he showed to men stars from heaven he passed over to the Persians the Persians called him Zoowaster that is living star they were trained by him to worship fire and they reverence as a god the man who was himself consumed by the divine fire 6 since men had multiplied and were spreading over all the earth they passed out from the east and found the grassy plain there they built a city and strove to raise a tower which should reach the heavens and god brought confusion both to their vain enterprise and their language and scattered them over the wide world in the city was called Babel that is confusion because their god had confused their tongues this is Babylonia built by the giant Nebron son of Cush as the history of Oroceus it is laid out four square on a very level plain its wall made of baked brick cemented with pitch is fifty cubits wide two hundred high and four hundred and seventy stades in circumference a stade contains five agriptines twenty five gates are situated on each side which make in all one hundred the doors of these gates which are of wonderful size the same historian tells many other tales of this city and says although such was the glory of its building still it was conquered and destroyed seven Abraham who is described as the beginning of our faith eight Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Job nine, the twelve patriarchs the story of Joseph and the coming out of Egypt to the crossing of the Red Sea ten since many authorities have made varying statements about this crossing of the sea I've decided to give here some information concerning the situation of the place and the crossing itself the Nile flows through Egypt as you very well know and waters it by its flood from which the inhabitants of Egypt are named Nile Coli and many travelers say its shores are filled at the present time with holy monasteries and on its bank is situated not the Babylonia of which we spoke above but the city of Babylonia in which Joseph built wonderful granaries of squared stone and rubble they are wide at the base and narrow at the top in order that the wheat might be cast into them through a tiny opening and these granaries are to be seen at the present day from this city the king set out with armies of chariots and a great infantry force now the stream mentioned above coming from the east passes in a westerly direction towards the Red Sea and from the west a lake or arm of the Red Sea juts out and stretches to the east being about 50 miles long and 18 wide and at the head of this lake the city of Kleisma is built not on account of the fertility since there is nothing more barren but because of the harbor since ships coming from the India lie there for the convenience of the harbor and the wares purchased there are carried through all Egypt toward this arm the Hebrews hastened through the wilderness and they came to the sea itself and encamped finding fresh water it was in this place shut in by the wilderness as well as by the sea it is written pharaoh hearing that the sea and the wilderness shut them in and that they had no way by which they could go set out in pursuit of them and when they were close upon them and the people cried to Moses he stretched out his wand over the sea according to the command of the deity and it was divided and they walked on dry ground and as the scripture says they crossed unharmed under Moses' leadership a wall of water on either hand to that shore which is before Mount Sinai while the Egyptians were drowned and many tales are told of this crossing as I have said but we desire to uncertain this account what we have learned is true from the wise and especially from those who have visited the place they actually say that the furrows which the wheels of the chariots made remain to the present time in our scene in the deep water as far as the eye can trace them and if the roughness of the sea obliterates them in a slight degree when the sea is calm they are divinely renewed again as they were Others say that they returned to the very bank where they had entered making a small circuit through the sea and others assert that all entered by one way in a good many that a separate path opened to each tribe giving this evidence from the Psalms who divided the red sea in parts but these parts ought to be understood according to the spirit and not according to the letter for there are many parts in this world which is figuratively called a sea for all cannot pass to life equally or by one way some pass in the first hour that is those who were born anew by baptism and are able to endure to the departure from this life unspotted by any defilement of the flesh others in the third hour plainly those who were converted later in life others in the sixth hour being those who hold in check the heat of wanton living and in each of these hours as the evangelist relates they are hired for the work of the Lord's vineyard each according to his faith these are the parts in which the passage is made across the sea as to the opinion that upon entering the sea they kept close to the shore and returned these are the words which the Lord said to Moses let them turn back and encamp before the heros which is between Magdalem and the sea before Belcefan there is no doubt that this passage of the sea and the pillar of cloud tipified our baptism according to the words of the blessed Paul the apostle I would not brethren have you ignorant that our fathers were all under the cloud and all baptized under Moses in that cloud and in the sea and the pillar of fire typified the Holy Spirit now from the birth of Abraham to the going forth of the children of Israel from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea which was in the 80th year of Moses there are reckoned 462 years 11 the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness 12 from the crossing of the Jordan to David 13 Solomon 14 division of the kingdom into Judea and Israel 15 the captivity 16 from the captivity to the birth of Christ 17 in order not to seem to have knowledge of the Hebrew race alone we shall tell what the remaining kingdoms were in the time of the Israelites Abraham over the Assyrians Europe among the Egyptians it was the 16th government which they call in their own tongue dynasty in Moses this time lived 7th king of the archives Sikrops Sinchris in the Red Sea 12th among the Egyptians Agatis 16th among the Assyrians Maritis was ruler of the Sisyoni 18 beginning of the Roman empire a city afterwards ennobled by the blood of martyrs 19 birth of Christ 20 Christ crucifixion 21 Joseph is imprisoned and escapes miraculously 22 James fasts from the death of the Lord to the resurrection 23 the day of the Lord's resurrection is the first not the 7 24 Pilate transmits an account of Christ to Tiberias the end of Pilate and of Herod 25 Peter and Paul are executed at Rome by order of Nero who later kills himself 26 Peter, Stephen, James and Mark burning of Jerusalem by Vespasian death of John 27 persecution under Trajan 28 the rise of heresy further persecutions 29 the martyrs of Lyon Irenaeus 2nd Bishop converts the whole city his death and that of vast numbers of whom Gregory knows 28 30 under the emperor of Decius many persecutions arose against the name of Christ and there was such a slaughter of believers that they could not be numbered Babilis, Bishop of Antioch with his three little sons Urban, Pryladan and Epilon and Zeistus Bishop of Rome Laurentius and Archdeacon in a Hippolytus by martyrdom because they confessed the name of the Lord Valentinian and Novatian were then the chief heretics and were active against our faith the enemy urging them on at this time seven men were ordained as bishops and set into the Gauls to preach as the history of the martyrdom of the Holy Martyr Saturnus relates Fort says in the Councilship of Decius in Gratis it recalls the city of Toulouse received the Holy Saturnus as its first and greatest bishop these bishops were sent Bishop Catianus de Tours Bishop Trophimus to Orles Bishop Paul to Narbon Bishop Saturnius to Toulouse Bishop Dionysius to Paris Bishop Srimonius to Clermont Bishop Martial to Lemons and of these the Blessed Dionysius Bishop of Paris after suffering diverse pains and Christ's name ended the present life by the threatening sword and Saturnius already certain of martyrdom said to his two priests behold I am now to be offered as a victim and the time of my death draws near I ask you not to lead me at all before I come to my end but when he was seized and he was being dragged to the capital he was abandoned by them and was dragged alone and so when he saw that he was abandoned he is said to have made this prayer Lord Jesus Christ grant my request from Holy Heaven that this church may never in all time have the merit to receive a bishop from among its citizens and we know that to the present it has been so in this city and he was tied to the feet of a mad bull and being sent headlong from the capital he ended his life Cattinas, Trophimus Strimonius, Paul and Marshall lived in the greatest sanctity winning people to the church and spreading the faith of Christ among all and died in peace confessing the faith and thus the former by martyrdom as well as the latter by confession left the earth and were united in the heavens 31 one of their disciples went to the city of Borges and carried to the people the news of Christ the Lord as the savior of all a few of them believed and were ordained priests and learned the ritual of sound singing were instructed how to build a church and how they ought to observe the worship of the omnipotent God but as they had small means for building as yet the citizens asked for the house of a certain man to use for a church the senators and the rest of the better class of the place were at that time devoted to the heathen religion and the believers were of the poor according to the word of the Lord with which he reproached the Jews saying harlots and publicans go into the kingdom of God before you and they did not obtain the house from the person from whom they asked it but they found a certain Leocatius the first senator of the Gauls who was of the family of Hippogatius who we have said above suffered in Leone in Christ's name but when they had made known to him at the same time their petition and their faith he answered if my own house in the city of Borges were worthy of this work I would not refuse to offer it and when they heard this they fell at his feet and offered 300 gold pieces on a silver dish and said the house was very worthy of this mystery and he offered 300 pieces from them for a blessing and kindly returned the rest although he was yet entangled in the error of idolatry and he became a Christian and made his house a church this is now the first church in the city of Borges built with marvelous skill and made illustrious by the relics of Stephen the first martyr 32 and then he moved to a place and set on foot a cruel persecution of the Christians at that time Cornelius brought fame to Rome by his happy death in Cyprian to Carthage and their time also Crocus the famous king of the Alamani raised an army and overran the Gauls this Crocus is said to have been very arrogant and when he had committed a great many crimes he gathered the tribe of the Alamani by the advice it is said of his wicked mother and overran the whole of the Gauls and destroyed from their foundations all the temples which had been built in ancient times and coming to Clermont he set on fire overthrew and destroyed that shrine which they call Vaso Gallate in the Gallic tongue it had been built and made strong with wonderful skill and its wall was double and on the outside of squared blocks the wall had a thickness of 30 feet it was adorned on the inside with marble and mosaics the pavement of the temple was also of marble and its roof above was of lead 33 martyrs of Clermont 34 the bishop of Gavadon is maltreated by the Alamani 35 Dr. Diocletian who was emperor of Rome in the 33rd place a cruel persecution of the Christians was kept up for four years at one time in the course of which great numbers of Christians were put to death on the sacred day of Easter for worshiping the true God at that time Bishop of the church of Cissec endured glorious martyrdom in Christ's name the cruel pagans cast him into a river of stone tied to his neck and when he had fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface by a divine miracle and the waters did not suck him down since the weight of crime still did not press upon him and a multitude of people standing around wondered at the thing and despising the rage of the heath and they hastened to free the bishop he saw this and did not permit himself to be deprived of martyrdom and raising his eyes to heaven he said Jesus Lord who sitteth and gloried the right hand of the Father suffer me not to be taken from this course but receive my soul and dain to unite me with thy martyrs in the eternal peace with these words he gave up the ghost and his body was taken up by the Christians and reverently buried 36 Constantine was the 34th emperor of the Romans and he reigned prosperously for 30 years and the 11th year of his reign when peace had been granted to the churches after the death of Diocletian our blessed patron Martin was born at Subaria a city of Panonia of heath and parrots who still were not of the lowest station this Constantine in the 20th year of his reign caused the death of his son Crispus by poison by means of a hot bath because they had plotted to portray his rule in his time the venerated wood of the Lord's cross was found through the zeal of his mother Helen on the information of Judas a Hebrew who is called Kariakus after baptism the historian Eusebius comes down to this period in his chronicle the priest Jerome continues it from the 21st year of Constantine's reign it informs us that the priest Juvencus wrote the gospels in verse at the request of the emperor named above 37 James of Niciabus and Maximon of Trevis 38 Hilarious Bishop of Portier 39 at that time our light arose and Gaul was traversed by the rays of a new lamp that is the most blessed Martin then began to preach in the Gauls and he overcame the unbelief of the heathen showing among the people by many miracles that Christ the son of God was the true God he destroyed heathen shrines, crushed heresy built churches and while he was glorious for many other miracles he completed his title to fame by restoring three dead men to life at Portier in the fourth year of Valentinian and Valens Hilarious passed to heaven full of sanctity and faith a priest of many miracles for he too is said to have raised the dead 40 Melania's journey to Jerusalem 41 after the death of Valentinian Valens who seceded to the undivided empire gave orders that the monks be compelled to serve in the army and commanded that those who refused should be beaten with clubs after this the Romans fought a very fierce battle in Thrace in which there was such slaughter that the Romans fled on foot after losing their horses and when they were being cut to pieces by the Gauls and Valens was fleeing with an arrow wound he entered a small hut the enemy closely pursuant and the little dwelling was burned over him and he was deprived of the burial he desired thus the divine vengeance finally came shedding the blood of the saints thus far Jerome from this period the priest Orocius wrote at greater length 42 the pious emperor Theodosius 43 the emperor Maximus with capital at Trevis 44 Herbicus second bishop of Clermont and his wife 45 Illidias third bishop of Clermont and his miracles 46 Nepotian and Arthemius fourth and fifth bishops of Clermont 47 legend of the two lovers of Clermont 48 in the second year of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius Saint Martin Bishop of Tours departed this life at Candes a village of his diocese and passed happily to Christ a man full of miracles and holiness doing many services to the infirm he passed away at midnight of the Lord's day in the councilship of Atticus and Caesareas many heard at his passing away the sound of psalm saying in heaven which I have spoken of at greater length than the first book of his miracles now as soon as the saint of God felt sick at the village of Candes as we have related to him the people of Portiers came to be present at his death as did also the people of Tours and when he died a great dispute arose between the two peoples for the people of Portiers said as a monkey as ours as in habit he belonged to us we demand that he be given to us let it be enough for you that when he was a bishop on earth you enjoyed his conversation ate with him were strengthened by his blessings and cheered by his miracles let all that be enough for you let us be permitted to carry away his dead body to this the people of Tours replied if you say that the working of his miracles is enough for us let us tell you that while he was placed among you he worked more miracles than he did here for to pass over most of them he raised two dead men for you and one for us and as he used often to say himself there was more virtue in him before he was a bishop than after and so it is necessary that he complete for us after death what he did not finish in his lifetime for he was taken away from you and given to us by God if a custom law established is kept a man shall have his tomb by God's command in the city in which he was ordained and if you desire to claim him because of the right of the monastery let us tell you that his first monastery was at Milan while they were arguing this way the sun sank and night closed in and the body was placed in the mist and the doors were barred and the body was guarded by both peoples and it was going to be carried off by violence by the people of Portiers in the morning but omnipotent God was unwilling that the city of Tours should be deprived of its protector finally at midnight the whole band from Portiers were overwhelmed with sleep and no one remained out of this multitude to keep watch then when the people of Tours saw that they had fallen asleep they seized on the clay of the holy body and some thrust it out the window and others received it outside and placing it in a boat they went down the river Vian with all their people and entered the channel of the Luar and made their way to the city of Tours with great praises and plentiful singing and the people of Portiers were waked by their voices and having no treasure to guard they returned to their own place greatly crestfallen and if one asked why there was only one bishop that is notorious after the death of Bishop Gatenius to the time of Saint Martin let him know that for a long time the city of Tours was without the blessing of a bishop owing to the resistance of the heathen for they who lived as Christians at that time celebrated the divine office secretly and in hiding for if any Christians were found by the heathen they were punished with stripes or slain by the sword now with the suffering of the Lord to the passing of Saint Martin 412 years are included here ends the first book containing 5,597 years which are reckoned from the beginning of the world by Bishop Martin End of section number one