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Gregory of ToursA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Gregory begins by claiming that even the ancient Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and even King David of Israel believed in the Trinity. Next, he compares the fate of people who deny the existence of the Trinity with those who have faith in it. Arius, the founder of the sect that argued against the Trinity, “lost his entrails in the lavatory and so was hurried off to hell-fire” (161), but a proponent of the Trinity, Saint Hilary, got to return to his homeland and went to Heaven after dying. Likewise, after believing in the Trinity, King Clovis conquered all of Gaul while King Alaric lost his kingdom and his life. Gregory adds that, even if orthodox Christians “lose many things […] the Lord restores them a hundredfold” while “heretics […] have not much advantage to show, and even that which they have is taken away from them” (162).
Returning to his narrative, Gregory describes how Clovis’s kingdom was divided between his four sons: his eldest son Theuderic who was born by a concubine, and his sons by Clotild, who were Chlodomer, Childebert, and Lothar. When the Danish king Chlochilaich attacked Gaul, he was defeated by Theuderic’s son, Theudebert. Meanwhile, in the German kingdom of Thuringia, three brothers fought over the throne, and one of them, Berthar, was slain. Theuderic interfered in a further civil war between the surviving brothers Hermanfrid and Baderic, a conflict which Gregory blames on the machinations of Hermanfrid’s wife Amalaberg. He helped Hermanfrid defeat and kill his brother Baderic. However, Hermanfrid went back on his promise to give some land to Theuderic.
In the kingdom of Burgundy, Sigismund succeeded to the throne along with his brother Godomar, and Theuderic married his daughter. King Sigismund’s second wife (whom Gregory does not name) convinced Sigismund that her stepson was planning to assassinate him, so Sigismund had his son killed. Clovis’s widow, Clotild, urged her sons to avenge the deaths of her own family on the kings of Burgundy. Chlodomer had Sigismund and his family thrown into a well, despite the warnings of Saint Avitus that God would make the same happen to him. He was then killed in the fighting against Godomar’s forces, and Chlodomer’s sons were taken care of by Clotild.
Out of revenge for Hermanfrid breaking his earlier promise, Theuderic and Lothar conquered Thuringia. Lothar captured and married Radegund, the daughter of King Berthar, Hermanfrid’s brother whom Hermanfrid helped kill. Radegund would later join a convent and “became so well known that the common people looked upon her as a saint” (169). While they were still in Thuringia, Theuderic plotted to have Lothar assassinated. However, Lothar saw through the scheme. Theuderic had to pretend he was really just giving Lothar a gift, which he later took back. Theuderic may have had Hermanfrid pushed to his death. When it was rumored that Theuderic had died during the conquest of Thuringia, a senator named Arcadius invited Childebert to claim the area of Clermont.
Meanwhile, Childebert attacked King Amalaric of Spain because his sister Clotild, who had been married to Amalaric, was being harassed for being a Catholic Christian and sent Childebert a towel that had been stained by her blood, showing the violence to which she had been subjected. Childebert killed Amalaric, but Clotild died on the journey back to Gaul. Theuderic wanted to join Childebert and Lothar to attack Burgundy, but Theuderic’s soldiers, hungry for loot, convinced Theuderic to attack Clermont, then under the control of Childebert, instead. He allowed his troops to loot Clermont, including the church of Saint Julian. However, the soldiers who looted Saint Julian were “seized by an unclean spirit” (172) and murdered each other.
A man named Munderic claimed to have royal blood and gained a following among the peasants. A representative of Theuderic, Aregisel, took a false oath and tricked Munderic into leaving his fortress. Munderic killed Aregisel and fought Theuderic’s soldiers until he died in battle. During one dispute between Theuderic and Childebert, Bishop Gregory of Langres’s nephew, Attalus, was taken as a hostage and enslaved. Gregory’s cook, an enslaved man named Leo, was able to get a job with the household Attalus was enslaved in and free him through guile. Gregory freed Leo and gave him land. Gregory then tells the story of Sigivald, who became severely ill until he restored some property to the church of Saint Julian.
Meanwhile, Lothar and Childebert worried that their mother Clotild was planning to have their dead brother Chlodomer’s sons inherit Chlodomer’s territory, instead of allowing them to divide Chlodomer’s kingdom between themselves. Lothar and Childebert gave Clotild a choice: either Childebert’s sons would have their hair cut, which would symbolically make them ineligible for a throne, or they would be killed. Clotild reportedly answered with “bitter grief” that if “they are not to ascend the throne, [she] would rather see them dead than with their hair cut” (181). Childebert and Lothar killed two of Chlodomer’s sons. One son, Chlodovald, escaped and became a monk, while Clotild dedicated herself to charity and the religious life.
Theuderic attacked the Goths of Spain to reclaim some territory that had been lost since his father Clovis’s reign. One town surrendered peacefully to Theuderic because of a woman named Dueteria, who became Theuderic’s lover and bore him a daughter. Theuderic murdered a relative of the royal family named Sigivald and ordered his son Theudebert to also kill his son, also named Sigivald. Instead, Theudebert told Sigivald the Younger to flee Gaul. Soon, Theuderic died and Theudebert succeeded him as king. His uncles Lothar and Childebert tried to conquer Theudebert’s kingdom, but he managed to buy them off and married Dueteria himself.
In Italy, the Arian king Theodoric died and was succeeded by his daughter, Amalsuntha. Arguing that Amalsuntha showed “little sense” (187), Amalsuntha refused to follow her mother Audofleda’s advice by marrying someone of royal descent and instead married an enslaved man named Traguilla. After Audofleda had Traguilla killed, Amalsuntha allegedly poisoned her. After this, Amalsuntha’s subjects turned on her and asked Theudat to become king.
Theudat seized the throne and had Amalsuntha killed. When Lothar, Childebert, and Theudebert threatened to invade Italy in retaliation, Theudat sent them 50,000 gold coins, but Childebert and Theudebert took the entire amount for themselves. Nevertheless, Theudebert did attack Italy and looted it, defeating the Byzantine general Belisarius in the process. Theudebert, whom Gregory says was known for “his generosity towards all men” (190), gave a great deal of money to the bishop Desideratus and the impoverished region of Verdun, even though Desideratus had been mistreated by his father Theuderic.
Desideratus’s son Syagrius murdered Syrivald, the man who denounced Desideratus to Theuderic in the first place. Later, Theudebert fell ill and died. After his death, his tax collector Parthenius, who was widely hated by the people, was stoned to death. Theudebert was succeeded by his son, Theudebald.
After Clovis's death, The Dynamics of Royal Succession and Conflict became immediately apparent. Apparently, the Merovingian law of succession that involved dividing the kingdom between male heirs would have prevented civil war. However, beginning with Clovis's sons, it backfired. Specific examples of this include Theuderic plotting to have his half-brother Lothar murdered (169), the revolt led by the royal pretender Munderic (173-75), and the murders of the sons of King Chlodomer (180-81). Ultimately, only two kings, Theudebert and Lothar I, are left from the generation of royals following Clovis. When discussing the deaths of Chlodomer's sons, Gregory explains that long hair is what represented the royal rights of members of the Merovingian dynasty, to the point that a royal heir who had his hair cut was considered to have become illegitimate.
Gregory approaches the subject of The Role of Women in Religion and Politics when he presents the story of Amalsuntha, who became queen of Italy (187-89). As the translator Lewis Thorpe points out in a footnote, for whatever reason Gregory's presentation of Amalsuntha's story is not accurate to the actual history (188). Either way, Amalsuntha is held up as an example of women in positions of responsibility who are corrupted or made inept by their sexual desires. For Gregory, female promiscuity or sexual agency is linked with women acting immorally or irresponsibly. In this case, Amalsuntha's desire for an enslaved man named Traguilla leads her to murder her own mother, then to her overthrow and her own murder. Later examples Gregory will present of women whose sexuality is presented as a sign of their overall immorality include the queen Fredegund (392, 402) and the princess Rigunth (522).
Nonetheless, Gregory does, in an example of The Interaction Between Christianity and Politics, imply that Amalsuntha's amoral and reckless behavior is at least partially a result of the fact that Amalsuntha belongs to the heretical sect of Arian Christianity (See: Background). Highlighting the fact that Amalsuntha was able to poison her mother due to how Arians conducted the ritual of communion, Gregory writes, "There can be no doubt at all that such a crime as this was the work of the Devil. What can these miserable Arian heretics say, when the Devil is present even at their altar?" (188). Gregory thus emphasizes his providential view of history by casting misfortunes or crimes as divine punishments for what he regards as religious heresy.