Book 10

17.

After this when the decision was made known and they were excommunicated and the abbess restored to the monastery, they went to king Childebert, adding crime to crime, naming forsooth certain persons to the king who not only lived in adultery with the abbess but also sent messengers daily to his enemy Fredegunda. On hearing this the king sent men to bring them in chains. But when they were examined and no wrongdoing was found, they were let go.

[18. Attempt on the life of Childebert. 19. Bishop Egidius is removed from office. 20. Basina and Chrodield are pardoned. 21. Waddo's sons are punished. 22. Death of Childeric.]

23.

In this year there was such a light shed over the earth in the night that one would think it mid­day moreover balls of fire were frequently noticed at night speeding across the sky and lighting the world. There was doubt about Easter for the reason that Victor wrote in his cycle that Easter came on the fifteenth day of the moon. But to prevent Christians from celebrating this festival at the same time of the moon as the Jews, he added: "But the Latins [place it] on the twenty­second of the moon." For this reason many in Gaul celebrated on the fifteenth of the moon but we celebrated on the twenty­second. We made careful inquiry but the springs in Spain which are filled by a divine power were filled at our Easter.

There was a great earthquake on the eighteenth day before the Kalends [note: June 14] of the fifth month, being the fourth day [of the week], early in the morning when dawn was coming. The sun was eclipsed in the middle of the eighth month and its light was so diminished that it scarcely gave as much light as the horns of the moon on the fifth day. There were heavy rains, loud thunders in the autumn and the streams were very full. The bubonic plague cruelly destroyed the people of Viviers and Avignon.

[24. An Armenian bishop visits Tours and tells the story of the destruction of Antioch.]

25.

Now in the Gauls the disease I have mentioned attacked the province of Marseilles, and a great famine oppressed Angers, Nantes, and Mans. These are the beginning of sorrows according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: "There shall be pestilence and famines and earthquakes in different places and false Christs and false prophets shall arise and give signs and prodigies in the heavens so as to put the elect astray" as is true at the present time. For a certain man of Bourges, as he himself told later, went into the deep woods to cut logs which he needed for a certain work and a swarm of flies surrounded him, as a result of which he was considered crazy for two years; whence it may be believed that they were a wickedness sent by the devil. Then he passed through the neighboring cities and went to the province of Arles and there wore skins and prayed like one of the devout, and to make a fool of him the enemy gave him the power of divination. After this he rose from his place and left the province mentioned in order to become more expert in wickedness, and entered the territory of Gévaudan, conducting himself as a great man and not afraid to say that he was Christ. He took with him a woman who passed as his sister to whom he gave the name of Mary. A multitude of people flocked to him bringing the sick, whom he touched and restored to health. They who came to him brought him also gold and silver and garments. These he distributed among the poor to deceive them the more easily, and throwing himself on the ground and praying with the woman 1 have mentioned and rising, he would give orders to the bystanders to worship him in turn. He foretold the future and announced that disease would come to some, to others losses and to others health. But all this he did by some arts and trickeries of the devil. A great multitude of people was led astray by him, not only the common ilk but bishops of the church. More than three thousand people followed him. Meantime he began to spoil and plunder those whom he met on the road; the booty, however, he gave to those who had nothing. He threatened with death bishops and citizens, because they disdained to worship him. He entered La Velay and went to the place called Puy and halted with all his host at the churches near there, marshalling his line of battle to make war on Aurilius who was then bishop, and sending messengers forward, naked men who danced and played and announced his coming. The bishop was amazed at this and sent strong men to ask what his doings meant. One of these, the leader, bent down as if to embrace his knees and check his passage and [the impostor] ordered him to be seized and spoiled. But the other at once drew his sword and cut him into bits and that Christ who ought rather to be named anti­Christ fell dead; and all who were with him dispersed. Mary was tortured and revealed all his impostures and deceits. But the men whom he had excited to a belief in him by the trickery of the devil never returned to their sound senses, but they always said that this man was Christ in a sense and that Mary had a share in his divine nature. Moreover through all the Gauls many appeared who attracted poor women to themselves by trickery and influenced them to rave and declare their leaders holy, and they made a great show before the people. I have seen some of them and have rebuked the m and endeavored to recall them from error.

[26. A Syrian trader, Eusebius, becomes bishop of Paris.]

27.

Among the Franks of Tournai a great feud arose because the son of one often angrily rebuked the son of another who had married his sister, for leaving his wife and visiting a prostitute. And when reform on the part of the guilty man did not follow, the anger of the youth became so great that he rushed upon his brother­in­law and killed him and his men, and was himself killed by his opponents, and there was only one left from both parties who lacked a slayer. Upon this the kinsmen on both sides raged at one another, but were frequently urged by queen Fredegunda to give up their enmity and become friends lest their persistence in the quarrel might cause a greater disturbance. But when she failed to reconcile them with gentle words she tamed them on both sides with the ax. For she invited many to a feast and caused these three to sit on the same bench, and when the dinner had been prolonged until night covered the earth, the table was taken away according to the custom of the Franks and they sat on the bench in their places. Much wine had been drunk and they were so overcome by it that the slaves were intoxicated and were lying asleep in the corners of the house, each where he fell. Then by the woman's order three men with axes stood behind these three and while they were talking together the hands of the men flashed in a single blow, so to speak, and they were struck down and the banquet ended. Their names were Charivald, Leodovald, and Valden. When this was told to their kinsmen they began to watch Fredegunda closely and sent messengers to king Childebert to seize her and put her to death. The people of Champagne were angry because of this matter, but while Childebert was interposing delay she was saved by the help of her people and hastened to another place.

[28. Baptism of Clothar. 29. Miracles of the abbot Aridius. 30. The plague. 31. The bishops of Tours from the beginning to Gregory.]

The nineteenth was I, unworthy Gregory, who found the church of Tours, in which the blessed Martin and the other bishops of the Lord were consecrated in the pontifical office, shattered and ruined by fire. I rebuilt it larger and higher, and dedicated it in the seventeenth year after being ordained; and in it as I learned from the old priests the relics of the blessed Maurice and his companions had been placed by the ancients. I found the very box in the treasury of the church of St. Martin, and in it the relics, greatly decayed, which had been brought because of their miraculous power. And while vigils were being kept in their honor I wished to visit them again by the light of a torch. And I was examining them intently when the keeper of the church said to me: "Here is a stone with a cover, but I don't know what it has in it and I haven't been able to learn from my predecessors who have had charge here. Let me bring it and you look carefully to see what it contains." I took it and opened it of course, ­ and found a silver box containing relics of the witnesses of the blessed legion as well as of many saints both martyrs and confessors. We also found other stones hollow like this one, containing relics of the holy apostles and the rest of the martyrs. I wondered at this bounty divinely given and after, giving thanks, keeping vigil, and saying mass, I placed them in the cathedral. I placed the relics of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian in St. Martin's cell close to the cathedral. I found the walls of the holy church consumed by fire and ordered skilful workmen to repaint and adorn them with their er splendor. I had a baptistery built close by the church, where I placed the relics of the holy martyrs John and Sergius, and in what had been the baptistery I placed the relics of the martyr Benignus. And in many localities in the territory of Tours I dedicated churches and oratories and glorified them with relics of the saints, but I think it tiresome to speak of them in order.

I wrote ten books of Histories, seven of Miracles, one on the Lives of the Fathers; a commentary in one book on Psalms; one book also on the Services of the Church. And though I have written these books in a style somewhat rude, I nevertheless conjure you all, God's bishops who are destined to rule the lowly church of Tours after me, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the judgment day, feared by the guilty, if you will not be condemned with the devil and depart in confusion from the judgment, never cause these books to be destroyed or rewritten, selecting some passages and omitting others, but let them all continue in your time complete and undiminished as they were left by us. And bishop of God, whoever you may be, if our Martianus has trained you in the seven disciplines, that is, if he has taught you by means of grammar to read, by dialectic to apprehend the arguments in disputes, by rhetoric to recognize the different meters, by geometry to comprehend the measurement of the earth and of lines, by astrology to contemplate the paths of the heavenly bodies, by arithmetic to understand the parts of numbers, by harmony to fit the modulated voice to the sweet accents of the verse; if in all this you are practiced so that my style will seem rude, even so I beg of you do not efface what I have written. But if anything in these books pleases you I do not forbid your writing it in verse provided my work is left safe.

I am finishing this work in the twenty-first year after my ordination.

Although in what I have just written of the bishops of Tours I have told their years, still this calculation does not agree with the [total] number of years, because I have not been able to learn accurately the length of time between the different ordinations. Now the grand total of years of the world is as follows:

From the beginning to the flood	2242 years
From the flood to the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel years.	1404 years
From the crossing of this sea to the resurrection of the Lord.	1538 years
From the resurrection of the Lord to the death of St. Martin	412 years
From the death of St. Martin to the year mentioned above, namely, the twenty­first year after my ordination, which is also the fifth of Gregory, pope of Rome, the thirty­first of king Gunthram, and the nineteenth of Childebert the second .	197 years
The grand total of which is	5792 years