History of the Franks
Introduction
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 GalloRoman or the Frank, but solely from that of the churchman, 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 seemed to him absolute madness in view of the greater war between the good and evil supernatural powers. [note: Book III, Pref, and IV Pref.] On the other hand his loyalty to his worthy fellowbishops is often proved. No doubt the words he quotes from Paulinus expressed his own feelings: "Whatever evils there may be in the world, you will doubtless see the worthiest men as guardians of all faith and religion." [note: Book II:13, Cf. V:11] 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 St. Martin.
The great value of Gregory's writings is that we get in them an intimate view of sixthcentury ideas. At first sight, perhaps, we seem to have incongruous elements which from the modern viewpoint we cannot bring into harmony with one another. Credulity and hardheaded judgment appear side by side. How could Gregory be so shrewd and worldlyminded in his struggle with Chilperic 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, "Every day God kept laying his enemies low before him and enlarging his kingdom because he walked with right heart before him and did what was pleasing in his eyes"? These apparently glaring incongruities must 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 GalloRomans as if they were alien to us, living, let us say, on an island of the southern Pacific, and believing and practising 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.
I,ook 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, [note: Nunc autem cognovi quod magna est virtus eius beati Martini. Nam ingrediente me atrium domus. Vidi virum senem exhibentem arborem in manu sua, quae mox extensis ramis omne atrium texit. Ex ea emm unus me adtigit ramus, de cuius ictu turbatus corrui. Book VII:42] the first meaning sacred or 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 belong 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." [note: See pp. 38 (Book II:28), 162 (Book VI:35), 185 (Book VII:44), 205 (Book IX:3).]
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 m contempt of life, and in the more thoroughgoing cases the only restraint was the desire to avoid selfdestruction, which was forbidden. Almost every known method of selfdenial and self mortification was practised. 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 immuring, [note: For an objective account of immuring as the climax of religious practice see Vol II, chap. I, Sven Hedin's TransHimalaya, 1909. The following is his account of an immured monk who was brought out from his cell after a long time. "He was all bent up together and as small as a child and his body was nothing but a lightgray parchment like skin and bones. His eyes had lost their color, were quite bright and blind. His hair hung round his head in uncombed matted locks and was pure white. His body was covered only by a rag for time had eaten away his clothing and he had received no new garments. He had a thin unkempt beard, and had never washed himself all the time or cut his nails."] 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. [note: pp, 147-150 (Book VI:6), 158 (Book VI:28), 198-199 (Book: VIII:34)]
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