Gregory of Tours
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| Saint Gregory of Tours | |
|---|---|
| Born | 540 |
| Died | November 17, 594 |
| Feast | November 17 |
St. Gregory of Tours (c. 538 – November 17, 594) was a Gallo-Roman historian and bishop of Tours, which made him the leading prelate of Gaul. He wrote in a clumsy, ungrammatical and barbarized late Latin attempt at a literary style, which is nevertheless full of vitality and many Frankish and Germanic terms. When inspiration fails, he is quick to fall back on the linguistic formulae of doctrine. He is the main contemporary source for Merovingian history. His most notable work was his Decem Libri Historiarum or Ten Books of History, better known as the Historia Francorum ("History of the Franks"), a title given to it by later chroniclers, but he is also known for his credulous accounts of the miracles of saints, especially four books of the miracles of Martin of Tours. St Martin's tomb was a major draw in the 6th century, and Gregory's writings had the practical aspect of promoting this highly organized cultus. Gregory shares the Gaulish appetite for miraculous events—the more incredible, the more thrilling.
Life
Gregory was born into the upper stratum of Gallo-Roman society, of senatorial rank on both sides as he tells us, in Clermont, in the Auvergne region of central Gaul. Of the eighteen bishops of Tours who preceded him, all but five were connected with him by ties of kinship. He spent most of his career at Tours, though he travelled as far as Paris. The rough world he lived in was on the cusp of the dying world of Antiquity and the new culture of early medieval Europe. Gregory lived also on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul.At Tours, Gregory could not have been better placed to hear everything and meet everyone of influence in Merovingian culture. Tours lay on the watery highway of the navigable Loire. Five Roman roads radiated from Tours, which lay on the main thoroughfare between the Frankish north and Aquitania, with Spain beyond. At Tours the Frankish influences of the north and the Gallo-Roman influences of the south had their chief contact (see map). As the center for the popular cult of St Martin, Tours was a pilgrimage site, hospital, and a political sanctuary to which important leaders fled during the violence and turmoil of Merovingian disorder.
Gregory struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings, Sigebert I, Chilperic I, Guntram, and Childebert I and he personally knew most of the leading Franks.
Works
The Historia Francorum is in ten books. Books I to IV recount the world's history from the Creation but move quickly to the Christianization of Gaul, the conversion of the Franks and the conquest of Gaul under Clovis, and the more detailed history of the Frankish kings down to the death of Sigebert in 575. At this date Gregory had been bishop of Tours for two years.The second part, books V and VI, closes with Chilperic's death in 584. During the years that Chilperic held Tours, relations between him and Gregory were tense. After hearing rumours that the Bishop of Tours had slandered his wife, Chilperic had Gregory arrested and tried for treason - a charge which threatened both Gregory's bishopric and his life. The most eloquent passage in the Historia is the closing chapter of book VI, in which Chilperic's character is summed up unsympathetically.
The third part, comprising books VII to X, takes his increasingly personal account to the year 591. An epilogue was written in 594, the year of Gregory's death.
One must decide when reading the Historia Francorum whether this is a royal history, and whether Gregory was writing to please his patrons. It is likely that one royal Frankish house is more generously treated than others. He was also a Catholic bishop, and his writing reveals views typical of someone in his position. His views on perceived dangers of Arianism (still strong among the Visigoths) led him to preface the Historia with a detailed expression of his orthodoxy on the nature of Christ. His scorn of pagans and Jews should be seen in the context of the time. Gregory's education was limited: the narrowly Christian one available, ignoring the liberal arts and the pagan classics. Though he had read Virgil, he cautions us that "We ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death." However, we must keep in mind that he seems to have thoroughly studied the lengthy and complex Vulgate Bible, religious works and a number of historical treatises, which he quotes from quite frequently, particularly in the earlier books of the Historia Francorum.
Importance
The Historia Francorum is of salient historical interest since it describes the culture and events of the period of transition from Roman to Medieval, and the establishment of the French state, which was to remain remarkably large in terms of population and territory, and fortunate in terms of wealth, stability and unity for its time throughout the Medieval period compared with other European states. Many cultural, economic and social constructs that spread outwards to other parts of Europe, such as, for example, the feudal system, had their birth in France.Gregory's extensive literary output is itself a testimony to the preservation of learning and to the lingering continuity of Gallo-Roman civic culture through the so-called 'Dark Ages'.
External links
Primary sources
- [History of the Franks] (original Latin text, complete)
Secondary material
- [Catholic Encyclopedia: Gregory of Tours]
- [Excerpts from Historia Francorum with Ernest Brehaut's critical analysis of Gregory in the context of his time]
- [Brehaut's complete, unexpurgated introduction]
Further reading
The following represent key modern texts on Gregory of Tours, including the most recent translations of his work.While Thorpe's translation of The History of the Franks is more accessible than Brehaut's, his introduction and commentary are not well regarded by contemporary historians.
Primary sources
- Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Confessors, translation by R. Van Dam (Liverpool, 1988)
- Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs, translation by R Van Dam (Liverpool, 1988)
- Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, translation by L Thorpe (Penguin, 1974: many reprints)
- Gregory of Tours, Life of the Fathers, translation by E James (Liverpool, 1985)
- Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of the Bishop St. Martin, translation by R. Van Dam in Saints and their Miracles in Late Antiwue Gaul (Princeton, 1993)
- Gregory of Tours, The Suffering and Miracles of the Martyr St. Julian, translation by R. Van Dam in Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993)
- Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum, ed. B Krusch and W Levison, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, 1 (Hannover, 1951).
- Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Martyrum, ed. B Krusch, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, 2 (Hannover, 1885).
- Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Confessorum, ed. B Krusch, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, 2 (Hannover, 1885)
- Gregorius Turonensis. Libri historiarum X, ed. B Krusch, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum I, 1:1 (Hannover, 1937)
Secondary sources
- Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (London, 1981)
- Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800) (Princeton, 1988)
- E James, The Franks (Oxford, 1988)
- Reinhold Kaiser. Das römische Erbe und das Merowingerreich, (Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte 26) (München, 2004)
- Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood (eds.), The World of Gregory of Tours (Leiden, 2002)
- R Van Dam, Saints and their miracles in late antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993)
- Ian N Wood, The Merovingian kingdoms 450-751 (London, 1994)
- Ian N Wood, Gregory of Tours (Oxford, 1994)
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