'If this deposit was held by you for safekeeping, why did you open one of them, and cut into pieces a border woven with golden threads, and give it out through the men who were to cast me from my kingdom?' Bishop Praetextatus answered: 'I have already told you above that I had received their gifts, and therefore, since I had nothing at hand to give, I presumed upon this, and gave them a return of gifts. It seemed to me to be my own property, since it belonged to my son Merovech, whom I received from the font of regeneration.' But king Chilperic, seeing that he could not overcome him with these slanders, greatly stunned and confounded in conscience, departed from us; and he called certain of his flatterers and said:
'I confess that I am vanquished by the bishop's words, and I know that what he says is true. What shall I now do, that the queen's will concerning him may be fulfilled?' And he said: 'Go, and approaching him, say, as though giving counsel of your own selves: You know that king Chilperic is pious and compunctious, and is quickly moved to mercy; humble yourself beneath him, and say that the things charged against you were committed by you. Then we, all prostrate before his feet, will obtain pardon for you.' Deceived by this, bishop Praetextatus promised that he would do so. And when morning had come, we assembled at the accustomed place; and the king arriving said to the bishop:
'If you bestowed gifts in return for gifts upon these men, why did you demand oaths that they should keep faith with Merovech?' The bishop answered: 'I sought, I confess, to have their friendship for him; and not only a man, but, had it been lawful, I would have summoned an angel from heaven to be his helper. For he was my son, as I have often said, a spiritual son from the font.' And when this dispute was raised to a higher pitch, bishop Praetextatus, prostrate on the ground, said: 'I have sinned against heaven and before you, O most merciful king; I am an abominable murderer; I wished to kill you and to set up your son upon your throne.' As he said this, the king prostrated himself before the feet of the priests, saying:
'Hear, O most holy priests, the guilty man confessing an execrable crime.' And when we, weeping, had raised the king from the ground, he ordered the bishop to leave the basilica. He himself withdrew to his lodging, sending across a book of canons, in which a new quaternion had been appended, containing canons as if apostolic, holding these words: 'A bishop caught in murder, adultery, or perjury shall be torn from the priesthood.' When these had been read, while Praetextatus stood astonished, bishop Bertchramnus said: 'Hear, O brother and fellow-bishop, that you do not have the king's favor, and therefore you cannot enjoy our charity either, until you deserve the king's indulgence.'
When these things had thus been done, the king demanded either that his tunic be rent, or that the one hundred and eighth psalm, which contains the curses of Iscariot, be recited over his head, or at least that a sentence be written against him, that he should never again communicate. To these conditions I resisted, according to the king's promise that nothing should be carried out beyond the canons. Then Praetextatus, snatched from our sight, was placed under guard. Trying to flee from it by night, he was most grievously beaten, and was thrust into exile on an island of the sea which lies near the city of Coutances. After this it was rumored that Merovech was again attempting to seek the basilica of Saint Martin.
But Chilperic ordered the basilica to be guarded and all the entrances closed. The guards, however, leaving one door through which a few clergy might enter for the divine office, kept the rest of the doors shut—which was not without grief to the people. While we were tarrying at Paris, signs appeared in the sky, that is, twenty rays in the region of the North, which, rising from the East, hastened toward the West; of which one, longer than the rest and rising above them, as it was lifted on high, was straightway directed, and so the rest that had followed vanished. I believe it foretold the death of Merovech.
But Merovech, while he was lying hidden in the Champagne region of Reims, and would not openly trust himself to the Austrasians, was circumvented by the men of Thérouanne, who said that, if he came to them, they would abandon his father Chilperic and submit themselves to him. He, swiftly taking with him very brave men, came to them. They, revealing the snares they had prepared, shut him up in a certain estate, and, having surrounded him with armed men, sent messengers to his father. Hearing this, he determined to hasten thither. But Merovech, being held in a certain little lodging and fearing lest he should pay many penalties to the vengeance of his enemies, called to himself Gailen, his attendant, and said: 'Until now we have had one soul and one counsel; I beg you not to suffer me to be handed over into the hands of my enemies;'
'but take a sword and rush upon me.' He, not hesitating, ran him through with a knife. And when the king arrived, he was found dead. There then arose those who asserted that the words of Merovech, which we have related above, had been fabricated by the queen; and that Merovech had in fact been secretly slain by her order. But Gailen, being seized, had his hands and feet cut off, his ears and the tips of his nostrils, and being afflicted with many other torments, they slew him wretchedly. Grindio also they hoisted up on high, woven onto a wheel; Ciucilo, who had once been count of the palace of king Sigibert, they killed by cutting off his head. And many others also who had come with him they put to death by cruel and various deaths.
Men were also then saying that in this entrapment bishop Egidius and Guntram Boso had been the chief instigators, because Guntram enjoyed secret friendships with queen Fredegund for the slaying of Theudebert; and Egidius, because he had long been dear to her. XX. Now when the emperor Justin, having lost his reason, had become demented, and his empire was being governed by the empress Sophia alone, the people, as we have already said in a previous book (Book IV, ch. 33), chose Tiberius Caesar—a useful, vigorous, and wise man, generous in alms and the best defender of the poor.
When he was bestowing on the poor much of the treasures which Justin had amassed, and that empress kept frequently rebuking him because he had reduced the commonwealth to poverty, and would say: 'What I have gathered over many years, you scatter prodigally within a short time,' he would say: 'It shall not be lacking to our treasury, provided only that the poor receive alms or captives be redeemed. For this is the great treasure, the Lord saying: Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth consumes, and where thieves do not dig through nor steal (Matt. 6:20). Therefore, of that which God has given, let us gather through the poor into heaven, that the Lord may deign to increase it for us in this age.'
And because, as we have said, he was a great and true Christian, while with cheerful distribution he gave aid to the poor, the Lord supplied him more and more. For, walking through the palace, he saw in the pavement of the house a slab of marble, on which the Cross of the Lord was carved, and he said: 'With Your Cross, O Lord, we fortify our forehead and our breast, and behold, we trample the Cross beneath our feet.' And quicker than the word he ordered it to be removed; and when the slab was dug up and lifted, they found beneath it another bearing this same sign. Reporting it, he ordered that one also to be removed. When it was taken away, they found a third; and at his command this one too was removed. When it had been taken away, they found a great treasure holding above a thousand hundredweight of gold.
And taking up the gold, he supplied the poor still more abundantly, as he had been accustomed; nor did the Lord let anything fail him, on account of his good will. What the Lord sent him afterward, I will not omit. Narses, that duke of Italy, when he had a great house in a certain city, having gone out into Italy with many treasures, came to the aforesaid city, and there in his house he secretly dug a great cistern, in which he laid up many thousand hundredweight of gold and silver; and having killed those who were privy to it, he committed the hidden hoard by oath to one old man alone. And when Narses had died, these things lay hidden under the earth. And when the aforesaid old man continually beheld this emperor's almsgiving, he went to him, saying: 'If,' he said,
'gain anything by it, I will tell you of a great matter, O Caesar.' To him he said: 'Tell what you will. For it will profit you, if you relate to us something that will be to our advantage.' 'I have,' he said, 'the treasure of Narses hidden away, which, set at the end of life, I cannot conceal.' Then Caesar Tiberius, rejoicing, sent his servants to the place; the old man going before, they followed astonished. Coming to the cistern and uncovering it, they entered, in which they found so much gold and silver that for many days it was scarcely emptied by those carrying it away. And from this he dispensed even more to the needy with cheerful bestowal. XXI. Now a tumult arose against the bishops Salonius and Sagittarius.
For these, brought up by Saint Nicetius, bishop of Lyon, had obtained the office of the diaconate; and in his time Salonius was appointed bishop of the city of Embrun, and Sagittarius bishop of the church of Gap. But having assumed the episcopate, given over to their own caprice, they began to rage with insane fury in usurpations, slaughters, murders, adulteries, and various crimes; so that on one occasion, when Victor, bishop of the Tricastini, was celebrating the solemnity of his birthday, they sent forth a band and rushed upon him with swords and arrows.
And coming, they tore his garments, struck down his ministers, and carried off the vessels and all the equipment of the banquet, leaving the bishop in great dishonor. When king Guntram had learned of this, he ordered a synod to be gathered at the city of Lyon. And the bishops, joined together with the blessed patriarch Nicetius, having examined the causes, found them strongly convicted of those crimes of which they were accused; and they decreed that those who had committed such things should be deprived of the honor of the episcopate. But they, since they knew the king to be still favorable to them, went to him, imploring that they had been unjustly removed, and that license should be granted to them to go to the pope of the city of Rome.
The king, assenting to their petitions, gave them letters and permitted them to depart. Coming before pope John, they set forth that they had been removed when no rational causes existed. He sent letters to the king, in which he ordered them to be restored to their places. And the king without delay fulfilled this, having first chastised them with many words. But—what is worse—no amendment followed thereupon; nevertheless they sought the peace of bishop Victor, handing over the men whom they had directed into the sedition. But he, mindful of the Lord's precept that evil ought not to be rendered to enemies for evil (Rom. 12:17), doing them no harm, permitted them to depart free.
On this account he was afterward suspended from communion, because, while accusing publicly, he had secretly spared his enemies, without the counsel of the brethren whom he had accused. But by the favor of the king he was again recalled into communion. They, however, were daily mixed up in still greater crimes; and in those battles which, as we have already mentioned above (Book IV, ch. 37), Mummolus waged with the Lombards, girded with arms like one of the laity, they slew very many with their own hands. And against some of their own citizens, moved with gall, beating them with clubs even to the shedding of blood, they raged. Hence it came about that the outcry of the people again went forth to the king; and the king ordered them to be summoned.
When they had arrived, it was not permitted that they be presented to his sight: namely, that a hearing should first be held, and, if they were found fit, they might thus deserve the king's presence. But Sagittarius, moved with gall and taking this arrangement hard, being light and vain as he was, and overflowing in irrational speeches, began to declaim much against the king, and to say that his sons could not take the kingdom, because their mother had once been taken from the family of Magnachar into the king's bed—not knowing that now, setting aside the lineage of the women, those are called the king's children who have been begotten of kings. Hearing this, the king, greatly moved, took away both horses and servants and whatever they had been able to have;
and he ordered them to be shut up in monasteries set at a greater distance from him, in which they might do penance, leaving them no more than a single cleric each; sternly admonishing the judges of those places that they should guard them with armed men, lest any access to visit them lie open to anyone. For the king's sons were surviving in those days, of whom the elder began to fall sick. And his intimates, coming to the king, said: 'If the king would deign graciously to hear the words of his servants, they would speak in your ears.' He said: 'Speak whatever you please.' And they said:
'Lest perchance these innocent bishops have been condemned to exile, and the king's sin be increased in some way, and on that account the son of our lord perish. He said: 'Go as quickly as possible and release them, beseeching them to pray for our little ones.' And as these departed, they were set free. So, having gone out from the monasteries, they joined themselves together and, kissing one another, because they had not seen each other for a long time, returned to their cities; and they were so smitten with compunction that they seemed never to cease from psalmody, to celebrate fasts, to practice almsgiving, to fulfill the book of David's song through the day, and to pass the nights meditating in hymns and readings. But this sanctity did not long remain untarnished.
For they turned back again to their former ways; and so for the most part they spent the nights feasting and drinking, so that while the clergy were celebrating matins in the church, these men were demanding cups and pouring out wine. There was no mention at all of God, no remembrance whatever of the office of prayer. When dawn returned, rising from supper, covering themselves with soft garments, buried in sleep and wine, they slept until the third hour of the day. Nor were women lacking with whom they might be defiled. Rising up then, washed in baths, they reclined at the banquet; rising from which in the evening, they gaped after suppers until that hour of daylight which we mentioned above.
Thus they did each day, until the wrath of God fell upon them, which we shall relate hereafter (Book VII, ch. 59). XXII. Then Winnoch the Breton came in the greatest abstinence from Brittany to Tours, desiring to go to Jerusalem, having no other garment than one of sheepskins stripped of their wool; whom we, that we might the more easily keep him—because he seemed religious to us—honored with the grace of the presbyterate. Now Ingitrudis had the religious custom of collecting water from the tomb of Saint Martin; and when this water failed, she asked that a vessel with wine be carried to the blessed tomb.
And when the night had passed, she ordered it thence to be taken up in the presence of this presbyter, and when it had been brought to her, she said to the presbyter: 'Take away the wine from here, and pour in only one drop of the blessed water, of which a little remains.' When he had done this, marvelous to say, the little vessel which was half full was filled at the descent of one drop. The same, emptied twice or thrice in this manner, was filled by one drop only; and it is not doubted that in this too there was the power of the blessed Martin. XXIII. When these things had thus been done, Samson, the younger son of king Chilperic, seized by dysentery and fever, departed from human affairs. He had been born when king Chilperic was being besieged at Tournai by his brother (Book IV, ch. 52);
whom his mother, for fear of death, cast away from herself and wished to destroy. But when she had not been able to, being rebuked by the king, she ordered him to be baptized. He, being baptized and received from the font by the bishop himself, died before even one lustrum was complete. For his mother Fredegund too in those days was gravely ill, but recovered. XXIV. After this, in the night which was the third before the Ides of November, while we were celebrating the vigils of the blessed Martin, a great portent appeared to us; for in the middle of the moon a shining star was seen to gleam, and above and below the moon other stars appeared nearby. There appeared also around it that circle which often signifies rain. But what these things prefigured, we do not know.
For we also saw the moon this year often turned to blackness; and before the Lord's Nativity there were heavy thunders. There appeared also those splendors around the sun, just as we have recorded happened before the Auvergne disaster (Book IV, ch. 51), which the country folk call 'suns'; and they assert that the sea went out beyond measure, and many other signs appeared. XXV. Guntram Boso, coming to Tours with a few armed men, carried off by force his daughters, whom he had left in the holy basilica, and led them as far as the city of Poitiers, which was under king Childebert's authority. Chilperic also overran the region of Poitiers, and his nephew's men were put to flight by his men. They brought Ennodius from the county into the king's presence.
When he had been condemned to exile, they made his goods subject to the treasury. But after a year he was restored both to his country and to his goods (Book VIII, ch. 26). Guntram Boso, leaving his daughters in the basilica of the blessed Hilary, went over to king Childebert. XXVI. In the third year of king Childebert, which was the seventeenth year of Chilperic and Guntram, when Dacco, once the son of Dagaric, having abandoned king Chilperic, was wandering hither and thither, he was fraudulently seized by the duke Dragolen, who was called 'the Industrious'; and he led him bound to king Chilperic at Brennacum, having given him an oath that he would obtain his life with the king. But, forgetful of the oath, he dealt with the prince, asserting wicked things,
that he should die. He too, while he was held bound and saw that he would by no means escape, asked penance of a presbyter without the king's knowledge. Having received it, he was slain. And when the same Dragolen was swiftly returning to his homeland, in those days Guntram Boso was attempting to carry off his daughters from Poitiers. Hearing this, Dragolen threw himself against him; but they, since they were prepared, resisting, strove to defend themselves. Guntram sent one of his friends to him, saying: 'Go and say to him: You know that we have a treaty entered into between us; I beg you to withdraw yourself from your snares against me. As much as you wish to take of the goods, I do not forbid;'
'only let me, even though stripped naked, be permitted to go with my daughters wherever I will.' But he, being vain and light as he was, said: 'Behold the rope by which other guilty men, bound, have been sent to the king under my leading; on which this man too is today to be bound and led thither in chains.' And when he had said this, urging his horse with the strokes of his heels, he directed it at swift course; and striking him with a vain blow, his spear being broken, the sword fell to the ground.
But Guntram, when he saw death threatening over him, invoking the name of the Lord and the great power of the blessed Martin, and raising his lance, pressed Dragolen hard at the throat, and as he hung suspended from his horse, one of his friends, striking him in the side with a lance, finished him off. His companions being put to flight and he himself despoiled, Guntram departed free with his daughters. After this, Severus, his father-in-law, was gravely accused by his sons before the king. Hearing this, he went to the king with great gifts; and being seized on the way and despoiled and led into exile, he ended his life by a most wretched death. And his two sons also, Burcolen and Dodo, having received the sentence of death on the charge of high treason, one was overwhelmed by force by the army;
the other, seized in flight, perished with his hands and feet cut off; and all their goods, both their own and their father's, were given over to the treasury. For they had great treasures. XXVII. Then the people of Tours, Poitiers, Bayeux, Le Mans, and Angers, with many others, went into Brittany at the command of king Chilperic; and against Waroch, son of the late Macliaw, they encamped at the river Vilaine. But he, treacherously by night falling upon the Saxons of Bayeux, slew the greatest part of them. But after the third day, making peace with the dukes of king Chilperic, and giving his son as a hostage, he bound himself by oath that he would be faithful to king Chilperic.
He also restored the city of the Veneti to him, on this condition: that if he should deserve to govern it by the king's command, he should each year, without anyone prompting him, pay over the tribute and everything that was owed thence. When this had been done, the army was withdrawn from that place. After this King Chilperic ordered fines to be exacted from the poor and the lesser folk of the church and basilica, on the ground that they had not marched in the army. For it was not the custom that these should discharge any public obligation. After this Waroch, forgetting his promise and wishing to break what he had done, sent Eunius, bishop of the city of Vannes, to King Chilperic. But the king, moved with anger, ordered him to be rebuked and condemned to exile.
Also in the fourth year of Childebert, which was the eighteenth of Kings Guntram and Chilperic, a synod was held at the city of Chalon by command of Prince Guntram; and after various cases had been examined, that old calamity was renewed against the bishops Salonius and Sagittarius. Charges were brought against them: and they were accused not only of adulteries but even of homicides. But when the bishops judged that these things could be purged by penance, this further charge was added, that they were guilty of treason against the crown and were betrayers of the fatherland. For this cause they were stripped of their bishopric and thrust under guard into the basilica of the blessed Marcellus.
From there they slipped away by flight and departed, wandering through various places, until others were appointed in their stead in their cities. King Chilperic, however, ordered new and heavy assessments to be made throughout his whole realm. For this cause many, abandoning those cities or their own possessions, sought other kingdoms, judging it better to live as foreigners elsewhere than to lie under such peril. For it had been decreed that a landholder should render one amphora of wine for each arpent from his own land. But many other levies besides were imposed, both upon the remaining lands and upon the slaves;
this could not be fulfilled. The people of Limoges too, when they saw themselves burdened with such a load, gathered together on the Kalends of March and wished to kill Mark the referendary, who had been ordered to carry this out; and they would indeed have done so, had not Bishop Ferreolus delivered him from the imminent danger. Seizing also the assessment-books, the multitude joined together and burned them in a fire; whereupon the king, much vexed, sent persons from his own side, afflicted the people with immense damages, terrified them with tortures, and punished them with death.
They report also that at that time abbots and priests were stretched upon stakes and subjected to various torments, the royal envoys falsely accusing them of having been present as accomplices in the uprising of the people for the burning of the books, and thereafter they imposed still harsher tributes. The Bretons too grievously laid waste the region of Rennes with fire, plunder, and captivity; advancing in war as far as the village of Cornud. But Bishop Eunius, brought back from exile, was assigned to Angers to be maintained, nor was he permitted to return to his own city of Vannes. Duke Beppolen, however, was sent against the Bretons, and crushed some places of Brittany with sword and fire;
which thing stirred up greater hostility. While these things were being done in Gaul, Justin, having completed the eighteenth year of his reign, ended together with his life the madness into which he had fallen. When he had been buried, Tiberius Caesar took up the imperial power which he had already long since undertaken. But when the people, according to the custom of the place, were awaiting him to proceed to the spectacle of the circus, certain men plotting to prepare an ambush for him on behalf of Justinian, who was then held to be Justin's nephew, he went forth through the holy places. And when his prayer was completed, having summoned to himself the city's pope, he entered the palace with the consuls and prefects. Then, clothed in purple, crowned with the diadem, set upon the imperial throne, amid immense acclamations he confirmed his reign.
The faction-men too, waiting at the circus, when they learned what had been done, were confounded with shame and returned without effect, having no power to oppose the man who had placed his hope in God. So when a few days had passed, Justinian came and cast himself at the emperor's feet, offering him fifteen hundredweight of gold to win his favor. The emperor, receiving him after the manner of his patience, ordered him to attend in the palace. But the empress Sophia, unmindful of the promise which she had once made concerning Tiberius, attempted to lay a snare for him. As he was proceeding to a country estate, that according to the imperial custom he might take pleasure for thirty days at the vintage, Sophia, having secretly summoned Justinian, wished to raise him to the empire.