For it was then commonly reported by the faithful that a certain woman, whose son was afflicted with a quartan ague and lay anxiously upon his bed, came amid the throngs of the people right up behind the king's back, and having secretly torn off the fringes of the royal garment, placed them in water and gave it to her son to drink, and at once the fever was quenched and he was healed. This I do not hold in doubt, since I myself have often heard evil spirits, through a possessed servant, invoking his name, and confessing the deeds of their own crimes, his power discerning them. XXII. For, as we said above, it has pleased us to recount more fully how great were the sufferings which the city of Marseilles, sick with a most deadly contagion, endured.
For in those days Bishop Theodorus had gone off to the king, as if to bring some charge against the patrician Nicetius. But when he had by no means been heard by King Childebert concerning this matter, he resolved to return to his own place. Meanwhile a ship from Spain put in at his port with its usual cargo, which wickedly carried within itself the kindling of this disease. When many of the citizens were buying various wares from it, at once a single house, in which there were eight souls, was left empty, its inhabitants slain by this contagion. Nor was this conflagration at once scattered through all the houses; but after an interval of some time had passed, like a flame kindled in a cornfield, it set the whole city ablaze with the burning of the disease.
Nevertheless the bishop of the city went to the place and shut himself up within the enclosure of the basilica of Saint Victor, with the few who then remained with him; and there, throughout the whole devastation of the city, devoting himself to prayers and vigils, he implored the Lord's mercy, that at length, the destruction ceasing, the people might be permitted to rest in peace. But when this plague had ceased for two months, and the people, now feeling secure, had returned to the city, the disease succeeded again, and those who had returned died; and indeed it was many times thereafter burdened by this destruction. XXIII. But Agericus, bishop of Verdun, when he was gravely ill from that gall of long-lasting bitterness—because Guntchramn Boso, for whom he had stood surety, had been killed—
or also from a hidden bitterness, because Berthefred had been killed within the oratory of the church's house; and especially because, keeping Guntchramn's very sons with him, he wept daily, saying: 'You have been left orphans through my hatred'—kindled, as we said, by these causes, weighed down by the bitterness of gall, and most of all consumed by severe fasting, he met his end and was laid in the tomb. Buciovaldus too, his abbot, ran for the bishopric, but obtained nothing. For the royal authority decreed, with the consent of the citizens, that Charimer the referendary should be made bishop, Abbot Buciovaldus being passed over. For they said that this man was proud, and on this account he was by some called Buccusvalidus.
Licerius, bishop of Arles, also died, in whose church Virgilius, abbot of Autun, was substituted, with the help of Bishop Syagrius. XXIV. Deutherius, bishop of Vence, also died, in whose place Fronimius was appointed. Now this Fronimius was an inhabitant of the city of Bourges, but for some cause or other he departed into Septimania; and after the death of King Athanagild he was magnificently received by his successor Leuva, and was ordained bishop in the city of Agde. But after the death of Leuva, when Leuvigild was raging in that perfidy of heretical depravity, and Ingund, daughter of King Sigibert, of whom we made mention above (Book V, chap.
39, etc.) was being led into Spain in marriage, Leuvigild heard that this bishop had, as it were, given her counsel never to suffer herself to be mingled with the poison of the heretics' belief; and on this account he was always troublesome to him, laying snares of injuries, until he should cast him down from the bishopric. And when he could find no traps with which to entangle him, at last he sent men who should attack him with the sword. He, learning this through intermediaries, left the city of Agde and came into Gaul; and there, received and gifted by many bishops, he passed on to King Childebert.
And so, the place being opened up, he received the pontifical power in the aforesaid city in the ninth year of his ejection, the king granting it. The Bretons that year grievously subjected the territory of Nantes and Rennes to plunder, stripping the vineyards of their vintage, devastating the cultivated fields, and leading off the people of the villages into captivity, keeping nothing of their former promises—and not only not keeping their promises, but even disparaging our kings. XXV. Therefore, when King Childebert had, at the request of the Lombards, promised that his sister should be wife to their king, and had received gifts,
when the envoys of the Goths arrived, he re-promised her to them, because he learned that that nation had been converted to the catholic faith; and he sent an embassy to the emperor, that what he had not done before, he might now do—warring against the nation of the Lombards and, with his counsel, removing them from Italy; nonetheless he also directed his army to seize that region. The dukes, set in motion, going thither with the army, joined battle together; but our men being severely cut down, many were laid low, some captured, very many also, having slipped away in flight, scarcely returned to their homeland. And so great was the slaughter there of the Frankish army that no like has been recalled of old. XXVI.
In the fourteenth year too of King Childebert, Queen Ingoberga, once the widow of Charibert, departed from the world—a woman exceedingly prudent and endowed with a religious life, not slothful in vigils and prayers and almsgiving; who, I believe, admonished by the providence of God, sent messengers even to me, that I might be a helper to her in those things which she was contemplating concerning her own will, that is, for the remedy of her soul; yet on this condition, that I, coming to her, should set down in writing what, after counsel had been taken, she was resolving to do. I went, I confess, and I saw a person fearing God:
when she had received me kindly, she summoned a notary, and, counsel having been taken with me as I said, she assigned certain things to the church of Tours and the basilica of Saint Martin, and certain things to the church of Le Mans; and after a few months, worn out by a sudden illness, she departed from the world, leaving many free by charters, in, as I reckon, the seventieth year of her life, leaving a single daughter, whom in Kent a certain king's son joined to himself in marriage. XXVII. Duke Amalo too, while he sent his wife to another estate to attend to some business, fell into love of a certain freeborn girl. And when night had come, drunk with wine, he sent his servants to drag the girl off and bring her to his bed.
She too resisting, and being violently led into his dwelling, while they struck her with blows, she was drenched with a flood of blood streaming from the passages of her nostrils. Whence it came about that the couch itself of the aforesaid duke was stained with this stream; and he, when he had likewise beaten her with fists, cuffs, and other blows, took her into his arms, and at once, overcome by sleep, began to slumber. But she, stretching out her hand above the man's head, found a sword; and having drawn it, she swung it with a virile stroke at the duke's head, as Judith at Holofernes's. When he too uttered cries, the servants ran together. And when they wished to kill her, he cried out, saying: 'Do not, I beg. For it is I who have sinned, who attempted to do violence to her chastity.'
'For let her, who has striven to preserve this her chastity, by no means perish.' Saying these things, he breathed out his spirit. And while the household gathered round and lamented over him, the girl, rescued by God's help, went out of the house, and through the night made her way to the city of Chalon, which is situated about thirty-five miles from that place; and there, having entered the basilica of Saint Marcellus, she prostrated herself at the king's feet and disclosed all that she had endured. Then the most merciful king not only granted her her life, but even ordered that a decree be issued, that, placed under his word of protection, she should never suffer any molestation in any matter from any of the relatives of that deceased man. Nevertheless, this we have come to know by God's granting, that the girl's chastity was in no way violated by her savage ravisher.
XXVIII. Queen Brunhild also ordered to be fashioned of gold and gems a shield of marvellous size, and she sent it, together with two wooden bowls—which in common speech they call bacchinon—likewise fashioned of gems and gold, into Spain to the king; for this she dispatched Ebregisil, who had often gone to that region for the sake of an embassy. As he was departing, it was announced to King Guntchramn, someone saying that Queen Brunhild was sending gifts to the sons of Gundovald. Hearing this, the king ordered that strict guard-posts be set up along the roads of his kingdom, so that absolutely no one might pass by who was not searched. They even searched in men's garments or shoes, or in...
...in any objects whatever, to see whether letters were being carried secretly. But Ebregisil, coming to Paris with these articles, was seized by Duke Ebrachar and led to Guntchramn. And the king said to him: 'Is it not enough, O most wretched of men, that by shameless counsel you summoned to marriage that Ballomer, whom you call Gundovald, whom my hand subdued, who wished to overcome the power of our kingdom under his own dominion; and now you send gifts to his sons, that you may again provoke them into Gaul to cut my throat? Therefore you shall not go where you wish, but you shall die the death, because your embassy is hostile to our nation.'
He too refusing, saying that he was not party to these words, but rather that these gifts were being sent to Reccared, who was to betroth Chlodosuintha, sister of King Childebert—the king believed the speaker and dismissed him; and he went off on the journey to which he had been directed, with those same gifts. XXIX. Therefore King Childebert, at the invitation of Sigibert, priest of the town of Mouzon, determined that the days of Easter should be celebrated at the aforesaid city. Theodobert his elder son then laboured grievously, afflicted with a swelling of the throat, but he recovered. Meanwhile King Childebert set his army in motion, and prepared to go with them into Italy to make war upon the nation of the Lombards. But the Lombards, hearing this, sent envoys with gifts, saying:
'Let there be friendship between us, and let us not perish, and let us pay over a fixed tribute to your dominion. And wherever it shall be needful against enemies, it will not be irksome to bring aid.' King Childebert, hearing this, sent envoys to King Guntchramn, who should make known in his ears the things which were offered by these men. But he, not opposed to this connivance, gave counsel for confirming peace. King Childebert, however, ordered the army to remain in place; and he sent envoys to the Lombards, that if they would confirm what they had promised, the army would return to its own land; but it was by no means fulfilled. XXX.
But King Childebert ordered assessors to go off into Poitou, at the invitation of Bishop Maroveus—namely Florentianus, mayor of the royal household, and Romulf, count of his palace—so that, namely, the people should pay the census which they had rendered in the time of his father, an accounting being made in the registry. For many of these had died, and on this account the weight of the tribute had settled upon widows, orphans, and the infirm; and these men, examining it in order, releasing the poor and those infirm ones whom the condition of justice rendered tributaries, subjected them to the public census, and thus they were conveyed to Tours.
But when they wished to impose the tributary obligation upon the people, saying that they had at hand a book showing how they had paid under the time of former kings, we replied, saying: 'It is manifest that the city of Tours was assessed in the time of King Chlothar, and those books went to the king's presence; but the king, pricked through fear of Saint Martin the bishop, they were burned. And after the death of King Chlothar, this people gave an oath to King Charibert; and he likewise promised with a sworn pledge that he would not impose new laws and customs upon the people, but would thenceforth retain them here in that very condition in which they had once lived under his father's lordship;
nor that he would inflict upon them any new ordinance which pertained to spoliation, he pledged. But Gaiso, count of that same time, having received the capitulary which we have recorded the former assessors to have made, began to exact tributes; but, forbidden by Bishop Eufronius, having exacted them with depravity, he directed himself to the king's presence, showing the capitulary in which the tributes were contained. But the king, groaning and fearing the power of Saint Martin, delivered it to the fire; and the gold coins that had been exacted he remitted to the basilica of Saint Martin, adjuring that no one of the people of Tours should render any tribute to the public treasury. After his death King Sigibert held this city, nor did he bring in the weight of any tribute.
So also now, Childebert reigning in the fourteenth year after his father's death, has exacted nothing, nor has this city, burdened by any weight of tribute, groaned. Now, however, it is in your power whether you decree a tribute or not; but see that you do no harm, if you propose to walk contrary to his oath.' When I had said these things, they replied: 'Behold, we have at hand a book, in which the census is imposed upon this people.' And I said: 'This book has not been brought from the king's treasury, nor has it ever through so many years prevailed. It is no wonder if, on account of the enmities of these citizens, it has been kept hidden in the house of some person or other.'
'For God will judge those who, on account of the spoils of our citizens, after the passage of so long a time, have produced this.' Now while these things were being done, the son of Audinus, who had produced the book itself, was seized that very day by a fever, and on the third day expired. After this we sent messengers to the king, that he might send back his commands as to what he ordered concerning this cause. But forthwith they sent a letter with authority, that the people of Tours should not be assessed, out of reverence for Saint Martin. When these had been read out, at once the men who had been sent for these matters returned to their homeland. XXXI. But King Guntchramn set his army in motion into Septimania;
but Duke Austrovald, approaching Carcassonne first, had received oaths and had subjected those peoples to the royal dominion. The king, however, appointed Boso, along with Antestius, to take the remaining cities. Coming with arrogance, despising Duke Austrovald and condemning him for why he had presumed to enter Carcassonne without him, Boso himself directed his march thither with the men of Saintes, Périgueux, Bordeaux, and also of Agen and Toulouse. And as he was borne along in this boasting, and these things had been reported to the Goths, they prepared themselves in ambushes. He, indeed, pitched camp near the city beside a small river, settled to feasting, gave himself over to drunkenness, exaggerating against the Goths with revilings and blasphemies.
And they, rushing upon them, found them feasting and unsuspecting. Then these, raising their voices, sprang up against them. But the others, resisting a little, feigned flight; and as these pursued, those who had been prepared in the ambushes arose, and enclosing them in their midst, cut them down to the point of annihilation. Those who were able to escape, having scarcely mounted a horse, slipped away in flight, leaving all their baggage on the level of the plain, and carrying nothing of their own goods with them, counting this a great thing if their lives at least were granted them. But the pursuing Goths found all their goods and plundered them, leading off all the foot-soldiers as captives; and there fell there about five thousand men;
but more than two thousand went off as captives. Yet many, released by these, returned to their homeland. XXXII. The king, moved, ordered the roads through his kingdom to be closed, so that no one from Childebert's realm might have a passage through the territory of his kingdom, saying: 'Because through the wickedness of him who entered into a treaty with the king of Spain, my army has fallen, and that those cities do not submit themselves to my dominion, his instigation brings this about.' There was added also to this cause another burning of bitterness, that King Childebert was planning to send his elder son, Theodobert by name, to Soissons—a matter which had aroused suspicion in King Guntchramn, who said:
'Because in this my nephew sends his son to Soissons, so that he may cause him to enter Paris, and may desire to take away my kingdom'—a thing which Childebert could never, even in thought (if it is right to say so), have entertained. He cast many reproaches also against Queen Brunhild, saying that these things were being done by the son on her counsel, adding too that she wished to join in marriage the invited son of the late Gundovald. Wherefore he also ordered a synod of bishops to be gathered on the first of November. And many, hastening from the farthest parts of Gaul to this assembly, turned back from the road, because Queen Brunhild cleared herself of this charge by oaths; and so, the roads being opened again,
she opened a passage for those wishing to come to King Childebert. XXXIII. In those days Ingeltrudis, who had established a monastery in the courtyard of Saint Martin, went to the king as if to accuse her daughter; in which monastery Berthefledis, daughter of the late King Charibert, resided. But when the latter departed, this one entered the monastery of Le Mans. For she was given to gluttony and sleep, and had no care for the service of God. Now the affair of Ingeltrudis and her daughter I think should be traced more deeply. Therefore, some years ago, when Ingeltrudis had begun to establish a monastery of maidens within the courtyard of Saint Martin, as we said, she sent commands to her daughter, saying:
'Leave your husband and come, that I may make you abbess of this flock which I have gathered.' But she, having heard this counsel of levity, came with her husband to Tours; and having entered her mother's monastery, she kept saying to her husband: 'Go back from here, and govern our affairs and children, for I shall not return with you. For one joined in wedlock shall not see the kingdom of God.' But he, coming to me, reported to me all that he had heard from his wife. Then I, going to the monastery, read over the decrees of the canons of Nicaea, in which it is contained: 'If any woman leaves her husband and spurns the bed in which she lived well, saying that there is for him no portion in that glory of the heavenly kingdom who has been joined in wedlock—let her be anathema.'
When these things had been heard, Berthegundis, fearing lest she be deprived of communion by the priests of God, left the monastery and returned with her husband. But after an interval of three or four years, her mother again sent commands to her, beseeching her to come to her. But she, having loaded ships both with her own goods and with those of her husband, taking one son with her, her husband being absent, landed at Tours. But when she could not be detained by her mother on account of her husband's importunity—namely, lest the mother should incur the calumny which had been fabricated by her own guile—the mother directed her to Bertchramn her own brother, that is, her own son, bishop of the city of Bordeaux. And as her husband followed after her, he said:
'Because you joined her to yourself in marriage without the counsel of her parents, she shall not be your wife.' For they had now been joined together for nearly thirty years. For her husband frequently went to the city of Bordeaux, but the bishop refused to restore her. But when King Guntchramn had come to the city of Orléans, as we recorded in the earlier book, there this man began to assail him more sharply with words, saying: 'You have taken away my wife with her servants. And behold, what does not befit a priest, you with my maidservants, and she with your servants, perpetrate the disgrace of adultery.' Then the king, moved with fury, constrained the bishop to promise to restore her to her husband, saying: 'Because she is my kinswoman:
if she has done any evil in her husband's house, I will avenge it; but if otherwise, why is her husband, reduced under every form of indignity, deprived of his spouse?' Then Bishop Bertchramn promised, saying: 'My sister came to me, I confess, after the courses of many years, whom out of the zeal of charity and longing I have kept with me as it pleased her. But now she has withdrawn from me; let him now seek her and recall her whither he will; he will not have me opposing.' And saying these things, he secretly sent messengers to her, charging that, her garment changed and penance taken, she should make for the basilica of Saint Martin—which she did not delay to do. And her husband came with many men following, to eject her from that holy place itself.
For she was in religious garb, asserting that she had taken penance. But she scorned to follow her husband. Meanwhile, Bishop Bertchramn having died at the city of Bordeaux, she, come to her senses, said: 'Woe to me, who listened to the counsel of my wicked mother! Behold, my brother has died, behold, I am abandoned by my husband, separated from my children: and whither shall I go, wretched one, or what shall I do?' Then, counsel having been taken, she set out for Poitiers, and her mother wished to keep her with herself, but utterly could not. From this enmity arose; and as they often went to the king's presence—the one wishing to defend this matter on the father's side, the other on the husband's—Berthegundis showed the donation of Bertchramn her brother, saying: 'Because my brother conferred this and this upon me.'
But her mother, not admitting the donation, wishing to claim everything for herself, sent men who, having broken into her house, plundered all her property along with this donation: whereby the mother rendered herself convicted, since out of those very goods she made strict restitution of certain things to the daughter who afterwards demanded them back. But although often I, or our brother Bishop Maroveus, having received royal letters that we should reconcile them, Berthegundis came to Tours; and we compelled her, as she came also into judgment, as far as we could, to follow reason—but her mother could not be bent. Then, inflamed with gall, she went off to the king, as if to disinherit her daughter from the paternal estate.
And in the king's presence, setting forth the causes, the daughter being absent, it was adjudged to her that, a fourth part being restored to the daughter, she should receive three parts along with her grandchildren, whom she had by one son: in which cause Theutharius the priest—who, lately converted from being referendary of King Sigibert, had received the honour of the priesthood—came forward, that he might carry out this division according to the king's command. But, the daughter resisting, neither was the division made nor the scandal settled. XXXIV. Now Rigunthis, daughter of Chilperic, when she often heaped calumnies upon her mother, and would say that she herself was the mistress, and that her own mother should be reduced to servitude, and provoked her with many and frequent revilings, and at times they would strike each other with fists and slaps, the mother said to her:
'Why are you troublesome to me, daughter? Behold, the goods of your father which are held with me—take them, and use them as you please.' And entering the storeroom, she unlocked a chest filled with neckchains and precious ornaments: and as she was drawing out from it various objects for a very long time and handing them to her daughter standing by, she said to her: 'Now I am wearied. Do you,' she said, 'put in your hand and throw out what you find.' And while she, having put in her arm, was drawing the objects from the chest, the mother, seizing the lid of the chest, dashed it down upon her neck. And when she pressed it with all her strength, and the lower edge so chafed her throat that her very eyes were ready to burst, one of the maidservants who was inside cried out with a loud voice, saying: 'Run, I beg, run!'
'Behold, my mistress is being grievously beaten by her own mother.' And those who were waiting before their doors for the men's arrival burst into the chamber and led the girl out, rescued from imminent destruction. But after this the enmities between these same women sprang up still more violently, and for no other cause so much as that Rigunth pursued adulteries; and so there were continually quarrels and blows between them. XXXV. Now Nantereutrudis, when she was dying, made her daughter her heir, leaving certain things either to the convents of girls which she herself had founded, or to the churches and basilicas of the holy confessors. But Waddo, of whom we made mention in an earlier book, complained that his horses had been carried off by his son-in-law;
and he resolved to go to one of the estates which he had left to his daughter, which lay within the territory of Poitiers, saying: 'This man, coming from another's kingdom, plundered my horses, and I will take away his estate.' Meanwhile he sent word to the steward that, upon his arrival, he should prepare everything needful for his maintenance. When the steward heard this, he joined men of that household to himself and prepared for war, saying: 'Unless I die, Waddo shall not enter my lord's house.' Now when Waddo's wife heard that preparations for war were being made against her husband, she said to him: 'Do not go there, dear husband, for you will die if you go, and I with my children shall be left wretched.'
And laying hold of him, she sought to restrain him, his son moreover saying: 'If you go, we shall die together, and you will leave my mother a widow and my brothers orphans.' But when these words could in no wise hold him back, kindled with fury against his son, and crying out that he was timid and soft, he hurled his axe and well-nigh dashed out the boy's brains. But the lad, struck aside, escaped the blow of the one who struck. Then at last, mounting their horses, they set off, he again charging the bailiff that the house should be swept clean with brooms and the benches covered with coverlets. But the bailiff, making light of his command, stood with a throng, as we have said, of men and women before the doors of his lord, awaiting his arrival. And he, coming and at once entering the house, said: