'Why are these benches not covered with coverlets, nor the house swept clean with brooms?' And raising his hand with a dagger, he aimed at the man's head; and the man fell and died. When the son of the slain man saw this, he hurled a lance from the opposite side and directed it against Waddo; and the javelin pierced the middle of his belly with its blow and came out at the back, and as he fell to the ground, the multitude which had gathered began to pelt him with stones. Then certain of those who had come with him, drawing near amid the showers of stones, covered him with a cloak, and when the crowd had been calmed and his son was wailing, they lifted him onto a horse and brought him home still living. But presently, amid the tears of his wife and children, he breathed out his spirit.
Thus, his life having ended so wretchedly, his son went off to the king and obtained his property. XXXVI. Now in the year of his reign mentioned above, King Childebert was staying with his wife and mother within the territory of the city which they call Strasbourg. Then the stronger men who were in the city of Soissons and of Meaux came to him, saying: 'Give us one of your sons, that we may serve him, namely that, keeping a pledge of your offspring among us, we may the more easily resist our enemies and strive to defend the borders of your city.' And he, rejoicing at the message, appointed his elder son Theudebert to be sent there;
and having assigned to him counts, household officers, nobles and tutors, and all who were necessary for performing the royal service, in the sixth month of that year he sent him according to the wish of the men who had begged the king that he should be dispatched; and the people received him rejoicing and praying that the divine mercy might grant a longer span of life to him and to his father. XXXVII. Now in those days there was at the city of Soissons a certain Droctigisilus, who, as they say, on account of excessive drinking, had in the fourth year then current lost his reason. For many of the citizens asserted that this had come upon him through sorceries, by the contrivance of an archdeacon whom he had driven from his office, to such a degree that within the walls of the city he was the more afflicted with this madness;
but if he had gone forth out of the city, he behaved more soundly. And when the aforesaid king had come to the city, and this man was faring better, he was not permitted to enter the city because of the king who had arrived. And although he was a glutton for food and a drinker of wine beyond measure, and beyond what befits priestly self-restraint, yet no one spoke of any adultery on his part. However, afterward, when a synod of bishops had been gathered at the estate of Sorcy, it was ordered that he should be allowed to enter his own city. XXXVIII. Now when Faileuba, the queen of King Childebert, having given birth to a child that soon died, lay sick, word came to her ears that certain persons were attempting to act either against her or against Queen Brunhild. And when,
recovered from her ailment, she had come into the king's presence, she disclosed to him and to his mother all that she had heard. Now the words were of this sort: namely, that Septimina, the nurse of his children, wished by counsel to persuade the king that, his mother being cast out and his wife being abandoned, he should take another woman to wife, and that thus with the same king they might accomplish whatever they wished, either by deed or obtain by entreaties. But if the king were unwilling to consent to what she urged, then he himself being killed by sorceries, his sons being raised to the throne, and their mother and grandmother likewise driven out, they themselves should rule the kingdom.
Indeed she declared the partners of this plot to be Sunnegisil the constable, and Gallomagnus the referendary, and also Droctulf, who had been given to Septimina's assistance for the nurturing of the king's little ones. Then these two, namely Septimina and Droctulf, were arrested. Without delay, when they were stretched between stakes and were being beaten more violently, Septimina confessed that she had killed her own husband Jovius by sorceries out of love for Droctulf, and that she had consorted with him as a harlot. They confessed together concerning the matters of which we spoke above, and revealed that the men mentioned had taken part in this plot. Without delay these too were sought; but, their conscience terrifying them, they sought a hiding-place within the precincts of the churches. The king himself, going out to them, said:
'Come forth to judgment, that we may learn concerning the things charged against you, whether they be true or false. For I think you would not have slipped away in flight to this church, had not your conscience terrified you. Nevertheless, have a promise of your life, even if you be found guilty. For we are Christians; it is unlawful to punish even criminals once they have been led out from the church.' Then, being led outside, they came with the king to judgment; and when they were examined they cried out, saying: 'Septimina, together with Droctulf, disclosed this counsel to us. But we, abhorring and fleeing it, never wished to consent to this crime.' And the king said: 'If you had given no connivance, you would surely have brought it to our ears.'
'Is it then true that you gave consent in this matter, since you wished it to be hidden from our knowledge?' And immediately, being cast out, they again sought the church. But Septimina, together with Droctulf, was severely beaten, and wounded on the face with hot branding-irons; and all that she had being taken away, she was led off to the estate of Marlenheim, that, namely, turning the mill, she should each day prepare the flour needful for the sustenance of those who were placed in the women's workhouse. As for Droctulf, his hair and ears being cut off, they assigned him to dig the vineyard; but after a few days he slipped away in flight, and being sought by the bailiff he was again brought to the king, and there, after being much beaten, he was again sent to the vineyard he had left.
But Sunnegisil and Gallomagnus, being deprived of the property they had earned from the royal treasury, were thrust into exile. But when envoys came, among whom were bishops, from King Guntram, and petitioned on their behalf, they were recalled from exile; to them nothing else was left save what they appeared to hold as their own. XXXIX. Now in the monastery of Poitiers, the devil lying in wait in the heart of Chrodieldis, who claimed to be the daughter of the former King Charibert, a scandal arose; and she too, as though trusting in her royal kinsmen, having exacted oaths from the nuns that, by bringing charges against the abbess Leubovera, she might cast her out of the monastery, set herself up in her place as superior.
And she went forth with forty or more girls, and with her cousin Basina, daughter of Chilperic, saying: 'I am going to my royal kinsmen, that I may make known to them the insult done to us; for it is not as daughters of kings, but as though born of base slave-women, that we are humiliated in this place.' Unhappy and fickle, not recalling in what humility the blessed Radegund, who founded this monastery, conducted herself. Having gone forth from there, she came to Tours, and after greeting us she said: 'I beg you, holy bishop, that you deign to guard these girls, who have been brought into great humiliation by the abbess of Poitiers, and to furnish them food, until I go to our royal kinsmen and set before them what we suffer, and return.'
To whom I said: 'If the abbess has done wrong, or has in anything neglected the canonical rule, let us go to our brother Bishop Maroveus, and together let us reprove her; and when matters have been amended, you shall be restored to your monastery, lest there be scattered through wantonness what holy Radegund gathered together by fastings and frequent prayers and constant almsgivings.' And she answered: 'By no means; rather we will go to the kings.' And I said: 'Why do you resist reason? For what cause do you not heed the priestly admonition? I fear lest the assembled priests of the Churches remove you from communion. For so it is set down in the letter which the predecessors wrote to the blessed Radegund at the beginning of this community:'
the copies of which I have thought good to insert into this account. COPY OF THE LETTER. 'To the most blessed lady and daughter in Christ of the Church, Radegund: Eufronius, Praetextatus, Germanus, Felix, Domitianus, Victorius, and Domnolus, bishops. The boundless mercies of the Godhead are continually solicitous to provide remedies for the human race, nor do they ever seem to be parted from the constancy of their benefits in any place or time, since the merciful Arbiter of all things scatters everywhere in the inheritance of ecclesiastical cultivation such persons as, tilling his field with the hoe of faith in attentive labor, may enable the harvest of Christ, by the divine temperance, to attain a happy return in increase of number.'
'So far, then, does the dispensation of his loving-kindness spread itself abroad to be profitable everywhere, that it nowhere denies what it recognizes to be of benefit to many. By the most holy example of which persons, when He shall come to judge, He may have in very many that which He may crown. And so, when from the very rising of the catholic religion the beginnings of the venerable faith had begun to breathe in the regions of Gaul, and the ineffable mysteries of the Lord's Trinity had then reached but to the knowledge of few, lest anything here should be gained less than what the apostles preaching obtained in the circuit of the world, He deigned, with mercy counseling, to send the blessed Martin, of foreign stock, for the enlightenment of the fatherland.'
'Although he was not of the apostles' time, yet he did not escape apostolic grace. For what was lacking in order was supplied in reward; since the later rank takes nothing away from him who excels in merits. In you too, most reverend daughter, we rejoice that the examples of heavenly love rise again to life, by the divine favor. For though time declines through the old age of the world, by the contest of your understanding the faith grows green again in flower; and, perhaps so that what had grown cold with the torpid chill of old age may at length again grow warm with the burning ardor of the soul.'
'But since you have come from nearly the same region from which we have learned that the blessed Martin came hither, it is no wonder if you seem to imitate in your work him whom we believe to have been a guide of your journey: that, whose footsteps you have followed, you may with happy vow fulfill also his examples, and may make that most blessed man your companion in so great a measure as you flee to have a part of the world. By the gleam of his fame shining forth, you so render the hearts of your hearers suffused with heavenly splendor, that everywhere the spirits of maidens, provoked and kindled by a spark of the divine fire, hasten swiftly and eagerly to be watered in the love of Christ from the fountain of your heart, and, leaving their parents, choose you for themselves rather than a mother. This grace does, not nature.'
'Therefore, seeing the vows of this zeal, we render thanks to the heavenly clemency, which binds the wills of men to its own will: since we are confident that those whom He commands to be gathered together among you, He wills to be preserved in His embrace. And because we have found that certain women, by the divine favor, have come together eagerly from our territories to the institution of your rule, examining also the letter of your petition, gladly received by us, let us rush upon this, with Christ as author and healer:'
'that, although all who assemble there ought alike, abiding in the love of the Lord, to keep inviolably what they appear to have undertaken with most willing mind—since the faith promised to Christ with heaven as witness ought not to be defiled, where it is no light crime that the temple of God, which God forbid, be polluted, so that it might by His kindled wrath be destroyed—nevertheless we specially decree that if any woman, as has been said, from the places committed by the Lord's providence to our priestly governance, shall have merited to be associated with your monastery in the city of Poitiers, according to the Constitutions of Caesarius, bishop of Arles, of blessed memory, let there henceforth be no license of departing for her who, as the rule contains, is seen to have entered of her own will:'
'lest she be led into the crime of shameful disgrace, which shines forth among all in honor. And therefore if—which God avert—any woman, inflamed by an unlawful enticement of an unsound mind, shall wish to plunge her discipline, her glory and crown, into the stain of foul reproach, so that, as by the counsel of the enemy, like Eve cast out of paradise, she should venture through some breach to go out from the cloisters of the monastery itself, nay rather from the kingdom of heaven, let her be plunged and trodden down in the vile mire of the streets, separated from our communion, and smitten with the dread wound of anathema. So that if perhaps, Christ being forsaken, she shall wish to marry a man, the devil taking her captive, not only she herself who flees back,'
'the base adulterer, and rather a sacrilegious person than a husband—or whoever furnished poison rather than counsel that this should be done—let him be smitten, with profitable vengeance, as has been said of her, by the heavenly judgment, we so desiring, until, separation having been made, through fitting penance for the execrable crime, she may merit to be received and reunited to the place from which she had departed. Adding also, that the priests of those who shall at any time succeed us be bound by the guilt of a like condemnation; and if—which we do not believe—they themselves shall wish to relax anything otherwise than our deliberation contains, let them know that they shall have to plead their cause with us before the eternal Judge who shall give the decision:'
'for the instruction of salvation is common, if what is promised to Christ be inviolably observed.' This decree of our determination, for the sake of firmness, we believe ought to be strengthened by the subscription of our own hand, to be observed by us perpetually, with Christ as our guide. When, therefore, this letter had been read, Chrodieldis said: 'Never shall any delay hold us back, until we go to the kings whom we know to be our kinsmen.' For they had come on foot from Poitiers, and had had the benefit of no horse; wherefore they were breathless and quite spent. Nor had anyone furnished them any nourishment of food on the way. For they came to our city on the first day of the first month;
for there were great rains, and the roads too were dissolved by the immense excess of waters. XL. Now they were disparaging the bishop also, saying that it was by his guile that both these women were troubled and the monastery left forsaken; but it has seemed good to recall the origin of this scandal from further back. In the time of King Chlothar, when the blessed Radegund had founded this monastery, she was always subject and obedient, with her whole community, to the bishops who went before.
But in the time of Sigibert, after Maroveus had obtained the bishopric of the city, having received letters from King Sigibert on account of the faith and devotion of blessed Radegund, he sent clerics into the regions of the East for a fragment of the Lord's cross and for relics of the holy apostles and of the other martyrs. They, going, brought back these sacred tokens; and when these had been brought, the queen petitioned the bishop that they might be placed in the monastery with due honor and with great chanting of psalms. But he, despising her request, mounted his horse and betook himself to a country estate.
Then the queen sent again to King Sigibert, beseeching that, by his command, any one of the bishops should place these sacred tokens in the monastery with the honor that befitted and that her purpose demanded. For this work the blessed Eufronius, bishop of the city of Tours, was charged. He, coming to Poitiers with his clergy, with great chanting of psalms and with an array of gleaming candles and incense, bore the holy tokens into the monastery, the bishop of the place being absent. After this, when she frequently sought the favor of her own pontiff and could not obtain it, being moved by necessity, together with her abbess whom she had appointed, they betook themselves to the city of Arles:
and having there received the rule of holy Caesarius and of blessed Caesaria, they fortified themselves with the protection of the king, namely because they could find no care of defense for themselves in that man who ought to have been their shepherd. This scandal being spread abroad from day to day, the time of the passing of blessed Radegund arrived; and when she had passed, the abbess again petitioned to live under the authority of her own bishop. When he at first wished to refuse this, by the counsel of his people he promised that he would become their father, as was fitting, and would furnish his defense wherever there should be need. Whence it came about that, going to King Childebert, she drew forth a precept that he might be permitted to govern this monastery regularly, like the other parishes.
But something, I believe, still remained in his mind, as these girls assert, which would stir up a scandal. As these women were intent on hastening, as we have said, to the king's presence, we gave them counsel, saying: 'You strive against reason, and in no way can that train of events be woven for you which would ward off blasphemy. But if, as we have said, you disregard reason and are unwilling to accept wholesome counsel, at least lay this to heart, that, the winter season now being past which has passed over into this spring, when the breezes shall be more favorable, you may be able to proceed whither your will leads.'
Accepting this counsel as fitting, in the ensuing summer, having left Tours and commended the rest of the nuns to her cousin, Chrodieldis went to King Guntram. Being received by him and honored with gifts, she returned to Tours, having left Constantina, daughter of Burgolenus, in the monastery of Autun, awaiting the bishops whom the king had ordered to come and to examine their cause with the abbess. Many, however, of these nuns, beguiled by various men, were joined in matrimony before this woman returned from the king.
And when, awaiting their arrival, they perceived that no bishop was coming, they returned to Poitiers and took refuge within the basilica of Saint Hilary, gathering with them thieves, murderers, adulterers, and persons guilty of all manner of crimes, establishing themselves for war and saying: 'For we are queens, nor will we enter our monastery until the abbess is cast out.' There was at that time a certain recluse there, who a few years before, casting herself down over the wall, had fled to the basilica of Saint Hilary, vomiting forth many charges against the abbess, which, however, we found to be false.
But after she had been drawn back into the monastery by ropes through that very place from which she had cast herself down, she petitioned that she might shut herself up in a secret cell, saying: 'For I have greatly sinned against the Lord and against my lady Radegund, who in those days was still living; I wish,' she said, 'to remove myself from this frequenting of the whole community, and to do penance for my neglects. For I know that the Lord is merciful, and remits their sins to those who confess to Him.' And she entered the cell. But when this scandal had been stirred up, and Chrodieldis had returned from King Guntram, this woman, the door of her cell having been broken in the night hours, went out from the monastery and went off to Chrodieldis, bursting forth, as she had done before, with many charges against the abbess.
XLI. Now while these things were being done, Gundegisil of Bordeaux, joining to himself Nicasius of Angoulême and Safarius of Périgueux, and Maroveus of Poitiers himself, because this city was his metropolis, came to the basilica of Saint Hilary, reproving these girls and desiring to lead them back into the monastery. But when they resisted the more obstinately, and he, with the others according to the letter named above, pronounced excommunication upon them, the mob of the aforesaid ruffians rose up and slew them with such slaughter in the very basilica of Saint Hilary that, the bishops falling to the pavement, they could scarcely rise; and the deacons too and the rest of the clergy, drenched in blood, with broken heads went forth from the basilica.
For so immense a terror, and, as I believe, with the devil cooperating, had beset them, that, going forth from the holy place, without even bidding one another farewell, each one made his way back by whatever road he could seize. There was present at this calamity also Desiderius, deacon of Syagrius, bishop of Autun, who, the ford of the river Clain not being sought out, entered where he first reached the bank, and, his horse swimming, was carried to the field of the farther shore. From this Chrodieldis chose stewards, overran the estates of the monastery, and whomever she could seize from the monastery she subjugated to her service, afflicted with blows and beatings, threatening that, if she could enter the monastery, she would cast the abbess down to the ground, thrown from the wall.
When this had been announced to King Childebert, he immediately, by an authority sent forth, commanded Count Macco to restrain these things with all earnestness. But Gundegisil, after he had left these women suspended from communion together with the other bishops, as we have said, wrote a letter in his own name and that of the brethren present to those priests who were then gathered with King Guntram; from whom he received this reply. COPY OF THE REPLY. 'To their lords ever, and most worthy of the apostolic see, Gundegisil, Nicasius, and Safarius: Aetherius, Syagrius, Aunacharius, Hesychius, Agroecola, Urbicus, Felix, Veranus, again Felix, and Bertchramnus, bishops.'
'The letters of your blessedness we have received; and as much as we rejoiced concerning your well-being, the messenger disclosing it, so much are we bound with no slight grief concerning the injury which you signified you had suffered, while both the rule is transgressed and no reverence is preserved for religion. But since you have indicated that the nuns who departed from the monastery of Radegund of good memory, the devil instigating, would acquiesce to hear no correction from you, nor were willing to return within the precincts of their monastery from which they had gone forth, and moreover had inflicted upon the basilica of lord Hilary, through their violence, injury by your beatings and that of your people.'
'Wherefore you have appeared to suspend them from the grace of communion, and through this you have chosen to consult our mediocrity. Therefore, because we know very well that you have run through the statutes of the canons and contain the fullness of the rule—namely that those who are seen to be caught in such excesses ought to be restrained not only by excommunication but also by the satisfaction of penance—on that account, adding with the worship of veneration the impulse of a love of the highest eagerness, we declare:'
'that we concordantly consent to those things which you have defined, in agreement with your sentence, until, set together in a synodal council on the Kalends of November, we ought with equal counsel to treat in what manner the rashness of such persons may receive the bridle of strictness, so that henceforth it may be permitted to none, under a boastfulness that causes this fall, to perpetrate the like. Yet because lord Paul the apostle by his saying (2 Tim. 4:2) seems unceasingly to admonish us that we ought, in season and out of season, to correct by diligent preaching whatever offenders, and protests that godliness is profitable unto all things, therefore we further suggest that by assiduous prayer you implore the mercy of the Lord (cf. 1 Tim.),'
'that the very Spirit of compunction may deign to inflame them, so that what by their offense they are seen to have contracted, they may repent of with worthy satisfaction; so that in their own monastery, by your preaching, the souls which have in some manner perished may, Christ being propitious, return; so that He who brought back the straying sheep laid upon His shoulders to the fold may deign to rejoice also over the transgression of these women, as over a flock regained. And we ask this more particularly, that for us you may grant unceasingly, as we trust, the support of your intercessions. Your own Aetherius, a sinner, I presume to greet. Your client Hesychius, I reverently dare to greet. Your suppliant Syagrius, I reverently greet.'
'Your worshipper Urbicus, a sinner, I greet as a servant. Your venerator Veranus, bishop, I reverently greet. Your servant Felix, I presume to greet. Your humble and lover Felix, I dare to greet. Your humble and obedient bishop Bertchramnus presumes to greet.' XLII. But the abbess also recited a letter which the blessed Radegund had wished to be sent to the bishops who were in her time. The copies of which this same abbess now again sent to the priests of the neighboring cities; of which this is the copy. COPY OF THE LETTER. 'To the holy lords and most worthy of the apostolic see, fathers in Christ, to all the bishops, Radegund, a sinner.'
'The beginning of a suitable provision then tends firmly to its effect, when, for the sake of the fold committed to one, the matter is delivered to the ears of the general fathers, the physicians and shepherds, and is commended to their understanding: whose fellowship can minister intervention by their love, counsel by their authority, and support by their prayer.'
And since long ago, set free from the bonds of the laity by the foreseeing and inspiring mercy of God, I was seen to be willingly translated, with Christ as my guide, to the rule of religious life; pondering these things with the zeal of a humble mind, and thinking also of the advancement of others, so that, at the Lord's prompting, my desires might be made profitable to those who remained, by the appointing and rewarding of the most excellent lord king Chlothar I established a monastery of maidens in the city of Poitiers; and once founded, I endowed it by a deed of gift, so far as the royal munificence had bestowed largesse upon me. Moreover, for the community gathered together by me through Christ's bounty, I adopted the rule under which holy Caesaria lived,
which the care of the blessed Caesarius, bishop of Arles, had fittingly gathered from the institution of the holy Fathers; this I adopted. With the consent of the most blessed bishops, both of this city and the others, and likewise by the election of our community, I appointed as abbess the lady Agnes my sister, whom from her earliest years I had cherished and brought up in the place of a daughter, and I committed our community, after God, to obey her direction according to the rule.