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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 4, 48. Of the Monastery of Latte
And to this day we are astonished and marvel why such disasters fell upon them. But we should recall that which their forefathers did, and that which they themselves are doing now. After the preaching of the bishops, their fathers forsook their temples for churches; the sons daily bear off plunder from the churches. The fathers venerated with their whole hearts the bishops of the Lord and hearkened to their words; the sons not only refuse to hear, but even persecute them. The fathers enriched the monasteries and churches; the sons demolish and destroy them.
What shall I say of the monastery of Latte, which contains relics of the blessed Martin? A hostile band approached, and was preparing to cross the river hard by, with the object of despoiling the monastery. The monks cried to them: ‘Pass not over hither, O barbarians, pass not over! for this house is the house of the blessed Martin.’ At this many among them were moved by the fear of God, and went back. But twenty men, who neither feared God nor honoured the blessed confessor, got into a vessel and crossed over; whereupon, at the instigation of the Evil One, they smote the monks, ruined the monastery, and pillaged its possessions, making bundles of them, which they put on board their vessel. When they pushed out into the river, the keel began to move from one side to the other and they were carried now to this quarter, now to that. They had no help from the oars, which were lost, and they were trying to regain the shore by thrusting the shafts of their spears as poles into the bed of the river, when suddenly the ship yawed apart under them, and the breast of every one of them was pierced by the point which he held towards him; all were transfixed and slain by their own lances. One only, who had rebuked them and tried to prevent their crime, remained unharmed. If any man hold that this befell by chance, let him consider that the number of the guilty was large, and that the one man who escaped was he who was innocent. After their death the monks recovered the bodies and their own effects from the bed of the river, burying the first and restoring the second to the monastery.