Library › St Gregory of Tours › History of the Franks

History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 6, 46. Of the Death of King Chilperic

While these men pursued their way with all this plunder, Chilperic, the Nero and Herod of our time, proceeded to the domain of Chelles, about a hundred stadia¹ from Paris, and went a-hunting. One day, on his return from the chase as the night drew on, he was alighting from his horse, with one hand resting on a servant’s shoulder, when some man unknown came up and first struck him under the armpit, then with a second blow stabbed him in the stomach. At once blood streamed both from his mouth and from the gaping wound, and so he breathed out his wicked soul.

The evil which he did is set forth in the earlier part of this History. Many a region did he lay waste and burn again and again; whereat he felt no grief, but rather pleasure, like Nero, who of old sang play-verses amid the flames of his palace. Many a time did he unjustly punish men, to confiscate their goods. In his days few priests were raised to bishoprics. He gave himself over to gluttony, and his god was his belly. No man, he would declare, was cleverer than he. He wrote two books in verse, taking Sedulius as his model; but as, in his ignorance, he put short syllables for long and long for short, his feeble lines had no feet to stand on. He wrote other short pieces, hymns and chants for the Mass; but by no possibility could they have been used. He hated the cause of the poor. Ever he spoke evil of the priests of the Lord;² and in his private hours no men were more often the butt of his ridicule and his jests than the bishops. To one he imputed levity, to a second arrogance, to a third excess, to a fourth loose living; one bishop he would call a vain fool, another pompous. He hated nothing so much as the churches. He would often say: ‘See how poor our treasury always is! Look how the churches have drained our riches away! Of a verity, none ruleth at all, save only the bishops. Our royal office is lost and gone; it hath passed to the bishops in their cities.’ So thinking, he ever made it his habit to tear up all wills made in favour of churches; often he would trample upon the diplomas of his own father,³ thinking that there was left no man to carry out that king’s intentions. The mind can conceive no lust or debauchery that this man did not practise. He was ever on the watch for new ways of torturing the people; when he found a man guilty, he ordered the eyes to be torn out of his head. The instructions which he issued to the judges in his own affairs he would close with this sentence: ‘If any shall disregard our decrees, let him be punished by the tearing out of his eyes.’ Never a soul did he love in singleness of heart; by none was he himself beloved. And so when he breathed his last all men abandoned him. Only Mallulf, bishop of Senlis, remained, who for three days had camped in his tent, waiting there for an audience. He came at news of the murder, and washed the body, putting upon it seemlier garments. He passed the night chanting hymns; on the next day, embarking the corpse in a vessel, he buried it in Paris, in the church of the holy Vincent.⁴ But Fredegund the queen remained in the cathedral church.

Previous · Contents · Next