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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 8, 3. Of the Singers There, and of the Silver Plate of Mummolus
When the meal was more than half-way through, the king bade me order my deacon, who had sung the responsorium at yesterday’s Mass, to sing. While he was doing so, the king gave me a second command: I must call on each bishop present to bid a cleric belonging to his church sing in his turn before the king. I told them the king’s wish, and each man sang the responsorium before the king to the best of his ability.
When certain dishes were served, the king said: ‘All the plate which you see belonged to the perjured Mummolus;1 now, by God’s grace, it hath passed into my possession. I have caused to be broken up fifteen dishes as large as the bigger one before you, reserving out of the whole service only this and another piece of a hundred and seventy pounds weight. What was the object of keeping more than is needed for daily use? It is sad that I have no son of my own, but only Childebert,2 who must be content with the treasures left him by his own father and what I have now sent him out of the effects of that miserable man found at Avignon. All the rest shall be expended for the benefit of the churches and the poor.’
Notes
- Cf. VII. 40.
- His adopted son.