Library › St Gregory of Tours › History of the Franks
History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 8, 9. Of the Oath Concerning Chilperic’s Son
Thereafter the king came to Paris, and began to speak in the presence of all, saying: ‘My brother Chilperic is said to have left a son behind him when he died. The child’s governors, at the mother’s request, besought me to receive him from the holy font at the feast of the Lord’s Nativity; but they never came. They next asked that the infant should be baptized at the holy Paschal feast; but on that occasion also he was not brought. A third time they prayed that he might be presented on St. John’s Day; once again he came not. And now they have forced me from home in this hot season; here I am, and behold! the boy is kept hidden, and is not shown to me. This leadeth me to think that they made an empty promise, and it is my present belief that one of our leudes is the real father of the boy; if the child had been of my race, surely they had brought him to me. Know, therefore, that I shall not acknowledge him unless I recognize certain proofs of his descent.’ When Queen Fredegund heard this, she assembled the principal men of the kingdom,1 three bishops and three hundred laymen of the highest birth, and all took solemn oath with her that the boy was the lawfully begotten child of Chilperic. In this way suspicion was removed from the mind of the king.
Notes
- i. e. of Chilperic.