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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 9, 19. Of the Murder of Sichar, a Citizen of Tours

The feud between the citizens of Tours, which I above described as ended,¹ broke out afresh with revived fury. After the murder of the kinsfolk of Chramnesind, Sichar formed a great friendship with him; so fond of one another did they grow that often they shared each other’s meals and slept in the same bed. One evening Chramnesind made ready a supper, and invited Sichar. His friend came, and they sat down together to the feast. But Sichar, letting the wine go to his head, kept making boastful remarks against Chramnesind, and is reported at last to have said: ‘Sweet brother, thou owest me great thanks for the slaying of thy relations; for the composition made to thee for their death hath caused gold and silver to abound in thy house. But for this cause, which stablished thee not a little, thou wert this day poor and destitute.’ Chramnesind heard these words with bitterness of heart, and said within himself: ‘If I avenge not the death of my kinsmen, I deserve to lose the name of man, and to be called weak woman.’ And straightway he put out the lights and cleft the head of Sichar with his dagger. The man fell and died, uttering but a faint sound as the last breath left him. The servants who had accompanied him fled away. Chramnisind stripped the body of its garments, and hung it from a post of his fence; he then rode away to the king.² Entering the church, he prostrated himself at the king’s feet, and said: ‘I ask of thee my life, most glorious king, for I have slain men who secretly did to death my kinsmen and plundered all their possessions.’ He then set forth the whole matter in due order. But Queen Brunhild took it exceeding ill that Sichar, who was under her protection, should have thus been slain, and broke into a fury against Chramnesind, who, seeing that she was set against him, gained the village of Bouges in the territory of Bourges, where his kinsmen lived, because it counted to the kingdom of Guntram. Tranquilla, wife of Sichar, left her children and her husband’s property in Tours and Poitiers, and withdrew to her own kinsfolk in the village of Mauriopes, where she married again. Sichar was about twenty years of age when he died. In life he was a light fellow, a wine-bibber and man-slayer, who did violence to many in his drunkenness. Chramnisind sought the king once more, and was sentenced to prove that he had slain Sichar for his honour: this he was able to do. But Queen Brunhild ordered his property to be confiscated because she had taken Sichar under her protection; afterwards, however, it was restored by Flavianus, the domestic.³ Proceeding at the time to Agen, he obtained a safe-conduct from Flavianus, to whom his property had been granted by the queen.

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