Ch. 2. That no bishop while living shall choose a successor, but another shall be substituted for him when he become so indisposed that he cannot rule his church and clergy. Likewise, that while a bishop is living no one shall presume to take his place, and if one should seek it, it is on no account to be given him.
(g) Fredegarius Scholasticus, Chronicon, 75f. (MSL, 71:653.)
The Chronicon of Fredegarius is important, as it continues in its last book the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. The best edition is in the MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum II, ed. Krusch. An account of the work may be found in DCB, art. “Fredegarius Scholasticus.” In the Frankish kingdom the higher clergy, especially the bishops, assembled with the great men of the realm in councils under the king to discuss affairs of State. These councils have been called concilia mixta. They are, however, to be distinguished from the strictly ecclesiastical assemblies in which the clergy alone acted. A change was introduced by Charles the Great. The following passage shows the king consulting with the bishops, along with the other nobles.
§ 75. In the eleventh year of his reign Dagobert came to the city of Metz, because the Wends at the command of Samo still manifested their savage fury and often made inroads from their territory to lay waste the Frankish kingdom, Thuringia, and other provinces. Dagobert, coming to Metz, with the counsel of the bishops and nobles, and the consent of all the great men of his kingdom, made his son, Sigibert, king of Austrasia, and assigned him Metz as his seat. To Chunibert, [pg 585] bishop of Cologne, and the Duke Adalgisel, he committed the conduct of his palace and kingdom.[238] Also he gave to his son sufficient treasure and fitted him out with all that was appropriate to his high dignity; and whatsoever he had given him he confirmed by charters specially made out. Since then the Frankish land was sufficiently defended by the zeal of the Austrasians against the Wends.
§ 76. When in the twelfth year of his reign a son named Chlodoveus was born by Queen Nantechilde to Dagobert, he made, with the counsel and advice of the Neustrians, an agreement with his Sigibert. All the great men and the bishops of Austrasia and the other people of Sigibert, holding up their hands, confirmed it with an oath, that after the death of Dagobert, Neustria and Burgundy, by an established ordinance, should fall to Chlodoveus; but Austrasia, because in population and extent it was equal to those lands, should belong in its entire extent to Sigibert.
(h) Jonas, Vita Columbani, chs. 9, 12, 17, 32, 33, 59, 60. (MSL, 87:1016.)
Columbanus (543-615) was the most active and successful of the Irish missionary monks laboring on the continent of Europe. In 585 Columbanus left Ireland to preach in the wilder parts of Gaul, and in 590 or 591 founded Luxeuil, which became the parent monastery of a considerable group of monastic houses. He came into conflict with the Frankish clergy on account of the Celtic mode of fixing the date of Easter [see Epistle of Columbanus among the Epistles of Gregory the Great, to whom it is addressed, Bk. IX, Ep. 127, PNF, ser. II, vol. XIII, p. 38; two other epistles on the subject in MSL, vol. 80], his monastic rule [MSL, 80:209], and his condemnatory attitude toward the dissoluteness of life prevalent in Gaul among the clergy, as well as in the court. Banished from Burgundy in 610 partly for political reasons, he worked for a time in the vicinity of Lake Constance. In 612, leaving his disciple Gallus [see Vita S. Galli, by Walafrid Strabo, MSL, 114; English translation by C. W. Bispham, Philadelphia, 1908], he went to Italy and, having founded Bobbio, died in 615. Gallus (ob. circa 640) subsequently founded the great monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, near Lake Constance. The Celtic monks on the continent abandoned their Celtic peculiarities in the ninth century and adopted the Benedictine rule.
Jonas, the author of the life of Columbanus, was a monk at Bobbio. His life of Columbanus was written about 640; see DCB, “Jonas (6).” In the following, the divisions and numbering of paragraphs follow Migne's edition. There is an excellent new edition in the MGH, Script. rerum Merovin., ed. Krusch, 8vo, 1905.
Columbanus sets forth.
Ch. 9. Columbanus gathered such treasures of divine knowledge that even in his youth he could expound the Psalter in polished discourse and could make many other discourses, worthy of being sung and useful to teach. Thereupon he took pains to be received into the company of monks, and sought the monastery of Benechor [in Ulster] the head of which, the blessed Commogellus, was famous for his many virtues. He was an excellent father of his monks and highly regarded because of his zeal in religion and the maintenance of discipline according to the rule. And here he began to give himself entirely to prayer and fasting and to bear the yoke of Christ, easy to those who bear it, by denying himself and taking up his cross and following Christ, that he, who was to be the teacher of others, might himself learn by teaching, and by mortification to endure in his own body what he should abundantly show forth; and he who should teach what by others ought to be fulfilled, himself first fulfilled. When many years had passed for him in the cloister, he began to desire to wander forth, mindful of the command which the Lord gave Abraham: “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee” [Gen. 12:1]. He confessed to Commogellus, the venerable Father, the warm desire of his heart, the desire enkindled by the fire of the Lord [Luke 12:49]; but he received no such answer as he wished. For it was a grief to Commogellus to bear the loss of a man so full of comfort. Finally Commogellus began to take courage and place it before his heart that he ought to seek more to advance the benefit of others than to pursue his own needs. It happened not without the will of the Almighty, who had trained His pupil for [pg 587] future wars, that from his victories he might obtain glorious triumphs and gain joyful victories over the phalanxes of slain enemies. The abbot called Columbanus unto him and said that though it was a grief to him yet he had come to a decision useful to others, that he would remain in peace with him, would strengthen him with consolation, and give him companions for his journey men who were known for their religion.…