5. In these days Chuppa, who had once been king Chilperic’s constable, made an inroad into the territory of Tours and desired to take flocks and other property as if he were taking booty. But the inhabitants had warning and a multitude gathered and began to pursue him. He lost his plunder and two of his men were killed: he escaped with nothing and two other men were captured; they were sent in fetters to king Childebert. He ordered them to be thrown into prison and examined as to who it was by whose aid Chuppa escaped from being captured by his pursuers. They answered that it was through a stratagem of the vicar[FN] Animodus, who had the power of a judge in that district. At once the king sent a letter and ordered the count of the city to send him in chains to the king’s presence; and if he should attempt resistance he was to crush him by force and even kill him, if he wished to gain the king’s favor. But Animodus made no resistance but gave sureties and went as he was told, and finding Flavian the court-official he pleaded together with his companion and was not found guilty; they were acquitted and ordered to return home. However he first gave presents to the court-official. Chuppa a second time roused some of his people and purposed to carry off the daughter of Badigysel, former bishop of Mans, to marry her. He made a night attack with a band of his companions on the village of Mareil to fulfil his purpose, but Magnatrude, the mother of the girl and head of the household, had warning of him and his treachery; she went out against him with her slaves and repelled him by force, killing many of his men; and he did not come off without disgrace.
[6. Miraculous deliverance of prisoners in a jail in Auvergne.]
[FO]7. In the same city king Childebert most piously remitted all the tribute of the churches as well as of the monasteries and of the clergy who were attached to a church and of whoever were engaged in cultivating the church land. For the collectors of the tribute had suffered great losses, since in the course of long time and succeeding generations the estates had been divided into small parts and the tribute could be collected only with difficulty, and Childebert by inspiration of God directed that the trouble should be remedied and the amount which was due to the fisc from these should not be exacted from the collectors, and that arrearage should not deprive any tiller of church land of his benefice.
[FP]8. Where the territories of Auvergne, Gévaudan, and Rouergue meet, a synod of bishops was held to hear the case against Tetradia, widow of Desiderius, from whom count Eulalius claimed the property which she had taken with her when she fled from him. I think that I ought to relate this case in full detail and how she left Eulalius and fled to Desiderius. Eulalius, as a young man will, had behaved in several matters in a senseless fashion, and so it came about that he was often reproached by his mother and began to hate when he should have loved her. Now she used frequently to devote herself to prayer in the oratory of her house and to spend the watches of the night in prayer and tears while her servants slept, and at last she was found strangled in the hair shirt in which she prayed. And though no one knew who had done this nevertheless her son was charged with the murder. When Cautinus, bishop of Clermont, heard of this, he excommunicated him. But when the citizens gathered with the bishop at the festival of the blessed martyr Julian, Eulalius threw himself at the feet of the bishop complaining that he had been excommunicated without a hearing. Then the bishop permitted him to attend the service of the mass with the others. But when the time for communion came and Eulalius went forward to the altar the bishop said: “Common talk among the people declares that you are a murderer. Now I do not know whether you have done this crime or not: therefore I leave it to the judgment of God and the blessed martyr Julian. You then, if you are fit to do so, as you say, approach and take a share of the Eucharist and put it in your mouth. For God will know your conscience.” Eulalius received the Eucharist and had communion and departed. He had a wife, Tetradia by name, noble on her mother’s side, of low rank by her father. And in his house he took the maidservants for concubines and began to neglect his wife, and when he returned from these harlots he would often beat her severely. Moreover because of his many ill-deeds he contracted a number of debts and often used his wife’s jewels and gold for these. Finally when his wife was in this hard situation since she had lost all the honor she had in her husband’s house, and he was gone to the king, Virus,—this was the man’s name—her husband’s nephew, fell in love with her and wished to marry her since he had lost his wife. Virus however was afraid of his uncle’s enmity and sent the woman to duke Desiderius with the intention of marrying her later on. And she took with her all her husband’s substance both in gold and silver and garments and all she could take, together with her older son, but she left the younger son at home. Eulalius returned from his journey and learned what had happened. And when his grief was lessened and he had taken a little rest he rushed upon his nephew Virus and killed him in a narrow valley of Auvergne. And Desiderius who had lately lost his wife heard that Virus had been killed and married Tetradia. But Eulalius took a girl by force from the convent at Lyons and married her. But his concubines impelled by envy, as some say, made her insane by evil arts. A long time after Eulalius secretly attacked and killed Emerius, cousin of this girl. In like manner he killed Socratius, brother of his half-sister whom his father had had by a concubine. He committed also many other crimes, too many to tell. John, his son, who had gone off with his mother ran away from Desiderius’s house and went to Auvergne. And Innocent being now a candidate for the bishopric of Rodez, Eulalius sent a message to him that he could recover by Innocent’s aid the property that was rightfully his in the territory of this city. Innocent replied: “If I receive one of your sons to make a cleric of and to keep to help me, I will do what you ask.” Eulalius sent the boy named John and received his property back. And Innocent received the boy and shaved the hair of his head and put him in the care of the archdeacon of his church. And he became so abstemious that he ate barley instead of wheat, drank water instead of wine, used an ass instead of a horse, and wore the meanest garments. And so the bishops and leading men met, as we have said, at the confines of the cities mentioned, and Tetradia was represented by Agyn and Eulalius appeared to speak against her. When Eulalius asked for the things she had taken from his home when she went to Desiderius, Tetradia was ordered to repay what she took fourfold, and the children that she had by Desiderius were declared illegitimate; they also directed that if she paid Eulalius what she was ordered to pay him, she would have the liberty of going to Auvergne and of enjoying without disturbance the property which had come to her from her father. This was done.
[9. Gunthram sends an expedition against the Bretons which proves a failure.]
[FR]10. In the fifteenth year[FQ] of king Childebert which is the twenty-ninth of Gunthram, while king Gunthram was hunting in the Vosges forest he found traces of the killing of a buffalo. And when he harshly demanded of the keeper of the forest who had dared to do this in the king’s forest, the keeper named Chundo the king’s chamberlain. Upon this he ordered Chundo to be arrested and taken to Chalon loaded with chains. And when the two were confronted with each other in the king’s presence and Chundo said that he had never presumed to do what he was charged with, the king ordered a trial by battle. Then the chamberlain offered his nephew to engage in the fight in his place and both appeared on the field; the youth hurled his lance at the keeper of the forest and pierced his foot; and he presently fell on his back. The youth then drew the sword which hung from his belt but while he sought to cut his fallen adversary’s throat he himself received a dagger thrust in the belly. Both fell dead. Seeing this Chundo started to run to Saint Marcellus’s church. But the king shouted to seize him before he touched the sacred threshold and he was caught and tied to a stake and stoned. After this the king was very penitent at having shown himself so headlong in anger as to kill hastily for a trifling guilt a man who was faithful and useful to him.
[11. King Clothar is dangerously ill. 12. Ingytrude, abbess of a convent attached to St. Martin’s church, dies, directing that her disobedient daughter should not even be allowed to pray at her tomb. 13. One of Gregory’s priests is “infected with the malignant poison of the Sadducean heresy.”[68] He is overcome in argument by Gregory. 14. Story of the drunken priest Theodulf who falls off the wall of Angers and is killed.]
15. The scandal which by the help of the devil had arisen in the monastery at Poitiers was growing worse every day and Chrodield[69] was sitting all prepared for strife, having gathered to herself, as I have said above, murderers, sorcerers, adulterers, run-away slaves and men guilty of all other crimes. And so she gave orders to them to break into the monastery at night and drag the abbess from it. But the latter heard the uproar coming and asked to be carried to the chest containing the relics of the holy cross[70]—for she was painfully troubled with gout—thinking that she would be kept safe by their aid. Accordingly[71] when the men had entered and lit the candles and were hurrying with weapons ready here and there through the monastery looking for her, they went into the oratory and found her lying on the ground before the chest of the holy cross. Thereupon one who was fiercer than the rest, having come on purpose to commit this crime, namely, to cleave the abbess in two with the sword, was given a knife stab by another, the divine providence aiding in this, I suppose. The blood gushed out and he fell to the ground without fulfilling the vow he had foolishly made. Meantime Justina,[72] the prioress, and the other sisters had taken the cloth of the altar which was before the Lord’s cross and covered the abbess with it, putting the lights out at the same time. But the men came with drawn swords and spears and tore the nuns’ clothes and almost crushed their hands and seized the prioress instead of the abbess, since it was dark, and pulled her robes off and tore her hair down and dragged her out and carried her off to place her under guard at St. Hilary’s Church; but, as the dawn was coming on, they perceived when near the church that it was not the abbess, and presently they told the woman to return to the monastery. They returned, too, and seized the abbess and dragged her away and confined her near St. Hilary’s Church in a place where Basina[73] lodged, setting guards at the door so that no one should give aid to the captive. At the next twilight they entered the monastery and when they found no candles to light they took a cask from the storehouse which had been pitched and left to dry and set fire to it, and there was a great light while it burned, and they made plunder of all the furniture of the monastery, leaving only what they were unable to carry off. This happened seven days before Easter. And as the bishop was distressed at all this and could not calm this strife of the devil, he sent to Chrodield, saying: “Let the abbess go, so that she shall not be kept in prison during these days; otherwise I will not celebrate the Lord’s Easter festival nor shall any catechumen receive baptism in this city unless you order the abbess to be set free from the confinement in which she is held. And if you refuse to let her go, I will call the citizens together and rescue her.” When he said this, Chrodield appointed assassins, saying: “If any one tries to carry her off by violence, give her a thrust with the sword at once.” Now Flavian came in those days; he had lately been appointed domesticus, and by his aid the abbess entered St. Hilary’s Church and was free. Meantime murders were being committed at the holy Radegunda’s[74] tomb, and certain persons were hacked to death in a disturbance before the very chest that contained the relics of the holy cross. And since this madness increased daily because of Chrodield’s pride, and continual murders and other deeds of violence, such as I have mentioned above, were being done by her faction, and she had become so swollen up with boastfulness that she looked down with lofty contempt upon her own cousin Basina, the latter began to repent and say: “I have done wrong in supporting haughty Chrodield. Behold I am an object of contempt to her and am made to appear a rebel against my abbess.” She changed her course and humbled herself before the abbess and asked for peace with her; and they were equally of one thought and purpose. Then when the outrages broke out again, the men who were with the abbess, while resisting an attack which Chrodield’s followers[75] had made, wounded one of Basina’s men who fell dead. But the abbess’ men took refuge behind the abbess in the church of the confessor, and on this account Basina left the abbess and departed. But the men fled a second time, and the abbess and Basina entered again into friendly relations as before. Afterward many feuds arose between these factions;[76] and who could ever set forth in words such wounds, such killings, and such wrong-doings, where scarcely a day passed without a murder, or an hour without a quarrel, or a moment without tears. King Childebert heard of this, and sent an embassy to king Gunthram to propose that bishops of both kingdoms should meet and punish these actions in accordance with the canons. And king Childebert ordered my humble self[77] to sit on this case, together with Eberegisel of Cologne and Maroveus himself, bishop of Poitiers; and king Gunthram sent Gundigisil of Bordeaux with his provincials, since he was the metropolitan of this city. But I began to object, saying: “I will not go to this place unless the rebellion which has arisen because of Chrodield, is forcibly put down by the judge.”[78] For this reason a command was sent to Macco, who was then count, in which he was ordered to put the rebellion down by force if they should resist. Chrodield heard of this and ordered her assassins to stand armed before the door of the oratory, thinking they would fight against the judge, and if he wished to use force, they would resist with equal force. So it was necessary for this count to go there with armed men and to beat some with clubs and pierce others with spears, and when they resisted fiercely he had to attack and overwhelm them with the sword. When Chrodield saw this, she took the Lord’s cross, the miraculous power of which she had before despised, and came out to meet them saying: “Do no violence to me, I beg of you, for I am a queen, daughter of one king and cousin of another; don’t do it, lest a time may come for me to take vengeance on you.” But the throng paid little heed to what she said but rushed, as I have said, upon those who were resisting and bound them and dragged them from the monastery and tied them to stakes and beat them fiercely and cut off the hair of some, the hands of others, and in a good many cases the ears and nose, and the rebellion was crushed and there was peace. Then the bishops who were present sat on the tribunal of the church, and Chrodield appeared and gave vent to much abuse of the abbess and many charges, asserting that she had a man in the monastery who wore woman’s clothes and was treated as a woman although he had been very clearly shown to be a man, and that he was in constant attendance on the abbess herself, and she pointed her finger at him and said: “There he is himself.” And when this man had taken the stand before all in woman’s clothes, as I have stated, he said that he was impotent and therefore had put these clothes on; but he did not know the abbess except by name and he asserted that he had never seen her or spoken with her, as he lived more than forty miles from the city of Poitiers. Then as she had not proved the abbess guilty of this crime, she added: “What holiness is there in this abbess who makes men eunuchs and orders them to live with her as if she were an empress.” The abbess, being questioned, replied that she knew nothing of this matter. Meantime when Chrodield had given the name of the man who was a eunuch, Reoval, the chief physician, appeared and said: “This man when he was a child was diseased in the thigh and was so ill that his life was despaired of; his mother went to the holy Radegunda to request that he should have some attention. But she called me and bade me give what assistance I could. Then I castrated him in the way I had once seen physicians do in Constantinople, and restored the boy in good health to his sorrowing mother; I am sure the abbess knows nothing of this matter.” Now when Chrodield had failed to prove the abbess guilty on this charge also, she began fiercely to make others. But I have decided that it is better to insert the charges and the rebuttals of each in my narrative just as they are contained in the decision which was given as regards these same persons.
16. Copy of the Decision. To the most glorious kings the bishops who are present[79] [send greetings]. By God’s favor religion properly discloses her causes to the pious and orthodox kings who are given to the people and to whom the country is granted, knowing well that through the mediation of the holy spirit she is made a partner in the decree of the rulers and is supported by it. And whereas in accordance with the command of your majesties we are assembled at Poitiers on account of the situation in the monastery of Radegunda of holy memory, in order to take cognizance at first hand of the disputes between the abbess of the said monastery and the nuns who left the flock for no sound reason; we summoned the parties and interrogated Chrodield and Basina as to why they had so boldly departed contrary to the rule, breaking the doors of the monastery, and why the united congregation had at this time been broken in two. In answer they asserted that they could not endure any longer the risk of starvation, nakedness, and above all of beating; and they added also that several men had bathed in their bath contrary to decency, and that the abbess played games, and that worldly persons dined with her, and that a betrothal had actually taken place in the monastery; that she had impiously made a dress for her niece out of a silk altar cloth, and that she had frivolously taken the golden leaves which were on the border of the altar cloth and sinfully hung them about her niece’s neck; and she had made a fillet with gold ornaments for her niece without any need for it, and that she had a masquerade[80] in the monastery. We asked the abbess what she had to answer to this, and she said that as to the complaint about starvation, they had never endured too great privation considering the poverty of the time. And as to clothes, she said that if one were to examine their boxes, [he would find] they had more than was necessary. And as to the charge about the bath, she related that the bath had been built in the time of Lent and that on account of the disagreeable smell of the limestone, in order that the newness of the building might not do harm to the bathers, lady Radegunda had given orders for the servants of the monastery to use it as a common thing until all harmful odor had disappeared. It had been in common use by the servants through Lent and until Pentecost. To this Chrodield answered: “And later on in the same way many men bathed at different times.” The abbess replied that she did not approve of what they reported but she did not know whether it was true; moreover she found fault with them for not informing the abbess if they had seen it. As to the games she played, she answered that she had played when lady Radegunda was alive and it was not regarded as a sin, and she said that neither in the rule nor the canons was there any reference in writing to their prohibition. However at the order of the bishops she promised that she would bow her head and do whatever penance should be demanded. As to the dinners, she said she had introduced no new custom but had merely offered the blest bread to orthodox Christians as had been done under lady Radegunda, and it could not be proved against her that she had ever dined with them. As to the betrothal, she said that she had received the earnest money[81] in behalf of her niece, an orphan girl, in the presence of the bishop, the clergy and the leading men, and if this was a sin, she would ask for pardon in the presence of all; however not even on that occasion had she made a feast in the monastery. In answer to the charge about the altar cloth, she brought forward a nun of noble family who had given her as a gift a silk robe she had received from her relatives, and she had cut off a part of this to do what she wished with it, and from the rest, which was sufficient, she had made a suitable cloth to adorn the altar, and she used the scraps left over from the altar cloth to trim her niece’s tunic with purple; and she said she gave this to her niece when she was serving in the monastery. All this was confirmed by Didimia who had given the robe. As to the leaves of gold and the fillet adorned with gold, she offered Macco your servant, who is here, as a witness, since it was by his hand that she received twenty pieces of gold from the betrothed of the said girl her niece, from which she had purchased these articles openly, and the property of the monastery was not involved in it at all.
Chrodield and Basina were asked whether perchance they imputed adultery to the abbess, which God forbid, or whether they could say she had committed a murder or a sorcery or a capital crime for which she should be punished. They replied they had nothing to say to this; they only asserted that she had acted contrary to the rule in the matters they had mentioned. Finally they said that nuns whom we believed to be innocent were with child because of these faults, namely, that the doors were broken open and the wretched women were at liberty to do what they would for many months without discipline from their abbess.