Gregory of tours Research Papers (original) (raw)

Taken from my recent book “The De-Judaization of the Image of Jesus of Nazareth (the Virgin Mary) at the Time of the Holocaust: Ensoulment and the Human Ovum” (Thomas Blüger, Xlibris 2021). This paper follows the image of the Virgin Mary... more

Taken from my recent book “The De-Judaization of the Image of Jesus of Nazareth (the Virgin Mary) at the Time of the Holocaust: Ensoulment and the Human Ovum” (Thomas Blüger, Xlibris 2021). This paper follows the image of the Virgin Mary in relationship to the Jewish people from the early beginnings of Christianity till just before the papal encyclical on Mary Ineffabilis Deus in 1854.

Notwithstanding extensive scholarly attention, the Merovingian pretender Gundovald (d. 585) has remained one of the most shadowy figures of Frankish history. Reappraising the interesting, albeit largely neglected hypothesis brought... more

Notwithstanding extensive scholarly attention, the Merovingian pretender Gundovald (d. 585) has remained one of the most shadowy figures of Frankish history. Reappraising the interesting, albeit largely neglected hypothesis brought forward by Constantin Zuckerman (according to which the Austrasian dowager queen Brunhild was primarily responsible for Gundovald’s invitation), this paper highlights the various implications of Gundovald’s usurpation concerning inner-Frankish relations and the connectedness to Byzantine interests at the end of the sixth century.

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The... more

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The expansion achieved by the Frankish king Clovis I inevitably brought him into conflict with the Visigothic king Alaric II. During the 490s, the Franks made several unsuccessful forays into Brittany and south of the Loire. Subsequently, both sides did their best to consolidate their resources. Attempts by the Os trogothic king Theoderic to avoid direct conflict failed, and war began in earnest in 507, when Clovis made a massive attack on the Visigothic kingdom. The decisive Frankish vic tory at Vouillé determined the map of sixth-century western Europe: the Franks gained control of most of Gaul, and the Visigoths consolidated their holdings in Spain.

This thesis revisits Gregory the Great’s Registrum Epistolarum, Gregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum, and the Venerable Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum to specifically examine their depiction of plague. Their portrayal of... more

This thesis revisits Gregory the Great’s Registrum Epistolarum, Gregory of Tours’ Historia Francorum, and the Venerable Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum to specifically examine their depiction of plague. Their portrayal of plague and its disruption of communities reveals fresh perspectives on Early Medieval ideas of disease and the role of ecclesiastical leadership in times of crisis. Since the publication Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750, edited by Lester Little, scholars have begun exploring this plague, often using quantitative methods. In contrast, this thesis has provided an initial foray into the process of exploring what people in Late Antiquity understood and recorded about the illness that they experienced. Because of its limited scope, I chose to examine these source by three of this period’s largest figures as an important foundation for further analysis. I chose two letters from among Gregory the Great’s many writings because they clearly offered specific instructions focused on the bishop being actively engaged with the salvation of the souls of the living. His opinions of how bishops should respond to the personal and communal crisis of a plague outbreak provide context for his own actions in Rome and an ideal against which to compare the depictions in the Histories. Gregory of Tours allowed more freedom to bishops to respond as best fit their people. Bede’s perspective, the only non-episcopal view, proposes the possibility of plague as a blessing that cleansed the sufferer of sin and prepared them for a swift entry into heaven. These perspectives contribute to our understanding of the First Plague Pandemic in its
own context and therefore more completely as a disease.

PDF is entire Kalamazoo program. Please contact me if you would like information on what was presented.

Published in "Bizantinistica. Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi", 15 (2013), 131-56

Per la crisi dell'impero romano d'Occidente e del suo sistema culturale, nella quale ebbe un ruolo di fondamentale importanza l'intromissione dei cosiddetti barbari nella Romània occidentale, la moderna e consolidata visione classicistica... more

Per la crisi dell'impero romano d'Occidente e del suo sistema culturale, nella quale ebbe un ruolo di fondamentale importanza l'intromissione dei cosiddetti barbari nella Romània occidentale, la moderna e consolidata visione classicistica e romanocentrica dell'Occidente antico ha considerato i secoli V-VI e VII-VIII, rispettivamente, età di decadenza e di fine della civiltà romana e età di desolata depressione culturale. Ma proprio quella intromissione, che fu prima scontro e poi progressivo incontro fra romani e barbari, incontro gravido di conseguenze istituzionali e culturali, ci suggerisce di considerare tutto l'arco di tempo costituito dai secoli V-VIII con gli occhi rivolti non già al suo passato, ma al suo futuro. Di conseguenza, tale arco di tempo si impone alla nostra attenzione non più come declino, fine e successivo silenzio della cultura antica, bensì come vasto fenomeno storico-culturale, dinamicamente unitario, interpretabile quale processo genetico di una nuova civiltà, cioè quale origine dell'Europa come complesso di nazioni politicamente e culturalmente distinte eppure accomunate dall'eredità culturale greco-romana (classica e cristiana). Alla ricostruzione, dunque, della cultura dell'età romanobarbarica e ai suoi successivi riflessi intende contribuire la presente collana, che ospita studi e edizioni di testi.

This paper discusses the origins of the cult of Medardus, a Merovingian saint who was to become fairly popular within and without the Frankish realms. Medardus was one of the numerous bishop-saints whose cults were typical for post-Roman... more

This paper discusses the origins of the cult of Medardus, a Merovingian saint who was to become fairly popular within and without the Frankish realms. Medardus was one of the numerous bishop-saints whose cults were typical for post-Roman Gaul. However, his case is a rather curious one: his cult was, at least in the beginning, almost exclusively sponsored by royal patronage. After having transferred Medardus’s body from his episcopal see of Noyon to the royal town of Soissons, the contemporary king Chlothar I commissioned a basilica to be built over the saint’s tomb. Serving as a burial place for at least two Merovingian kings – Chlothar himself (d. 561) and his son Sigibert (d. 575) –, the basilica continuously benefited from royal patronage during the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. The newly established cult quickly gained popularity and the Medardus basilica subsequently figured among the most prominent sanctuaries of Frankish Gaul. Even though Medardus’s posthumous ‘career’ is far from being commonplace, up to now, little attention has been paid to the origins of the cult and Chlothar’s reasons for linking this contemporary bishop closely to the reigning dynasty. An overall look at the scattered evidence will suggest that Chlothar consciously chose Medardus to become a particularly ‘royal saint’, i. e. a saint whose cult – unlike many others – was not linked to the tradition of a certain bishopric or to the authority of a living bishop. By actively supporting this new saint’s cult, Chlothar and his successors apparently adopted integral features of episcopal authority. As a comparison with royally sponsored saints’ cults in other royal cities will show, this approach was adopted by other kings as well.

Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the... more

Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the Fredegar chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Waltharius, and Beowulf; it also examines the evidence for an oral vernacular tradition of historical narrative in this period.
In this book, Shami Ghosh analyses the relative significance granted to the Roman and non-Roman inheritances in narratives of the distant past, and what the use of this past reveals about the historical consciousness of early medieval elites, and demonstrates that for them, cultural identity was conceived of in less binary terms than in most modern scholarship.

Antologia di testi agiografici latini tardo-antichi e medievali, con schede di presentazione degli autori e delle opere. Gli autori antologizzati sono Sulpicio Severo (Vita Martini), Gregorio di Tours (varie opere agiografiche), Rosvita... more

Antologia di testi agiografici latini tardo-antichi e medievali, con schede di presentazione degli autori e delle opere. Gli autori antologizzati sono Sulpicio Severo (Vita Martini), Gregorio di Tours (varie opere agiografiche), Rosvita di Gandersheim (un passo dal poemetto Maria) e Iacopo da Varazze (Legenda aurea).

The idea of displacing bodies or body-parts for the Christian cult of saints and relics represented a fundamental departure from the ancient relationship with bodies and bodily remains. Promoters of the cult in the fourth century, such as... more

The idea of displacing bodies or body-parts for the Christian cult of saints and relics represented a fundamental departure from the ancient relationship with bodies and bodily remains. Promoters of the cult in the fourth century, such as Ambrose of Milan, thus had to justify these new practices within a network of rhetorical and material realities, creating an ideological “frame” that mirrored the physical one – the reliquaries housing the relics themselves. Two centuries later, in the age of Gregory of Tours, these accepted practices were reframed in yet another geographical and cultural realm, paving the way for the medieval cult of relics. Against the backdrop of this classical narrative, this article aims to understand the tension between the intellectual and ideal setting of the cult of relics promoted by Ambrose and his circle and its actual material reality and transformations over the two centuries leading up to Gregory’s time. Specifically, the paper focuses on the new practices around martyrs’ relics put into place by the bishop of Milan, and how they spread via the contemporary networks of the ecclesiastic and intellectual elite. Secondly, based on the analysis of selected objects from the fourth-century Italian Peninsula such as the San Nazaro casket and the small capsella at Garlate, as well as on sources describing the performance of relics, the article examines the actual effectiveness of the cult’s material implementation as opposed to its rhetorical framing. Ultimately, it questions the efficacy and longevity of the initial networking promoted by Ambrose, especially when implemented in a place and time where Romanization and Christianization underwent a different set of parameters than in Milan.

Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social,... more

Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory’s hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory’s hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an “ecclesiastical history” (of the Merovingian Church) that enable...

Ein Großteil des Wissens über die Geschichte der Goten in Gallien und Spanien ist uns durch die merowingische Geschichtsschreibung überliefert. Die modernen Historiker sind daher an die Sichtweisen und Urteile der merowingischen... more

Ein Großteil des Wissens über die Geschichte der Goten in Gallien und Spanien ist uns durch die merowingische Geschichtsschreibung überliefert. Die modernen Historiker sind daher an die Sichtweisen und Urteile der merowingischen Geschichtsschreiber gebunden. Die dieser Überlieferung zugrunde liegenden Vorstellungen und Deutungsmuster sind bislang jedoch noch nicht untersucht worden. Christian Stadermann nimmt sich dieses Desiderats an: Er fragt nicht nur, wie Goten in narrativen Schriften des merowingischen Gallien beschrieben werden und welche Ereignisse der Interaktion mit Goten in die merowingische Geschichtsschreibung eingingen, sondern untersucht auch, welche Erfahrungen, welche soziokulturell determinierten Wahrnehmungsmuster diese Beschreibungen leiteten und wie sie auf die Identität der Autoren zurückwirkten. Stadermann geht dabei über die großen Werke der merowingischen Geschichtsschreibung, wie die Historien des Gregor von Tours oder die Fredegarchronik, hinaus und nimmt die merowingische Historio- und Hagiographie in ihrer Gesamtheit in den Blick.

The Xiongnus have become skilled fighting people in the vast steppe. When they arrived at the Roman northeast frontier in the 5th century they enslaved their former kind tribes and caused the great migration of people. They did not return... more

The Xiongnus have become skilled fighting people in the vast steppe. When they arrived at the Roman northeast frontier in the 5th century they enslaved their former kind tribes and caused the great migration of people. They did not return to the steppe, as the ruling historians suggest; why should they? Instead, they became the rulers of Europe for some 1200 years. The European feudalism is based on the Xiongnu consititutional principles, such as holy kingtribes, vassality, fiefdom, etc.. Germanic kings such as the Frankish king Childerich were disguised Huns/Xiongnus.

Recens. pubblicata in «Mediaeval Sophia» 4 (2008), pp. 276-279.

The presentation of the self in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages has traditionally been defined in terms of an ethnic dichotomy between Roman and Barbarian. In parallel discourses, the studies on the evolution of citizenship have... more

The presentation of the self in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages has traditionally been defined in terms of an ethnic dichotomy between Roman and Barbarian. In parallel discourses, the studies on the evolution of citizenship have focused on the transformation of Roman citizenship after the Constitutio Antoniniana, without much focus on the role of citizenship as a marker of identity. In this article, the possibility of using urban identity (as defined by anthropologists and sociologists) as a valid form of self- and community definition will be put forward, using citizenship and civic involvement as proxy indicators for urban identity. The resilience of urban communities and civic ideas, together with the inclusive nature of place-based identities, serves to further underline the saliency of locality in post-Roman contexts. Elements of post-Roman city life such as continuing municipal administration, new constructions and the cult of martyrs created a city-focused communal cognitive map. Similarly, competition with other cities in diplomacy and constructions, together with the constant interaction between the state and the civitates, socially validated citizenship and urban identities as forms of representing the self and the community.

Radegund (520-587 AD) was a distinctive medieval saint who had an interesting life. She was a literate and royal woman at a time when few people, let alone women, were educated. It was certainly not the norm for educated women with noble... more

Radegund (520-587 AD) was a distinctive medieval saint who had an interesting life. She was a literate and royal woman at a time when few people, let alone women, were educated. It was certainly not the norm for educated women with noble lineage to give up that lifestyle to help the less fortunate and seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Unlike other early medieval saints, Radegund led a more active rather than contemplative religious life. She is one of the first recorded examples of a saint to give up her social status and royal life to help others beneath her class. St. Radegund used her knowledge, talents and money to help better the lives of others in early medieval France.

In medieval times, an idea emerged that the star of the Magi, a real physical body, had fallen into a well in Bethlehem near the place of the Nativity after carrying out its mission of leading and announcing the event, and that it would... more

In medieval times, an idea emerged that the star of the Magi, a real physical body, had fallen into a well in Bethlehem near the place of the Nativity after carrying out its mission of leading and announcing the event, and that it would still be visible there under particular circumstances. The present article aims to examine how this story was born, how it spread, and how it influenced the Christian imagination. It does so in two ways: analyzing the oldest documented witness to the theme, included in the first chapter of the De Gloria Martyrum by Gregory of Tours (last quarter of the 6th century); and taking into consideration other types of sources, such as the (mainly Latin) Itineraria in the Holy Land and two hagiographic texts relating to the life of St. Willibald. The investigation thus brings to light possible cultural channels between the Medieval Latin West and the Middle Eastern world, emphasizing in particular a decisive chronological junction in correspondence with the events of Crusader times.

Book Description by the Editors (Stefan Esders, Yitzhak Hen, Pia Lucas, Tamar Rotman): The book explores the place of the Merovingian kingdoms in Gaul within a broader Mediterranean context. Their politics and culture have mostly been... more

Book Description by the Editors (Stefan Esders, Yitzhak Hen, Pia Lucas, Tamar Rotman): The book explores the place of the Merovingian kingdoms in Gaul within a broader Mediterranean context. Their politics and culture have mostly been interpreted in terms of a local phenomenon, but as this book shows, the Merovingian kingdoms had complicated and multi-layered political, religious, and socio-cultural relations with their Mediterranean counterparts, from Visigothic Spain in the West to the Byzantine Empire in the East. The papers provide new insights into the history of the Merovingian kingdoms in their late-antique and early-medieval Mediterranean context, examining subjects from the formation of identity to the shape and rules of diplomatic relations, social, legal, and religious aspects that reflect cultural transfer, as well as voiced attitudes towards the other. The perspectives of the individual sources and their contextualization are at the centre of this analysis, and each paper thus begins with a short excerpt from a relevant source text, which then serves as a jumping board to the discussion of broader issues. This innovative structuring principle ensures discussions are accessible to students and non-specialists, without jeopardizing the high standard of academic debate and diligent historical analysis.

Merovingian letter-writing is traditionally studied by calling on a dozen or so high prolife letter collections. This article turns to a different source: Gregory of Tours’ Histories, the foremost work of history-writing to survive from... more

Merovingian letter-writing is traditionally studied by calling on a dozen or so high prolife letter collections. This article turns to a different source: Gregory of Tours’ Histories, the foremost work of history-writing to survive from sixth-century Gaul. By studying Gregory’s narrative descriptions of letters this article seeks to shed new light on three aspects of Merovingian epistolary culture that have proved difficult to approach solely through the epistolary evidence: first, the typological variety of letters used in Merovingian Gaul, which extended far beyond the literary compositions dominating the letter collections; second, the complex practices surrounding letter delivery, such as the use of messengers, oral performance and strategies of secret communication; and finally, the repurposing of letters after their initial moment of delivery, which includes recirculation of old letters as sources of evidence and persuasion, but also covers the way Gregory himself came to employ letters as a narrative device.
NB: please see the link for the full article (open access): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03044181.2021.1893800?src=

In this article, I shall explore how Gregory of Tours, the Gallic sixth- century historian and bishop, understood the persecution in Lugdunum (present-day Lyon) in 177. In Libri historiarum decem and Liber in gloria martyrum, Gregory... more

In this article, I shall explore how Gregory of Tours, the Gallic sixth- century historian and bishop, understood the persecution in Lugdunum (present-day Lyon) in 177. In Libri historiarum decem and Liber in gloria martyrum, Gregory briefly describes the persecution and names the martyrs, including Irenaeus, the bishop of Lugdunum. According to
ancient historians, however, Irenaeus was not a martyr. It has been established that Gregory’s list of martyrs was derived from Eusebius’ Antiquorum martyriorum collectio, of which only fragments had survived in Gregory’s time. In addition, the translation of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica into Latin by Rufinus altered the passage referring to
Antiquorum martyriorum collectio. Given the corruption of texts that occurred during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, another image of the persecution in Lugdunum formed in the eyes of Gregory.

A pesar de que las investigaciones de los últimos años han puesto en evidencia que Juan de Biclaro construyó su Crónica según un plan preciso y al servicio de un determinado discurso político, en lo que se refiere al tratamiento de sus... more

"À différentes périodes de l'Histoire, des populations considérées comme "barbares" par leurs voisins plus avancés ont utilisé de la monnaie frappée. Les Celtes ont imité les monnaies de leurs voisins grecs et romains. Les Germains... more

"À différentes périodes de l'Histoire, des populations considérées comme "barbares" par leurs voisins plus avancés ont utilisé de la monnaie frappée. Les Celtes ont imité les monnaies de leurs voisins grecs et romains. Les Germains installés en Gaule ont imité la monnaie de l'Empire romain d'Orient. Ces populations se sont limitées, au début de leur utilisation de la monnaie, à un éventail de dénominations très étroit..."