Saint Gregory of Tours

In 569, at the age of thirty, he received the diaconate from the hands of Cautinus, successor to Saint Gall; Cautinus was succeeded by Saint Avitus, under whom Gregory continued his studies.

A citizen of Clerm ont h Tours Place of retirement for Clotilde near the tomb of Saint Martin. aving brought from Tours a piece o f wood from saint Martin Saint whose relics were honored by missionaries in Tours. the tomb of Saint Martin and not keeping it in his house with the proper reverence, all his servants fell ill. He had recourse to God to know the cause, and a person with an indignant face appeared to him in a dream and told him that the cause of his illnesses was the little respect he showed for the piece of the tomb of this holy bishop; but that he should place it in the hands of the deacon Gregory, who was worthy to keep it, and that this scourge of his house would cease. He did so and soon saw the happy fulfillment of this promise. There were then in Auvergne many religious of a penitent and very exemplary life. Our Saint visited them often and, through their conversation, he became entirely disgusted with the world and took the generous resolution to apply himself solely to his own sanctification. His continual prayers and great austerities so altered his health that he fell into a violent illness that made his life despaired of, but, having had himself transported to Tours, to the tomb of the same Saint Martin, in whom he had a singular confidence, he received a perfect healing there. The same thing happened to him so many other times that one would have said he owed his life only to this great Saint.

His frequent travels served to make him so well known that, after the death of Euphronius (August 4, 573), eyes were cast upon him to take his place. He resisted his election as much as he could; but the authority of King Sigebert and Queen Brunhilda compelled him to bow his shoulders under this burden. He found in his diocese churches in ruins, the morals of the Christians corrupted, and regular discipline extremely altered by the misfortune of the wars that had devastated the entire country. He showed a marvelous zeal to remedy all these disorders and, notwithstanding the obstacles he first encountered to his good designs, he did not fail to bring them to a successful conclusion. He had his cathedral church, founded formerly by Saint Martin, repaired, and had others built entirely anew. He corrected a great number of abuses that had crept in among the people, and reformed his clergy, who were not living with the restraint and modesty suitable for ministers of Jesus Christ. He had the gift of discernment of spirits, which he used usefully to deliver his flock from their spiritual maladies; regarding which it is reported that, having discovered the most secret thoughts of two religious, Senoch and Liobard, who are recognized as saints, he cured them of a dangerous vanity they harbored in their hearts without fully knowing it. He helped the poor according to the greatness of his charity, which was boundless, rather than according to the strength of his wealth and the income of his bishopric. He supported with intrepid courage ecclesiastical immunities and the right of asylum of sacred temples against the greatest lords and even against kings themselves. And by this firmness, he would never surrender t o Chilper Chilpéric King of the Franks praised by Fortunatus. ic, King of France, his son Merovech, who had taken refuge at the foot of the altar of Saint Martin. And Duke Bladast with Badacharius, Count of Bordeaux, having had recourse to the same asylum, h e went to f roi Gontran King of Burgundy who welcomed Columbanus upon his arrival in Gaul. ind King Guntram to obtain their pardon; but, when he had been refused, he said generously to this prince: "Since you do not wish, Sire, to grant me what I ask of you, what do you wish me to answer to my lord who sent me to you?" — "And who is this lord?" replied the king. — "It is the glorious Saint Martin," Gregory said to him with a smile, "he has taken these two princes under his protection, and he himself asks you for their grace." These words touched Guntram so much that he pardoned them and had their property, which he had already confiscated, returned to them.

This excellent prelate showed no less constancy in a synod held in Paris (577) against Saint Praetextatus, Archbishop of Rouen, whose adversary was Chilperic himself and Queen Fredegund; for the other Frédégonde Queen of the Franks, enemy of Gregory. prelates, not daring to speak in favor of the accused for fear of displeasing the court, Gregory had the courage to exhort those who were most favored by the king to persuade him to abandon this matter, which would only bring upon him the blame of men, as well as the anger and just vengeance of God; and as Chilperic had him called before him to complain that he was supporting a bishop who was disagreeable to him, he gave him this excellent answer: "If any of your subjects deviates from his duty and commits some injustice, you are above him to punish him; but if you yourself stray from the right path of justice, there is no one who has the right to punish you. We, therefore, to whom God has entrusted the care of souls, take the liberty of making very humble remonstrances to you, and you listen to us if you wish; but if you do not listen to us, you will have to answer to a sovereign judge who, being the absolute master of kings, will treat you according to your merits."

This speech, however, did not prevent the condemnation of Praetextatus. But as Fredegund learned from this the episcopal vigor of our holy prelate, she did what she could through promises and threats to draw him into her interests. He was insensible to both, and, in the deplorable state in which France was then, troubled by the quarrels of four kings and almost ruined by the cruelties of two ambitious queens, he knew how to maintain himself inviolably in the defense of truth and justice. He experienced, however, how dangerous it was to displease Fredegund; for, three years after the affair of Saint Praetextatus, she had him cited before a synod held at Brenni, near Compiègne, under the pretext that he had spoken ill of her. But, there being no proof against him, and his oath clearing him entirely, he was sent away absolved, and the one who had accused him was excommunicated as a slanderer.

In the year 594, he made the journey to Rome to visit the tombs of the holy Apos tles. Saint Gregory the Saint Grégoire le Grand Pope contemporary to Saint Psalmodius. Great, who was newly elected Pope, received him with great honors; however, seeing him to be of very small stature, he marveled that God had enclosed such a beautiful soul and so many graces within such a small body. The bishop knew this thought by revelation, and said to him: "The Lord has made us, and we have not made ourselves, but He is the same in the small as in the great." The Pope was astonished to see that he had penetrated the secret of his heart, and from then on he honored him as a Saint, gave him a gold chain to place in his church of Tours, and granted in his favor beautiful privileges to the same church.

During his life, he performed a great number of miracles and supernatural healings; but, as he was extremely humble, in order to hide the grace of the healings with which God had favored him, he always applied the relics he carried on his person to the sick he wished to heal. He also received from the goodness of God quite extraordinary favors and assistance. Thieves having come to mistreat him, they were forced to flee due to a panic terror that seized them. A storm, accompanied by lightning and thunder, having risen in the air while he was on a journey, he merely held his reliquary against it, and it dissipated in a moment. On the same occasion, this miracle having given him some vain joy and a certain sense of complacency, he immediately fell from his horse and learned thereby to stifle in his heart the slightest feelings of pride. Being one Christmas morning in a deep slumber from having kept vigil all night, a person appeared to him in a dream and awakened him three times, saying to him the third time, in allusion to his name Gregory, which means vigilant: 'Will you always sleep, you who must awaken others?' Finally, his life was filled with so many wonders that an entire volume would be needed to recount them.

Since his return from Rome, he applied himself more than ever to the visitation of his diocese, to the correction and sanctification of the souls committed to him, to the preaching of the word of God, and to all the other functions of a good bishop. It was in these exercises that he finished the course of his life, being only fifty-six years old, on November 17 of the year 595, which was the twenty-first of his episcopate. The humility he had practiced during his life appeared even after his death, through the choice he made for his burial.

Saint Gregory is represented: 1° with his hand resting on several volumes of his works; 2° having at his feet a monstrous fish, serving to recall the miraculous healing of the blindness with which his father was afflicted; 3° kneeling, holding a crozier and a book.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS. — HIS WRITINGS.]

Saint Gregory was buried, according to his desire, at the foot of the tomb of Saint Martin, in order to be continually trodden under the feet of those who would come to honor this sacred sepulcher; but the inhabitants of Tours removed him from this place and built him a magnificent monument next to that of this great Saint whose virtues he had so faithfully imitated. His body remained there until the year 1562, the time when it was taken out by the Calvinists to be sacrificed to their fury, like all the other holy bodies of the same city. The memory of Saint Gregory has always been very venerated in Tours, where the Minims dedicated their convent to him.

This holy bishop left to posterity a large number of works devoted to the instruction of the faithful and to t he glory of the Saint l'Histoire des Francs Major work by Gregory of Tours. s: 1° the History of the Franks, divided into ten books, up to the year 591; 2° a book of the Glory of the Martyrs, where he makes known the perfection of faith by the example of those who have a perfect one; 3° the book of the Passion, virtues and glory of Saint Julian of Brioude; 4° the book of the Glory of the Confessors; 5° four books of the Miracles of Saint Martin; 6° the Lives of the Fathers; 7° a Commentary on the Psalms, of which only three fragments remain; 8° a Treatise on the offices of the Church, which has not reached us.

The History of the Franks was edited in a perfect manner in 1836-1841, in Paris, by J. Guadet and N. R. Taranne, with a French translation opposite, and with notes and observations. Mr. Henri Bordier published a new translation of the Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, at Didot, Paris, 1860. It is followed by a summary of the other works of Saint Gregory, preceded by his Life written in the 10th century by Odo, Abbot of Cluny. In 1827, he had published at Jules Renouard the books of Miracles and other opuscula of Gregory of Tours, revised and collated against new manuscripts.

We have used, to review and complete Father Giry, the Life of the Saints of the Church of Poitiers, by Abbé Auber; the History of Sacred and Ecclesiastical Authors, by Dom Cullier, and the Literary History of France, by Dom Rivet.