Saint Guntram, King of Burgundy

He was neither a happy husband nor a happy father. It is generally believed that Veneranda, by whom he had a son, was not his legitimate wife. This son, named Gondebaud, died young and by poison. Afterward, he married Marcatrude, daughter of Magnacaire, who also gave him a son: he also died in infancy, and his death was soon followed by that of his mother, who had drawn upon herself the indignation of God and of the king, her husband, by having the little Gondebaud poisoned. Finally, he took Austrechilde in marriage, by whom he had Clotaire and Clodomir: but the first lived only ten years, and the second four: thus the king found himself without children and without heirs. Moreover, amidst these domestic afflictions, he always retained the strength and constancy of a true Christian; and as Saint Paul writes that all things contribute to the sanctification of the elect, he used them advantageously to humble himself more before God, and to attach himself to Him more perfectly. Disgusted with marriage, after the death of Queen Austrechilde, he did not wish to contract another alliance, whether out of love for continence, or to be freer to devote himself to the practice of good works appropriate to his rank. Such beautiful examples sanctified his family. His two daughters Clodoberge and Clodehilde renounced the vanities of the world and consecrated their virginity to God.

He had great affairs to settle with his brothers, with his nephews, and with foreigners: but he always conducted himself with an uprightness, a generosity, and a greatness of soul that were truly extraordinary. The eldest of his brothers having died without male children, his succession was to be divided between our Saint, Chilperic, and Sigebert: as this could not be done without great disputes, he had a council assembled in Paris to settle matters amicably and without war, and he deferred to the judgment of the bishops who were present. Certain conditions were agreed upon to which the three kings bound themselves by oath; but he alone kept them. His brothers having both died unfortunately, perhaps, as he believed, in punishment for their lack of faith, he forgot the reasons for discontent he might have had against them, and took care of their children as his own. He did not imitate in this the ambition of his father, who, to have the portion of Clodomir, his brother, had disposed of the little princes his heirs; but, contenting himself with the share that had fallen to him, he tried to preserve for his nephews those that their fathers had left them upon dying.

He even took the guardianship of Clotaire II, son of Chilperic, who was only four months old, had him baptized at Nanterre, near Paris, with great solemnity; held him at the baptismal font, gave him the name Clotaire, and led him through all the cities of his father's states, in order to have him recognized there as king and legitimate Lord. He was no less favorable to the children of Sigebert. Ingonde, his daughter, had been married to Saint Hermenegild, son of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, in Spain: and after a thousand unworthy treatments that Goiswintha, her husband's stepmother, had made her suffer, after the martyrdom of the same Saint Hermenegild, her spouse, she had been forced to flee and place herself in the hands of the Romans with an only son she had, and had died in Africa. Saint Gontran, animated by a holy zeal and a just anger, wanted to avenge this good niece, who had been persecuted only for the faith; he sent great armies into Spain, and offered many prayers for the happy success of an expedition that seemed so equitable. If the matter did not succeed as he hoped, if his armies perished miserably through the poor understanding of the leaders and a surprise by the Visigoths, that did not diminish any of his merit and his glory, for he nonetheless showed his zeal for religion and for the honor of God, and his generosity in supporting the just interests of his relatives. It was a secret conduct of the Providence of God, which, on one hand, was irritated by the sacrileges and impieties that Gontran's armies had committed on their march, without his knowledge; and, on the other, wanted to show that He reserves to Himself alone the vengeance for the blood of the martyrs.

As for Childebert, son of the same Sigebert, he adopted him and instituted him as his heir and successor to all his states: and although this young prince later used him very badly and repaid his kindnesses with ingratitude, nevertheless, attributing this bad conduct to the malice of his advisors rather than to himself, he forgave him everything very easily and put him in possession of his kingdom; we can thus compare him to David, who loved his son Absalom and wanted to die for him, even when that unnatural son was trying to take his life.

If Saint Gontran was so good toward the children of his brothers, he was no less so toward Fredegund and Brunhilda, women so decried in our history. For, alth Frédégonde Queen of the Franks, enemy of Gregory. ough Fredegund Brunehault Queen of Austrasia, sister-in-law of Guntram. had several times attempted his life, and he had a thousand other reasons for indignation against her, he never wanted to deliver her to his nephew Childebert, who wanted to have her put to death as the one who had had his father assassinated; Saint Gontran did not forget that she was the wife of Chilperic, his brother, and mother of Clotaire, his nephew. And as for Brunhilda, wife of Sigebert and mother of Childebert, he suffered an infinity of insults and treacheries from her with invincible patience.

But what is most commendable in this great prince is his respect for bishops and priests; his zeal for the preservation and restoration of ecclesiastical discipline; his tireless care for the good governance of his State and for the observance of ancient laws; his magnificence in the construction and endowment of churches and monasteries, and his tenderness for the poor and the unfortunate. Having become guardian of Chlothar II, he made advantageous use of the authority that this guardianship gave him in Neustria to have Saint Praetextatus, Archbishop of Rouen, restored to his see. He usually called the holiest bishops of his States to his council; he was convinced that, being more detached from their own interests, they were also more zealous for the public good and more tender toward the miseries and needs of the people. Some prelates of Aquitaine had favored Gombault, who falsely claimed to be the son of Chlothar I and, under this pretended quality, wanted to be recognized as king in a part of our Saint's kingdom. He had all the more reason to punish them, as, being more enlightened than his other subjects, they should have more easily recognized this imposture; nevertheless, after giving them a gentle reprimand that covered them with shame, as well as the memory of their treason, he forgave them and even received them at his table. He also easily forgot the fault of Theodore, Bishop of Marseille, and that of Palladius, Bishop of Saintes, who had favored a party contrary to his rights. Saint Gregory of Tours himself recounts the favorable reception he gave him three or four times, although h Saint Grégoire de Tours Historian and bishop, primary source for the narrative. e came to see him in favor of some princes and lords who had offended him.

In the year 567, Guntram had a very painful occasion to manifest his zeal for the honor and discipline of the Church. The episcopal sees of Embrun and Gap were occupied by two brothers, Salonius and Sagittarius. They had been disciples of Saint Nicetius of Lyon, who had ordained them deacons, deceived by that mask of virtues with which ambition knows how to adorn itself to attain honors. The mask fell as soon as they had reached the episcopate and they combined the holiest ministry with the most criminal life. Guntram was deeply afflicted by these scandals, all the more disastrous as they came from higher up. Several times deposed and several times restored to their see by the kindness of Guntram, they constantly abused the gifts of God and the indulgence of men. Locked up one last time in the basilica of Saint-Marcel, they managed to escape. Sagittarius was killed in a battle, arms in hand against his Prince. God, in allowing this frightening fall, reminded our Saint that he who commands others must take care not to fall himself.

As he was convinced that most of the evils that are in States come from the fact that ecclesiastical discipline is neglected, and that prelates abandon their flock to attend to secular affairs, he had several councils celebrated, and mainly at Lyon, Valence, Chalon, and Mâcon, where very salutary regulations were made for the good of the Church; he published an edict, dated from the twenty-fourth year of his reign, and addressed to all the bishops and all the judges of the provinces of his obedience; in it, he exhorts the bishops to watch over the preaching of the word of God, and to exercise their charge themselves without committing it to vicars, and to take care to correct and govern the people of God holily; as for the judges, he commands them to administer justice carefully without letting themselves be corrupted by favor or money. The archbishopric of Bourges having become vacant, several vied for this charge with Guntram and even offered him gifts to obtain it; but he gave them this wise answer worthy of a most Christian king: "It is not our custom to sell the priesthood, nor yours to acquire it by gifts; for, in doing so, we would incur the infamy of a shameful traffic; and, as for you, you would deserve to be compared to Simon the Magician." Thus, without stopping at their intrigues, he chose Sulpicius, surnamed Severus, for this dignity.

He had a profound respect for the ri ght of asylum droit d'asile Ecclesiastical privilege protecting fugitives in sacred places. , which churches and monasteries enjoyed at that time. An assassin, bribed by Fredegund, having hidden in the church of Saint-Marcel, was discovered at the moment he was about to execute his criminal design. Gontran did not permit him to be put to death. He took under his protection a young girl who had taken refuge in the same church after killing Duke Amolon, who had attempted to violate her honor. The generals he had sent in 586 against the Visigoths of Spain, having been entirely defeated, sought asylum in the basilica of Saint-Symphorien of Autun in order to avoid the just anger of this Prince, who was quite quick in his initial reactions. Gontran having traveled to that city for the feast of Saint Symphorien, the generals were given permission to appear before him. The Prince gave them a speech in which his character is faithfully depicted. After reminding them of the excesses of which they had been guilty, he added: "Victory is not obtained through such sacrileges. Do not doubt it, this is what weakens our arms in combat, what blunts our swords and renders our shields useless. If it is my fault, may God punish me! But if it is you who despise my orders, your heads must be struck off to serve as an example to the whole army... it is better to put a few of the leaders to death than to expose an entire nation to the arrows of God's wrath." Despite these frightening threats, this king, full of clemency, contented himself with depriving a few of these dukes of their office.

This holy king was truly a prince of peace: he always took great care to preserve it among his people, and to restore it throughout France between his brothers and his nephews whenever he saw it broken. His subjects were not oppressed during his reign. Having taken the regency of the states of Chilperic, his brother, during the minority of Clotaire, he banished exactions from them and took care to have those who had been stripped of their property during the previous reign compensated.

His alms were great and continuous.

He distinguished himself above all by the magnificence of his foundations. He gave several rich estates to the monastery of Saint-Symphorien in Autun and to that of Saint-Bénigne in Dijon. He established in Dijon the continuous psalmody on the model of the monastery of Agaune, where the monks, divided into several choirs, relieved one another to sing the praises of God day and night. He founded the grandiose monastery of Saint-Marcel in the eastern suburb of Chalon. Geneva owes him the beautiful basilica of Saint-Pierre, built on the site of a temple of Apollo. It is believed with some probability that he founded the abbey of Saint-Valérien in Tournus. The church of Mâcon also shared in his largesse; he gave it the Tomenay and reunited with Saint-Vincent the abbeys of Saint-Clément, Saint-Étienne, and Saint-Laurent, which had existed since the 4th century. So much for Burgundy proper. — He gave the desert of the Vosges to the Irish monk Saint Columbanus, who went there to found Luxeuil (585). — In Franche-Comté, several monastic establishments had Gontran as their founder. Thus, the establishment of the priory of Saint-Amour is attributed to him. "Gontran," says the legend, "feeling a very great piety towards the martyrs of the Theban Legion and wishing to venerate their relics, undertook a pilgrimage to Saint-Maurice in Valais around the middle of the 6th century. The clergy and the citizens, touched by the Prince's piety, gave him the distinguished relics of Saint Amour and Saint Viatre, soldiers of this legion who had been massacred for the faith. Immediately, the Prince promised to offer these relics to the first city of his kingdom that he would encounter on his return. Now, when he arrived at Vincelle in the month of August, he remembered his promise and graced this city with the precious relics. Since that time, this place, located in the diocese of Saint-Claude, has received the name of Saint-Amour." According to certain chronicles, King Gontran is said to have raised in the same province a monastery even more important than that of Saint-Amour; he would be the true founder of the famous abbey of Baume-les-Dames. But no province of the ancient kingdom of Burgundy received from the holy King Gontr an benefi Maurienne Province and diocese founded or favored by Guntram in Savoy. ts as great and as lasting as Maurienne, in Savoy. From the first years of his reign, he learned by reputation of the numerous miracles that were taking place near the relics of Saint John the Baptist, brought from Alexandria by Saint Thecla. His piety was touched by this, and he resolved to give a striking testimony of his devotion to the Precursor. He sent officers to the city of Maurienne tasked with building a church worthy of the precious deposit it was to receive; when it was completed, he invited Saint Isicius II, Archbishop of Vienne, to perform the consecration, which took place around the year 565, the fourth of Gontran's reign. Maurienne had already been dismembered from the diocese of Turin and reunited with that of Vienne. Political events, of which we must say a few words, had not been foreign to this separation. The Lord, who loves to purify the virtue of His servants in the crucible of affliction, permitted that at the very time when Gontran was making every effort to spare his kingdom the horro rs of wa Lombards Major military conflict during the reign of Guntram. r, the Lombards came to put several of his provinces to fire and sword. These Barbarians, of whom one part was still pagan and the other infected with the Arian heresy, made a first incursion into Gaul in 568, the very year of their establishment in Italy. They crossed the Alps and devastated the Upper Dauphiné. In vain did Gontran oppose them with an army commanded by Peric; it was cut to pieces, and the Lombards returned to Italy, laden with booty. Emboldened by this success, they believed that nothing could resist them, and almost every year France saw them cross the border. Gontran sent against them the patrician Mommol, who was the greatest man of war of that time. More skillful and more fortunate, he defeated them and put almost all their troops to the sword. After the expulsion of the Lombards, Gontran wished to complete his work by establishing an episcopal see in the city of Saint-Jean and thus separating the valleys of Maurienne and Susa from the diocese of Turin. As the latter belonged to the Lombards, Gontran naturally had to desire to remove his subjects from a foreign spiritual jurisdiction and from too frequent relations with barbarians who, in Italy, were stripping churches, killing priests, ruining cities, and who had just brought massacre and fire to his provinces. Nevertheless, his zeal for the spiritual good of his peoples and his devotion to Saint John the Baptist certainly had the greatest part in the foundation of this bishopric, which had a Saint for its first bishop, that is to say, Saint Felmase.

After the destruction of the Lombard army, Gontran applied himself to repairing the disasters of the invasion. This scourge had ceased, when another came to cast desolation upon the Gauls. Gregory of Tours, leaving the palace of Chilperic, King of Soissons and brother of Gontran, one day met Saint Salvi, Bishop of Albi, in the courtyard. After they had conversed for some time apart, Salvi said, pointing to the palace: "Do you see on the roof of this house what I notice there?" "I see," replied Gregory, "the new ornaments that the king has recently had placed there." Salvi asked him if he did not see anything else. "No," replied Gregory, who thought the holy bishop wanted to joke. "And I," said Salvi, heaving a deep sigh, "see the sword of divine justice drawn from its sheath and suspended over this house." The prediction was not long in being fulfilled. In 580, there were storms, fires, floods, and earthquakes. These plagues were followed by a contagious dysentery called Saint Anthony's fire, which is probably nothing other than modern cholera. After having devastated the provinces of Chilperic, the contagion invaded the kingdom of Burgundy; the holy king then ordered a distribution of everything necessary for the assistance of the poor and ensured that very special care was taken of the sick. He spent his nights in prayer, fasted, and kept vigil; finally, he presented himself to divine justice as a public victim for his subjects. They looked upon him with veneration and respected the quality of Saint in him even more than that of Sovereign. People tore the fringes from his garments to apply them to the sick: a woman cured her son of a quartan fever with one, and they even brought him the possessed, and Gregory of Tours says he was a witness to the power he had over them.

Few kings were as popular. He visited his subjects in their homes and sat at their table; when he entered a city, the people came out in crowds to meet him, shouting: Noel, Noel, long live the King!

His devotion, which had always been very great, increased even more in the last years of his life; he redoubled his alms, his austerities, and his prayers, and our martyrology assures that he gave himself entirely to the exercises of a perfectly Christian and spiritual life. It was in these holy practices that he had the happiness of ending his life, to go and reign with Jesus Christ in heaven, as he had made Him reign by his piety on earth. He died in Chalon, on March 28 of the year 593. Saint Gregory of Tours speaks of the miracles of this holy monarc h, and Châlon Site of the saint's martyrdom. says that he often saw the possessed delivered in his name. He was buried in the Abbey of Saint-Marcel, which he had founded.

## CULT AND RELICS OF SAINT GONTRAN.

His tomb was almost entirely ruined when, around the year 1135, Jean Rolin, prior of Saint-Marcel, erected a magnificent mausoleum for him in a chapel of the same church. Thus, the memory of the saintly king was revived in the minds of the people of Burgundy. He also erected a statue of him which can still be seen at the entrance of the Saint-Marcel church. In the 18th century, the Huguenots ruined the tomb and the chapel; they scattered the ashes of Saint Gontran to the wind, broke and dissipated what remained of his bones, with the exception of his skull, which was saved from their fury and was until recently kept in a silver reliquary. The cathedral of Saint-Jean de Maurienne had, at an unknown date, obtained an arm of its founder, and kept it until 1793, when it was thrown into the street and disappeared along with the other relics.

The clergy and the faithful have always honored the memory of Gontran as that of a Saint, and his name has been inscribed in church calendars. The ancient martyrologies that bear the name of Saint Jerome, those of Ussard, Notker, Bede, Wandelbert, and others, mark his feast day on March 28. It is also indicated on the same day in the Roman martyrology and in the ancient martyrology of the Jura or of Saint Oyend du Joux. In the 18th century, Aimon II of Midland, Bishop of Maurienne, established his feast for the city of Saint-Jean and a neighboring parish of the city which owes its name of Villargomtran to the King of Burgundy. Suppressed during the Revolution, this feast was reinstated in 1853 with the authorization of the Holy See and extended to the entire diocese.

A tin medal, minted in Sens, shows that he attributed the success of his arms to God: it bears the legend Guntacrannus II, and on the reverse a winged victory on a chariot holding a cross.

Saint Gontran is sometimes represented embracing a poor man or distributing alms to the unfortunate. Or else: a rat, a weasel, others say a lizard, helps him find treasures in an underground passage full of collyria and heaps of gold. It is reported that to facilitate his generosity, without the people having to suffer from taxes, God made him find considerable treasures. The legend tells the story in a particularly poetic way. Gontran was asleep following a hunt. The squire who accompanied him saw a small animal come out of the king's mouth and head toward a stream. As it seemed very embarrassed to cross it, the squire placed his sword over the two banks as a bridge. By this means, the animal reached a fissure in the mountain beyond the water, from which it returned, taking the same route, into the prince's mouth, as if it had wanted to report on its journey. When he awoke, Gontran told his squire that he had just had a strange dream: an iron bridge had led him to a mountain where dazzling treasures had appeared before his eyes. The squire, encouraged to speak his mind, explained what he had seen at the same time; and the coincidence of the two accounts suggested the idea of searching the hiding place, which was found to contain enormous values. Local tradition, in Franche-Comté, attributes the foundation of the famous abbey of Beaume-les-Dames to a find of this kind.

Our essential sources for this life of Saint Gontran are: Petits Bollandistes, 6th edition: Vers des Saints de Franche-Comté, Bourgoon, 1856; Père Cahier, Caractéristiques des Saints, Paris, 1857; Histoire linguistique du diocèse de Maurienne, by M. Vabiel Trochut, Chambéry, 1867; Légendaire d'Aulon, Paris, 1959; Annales bibliographiques de France, vol. vi.