sequent religious conferences, the Bishop dwelt on the barbarity of the Jews in the death of the Lord. Clovis was moved, but not to tenderness,-"Had I and my A.D. 496. faithful Franks been there, they had not dared to do it." only orthodox At that time Clovis the Frank was the only orthodox sovereign in Christendom. The Emperor Anas- Clovis the tasius lay at least under the suspicion of favour- sovereign. ing the Eutychian heresy. The Ostrogoth Theodoric in Italy, the Visigothic and Burgundian kings in France, the Suevian in Spain, the Vandal in Africa were Arians. If unscrupulous ambition, undaunted valour and enterprise, and desolating warfare, had been legitimate means for the propagation of pure Christianity, it could not have found a better champion than Clovis. For the first time the diffusion of belief in the nature of the Godhead became the avowed pretext for the invasion of a neighbouring territory. Already the famous Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, has addressed a letter to Clovis, in which he augurs from the faith of Clovis the victory of the Catholic faith; even the heterodox Byzantine emperor is to tremble on his throne; Catholic Greece to exult at the dawning of this new light in the West. The wars of Clovis with Burgundy were all but openly declared wars of religion; the orthodox clergy hardly condescended to disguise their inclination to the Franks, whom they supported with their prayers, if not with more substantial assistance.b Before the war broke out, a synod of the orthodox Bishops met, it is said, under the advice of Remigius, at Lyons. With Avitus at their * Euric, the greatest of the Visigothic kings, was now dead; he had left but feeble successors. Euric laboured under the evil fame of a persecutor; he had attempted what Theodoric aspired to effect in Italy, but with far less success, the fusion of the two races-the Roman and Teutonic; but that of which Sidonius so bitterly complains, of so many sees vacant by the intolerance of Euric, the want of bishops and clergy to perpetuate the Catholic succession, ruined churches, and grass-grown altars, reads as too eloquent. Reveillot admits that the views of Euric were political rather than religious (p. 141). a The rebellion of Vitalianus in the East was a few years later. b The barbarous Clovis must have heard, it must not be said, read, still less, considering the obscure style of the prelate, understood, the somewhat gross and lavish flattery of his faith, his humility, even his mercy, to which the saintly Bishop scrupled not to condescend: "Vestra fides nostra victoria est. . . . Gaudeat ergo quidem Græcia se habere principem legis nostræ. Numquid fidem perfecto prædicabimus quam ante perfectionem sine prædicatore vidistis? an forte humilitatem . . an misericordiam quam solutus a vobis adhuc nuper populus captivus gaudiis mundo insinuat lacrymis Deo?" The mercy of Clovis ! Avitus, Epist. xli. head, they visited King Gundebald, and proposed a conference with the Arian bishops, whom they were prepared to prove from the Scripture to be in error. The king shrewdly replied,-"If yours be the true doctrine, why do you not prevent the King of the Franks from waging an unjust war against me, and from caballing with my enemies against me? There is no true Christian faith where there is rapacious covetousness for the possessions of others, and thirst for blood. Let him show forth his faith by his good works." Avitus skilfully eluded this question, and significantly replied, that he was ignorant of the motives of Clovis, "but this I know, that God overthrows the thrones of those who are disobedient to his law." When after the submission of the Burgundian kingdom to the payment of tribute to the Franks, Gundebald resumed the sway, his first act was to besiege his brother Godesil, the ally of Clovis, in Vienne. Godesil fled to the Arian church, and was slain there with the Arian Bishop. On this occasion Avitus tried again to work on the obstinate mind of Gundebald; his arguments confounded but did not persuade the king, who retained his errors to the end of his life. Religious e When, however, Clovis determined to attack the kingdom of the Visigoths, the monkish historian ascribes to him this language:-"I am sore troubled that these Arians still possess so large a part of wars. It is remarkable that all the distinguished and influential of the clergy appear on the Catholic side. The Arians are unknown even by name. It is true that we have only Catholic annalists. But I have little doubt that the Arian prelates were for the most part barbarians, inferior in education and in that authority which still, in peaceful functions, attached to the Roman name. It was Rome now enlisting a new clan of barbarians in her own cause, and under her own guidance, against her foreign oppressors. d The Bishop Avitus of Vienne was in correspondence with the insurgent Vitalianus in the court of the Emperor Anastasius. So completely were now all wars and rebellions religious wars. Collatio Episcop. apud D'Achery, Spicileg. iii. p. 304. M. Reveillot has very ingeniously, perhaps too ingeniously, worked out the religious history of the reign of King Gundebald (p. 189 et seq.). But he is somewhat tender to the bishop, who "almost praises Gundebald for the murder of his brothers." The passage is too characteristic to be omitted: "Flebatis quondam pietate ineffabili funera germanorum (he had murdered them), sequebatur fletum publicum universitatis afflictio, et occulto divinitatis intuitu, instrumenta mæstitiæ parabantur ad gaudium . . . . Minuebat regni felicitas numerum regalium personarum et hoc solum servabatur mundo, quod sufficeret imperio (the good Turkish maxim). Illic repositum est quicquid prosperum fuit catholicæ veritati." This is said of an Arian, but the father of an orthodox son, Sigismund, converted by Avitus.-Epist. v. p. 95. g Gaul." Before he set out on his campaign the King of the Franks went to perform his devotions before the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. As he entered the church he heard the words of the Psalm which they were chaunting, The The "Thou hast girded me, O Lord, with strength unto the battle; thou hast subdued unto me those which rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me." h oracular words were piously fulfilled by Clovis. Visigothic kingdom was wasted and subdued by the remorseless sword of the Frank. These are not the only illustrations of the Christianity practised by Clovis, and related in perfect simplicity by his monkish historian." Gregory of Tours describes without emotion one of the worst acts which darken the reign of Clovis. He suggested to the son of Sigebert, King of the Ripuarian Franks, the assassination of his father, with the promise that the murderer should be peaceably established on the throne. The murder was committed in the neighbouring forest. The parricide was then slain by the command of Clovis, who in a full parliament of the nation solemnly protested that he had no share in the murder of either; and was raised by general acclamation on a shield, as King of the Ripuarian Franks. Gregory concludes with this pious observation:-" For God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did that which was pleasing in his sight." k Gregory of Tours was a prelate, himself of gentle and blameless manners, and of profound piety. Yet Born A.D. 539-594. Angoulême fall of their own accord. Greg. Turon. ii. 42. "Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius et augebat regnum ejus, eò quod Influence of Throughout indeed this dark period of the contest between the Franks, the Visigoths, and the clergy. Burgundians for the dominion of France, as well as through the long dreary annals of the Merovingian kings, it will be necessary, as well as just, to estimate the character, influence, and beneficent workings of the clergy on the whole society. But the more suitable place for this inquiry will be when the two races, the Roman provincial and the Teutonic, are more completely mingled, though not fused together, for it was but gradually that the clergy, who never ceased to be Roman in the language of their services and of letters, ceased to be so in sentiment, and throughout northern France especially, in blood and descent. There is more even at this time of the first conversion of the Franks to Christianity, in the close alliance between the Roman clergy of Gaul with the Franks, than the contest of Catholicism with heterodoxy. The Arian clergy of the Visigoths were probably, Latin. to a considerable extent, of Teutonic race, some of them, like Ulphilas, though provincials of the Empire by descent, of Gothic birth. Their names have utterly perished; this may partly (as has been said) be ascribed to the jealousy of the Catholic writers, the only annalists of the time. But the conversion of the Franks was wrought by the Latin clergy. The Franks were more a federation of armed adventurers than a nation migrating with their families into new lands; they were at once more barbarous and more exclusively warlike. It would probably be long before they would be tempted to lay aside their arms and aspire to the peaceful ecclesiastical functions. The Roman Gauls might even imagine that they beheld in the Franks deliverers from the tyranny of their actual masters," the Clergy ambulavit rectè corde omnino, et fecerit quæ placita erant in oculis ejus." There follows a long list of assassinations and acts of the darkest treachery. "Clovis fit périr tous les petits rois des Francs par une suite des perfidies."-Michelet, H. de France, i. 209. The note recounts the assassinations. Throughout, the triumph of Clovis is the triumph of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity over Arianism. "Dominus enim se verè cre dentibus, etsi insidiante inimico aliqua perdant, his centuplicata restituit; hæretici vero nec acquirunt, sed quod videntur habere, aufertur. Probabat hoc Godigeseli, Gundobaldi, atque Godomari interitus, qui et patriam simul et animas perdiderunt."-Prolog, ad lib. iii. Gregory of Tours ingenuously admits "quod omnes (the Catholic clergy) desiderabili amore cupiverunt eos regnare."-l. ii, 23. Burgundians or Visigoths. Men impatient of a galling yoke pause not to consider whether they are not forging for themselves another more heavy and oppressive. They panted after release from their present masters, perhaps after revenge for the loss of their freedom and their lands, for their degradation, their servitude, and cared not to consider whether it would not be a change from bad masters to worse. Clovis, it is true, had commenced his career by the defeat of Syagrius, the last Roman who pretended to authority in Gaul, and had thus annihilated the lingering remains of the Empire; but that would be either pardoned or forgotten in the fond hope of some improvement in their condition under the barbarian sway. It was, of course, a deep aggravation of their degraded state that their masters were not only foreigners, barbarians, conquerors-they were Arians. The Franks, as even more barbarous, were more likely to submit in obedience to ecclesiastical dominion; and so it appears that almost throughout the reign of the Merovingian dynasty the two races held their separate functions-the Franks as kings, the Latins as churchmen. The weak prince who was deposed from his throne, or the timid one who felt himself unequal to its weight, was degraded, according to the Frankish notion, into a clerk;" he lost his national eminence and distinction, but disqualified by the tonsure from resuming his civil office, according to the sacerdotal notion, he was admitted to the blessed privilege of the priesthood; while at the same time his feeble and contemptible character was a guarantee against his becoming a dangerous rival for the higher honours of the Church. Hence, on the one hand, the unchecked growth of the sacerdotal authority, and the strong Catholicity of the clergy among the Franks, the retention of all the higher offices, at least in the Church, by the Roman Provincials, till they had become of such power, wealth, and dignity, as to rouse the ambition of the noble, and even of the royal families." n Queen Clotilda, when her two sons seized their nephews, her favourite grandsons (the children of Chlodomir), and gave her the choice of their death or tonsure, answered like a Frankish queen, VOL. I. "Satius mihi est, si ad regnum non veni- U |