Volume II Part 46 (1/2)

493 Fredigarius, xlii. The historian describes Clotaire as a perfect paragon of Christian graces.

494 ”Au sixieme siecle on compte 214 etabliss.e.m.e.nts religieux des Pyrenees a la Loire et des bouches du Rhone aux Vosges.”-Ozanam, _etudes germaniques_, tome ii. p. 93. In the two following centuries the ecclesiastical wealth was enormously increased.

495 Matthew of Westminster (A.D. 757) speaks of no less than eight Saxon kings having done this.

496 ”Le septieme siecle est celui peut-etre qui a donne le plus de saints au calendrier.”-Sismondi, _Hist. de France_, tome ii. p. 50.

”Le plus beau t.i.tre du septieme siecle a une rehabilitation c'est le nombre considerable de saints qu'il a produits.... Aucun siecle n'a ete ainsi glorifie sauf l'age des martyrs dont Dieu s'est reserve de compter le nombre. Chaque annee fournit sa moisson, chaque jour a sa gerbe.... Si donc il plait a Dieu et au Christ de repandre a pleines mains sur un siecle les splendeurs des saints, qu'importe que l'histoire et la gloire humaine en tiennent peu compte?”-Pitra, _Vie de St. Leger_, Introd. p. x.-xi. This learned and very credulous writer (who is now a cardinal) afterwards says that we have the record of more than eight hundred saints of the seventh century.

(Introd. p. lx.x.x.)

497 See, e.g., the very touching pa.s.sage about the death of his children, v. 35.

498 Lib. ii. Prologue.

499 Greg. Tur. ii. 27-43.

500 He observes how impossible it was that he could be guilty of shedding the blood of a relation: ”Sed in his ego nequaquam conscius sum. Nec enim possum sanguinem parentum meorum effundere.”-Greg.

Tur. ii. 40.

501 ”Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et augebat regnum ejus eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret quae placita erant in oculis ejus.”-Greg. Tur. ii. 40.

502 Lib. iii. Prologue. St. Avitus enumerates in glowing terms the Christian virtues of Clovis (_Ep._ xli.), but, as this was in a letter addressed to the king himself, the eulogy may easily be explained.

503 Thus Hallam says: ”There are continual proofs of immorality in the monkish historians. In the history of Rumsey Abbey, one of our best doc.u.ments for Anglo-Saxon times, we have an anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish n.o.bleman drunk, that he might cheat him out of an estate, which is told with much approbation. Walter de Hemingford records, with excessive delight, the well-known story of the Jews who were persuaded by the captain of their vessel to walk on the sands at low water till the rising tide drowned them.”-Hallam's _Middle Ages_ (12th ed.), iii. p. 306.

504 Canciani, _Leges Barbarorum_, vol. iii. p. 64. Canciani notices, that among the Poles the teeth of the offending persons were pulled out. The following pa.s.sage, from Bodin, is, I think, very remarkable: ”Les loix et canons veulent qu'on pardonne aux heretiques repentis (combien que les magistrats en quelques lieux par cy-devant, y ont eu tel esgard, que celui qui avoit mange de la chair au Vendredy estoit brusle tout vif, comme il fut faict en la ville d'Angers l'an mil cinq cens trente-neuf, s'il ne s'en repentoit: et jacoit qu'il se repentist si estoit-il pendu par compa.s.sion).”-_Demonomanie des Sorciers_, p. 216.

505 A long list of examples of extreme maceration, from lives of the saints of the seventh and eighth centuries is given by Pitra, _Vie de St. Leger_, Introd. pp. cv.-cvii.

506 This was related of St. Equitius.-Greg. _Dialog._ i. 4.

507 Ibid. i. 5. This saint was named Constantius.

508 A vast number of miracles of this kind are recorded. See, e.g., Greg. Tur. _De Miraculis_, i. 61-66; _Hist._ iv. 49. Perhaps the most singular instance of the violation of the sanct.i.ty of the church was that by the nuns of a convent founded by St. Radegunda.

They, having broken into rebellion, four bishops, with their attendant clergy, went to compose the dispute, and having failed, excommunicated the rebels, whereupon the nuns almost beat them to death in the church.-Greg. Tur. ix. 41.

509 See Canciani, _Leges Barbarorum_, vol. iii. pp. 19, 151.

510 Much information about these measures is given by Dr. Hessey, in his _Bampton Lectures on Sunday_. See especially, lect. 3. See, too, Moehler, _Le Christianisme et l'Esclavage_, pp. 186-187.

511 Gregory of Tours enumerates some instances of this in his extravagant book _De Miraculis_, ii. 11; iv. 57; v. 7. One of these cases, however, was for having worked on the day of St. John the Baptist. Some other miracles of the same nature, taken, I believe, from English sources, are given in Hessey's _Sunday_ (3rd edition), p. 321.

512 Compare Pitra, _Vie de St.-Leger_, p. 137. Sismondi, _Hist. des Francais_, tome ii. pp. 62-63.

513 See a remarkable pa.s.sage from his life, cited by Guizot, _Hist. de la Civilisation en France_, xviime lecon. The English historians contain several instances of the activity of charity in the darkest period. Alfred and Edward the Confessor were conspicuous for it.

Ethelwolf is said to have provided, ”for the good of his soul,”

that, till the day of judgment, one poor man in ten should be provided with meat, drink, and clothing. (a.s.ser's _Life of Alfred_.) There was a popular legend that a poor man having in vain asked alms of some sailors, all the bread in their vessel was turned into stone. (Roger of Wendover, A.D. 606.) See, too, another legend of charity in Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 611.

514 Greg. Tur. _Hist._ v. 8.