Gregory left many writings, of which he himself gives an enumeration at
the end of his _Historia Francorum_: "Decem libros Historiarum, septem
Miraculorum, unum de Vita Patrum scripsi; in Psalterii tractatu librum
unum commentatus sum; de Cursibus etiam ecclesiasticis unum librum
condidi." The ten books of history are discussed below. The seven books
of miracles are divided into the _De gloria martyrum_, the _De
virtutibus sancti Juliani_, four books of _Miracula sancti Martini_, and
the _De gloria confessorum_, the last dealing mainly with confessors who
had dwelt in the cities of Tours and Clermont. The _Vitae patrum_
consists of twenty biographies of bishops, abbots and hermits belonging
to Gaul. The commentary on the Psalms is lost, the preface and the
titles of the chapters alone being extant. The treatise _De cursibus
ecclesiasticis_, discovered in 1853, is a liturgical manual for
determining the hour of divers nocturnal offices by the position of the
stars. Gregory also left a life of St Andrew, translated from the Greek,
and a history of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, translated from Syriac.
His most important work, however, is the _Historia Francorum_, which is
divided into three parts. The first four books, which were composed at
one time, cover the period from the creation of the world to the death
of Sigebert in 575. The first book, which is a mere compilation from the
chronicles of St Jerome and Orosius, is of no value. The second book,
from 397 to 511, deals with the invasions of the Franks, and is based on
the histories of Sulpicius Alexander and Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus,
now lost; on the catalogues of the bishops of Clermont and Tours; on
some lives of saints, e.g. Remigius and Maxentius, now lost; on the
annals of Arles and Angers, now lost; and on legends, either collected
by Gregory himself from oral tradition, or cantilenes or epics written
in the Latin and Germanic languages. In the third and fourth books the
earlier part is based on materials collected from men older than
himself; of the later events he was himself an eye-witness. The fifth
and sixth books, up to the death of Chilperic (584), deal with matters
within his own experience. The first six books are often separate in the
MSS., and it was these alone that were used by the chronicler
Fredegarius in his abridgment of Gregory's history. To the first six
books Gregory subsequently added chapters on the bishops Salonius and
Sagittarius, and on his quarrels with Felix of Nantes. The authenticity
of these chapters has been undeservedly attacked by Catholic writers.
Books vii. to x., from 584 to 591, were written in the form of a diary;
of each important event, as it occurred, he inserted an account in his
book. The last six books are of great historical value.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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