In the light of these conclusions, objectively reached,[15] as to Gregory’s language and style, how shall we interpret the confessions in regard to them which he repeatedly makes? In these confessions there are two leading notions: first, that he is without the qualifications to write in the literary style; second, that the popular language can be more widely understood. The inference is always therefore that Gregory writes in the language of the day. This, however, cannot be so. A language spoken by the people would have something organic about it, and it would not defy as Gregory’s does the efforts of scholars to find its usages. It would be simpler than the literary language and probably as uniform in its constructions. We must decide then that Gregory’s self-analysis is a mistaken one, correct in the first part but not in the second. He knew he could not write the literary language but in spite of this he made the attempt, and the result is what we have, a sort of hybrid, halfway between the popular speech and the formally correct literary language. * * * * * In the Epilogue of the _History of the Franks_ written in 594, the year of Gregory’s death, he gives us a list of his works: “I have written ten books of _History_, seven of _Miracles_, one on the _Lives of the Fathers_, a commentary in one book on the _Psalms_, and one book on the _Church Services_.”[16] These works represent two sides of Gregory’s experience,--his profession, and his relations with the Merovingian state. In the former sphere the overshadowing interest was the miraculous. We have eight books devoted to miracles and it may be said that as a churchman Gregory never got very far away from them. It is idle to discuss the question whether he believed in them or not. It is more to the point to attempt to appreciate the part they played in the thought and life of the time. They were considered as the most significant of phenomena. They seemed a guarantee that the relations were right between the supernatural powers on the one hand and on the other the men who possessed the “sanctity” to work miracles and those who had the faith or merit to be cured or rescued by them. Gregory’s eight books of _Miracles_ were thus a register of the chief interest of his day, with an eye of course to its promotion, and it is much more remarkable that he wrote a _History of the Franks_ than that he compiled this usually wearisome array of impossibilities.