History of the FranksGregory, Bishop of Tours, Saint
History
History of the Franks
Gregory, Bishop of Tours, Saint
France -- Church history -- To 987; France -- History -- To 987; Franks -- History -- To 768
me a true and faithful servant.” Clovis received him very readily,
and kept him by him, for he was entertaining in story-telling, ready
in counsel, just in judgment, and faithful in what was put in his
charge. Then when Clovis with all his army sat around the walls of
the city, Aridius said: “O King, if the glory of your loftiness
should kindly consent to hear the few words of my lowliness,
though you do not need counsel, yet I would utter them with entire
faithfulness, and they will be advantageous to you and to the cities
through which you purpose to go. Why,” said he, “do you keep your
army here, when your enemy sits in a very strong place? If you ravage
the fields, lay waste the meadows, cut down the vineyards, lay low
the olive-yards, and destroy all the produce of the country, you do
not, however, succeed in doing him any harm. Send an embassy rather
and impose tribute to be paid you every year, so that the country
may be safe and you may rule forever over a tributary. And if he
refuses, then do whatever pleases you.” The king took this advice,
and commanded his army to return home. Then he sent an embassy to
Gundobad, and ordered him to pay him every year a tribute. And he
paid it at once and promised that he would pay it for the future.
33. Later he regained his power, and now contemptuously refused to
pay the promised tribute to king Clovis, and set his army in motion
against his brother Godegisel, and shut him up in the city of Vienne
and besieged him. And when food began to be lacking for the common
people, Godegisel was afraid that the famine would extend to himself,
and gave orders that the common people be expelled from the city.
When this was done, there was driven out, among the rest, the artisan
who had charge of the aqueduct. And he was indignant that he had been
cast out from the city with the rest, and went to Gundobad in a rage
to inform him how to burst into the city and take vengeance on his
brother. Under his guidance an army was led through the aqueduct, and
many with iron crowbars went in front, for there was a vent in the
aqueduct closed with a great stone, and when this had been pushed
away with crowbars, by direction of the artisan, they entered the
city, and surprised from the rear the defenders who were shooting
arrows from the wall. The trumpet was sounded in the midst of the
city, and the besiegers seized the gates, and opened them and entered
at the same time, and when the people between these two battle lines
were being slain by each army, Godegisel sought refuge in the church
of the heretics, and was slain there along with the Arian bishop.
Finally the Franks who were with Godegisel gathered in a tower. But
Gundobad ordered that no harm should be done to a single one of them,
but seized them and sent them in exile to king Alaric at Toulouse,
and he slew the Burgundian senators who had conspired with Godegisel.
He restored to his own dominion all the region which is now called
Burgundy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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