arose between him and Cato the priest because no one was ever able to influence Cato to submit to his bishop. A division of the clergy appeared and some followed the bishop Cautinus and others the priest Cato. This was a great drawback to them. And Cautinus saw that Cato could not be forced in any way to submit to him and took all church property from him and his friends and whoever took his part, and left them weak and empty. But whoever of them returned to him, again received what he had lost. [8. King Agila of Spain loses cities to the emperor which his successor Athanagild recovers.] 9. When Theodovald[AY] had grown up he married Vuldetrada. This Theodovald, they say, had a bad disposition so that when he was angry with any one whom he suspected of taking his property he would make up a fable, saying: “A snake found a jar full of wine. He went in by its neck and greedily drained what was inside. But being puffed out by the wine he could not go out by the opening by which he had entered. And the owner of the wine came, and when the snake tried to get out but could not, he said to him: ‘First vomit out what you have swallowed and then you will be able to go free.’” This fable made him greatly feared and hated. Under him Buccelenus after bringing all Italy under the rule of the Franks was slain by Narses, and Italy was taken by the emperor’s party and there was no one to recover it later. In his time we saw grapes grow on the tree we call _saucum_ [elder-tree] without having any vine on it, and the blossoms of the same trees, which as you know usually produce black seeds, yielded the seeds of grapes. At that time a star coming from the opposite direction was seen to enter the disk of the fifth moon. I suppose these signs announced the death of the king. He became very sick and could not move from the waist down. He gradually grew worse and died in the seventh year of his reign, and king Clothar took his kingdom, taking Vuldetrada his wife to his bed. But being rebuked by the bishops he left her, giving her to duke Garivald and sending his son Chramnus to Clermont. [10. King Clothar destroys the greater part of the rebellious Saxons and lays Thuringia waste.]