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AUGUSTIN THIERRY
Tales of the
early franks
translated by
M.F.O. JENKINS
—
—
—
Thierry, Au,o;ustin
Tales oV the early Franks
94^4 0 THIERRY
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
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https://archive.org/details/talesofearlyfranOOaugu
AUGUSTIN THIERRY
Tales of the
early franks
EPISODES FROM MEROVINGIAN HISTORY
translated by
M.F.O. JENKINS
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS
University, Alabama
PUBLIC
)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Thierry, Augustin, 1795-1856.
Tales of the early Franks.
Translation of Recits des temps merovingiens.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Merovingians. I. Title.
DC65.T4313 944'.01 76-21314
ISBN 0-8173-8558-4
©
Copyright 1977 by
The University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
———
CONTENTS
Translator's Introduction vn
Preface
1
—
FIRST EPISODE: The Four—Sons of Lothar —I Their 7
Characters Their Marriages History
of Galswinth (561-568)
SECOND EPISODE: Sequel to the Murder of Galswinth 24
Civil War—Death of Sigibert (568-575)
THIRD EPISODE: History of Merovech, Second Son of 46
King Chilperic (575-578)
FOURTH EPISODE: History of Praetextatus, Bishop of 72
Rouen (577-586)
FIFTH EPISODE: History of Leudast, Count of Tours 94
—
The Poet Venantius Fortunatus The
Convent of Radegund at Poitiers (579-
581)
—
SIXTH EPISODE: Chilperic as Theologian Priscus the 133
—
Jew Continuation and Conclusion of
the History of Leudast (580-583)
SEVENTH EPISODE: Revolt of the Citizens of Limoges 152
—
GreatEpidemic Fredegund's Maternal
—
Sorrows History of Clovis, Third Son
of King Chilperic (580)
Notes 167
Index 172
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
"TheFranksorFrench,alreadymastersofTournaiandofthebanksofthe
Escaut, had spread out as far as the Somme. Clovis, son of King
. . .
Childeric,cametothethronein481,andbyhisvictoriesconsolidatedthe
foundations of the French monarchy."
These uninspiring, not to say downright arid, sentences ("and a few
others of like impact") nevertheless furnished the fuel for the eager
imagination of a fifteen-year-old at the College de Blois during the first
decade ofthe nineteenth century. Hehadlearned thembyheart, hetells
us, from the pages of the officialHistory ofFrance, published in 1789 for
the Royal Military Academy. Then, one fateful day in 1810, the dry fuel
was kindled: he got his hands on a copy of Chateaubriand's prose epic,
The Martyrs, which had burst into print the previous year, filled with
exotic tales about the parallel struggles of early Christianity against
paganism, and of third-century Imperial Rome against the encroaching
Barbarian hordes.
Amongthenumerousliteraryset-pieces inthework, oneinparticular
wastoelectrifytheyoungAugustinThierry, sittingallaloneintheschool
study-hall whileheread, or"rather devoured thepages." Thiswas
. . .
the famous account in Book IV of a battle between disciplined Roman
regulars and forty thousand Barbarians, "those terrible Franks of M. de
Chateaubriand." Thierry became so excited that he began to stride up
and down the vaulted room ("making my footsteps ring on the stone
floor"), as he declaimed the wild Frankish war-song to himself.
Years later, in 1—840, when his o—wn Tales of the Early Franks were
published, Thierry in his preface recalled the never-to-be-forgotten
encounterwith Chateaubriand as follows: "This momentofenthusiasm
was perhaps decisive for my future calling. At the time I was not in the
leastawareofwhathadjusttakenplacewithinme. . . . Today, ifIhave
someonereadmethepagewhichstruckmeso,Irecapturetheexcitement
of thirty years ago."
Augustin Thierry was thus, so to speak, virtually programmed to
become a historian; and so he did. His two best known works are a
History oftheNorman ConquestofEngland (1825) andtheTalesoftheEarly
Franks. Tragically, hehadlosthissightlongbeforethepublicationofthe
latter work, which was completed with the aid of secretaries and a
devoted wife.1
The Norman Conquest has been translated into English on several
occasions,2but to myknowledge thereexists no currentEnglishversion
viii INTRODUCTION
of his second major work. Such neglect could no doubt be explained in
part by the fact that the English-speaking public is for obvious reasons
more interested in William of Normandy, the Conquest of 1066, and its
aftermath than in the relatively obscure exploits of the Merovingian
kings of the early Dark Ages. This may well be so, but there is another,
more fundamental reason forthe absence ofan English edition ofThier-
ry's Recits des Temps Merovingiens. To put it briefly, his historical
methodology fell on evil days even d—uring his own lifetime and was
indeed pretty thoroughly discredited largely, it would seem, because
ofhis desiretomakehistoryinterestingtothegeneralreaderaswellasto
the professional historian. The preface to the Tales of the Early Franks
begins: "Ithas become almostacommonplace to assertthatnoperiodof
our history is so confusing or so dull as the Merovingian On the
. . .
contrary, itisteemingwithcuriousfacts, eccentriccharacters, andsucha
variety of dramatic incidents that one's only difficulty is to impose some
order on the mass of details" (my italics).
To the austere scholar, Thierry might well appear to have become so
entranced with his curious facts and eccentric characters that he never
didsucceedinimposinganynoticeableorderontheplethoraofdramatic
incidents and details that make his work so fascinating and full of life.
However, as is often the case, the pedant's poison is the layman's meat,
and it is preciselyThierry's failings as a historian, his frequentrecourse
tovividlocalcolor,hisaddictiontogrippingnarrativeandtounforgetta-
ble character studies, which make him so attractive to the nonspecialist.
ThebookistheveryantithesisofwhatintheprefaceThierryhimselfcalls
works "of pure erudition, instructive for researchers, tedious for the
—
ordinary reader." This ordinary reader, at least though of a far less
impressionable age than the enthralled boy devouring his copy of The
—
Martyrs in 1810 admits to beingvery nearly as electrified onfirst read-
ing the Tales of the Early Franks (whose continuing popularity with the
general public in France is, incidentally, attested by the existence of a
1965 paperback edition3). Not the least of Thierry's achievements, it
seemstome,ishisundoubtedsuccessinrecreatingwhatErichAuerbach
calls "the strange atmosphere of the Merovingian period"4 in all its
alien, startling, and often appalling reality. The work is above all in-
tensely dramatic in quality. The "terrible Franks" appear before us as
real, living, individual people (as do their contemporaries, the
RomanizedGauls), andnotassomecoldlyabstract,impersonalentity,as
—
is so often the case in school textbooks and, indeed, in works of far
higherpretensions. This is popularization in the highestandbestsense
of the term.
OneoftheoutstandingfeaturesofThierry'sapproachtohistorywhich
is so dismayingto theprofessionalhistorian(and, conversely, so engag-
ing to the amateur) is his unabashedly simplistic view of the respective
INTRODUCTION
ix
national characteristics ofthe aboriginal inhabitants ofRoman Gaul and
theirTeutonic overlords, the redoubtable Franks. At the royal wedding
of Sigibert and Brunhild, for example, described in the first Episode of
the Tales, "there were Gallic nobles, polished and ingratiating;
brusquely arrogant Frankish lords; and genuine savages dressed all in
furs, as uncouth in manner as in appearance" (I, 14). The barbaric
splendor of the nuptial feast is enlivened by "acclamations, bursts of
laughter, and all the uproarofTeutonic merriment," while there follows
"a farmore refined form ofentertainment, ofsuch a kind as to appeal to
only very few of the guests." The second citation, which refers to the
reading of a highly florid epithalamium by the last of the Roman poets,
Venantius Fortunatus, prompts Thierry to make the following superbly
patronizing observation: "Indeed, among the leading barbarian chiefs
there was no actual bias against civilization; they willingly took in
everything that they were capable of taking in. ..." (I, 15).
One of the oddest of Thierry's "eccentric characters" is the Frankish
nobleman Guntram-Bose. His portrait moral (III, 55), epitomizes the
author's preoccupation with the extreme polarization of the Teutonic
and Gallic psyches. "Though a German, he outdid in ingenuity, re-
sourcefulness, and instinctive knavery the subtlest of the Gallo-
. . .
Romans. His was not the ordinary Teutonic bad faith, the crude lie
accompanied by a guffaw; it was something at once more refined and
more perverse, a spirit of intrigue both universal and, as it were,
nomadic,forhepracticeditthroughoutthelengthandbreadthofGaul."
The main linkingcharacters ofthe sevenEpisodeswhichmake up the
work (covering the quarterof a century which elapsed between 561 and
586) are King ChilpericofNeustria, astrange, complexfigure, parttribal
chieftain, part civilized ruler, with a taste for architecture, poetry, and
theology, but in whom the ruthless and brutal Barbarian is forever
gaining the upper hand; his queen, the low-born, beautiful, and mon-
strously vindictive Fredegund, a combination of the archetypal wicked
stepmother and Lady Macbeth; and, lastly, the Gallo-Roman Bishop of
Tours, Gregory, Thierry's principal authority and the reluctant eyewit-
nessofmanyofthehorrorsandbizarreincidentsherelatessographically
in his History of the Franks.
Tomymind,GregoryandThierryareinmanywayskindredspirits. At
any rate, the modern historian rarely fails to emphasize the admirably
solid and respectablequalities displayed by theGallo-Romanchronicler
(a Victorian born out of his century): his dauntless faith; his manly
firmness in the face of ceaseless harassment by the turbulent Frankish
kings, a firmness which on more than one occasion called for personal
courage ofaveryhigh order; his touchingcapacityforbeing shockedby
what he considered improper or unseemly conduct;5 and, finally, his
somewhatponderous sense ofhumor, muchinevidenceinaregrettably
