CHRONICLES. HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 



prelates, he was brought up by his uncle, St. Gall, Bishop of Clermont, and 

 was himself made Bishop of Tours in 573. The esteem in which he was held 

 at the court of Chilperic and Fredegoiide enabled him to play a conspicuous 

 part in the political affairs of the Merovingian monarchy ; he had been mixed up 

 in the most secret transactions of Chilperic's reign, and was conversant with all 

 the details of the deadly struggle between the rival Queens, Fredegoiide and 

 Brunehaut. This, no doubt, was the reason which induced him to write his 



Fig. 356 Equestrian Statue of Clovis, King of the Franks (465 511), by Erwin de Steinbuch 

 (Thirteenth Century), placed over the Western Portico of Strasburg Cathedral. 



History. His book, commencing with the origin of France, embraces a period 

 of 174 years, from the establishment of the Franks in Gaul about the year 

 429. The first part of this History is written after Sidonius Apollinaris, St. 

 Remy, Bishop of Rheims, the " Acts of the Saints," and, above all, after oral 

 tradition (Fig. 356). With regard to the events of the last fifty years 

 recorded in his History, Gregory of Tours writes what he had himself seen, or 



