Historia Septem Dormientium

THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. A LETTER OF SAINT GREGORY, BISHOP OF TOURS, TO THE BLESSED SULPICIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF BOURGES, ON THE LIFE OF THE SAINTS, THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. To the most blessed father Sulpicius, by the grace of God Archbishop of Bourges, Gregory, the unworthy priest of Tours, in God our Saviour, sends perpetual greeting. In the poet, under the figure of bees, the virtue and prudence of the saints is praised, when he says: "The more they are exhausted, the more keenly do they all set about repairing the ruins of the fallen race." (Virgil, Georgics IV) This, most blessed Father, it has been permitted to set at the head of this letter, considering with how much prudence, with how much solicitude you strive to strengthen the wavering state of the Church and to repair its ruins. This shines forth in you as a particular example, this you do not cease to do through the honeyed words of your exhorting sermons, this, finally, by bringing forth the deeds of the preceding saints into the midst. Hence it is that, among other things which your sublimity has commanded of my littleness—a pressing command, that is, the admonition of a friend—you require that I commit to writing the acts, life, or end of the Seven Sleepers, who are said to rest at the monastery of Majas, and whose celebrated fame is spread far and wide. Then I, according to that poetic saying, as is my custom, out of reverence for you, replied: "It is yours, kind father, to have set forth what you desire; it is for me to undertake what you command." (Virgil, Aeneid I)

And immediately, with, so to speak, the foot of ready obedience, following your command, I searched the archives of the churches and, turning over the libraries, at last in the aforementioned monastery of Menat I found what I was seeking. Therefore, preserving the tenor of the Church, I have sent a transcript to Your Paternity, as you had requested. For the rest, it is yours to bring forth, it is yours to seek by the grace of Christ, to build churches, and to obtain the grace of Christ the Lord for a friend, indeed for an obedient servant. HERE BEGINS THE LIFE, OR CONVERSATION, AND ALSO THE DEATH OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS, WHOSE BODIES ARE CONTAINED IN THE MAJOR MONASTERY, AND WHOSE NAMES ARE INSCRIBED HERE: CLEMENS, PRIMUS, LAETUS, THEODORUS, GAUDENS, QUIRIACUS, INNOCENTIUS. In the times of Diocletian and Maximian, due to their cruelty, almost the whole world began to fail and to withdraw from the power of the Romans: among many, however, the kingdom of the Huns withdrew, with Florus, a most vigorous king, presiding over them. This Florus, after his father named Ammarus had recently entered the way of all flesh, obtained the kingdom, being twenty years old. Moreover, this same Florus had two brothers younger than himself, Martinus and Ammarus. The aforementioned Florus married a most beautiful girl, Brichildis by name, the daughter of Chut, king of the Saxons, from whom he begot three sons: the firstborn Florus, the begetter of the blessed Martin of Tours; the second Hilgrinus; the third Ammarus.

Now Hilgrinus the second begot four sons: Clement, Primus, Laetus, and Theodorus. The third, Amnarus, begot three: Gaudens, Cyriacus, and Innocentius. Florus, then, when he had enjoyed his kingdom prosperously for nearly ten years, was attacked by Maximianus. After laboring for nearly three years, Maximianus entered the first parts of his kingdom with the greatest difficulty and not without the death and blood of his own soldiers. Indeed, Florus, contending with him twice and thrice, had put him to shameful flight, defeated. But by the betrayal of his own men, Maximianus seized a certain fortress and fortified it against Florus and his kingdom; and so a second and a third time. Finally, he besieged Florus in a certain very strongly fortified castle with nearly all the nobility of the Huns. Besieged for half a year, Florus was compelled to come to surrender, with his life and the lives of his own men and their limbs granted to them. And Maximianus led the captives with him to Rome, among whom were two brothers of King Florus, Martinus and Amnarus. Florus had not yet begotten sons, except his firstborn, Florus, three years old; he begot the other two after his return from captivity. When they had been presented to Diocletian, he sent them into prison. After nearly half a year, Diocletian, remembering Florus’s deeds of valor, ordered him to be brought before him.

Seeing that her beauty had withered from the filth and toil of prison, he was moved by pity; and he released her and sent her back to her own, also permitting her to rule her kingdom during her lifetime with its revenues, after the fortifications had been removed or broken. He allowed her to reign on this condition: that after her death, her son should not be raised to the kingdom or to the consulship, but should only be a tribune. When this had been confirmed on both sides, he withdrew with all his men. II. Returning, in that same year he begot two twin sons, Hilgrinus and Amnarus. [But God, who does not accept the person of princes and rejects their counsels; who hardens whom he wills, delivers them to a reprobate mind, and leads them into stupor; and he permitted the emperors themselves, who had long vexed the Church with the gravest persecutions, to fall into such a change of madness and vanity that Diocletian at Nicomedia and Maximian at Milan, on the same day, laying down the insignia of empire, lived as private citizens after their rule. But Maximian, not long after, repenting of what he had done, when he was plotting death for his son-in-law Constantine, who already held the kingdom, his treachery was discovered, and he was captured at Massilia; and not long afterward, in prison, with a noose broken around his neck, he was strangled; or, as some assert, suffocated by demons, he ended his impious life with a worthy death.]

Diocletian, however, understanding that he himself had become suspect to the same Constantine for the same reason, became his own punisher, impiously, by drinking poison, and ended the final day of his life in his villa near the town of Salonae. When these men had been punished with both temporal and eternal death, and when, after the foul and dreadful darkness of wars and persecutions, the long-desired tranquility of peace began, by divine will, to shine widely throughout the world, Florus entrusted his firstborn son, Florus, to Constantine—who had succeeded the same emperors Diocletian and Maximian, together with his father Constantius and Galerius Maximian, for only a very short time as an intermediate—to be raised. This same Constantine always held him dear and beloved. When he had grown up and become a soldier, he gave him his own granddaughter, the daughter of his sister, as a wife, and, having appointed him tribune, sent him back to his father. From this same wife, while his own father was still alive, he fathered a son, whom he ordered to be called Florus. This son [was indeed born in the 17th year of Constantine, but] later, in the time of [his son] Constantius, by the blessed Paul, bishop of Constantinople, with God disposing, he was made a catechumen and, having been baptized, was called Mirinus.

Moreover, his venerable baptizer, the same patriarch Paul, was driven into exile by the same Constantius—who, succeeding his father in the empire, had declined into the Arian heresy—at a certain small town of Cappadocia named Cucusus, on account of the Catholic faith; and there, cruelly strangled by the treacheries of the Arians, he migrated victorious to the heavenly realms. But Florus, worn out by old age, closed his final day, left his land to his firstborn son, and placed his two younger brothers under his authority. After his father’s death, he ruled the land manfully and married his brothers to the daughters of the most noble men of the Hunnish district; from these, his firstborn, Hilgrinus by name, as was said before, begot four sons; the second, Amnarus, three. III. Therefore Florus the tribune, son of King Florus, after the death of Constantine and during the reign of Constantius, came to Constantinople with his young son Florus, whom he commended to the emperor; the emperor kept him with him and made him a soldier. And while he was still a youth, Julian Caesar—brought by his cousin Constantius into Gaul against the barbarians who were infesting the lands of the Romans, ignorant of what he would later decide about him—took him along to bring aid and, as long as he prevailed, kept him in his retinue for military training. But the holy man chose rather to serve the heavenly God than to serve under an earthly emperor.

Because he was especially brought about for this purpose, that the triumphant standard of the holy cross might be carried and adored in the western parts of the world, and that the sacraments of the military might be changed by the edicts of the Evangelist. He, illustrious by birth, but more illustrious by merits, holy from infancy, devoted from boyhood, advancing from virtue to virtue, shone forth with great miracles in the world, and resplended far and wide with Catholic teachings. For he who had begun with such great virtue, and with so great and stupendous a miracle, at the beginning of his ways of God—what wonder if he also had prosperous courses and blessed outcomes in them always? Indeed, it would be a wonder if, after such a marvelous conversion by which God drew him to himself, and a life arduous in the sublimity of virtues, glorious in the brightness of miracles, and splendid in the decor of religion, he did not continually lead such a life until the end of his days. For who does not consider it more marvelous than almost every virtue and miracle, that a little child barely ten years old, having imbibed, so to speak, with his mother's milk the fanatical superstition of error, should have shuddered at it, and, with his parents, guardians, and tutors now threatening, now beating, now coaxing and urging him to desist, should have fled to the faith of Christ and to the fellowship of the Church, whose sacraments he had not yet received?

Who would not raise up with the highest praises a twelve-year-old boy, like a wise and strong man, disregarding the tenderness of his mother, the squalor of the desert, and whatever he might have to endure there, as if he had desired delights; and who, because of the weakness of his body, could not yet accomplish what he was later to fulfill, yet at least by meditating and desiring in the sight of God—who sometimes considers the will as the deed—was already doing it? Who would not judge that a young man, brought up in the highest luxuries, bound by his father’s rights to worldly military service, should be proclaimed with extraordinary praise, for showing himself as a hermit or monk, not only refraining from evil works but also from every wicked desire, and keeping himself unsullied in the midst of a Babylonian furnace boiling with sulfur and pitch; while others plundered what was not theirs and mocked him, he gave away not only his own superfluous goods but even his necessities to the poor, and indeed surpassed even the precepts, as is evident from his having divided his cloak? Concerning the other, we have a precept that of two garments one is to be given for Christ, not that one is to be divided, which this man did, whose heart was ready to offer both his possessions and himself to Christ and for Christ to his brothers.

In this, who would not receive with amazement that, placed among the wealthiest and most renowned parents, as it were descended from royal ancestors, and compelled in his youth to follow the retinue of first one and then another—of King Constantius and of Caesar Julian—in different parts of the world, and to adhere to and obey them, as it were the sons of his maternal uncles, of whom one was an Arian, the other an apostate, both persecutors of the orthodox, he preserved his faith uncorrupted in such a great contrariety of things opposed to him, and always embraced earthly poverty, and maintained perfect humility? And who would pass over as thoughtless in him that, when he saw Christ surrounded by the part of the cloak with which he had covered a poor man, and that part, as it were, boasting among the angels, he did not boast of so great and so glorious a vision, of which another would boast; but rather humbled, with a panting desire like a thirsty stag for springs of water, having returned to Constantinople, having received from the blessed Paul, patriarch of that city, as we have said, the sacrament of baptism, which he had diligently turned over in his breast and had long labored to bring forth, and which was already, as it were, bursting forth into the fruit of life with natural maturity, he himself willingly undertook to bring to effect?

What is this, that, having trampled underfoot all the allurements of the seductive world, he might freely devote himself to God, and without the interruption of external care, raising his life to a heavenly one, might more often taste and see how sweet the Lord is? Since he considered this one thing, according to the Lord's saying, most necessary, and burned vehemently to attain only this, who would not delight in contemplating, who would not strive to imitate, with what simple and genuine love he delayed for the sake of his brother's salvation? Truly admirable is the kindness of the holy youth! For when he knew that he could obtain this best portion, which is taken from no one who follows it, only in a hole in the rock and a cavern in a wall, where there is unique protection and singular refuge for those fleeing into the shade from the heat of the day, and into security and concealment from storm and rain, yet with the vow of saving his companion, he endured the evils of the world for two years against his own vow, standing outside as if roofless amid storms, clouds, and hailstorms, in the mud of the deep, on the slippery ground of the world, where his foot could find no rest; where he was not only afflicted by injuries, but also pressed by countless dangers. What would he do, or rather what would he not do, for the salvation of many, who for the devotion of one endured so much tedium, suffered so long a loss of his own peace?

What crosses, what tortures, what injuries, if they were inflicted for the Savior, would he not prefer to all feasts, however delicate, who, for the love of a mortal man, deferred so long the fulfillment of the sole desire of his unique joy, for the delay of which he was bitterly tormented? But indeed the patience of the holy youth was being exercised, his fortitude was being tested, his experience was being formed, and he was learning beforehand in himself, by spontaneous charity, what later, at the opportune time, placed as a bishop over souls, he would have to do with due solicitude for many. Thus taught from youth, he did this very thing in old age, beyond almost all men, and more than could be required of him. In the days of the Emperor Maximus, when, walking according to a charity that does not seek its own, he not only wished to become, according to Paul, but even made himself almost an anathema from Christ for brothers of harmful communion: not by will, but by necessity entering into an assembly, so that he might consult for the churches of the Spains, for whose necks the sword of the savage king was threatening.

But knowing without doubt that for the fulfillment of the law the burdens of some must be borne by others, knowing that love is the fullness of the law, knowing that charity is the bond of perfection and the beginning of spiritual fruits; knowing that through it we must serve one another, that it itself never falls away, and that one walking in it neither errs nor fails, relying on the support of such great virtue, he confidently presumed that whatever loss he might at some time incur for its preservation could, through that same charity which covers a multitude of sins, be very easily restored or made good. Nor, I pray, should this digression—made for the admiration and contemplation of Martin’s merits in his still youthful age—be judged by anyone as burdensome or idle, since the whole sum of this little work looks back to him, and we have set our sluggish pen in motion no less for the sake of displaying both his abundant charity, with which he always overflowed, and the nobility of his origin, passed over by Severus, the first writer of his Life, than for the purpose of making known to posterity the venerable conduct or death of his aforementioned kinsmen.

IV. But to return now from these matters to the sequence of the story we have undertaken: Martin, having cast off the old man and put on the new through baptism, was detained in the retinue of his tribune, whom he was so earnestly striving to win for Christ, and who, upon the completion of his term of tribuneship, had promised, with a change of life and habit, that he would serve God. Overcome by the tribune’s entreaties and bound, as it were, by affection, Martin remained in his company for two years, not devoting himself to plunder, but, as he had begun, to holy works. When this period of waiting, which he bore most heavily, was completed, he did not immediately rest content, but renounced flesh and blood; and, despite the opposition and indignation of the Caesar, having abjured secular military service, having disowned his parents, his estates, and his homeland—where, born and known, rich and renowned, and for this reason able to be considered revered and magnificent—God, destining him for us as a patron, he fled into these foreign regions, where he would be considered unknown and inglorious, an exile and a praiseworthy pauper. As proof of his great humility, he submitted himself to be instructed by the teachings and examples of the most excellent and admirable man Hilary, who in those days appeared as the singular lamp and pillar of the Gallic Church, so that he might not run in vain or dangerously if he were borne by his own judgment and set himself up as his own master, and so that he might not fall into the number of those of whom it is said: “Woe to you who are wise in your own eyes and prudent before yourselves” (Isaiah 5:21).

While he was sweating in the school of virtues, and was ordered by his master to ascend to a higher rank of the Levitical order, he himself, for the increase of his progress, settled in the lowest office of exorcist, all the more securely as it was more humbly, with his same master finally conceding and wondering. What, then, was to become of this man, so founded in humility? Was it not, according to the Scriptures, that glory should receive the humble in spirit, and that he who had humbled himself should be exalted by the highest teacher of humility, whom he almost followed? And that he, who in silence and subjection had investigated the ways of life, powerful in deed and word, and worthy of apostolic ministry, should make known to others the paths of life? But how could he approach the ministry unless he were taken up? And how could he preach unless he were sent? Therefore, while he was living in the highest subjection and being instructed in quiet with his master, thinking nothing great of himself, arranging nothing lofty, the Lord, who looked upon and esteemed the heart of his little one, commands him through a revelation to undertake the work of an evangelist, and to visit his parents, whom the error of paganism still bound, in order to instill in them the faith of Christ.

Relying, therefore, on the divine oracle, with the permission of the blessed Hilarius—for he had not yet been sent into exile by Augustus Constantius for the defense of the faith—he devotedly set out for the place to which he had been ordered. And scattering the word of God all around, he strove to bring a great harvest from the conversion of the unbelievers into the granary of Christ. With the cooperation of supernal grace, he converted his own parents to the profession of the Christian faith, with only his father remaining, by the inscrutable judgment of God, in the image and error of an earthly man, defending the superstitious fanatical cult from the authority of old usage, badly imbibed from infancy. He also regenerated in Christ the mother who had given him birth into the world, becoming the spiritual father of the one whose carnal son he was, and providing for her that she might be the beginning of something of a new creature in the world, from whom he himself, as a man, had received his beginning, after God. He brought it about that both she and the others whom he had won for salvation were reborn in Christ through the hands of his father's paternal uncles, namely his own great-uncles Martinus and Aumarus, who were most Christian and performed the office of bishop in the cities assigned to them. Among them were also baptized his uncles Hilgrinus and Amnarus, with their seven sons, namely Clemens, Primus, Laetus, Theodurus, Gaudens, Cyriacus, and Innocentius.

Their fathers, namely Hilgrinus and Amnarus, did not divide the paternal inheritance like other brothers, but, just as they were born as twins from a single birth, so they were content with one house, one estate, one common property, together with their wives and children. In the same year in which they were baptized, they entered upon the way of all flesh. Therefore, their aforementioned seven sons, selling all their estates, distributed the price to the poor and set their slaves free. They themselves shut themselves up in a certain place, devoting themselves to reading, prayer, and psalmody, content with only two little servants, who would provide them with the comfort of service. Living in an upper room without complaint, pleasing both God and men, lacking the agreeable companionship of wives and children, they earnestly strove to lead a celibate life. Moreover, from the remnants of their food, to whatever regions they were carried, or by whatever sick persons they were taken, whatever infirmity held them, they were immediately healed. For this reason, first from the neighboring province, later from almost the entire region, people came, venerating them as prophets of God. Many of them, imitating their faith through their preaching, were subjected to Christianity, and, putting off the old man, were clothed in the new, who is created according to God. Finally, all venerated them with both services and various gifts.

Moreover, the princes, tribunes, and Christian soldiers, Jews and pagans, visited them, revered them, and cultivated them. Moved by this, the servants of God, fearing to be subjected to vain glory and ambition of this world, seeking a hiding place in flight, resolved to leave their homeland; especially since in this they had the example of Abraham, and more recently many other righteous men, and most recently their cousin the most blessed Martin. [Just as he, obediently hearing the precepts and counsels of Christ, had preferred nothing to His love, but, leaving all behind, taking up the cross, and denying himself, following Him as leader and committing himself to His will, had cast aside the pernicious faculty of his own will common to all, so Christ also, liberally fulfilling the promise of His word, had illumined him with the glory of miracles, the honor of the pontificate, and an abundance of riches—though he fled from these—and had already rendered to him here the hundredfold promised to His followers, while preserving for him in the future the fullness of eternal reward. And when he had gone out from his land and his kindred alone for the sake of Christ, with the same Christ, his leader, magnifying him in the land of his pilgrimage and working wonders at the word of his mouth, strange to say! he raised up from stones the sons of Abraham, and changed the hearts of men, leading the erring and unbelieving to the paths of righteousness and to the wisdom of the just.

He overthrew temples, founded monasteries, built churches; and thus gradually increasing, he had become a great nation. V. Therefore, the aforementioned men, hearing the fame of his sanctity and the renown of his name, and that he had been appointed to the episcopate of the city of Tours, having taken counsel, with meager expenses and scant baggage collected, they determined to come to him and to live by his counsel: which was done. Coming to the city of Tours, they found the blessed Martin celebrating the solemnities of the Mass in his episcopal office, according to his custom of the Lord, and they asked for a blessing in the manner of pilgrims. After the divine solemnities of the Mass were completed, the most blessed Martin recognized them as his kinsmen and cousins; and he wept over each one, and kissed them; and leading them across the river with him, where a multitude of brothers dwelt, he invited them to a meal in common with the brothers. On the following day, they recounted the whole course of their pilgrimage, saying that their desire was to visit the thresholds of the apostles Peter and Paul, to proceed to Jerusalem to visit the Lord’s sepulcher and adore the Lord’s cross, to come by way of the blessed James’s sepulcher, and thus to return to him. They undertook this journey with the blessing of the blessed Martin, going barefoot, wearing woolen garments, content with bread, water, and raw herbs, and completed it in five years.

Returning safe and sound, they presented themselves to blessed Martin with many relics, namely from the Lord's sepulchre and his most holy cross, also from the sepulchre of holy Mary, the mother of the Lord, and from her garments, from the relics of the apostles Peter and Paul and of holy James, the brother of the Lord, and from many others, which blessed Martin, receiving reverently, placed with reverence in the apse of the greater church. The seven brothers themselves, giving themselves over to blessed Martin and to the brothers dwelling there, both in soul and in body, vowed that they would not depart from that place. Immediately, blessed Martin received them gladly, and clothed them in the monastic habit, and confirmed them with his own blessing; and he placed them in a cave on the side of a hollowed-out mountain, and he also built an oratory for them in that same rock, and blessed the altar, where he also deposited with his own hand the relics which they themselves had brought. He ordained Clement and Primus as presbyters, Laetus and Theodorus as deacons, Gaudens, Cyriacus and Innocentius as subdeacons. They remained in that same cell or oratory, where they delighted in fasts, prayer, silence, and reading, as long as blessed Martin survived.

He himself, knowing his own death long beforehand through a revelation, decided to go to the vicus of Condat to restore peace among the dissenting clerics of that church; and also knowing through the spirit that he would not return, he summoned all the brothers of the monastery, kissed each one, and blessed them, and set over them one of the brothers in his own place, named Gualberrus, and appointed him abbot, and confirmed him with his blessing; and to him he commended the seven aforementioned brothers and his own cousins, who, receiving them, loved them singularly in common with the other brothers, and spiritually visited and strengthened them. VI. Now blessed Martin, after his own death, very often appeared to them in vision until the day of their departure, consoling and strengthening them. And they lived with him in the holy purpose for sixteen years, and after his passing for twenty-five: namely under the first abbot Gualberrus for twenty-three years; under the second abbot Aicardus for two years. In the time of this second abbot Aicardus, it happened that the feast of the blessed Martin’s death fell on a Saturday; and on the following day, which we celebrate as the Lord’s day, after the solemnities of matins had been completed, at midnight blessed Martin appeared to them, announcing to them the day of their own death, saying: “Tomorrow at early morning call Abbot Aicardus to you; and when he is present, each of you reveal to him the whole course of your life and your deeds, confessing all your sins.

Also tell him from me, that he should celebrate Mass in honor of the Holy Trinity, making commemoration of me, and of the saints whose relics are contained in the present altar consecrated by me, and he should place individual hosts to be offered for each of you, which, once consecrated, you will each receive. After Communion has been completed, and the viaticum of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ has been received, and the Mass has been finished, you will prostrate yourselves in prayer, you will enter upon the way of all flesh, being both strangers to the pain of death and alien to the corruption of the flesh; and thus you will be received by Angels, and led upward by me myself, until we present you before the tribunal of Christ: all of which was done as the blessed Martin commanded. When, however, they had received Communion [viaticum] from the hand of Abbot Aicardus, after Mass was finished, with knees bent, sound and unharmed, prostrate in prayer they entered upon the way of all flesh, as the blessed Martin had foretold, being both strangers to the pain of death and alien to the corruption of the flesh. And immediately that cell was filled with such a fragrance, as if a heap of many spices were thought to be scattered there. Receiving them, however, not from death, but as if from prayer, Abbot Aicardus together with the brothers did not think them dead but sleeping, since their faces blushed like a rose, their flesh shone like snow. For which reason he arranged them on seats.

just as they were accustomed to sit in their cell, and placed them so that they could be seen by all, with only the necessary barriers set between them and those entering to protect them from injury. The thresholds were also open so that all who came could see the faces of the saints, not as of the dead, but as of the sleeping: for although they were dead to men, yet to God, for whom all things live, they were sleeping. For seven days, during which they were above ground, that most sweet odor did not cease. And such was the multitude of those arriving as the place allowed, or as the roads and paths could hold. All who came with fevers or chills returned healthy; lepers, the deaf, the mute, and many lame were cured. And those who could not come were brought on beds and stretchers, and by the fragrance of the odor they returned safe. Finally, on the seventh day after their passing, Abbot Aicardus, having gathered the brothers of the holy monastery, attended the funeral. He also sent for and summoned the most holy old man, the bishop of the city of the see of Tours, the blessed Brictius, together with the clergy and people: and by common counsel, just as they were clothed, they buried them in that same cell or oratory, before the altar of that oratory, consecrated by the blessed Marinus with the relics of the saints. They passed away on the day before the Ides of November, the second day after the feast on which the passing of Saint Martin is celebrated, and they were interred on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of December.

Those buried in the earth manifest that they live in Christ through virtues and miracles, by the grace of the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all the ages of ages. Amen. Here ends the story and death of the Seven Sleepers. Here begins the Prologue of the blessed Gregory, Archbishop of Tours, into the Life of the blessed Maurilius, Bishop and Confessor. (From several manuscript codices.) To the most holy lord Germanus, president of the holy mother church of Paris, Gregory, humble bishop of the metropolis of Tours, sends greetings. You have indeed asked that we, by the skill of our authority, correct the Lives and Miracles which the Lord deigned to work through the blessed Maurilius and Albinus, bishops of Angers, which the priest Fortunatus had described in eloquent language but which were now almost corrupted by the faults of copyists, and that we send them to your Devotion, who desire to profit by the examples of those before you. But we, recalling that if we do this, we will be torn apart by the barks and bites of the faithless, who do not know how to seek doctrine but only to envy, we are struck with the grief of a twofold burden, fearing both not to obey your commands and to displease them. Yet, trusting in the promises of the Almighty, who, speaking through his prophet, made known that those who sow in tears will reap in joys (Ps. 125:6), we will satisfy your will.

We know indeed that if someone were to set down with the pen the lives and virtues of the most holy confessors of Christ—things worthy of imitation that can also benefit another age—and were to correct them, even in a rustic style, he would confer both a reward upon himself and salvation upon those wishing to imitate them. We therefore consider it a crime not to speak of the virtues of the most precious confessors of Christ, Maurilius and Albinus, or to correct them, since they are worthy of memory; using a common pen, as you have requested, so that they may benefit the unlearned, we shall set down a few things from many, but nevertheless, with God as witness, the truest things, omitting many things published by Fortunatus which might perhaps seem incredible to the faithless. But what we have compiled we have thought fit to offer more worthily to your Holiness’s petition, so that you who rejoice in imitating them may profit, informed by their virtues. HERE BEGINS THE LIFE OF SAINT MAURILIUS. —Therefore Maurilius was a native of the town of Milan, born of most illustrious parents, etc. (In a codex from Vézelay, at Percy in Burgundy, written about eight hundred years ago, after the Life of Saint Albinus, which is usually attributed to Fortunatus, this conclusion is found: Here ends the Life of blessed Albinus composed by blessed Gregory, bishop of Tours.)

Saint Gregory, Bishop of Tours, Antiphon on Saints Medard and Gildard, Bishops and Brothers. (From a manuscript codex in Surius, under the day of June.) Hail, great bishops throughout the whole world, twin in birth, equal in health, consecrated together, crowned alike, you have joined to dedicate a feast day: by your merits, holy Medard with the renowned Gildard, always bring aid to the people who seek your help.