Evidence ID
E00049Saint Name
Gregory, bishop of Langres (Gaul), ob. 539/540 : S00038Saint Name in Source
GregoriusType of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Lives of saintEvidence not before
573Evidence not after
593Activity not before
520Activity not after
595Place of Evidence - Region
Gaul and Frankish kingdomsPlace of Evidence - City, village, etc
ToursPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Tours
Tours
Tours
Toronica urbs
Prisciniacensim vicus
Pressigny
Turonorum civitas
Ceratensis vicus
CéréMajor author/Major anonymous work
Gregory of ToursCult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Composing and translating saint-related textsCult Activities - Miracles
Miracle during lifetime
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Exorcism
Observed scarcity/absence of miracles
Power over objects
Miraculous power through intermediaryCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
ChildrenCult Activities - Relics
Contact relic - saint’s possession and clothesSource
Gregory, bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594), was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
The Life of the Fathers by Gregory of Tours is different from his other hagiographical works (Miracles of Julian, Miracles of Martin, Glory of the Confessors and Glory of the Martyrs), which all concentrate on posthumous miracles of the saints. The Life of the Fathers, by contrast, describes the exemplary behaviour in life of twenty Gallic saints (for a list of the Lives, see $E05870). Gregory himself draws this contrast in the opening words of his preface: 'I had decided to write only about what has been achieved with divine help at the tombs of the blessed martyrs and confessors; but I have recently discovered information about those who have been raised to heaven by the merit of their blessed conduct here below, and I thought that their way of life, which is known to us through reliable sources, could strengthen the Church' (trans. James 1991, 1). In this preface Gregory also explains why he chose to call the book Life of the Fathers, not Lives of the Fathers: because they all lived the same bodily life.
The nineteen Lives of men, and the single Life of a woman (Life 19), all relate to holy people of Gaul, the majority living in the mid to later sixth century. Although this agenda is unspoken, there can be little doubt that Gregory wrote these Lives partly to show that holiness, and the miraculous, were not just things of the past, but very much present within the Gaul of his day (a message that he expressed explicitly in his Histories). Almost all the saints he describes were active within one or other of the two dioceses with which Gregory was most familiar (his native Clermont, and Tours, the city of his episcopate), or indeed were his relatives (all bishops - Life 6 is of an uncle, Life 7 of a great-grandfather, and Life 8 of a great-uncle).
Although Gregory says in his preface that they all shared one bodily life, in reality his saints fall into one of two distinct categories: holy bishops who are effective leaders of their flocks but only moderately ascetic (Lives 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 17), and holy ascetics who have withdrawn from the world and sometimes engage in extreme mortification of the body (Lives 1, 3, 5, 9-16, and 18-20). Gregory's work was unquestionably didactic in purpose - teaching the correct way to lead a good Christian life, and it is notable, for instance, how, in this work written by a bishop, his ascetics accept episcopal correction when necessary (Lives 15.2 and 20.3, in both cases from Gregory himself), and might even delay their death to suit the timetable of a bishop (Life 10.4).
Because the focus is on the lives of these holy people, there is much less emphasis on their cult after death than in Gregory's other hagiographical works; however, all the Lives close with an account of the burial of the saint, and in almost all cases with reference to posthumous miracles recorded there (the exceptions are Lives 10, 11 and 20, which have no reference to miracles at the tomb).
Gregory probably collected material for the Life of the Fathers (and perhaps wrote individual Lives) over a long period of time. However, from the words of his preface (quoted above) and from other references within the text, it is evident that he assembled his material into the polished work we have today only towards the very end of his life, after he had already written much of his extensive hagiography recording the miracles of saints lying in their graves. Because Gregory's views on saints do not seem to have changed during his writing life, we have not here expended energy in exploring the possible dating of individual lives, merely recording them all as written some time between 573 and 594.
For more on the text, and on its dating: James 1991, xiii-xix; Shaw 2015, particularly 117-120.Discussion
Gregory's Life of Gregory of Langres is the seventh book (and so the seventh Life) included in his Life of the Fathers (for which, see above).
The saint was Gregory of Tours' great-grandfather and the girl mentioned in chapter 2 as healed by being laid in his bed was the author's mother, Armentaria. Given the relatively close relation between the author of the Life and the saint, the scarcity of historical information on the life of Gregory of Langres is striking. The crucial fact was obviously that the saint had children; his great-grandson seems to put much effort into explaining how a married man with offspring could live a life chaste enough to become a saint. It sheds light on Gregory of Tours' attitude towards virginity and sexual abstinence as virtues leading to sanctity. Another interesting point is that Gregory, the saint, fasts and mortifies himself in secret, that he 'conceals' his miraculous power and that the first miracle described in the Life takes place secretly (E00052). Only the exorcisms are performed publicly.
Towards the end of the Life we find an account of an elevation of Gregory's relics by his son, also bishop of Langres (E00055). If the account is trustworthy, we may date the cult of Gregory as beginning within a generation after his death in 539/540. However, the Life gives the impression of being itself an attempt to start a cult for a person who did not fit well into the usual patterns of sanctity. It is also possible that the cult of Gregory developed without a fixed 'story' of his life (whether oral or written); in this case the life written by his great-grandson would be an attempt to create such an account by marrying the way in which Gregory was remembered within his own family with the the way in which a saintly bishop should be presented. This task was easier when it came to the posthumous cult of Gregory in Dijon, which is probably why it is described extensively in the text (see E00055).Bibliography
Edition:
Krusch, B., Gregorii Turonensis Opera. 2: Miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum I.2; 2nd ed.; Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1969).
Translation:
James, E., Gregory of Tours. Life of the Fathers (Translated Texts for Historians 1; 2nd ed.; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1991).
de Nie, G., Gregory of Tours, Lives and Miracles (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 39; Cambridge MA, 2015).
Further reading:
Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition, and Authorial Conception in the Miracula", in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston 2015), 102-140.
