Evidence ID
E00701Saint Name
Lupus, bishop of Troyes : S00418Saint Name in Source
LupusType of Evidence
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)Evidence not before
659Evidence not after
700Activity not before
574Activity not after
574Place of Evidence - Region
Gaul and Frankish kingdomsPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Tours
Tours
Toronica urbs
Prisciniacensim vicus
Pressigny
Turonorum civitas
Ceratensis vicus
CéréCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
OathCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Monarchs and their familySource
The work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar dates from the second half of the 7th century. There is a long history of controversy over the questions of how many authors were involved in its compilation and precisely when they worked, but the current consensus is that it was produced by a single author working in one of the Frankish kingdoms at some point after 659 (Collins 1996, 83, 91-96).
Book 3 consists of an epitomised version of the first six books of Gregory of Tours' Histories, but with interpolated material that is not in Gregory. The conflicts between Chilperic, Sigibert, and Guntram in the mid 570s are described by Gregory in Histories 4.47-51, but the incident discussed here is among the interpolated material, and is not mentioned by Gregory.Discussion
This incident takes place during one of the many wars between Merovingian kings in 6th century Gaul, in this case Chilperic (based at Soissons), Sigibert (based at Reims), and Guntram (based at Orléans). All three were sons of Chlothar I (ob. 561). Sigibert and Chilperic had made an alliance against Guntram, and all three had armies in the vicinity of Troyes; however, fighting was forestalled when Sigibert and Chilperic sent envoys to Guntram, and the three kings met and swore oaths of peace as described. (The oaths were not very successful: Sigibert and Chilperic soon began fighting each other, and the following year Sigibert was killed in an assassination arranged by Chilperic's wife, Fredegund.)
The incident, which the chronological structure of Fredegar's chronicle allows to be dated precisely to 574, is one of three pieces of literary evidence for the existence in the 6th century of a church at Troyes dedicated to Lupus (ob. 479); the others being the letter of *Nicetius of Trier to Queen Chlodosinda (E00674), and the entry on Lupus in Gregory of Tours' Glory of the Confessors (E00721). This was evidently the church in which Lupus was buried, and in which took place the exorcisms described by Nicetius and the punishment miracle described by Gregory. The church is not mentioned in the roughly contemporaneous Life of Lupus (E00673).
The fact that the kings met in that particular church suggests (though not conclusively) that it was regarded as the most important in the city.Bibliography
Edition:
Krusch, B., Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Vitae sanctorum (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 2; Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1888).
Further reading:
Collins, R., "Fredegar," in P.J. Geary (ed.), Authors of the Middle Ages: Historical and Religious Writers of the Latin West, vol. 4, nos. 12-13 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 73-138.
Pietri, L., "Troyes," in: N. Gauthier and J.-C. Picard (eds.), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, vol. 8: Province ecclésiastique de Sens (Lugdunensis Senonia) (Paris: Boccard, 1992), 67-80.
