Histories (History of the Franks)

Gregory was born about 538, became bishop of Tours in 573 and died in 594. He wrote his ten books in stages over some twenty years and revised the earlier ones. From the fifth book onwards he describes kings he knew and events he witnessed. The second book, which tells of Clovis, is different. Gregory was working two or three generations later, and he dates the main events of the reign at intervals of five years: the war with the Alamanni in the fifteenth year, the battle of Vouillé in the twenty-fifth, the king’s death in the thirtieth.

He writes as a Catholic bishop for whom Arian Christianity was the great enemy, and he presents Clovis as a new Constantine whose victories follow from his baptism. His Clovis moves straight from paganism to Catholic faith. Readers should set his account beside the one contemporary document, the letter of Avitus of Vienne to the king, Letter to King Clovis (Letter 46).