Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory’s hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory’s hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an “ecclesiastical history” (of the Merovingian Church) that enabled him to craft a specific Gallo-Christian identity for his audience.

Tamar Rotman specializes in late antique and early medieval history. Her research focuses on the role of hagiography and the cults of saints in the identity discourse of the early Middle Ages, giving special attention to the transmission of knowledge and cultural practices in the Mediterranean sphere. She is a visiting scholar at Columbia University and a Fulbright and a Rothchild post-doctoral fellow.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE CULTS OF SAINTS
GREGORY OF TOURS AND HIS WORK
EAST & WEST
THE AIMS OF THIS STUDY
1. GREGORY OF TOURS
THE LIFE OF GREGORY OF TOURS
GREGORY OF TOURS AND HIS SAINTS
MARTIN OF TOURS
JULIAN OF BRIOUDE
VITA PATRUM
THE GLORY OF THE CONFESSORS
THE GLORY OF THE MARTYRS
AUTO-HAGIOGRAPHY
CONCLUSION
2. ‘WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN’: EASTERN SAINTS IN MEROVINGIAN GAUL
THE ITALIAN EVIDENCE
THE EASTERN EVIDENCE
GLORY OF THE MARTYRS
POLYCARP
THE SEVEN SLEEPERS OF EPHESUS
THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE
SERGIUS
COSMAS AND DAMIAN
PHOCAS
DOMITIUS
GEORGE
ISIDORE
POLYEUCTUS
GLORY OF THE CONFESSORS
CONCLUSION: THE DISSEMINATION OF THE CULTS OF SAINTS
3. THE MIRACULOUS HISTORY OF GREGORY OF TOURS
LIBRI MIRACULORUM REVISITED
GREGORY OF TOURS’S LITERARY APPROACH
GREGORY OF TOURS’S HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PERCEPTION
FROM HAGIOGRAPHY TO ECCLESIASTICCAL HISTORY
A BRIEF HISTORY OF “ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY”
HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXT
4. ‘By Romans they refer to…’ (Romanos enim vocitant): History, Hagiography, and Identity
WHOSE HISTORY IS IT ANYWAY?
GALLO-CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
GAUL VS. SPAIN
GAUL VS. THE EAST
HAGIOGRAPHY AND IDENTITY
THE MATRYROLOGIUM HIERONYMIANUM
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Index