The Endorsement of Royal-Episcopal Collaboration in the Fredegar Chronica

Abstract

The terse and politically oriented narrative of the seventh-century chronicle attributed to Fredegar often has been compared unfavorably to one of its principal sources, Gregory of Tours’s Decem Libri Historiarum , a complex and layered composition in which historical and theological programs converge. Although a superficial comparison with Gregory’s Historiae would seem to indicate Fredegar’s own relative disengagement from ecclesiastical and spiritual concerns, a closer examination of the Chronica reveals a programmatic effort to endorse royal-episcopal collaboration so that the pax ecclesiae might be preserved and earthly governance perfected. Writing, as he believed, in the end times, Fredegar shared Gregory of Tours’s eschatological conviction that such collaboration would help to prepare the regnum Francorum for final judgment. A close examination of those twenty-one cases in which Fredegar refers explicitly to the involvement of bishops in court affairs suggests the chronicler’s conviction that the professional, political, and spiritual obligations of Frankish bishops were not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the Chronica’s ecclesiastical topography, while limited geographically and personalized according to Fredegar’s attachment to specific cults and institutions, provides the setting for the author’s collaborative ideal, with holy places providing both a context and an impetus for the integration of royal and clerical agendas. While Fredegar recognized signs of divine judgment everywhere, the chronicler’s perspective ultimately was optimistic, envisioning a regnum Francorum cleansed of oppression by the judgment of God, preparing the way for the perfection of the world in the age to come.