DLH VI.46

English, pp.

While these people were proceeding on their way with all their plunder, Chilperic. the Nero and Herod of our time, went off to his manor of Chelles, which is about a dozen miles from Paris. There he spent his time hunting. One day when he returned from the chase just as twilight was falling, he was alighting from his horse with one hand on the shoulder of a servant, when a man stepped forward, struck him with a knife under the armpit and then stabbed him a second time in the stomach. Blood immediately streamed both from his mouth and through the gaping wound, and that was the end of this wicked man.

The evil which Chilperic did has been set out in this book. Many a district did he ravage and burn, not once but many times. He showed no remorse at what he did, but rather rejoiced in it, like Nero of old who recited tragedies while his palace was going up in flames. He frequently brought unjust charges against his subjects with the sole object of confiscating their property. In his day churchmen were rarely elected to bishoprics. He was extremely gluttonous, and his god was in his belly. He used to maintain that no one was more clever than he. He wrote two books, taking Sedulius as his model, but the verses were feeble and had no feet to stand on: he put short syllables for long ones, and long syllables for short ones, not understanding what he was doing. He composed some other short pieces, hymns and sequences for the Mass, but it was impossible to use them. He hated the poor and all that they stood for. He never ceased his attacks on those who served our Lord and, when he was among his intimate friends, the bishops were the constant butt of his ridicule and facetiousness. One he would accuse of levity, another of superbia, a third of excess and a fourth of luxuria. How empty-headed was this bishop, according to him, how pompous that! There was nothing that he hated so much as he hated the churches. He was perpetually heard to say: 'My treasury is always empty. All our wealth has fallen into the hands of the Church. There is no one with any power left except the bishops. Nobody respects me as King: all respect has passed to the bishops in their cities.' With this in his mind he made a practice of tearing up wills in which property had been bequeathed to the bishops. He trampled underfoot the royal decrees of his own father, thinking that there was no one left alive who was interested in seeing that they should be carried out. It is impossible to imagine any vice or debauchery which this man did not practise. He was always on the watch for some new way of torturing his subjects. Whenever any were judged guilty of some crime or other, he would have their eyes torn out of their heads. In the instructions which he issued to judges for the maintenance of his decrees, he would always add the sentence: 'If anyone disobeys my orders, he must be punished by having his eyes torn out.' He himself cared for no one, unless he had some ulterior motive for doing so; and in return he was loved by none. When his time came to die, he died deserted by all.

Only Mallulf, Bishop of Senlis, who had been encamped for three days in a tent at Chelles, waiting in vain to have an audience, came forward when he heard that Chilperic had been assassinated. He washed the body and dressed it in more seemly garments. He passed the night singing hymns and then put the corpse in a boat and buried it in the church of Saint Vincent, which is in Paris. Meanwhile Queen Fredegund remained all alone in the cathedral.

Latin, pp.

46. De interitu Chilperici regis.

His itaque cum haec praeda pergentibus, Chilpericus, Nero nostri temporis et Herodis, ad villam Calensim, quae distat ab urbe Parisiaca quasi centum stadiis, accedit ibique venationes exercit. Quadam vero die regressus de venatione iam sub obscura nocte, dum de equo susceperitur et unam manu super scapulam pueri reteniret, adveniens quidam eum cultro percutit sub ascellam iteratoque ictu ventrem eius perforat; statimque profluente cupia sanguinis tam per os quam per aditum vulneris, iniquum fudit spiritum. Quam vero malitiam gesserit, superior lectio docet. Nam regiones plurimas sepius devastavit atque succendit; de quibus nihil doloris, sed letitia magis habebat, sicut quondam Nero, cum inter incendia palatii tragidias decantaret. Persaepe hominis pro facultatibus eorum iniuste punivit. In cuius tempore pauci quodammodo episcopatum clerici meruerunt. Erat enim gulae deditus, cuius deus venter fuit. Nullumque sibi adserebat esse prudentiorem. Conficitque duos libros, quasi Sidulium meditatus, quorum versiculi debilis nullis pedibus subsistere possunt, in quibus, dum non intellegebat, pro longis sillabas breves posuit et pro breves longas statuebat, et alia opuscula vel ymnus sive missas, quae nulla ratione suscipi possunt. Causas pauperum exosas habebat. Sacerdotes Domini assiduae blasphemabat, nec aliunde magis, dum secricius esset, exercebat ridicola vel iocos quam de eclesiarum episcopis. Illum ferebat levem, alium superbum, illum habundantem, istum luxoriosum; illum adserebat elatum, hunc tumidum, nullum plus odio quam eclesias habens. Aiebat enim plerumque: 'Ecce pauper remansit fiscus noster, ecce divitiae nostrae ad eclesias sunt translatae; nulli penitus nisi soli episcopi regnant; periet honor noster et translatus est ad episcopus civitatum'. Haec agens, adsiduae testamenta, quae in eclesias conscripta erant, plerumque disrupit, ipsasque patris sui praeceptiones, potans, quod non remanerit qui voluntatem eius servaret, saepe calcavit. Iam de libidine atque luxoria non potest repperire in cogitatione, quod non perpetrasset in opere, novaquae semper ad ledendum populum ingenia perquaerebat; nam, si quos hoc tempore culpabilis repperisset, oculos eis iobebat erui. Et in praeceptionibus, quas ad iudicis pro suis utilitatibus dirigebat, haec addebat: 'Si quis praecepta nostra contempserit, oculorum avulsione multetur'. Nullum umquam pure dilexit, a nullo dilectus est, ideoque, cum spiritum exalasset, omnes eum reliquerunt sui. Mallulfus autem Silvanectensis episcopus, qui iam tertia die in tenturio resedebat et ipsum videre non poterat, ut eum interemptum audivit, advenit; ablutumque vestimentis melioribus induit, noctem in hymnis deductam, in nave levavit et in basilica sancti Vincenti, quae est Parisius, sepelivit, Fredegunde regina in ecclesia derelicta.