GREGORY, OF Togas, originally called GEORGIUS FLORENTECUS, b. 544 at Auvergne, in a family exalted by rank as well as by piety. Ou the paternal side, he traced his descent from Vallius Epagatus, the martyr of Lyons; on the maternal, from St. Gregory, Bishop of Langres. St. Gallus, Bishop of Clermont, Gregory's uncle, undertook his early education, and, after his death, Gregory continued his studies under St. Avitus, the successor of Gallus in the bishopric. Ordained deacon, Gregory left Auvergne, and went to the court of S;egbert, king of Austrasia. Still very young, he. was elected to the see of Tours, and he was consecrated by Giles, Archbishop of Rheims. The first years of his episcopacy were a season of great perplexity, owing to the constant contentions of the first Merovingian kings. His courage and firmness, however, were equal to any of the severe tests to which they were exposed, and by openly resisting even royal authority on some occasions, he drew upon himself the hatred of Queen Fredegunda, and the ire of her husband, King Chilperich, who seems to have been a mere tool in her hands. Gregory was accused of seditious and other treasonable actions, and summoned before a council of bishops in 580. Here, however, he defended himself with such clearness and vigor, that Chiiperich himself, strange to say, from that moment ceased to he his foe, and becoming even his warm admirer and friend, charged him afterwards with many important political missions. This royal partiality, however, does not seem to have prevented Gregory from occasionally calling the king a Herod and a Nero. No less favored by the king's successors, Gontram and Childebert II., Gregory did not fail to use all his influence with the court for the amelioration of the position of the church, and the general condition of his flock. His travels had, apart from their political purposes at the same time the object of every where restoring peace and piety, so much needed in those days in convents and churches, among the clergy and the laity. Of his journey to Rome in 590, the circumstances of
which are related with a minuteness of itself surprising; of the pope's wonder alluding in Gregory, instead of the imposing man he had expected to behold, a homundo, or manikin, and of his answer, that "we all are as God had made us," we can only say, that according to the lucid investigations of Dr. Kries (1)e Greg. Tim. Vita et Seriptis, p. 16) it never can have taken place. His last journey seems to have been to Orleans, whither he accompanied the king in 593. He died shortly after, in 594 or 595 at Tours, where he had been a bishop for twenty-three years. His works comprise, in the first place, his ten books of Frankish history, Gesta, t,hronicon first attempt at French historiography—and have earned for Gregory the name of " Father of Frankish History," although its crudity of style, and indiscriminate mixing up of everything important and otherwise, make it partake much more of the nature of a chronicle than of a history properly so-called. Gregory's other works are: A Book of the Glory of the Martyrs; Of the Miracles of St. Julian (304); Of the Glory or Miracles of the Confessors; Of Miracles of St. M • artin and a book of the lives of the Fathers, consisting of 23 biographies of Frankish ecclesiastics, and many other minor writings. Much more, however, is generally attributed to Gregory than is in reality his. The first critical edition of his works, by Ruinard, appeared in Paris, 1699, fol.; the latest, by Guadet and Taranne, Paris, 1836 and 1837, with a French translation. Of monographies on Gregory, we may mention De Greg. Tar. Episc. Vita et Scriptis, by C. G. Krieg and Diboll; Gregor von Tours and Seine Zeit (Leip. 1835, 8vo).