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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 5, 36. Of Bishop Heraclius and Count Nanthinus
Nantinus, count of Angoulême, also died, wasted away by this sickness. What deeds he did against the bishops and the churches of God I may now more fully relate in their order. His uncle Marachar had long held the countship of the city, and on laying down that office, joined the Church, became a cleric, and was consecrated bishop. He was ever zealous to erect and furnish churches and church houses; but in the seventh year of his bishopric his enemies poisoned a fish’s head, which he ate without suspicion, and was cruelly done to death. But the divine mercy did not leave him long unavenged; for Frontonius, at whose prompting this crime was committed, straightway seized the bishopric for himself; but he held the office only a single year, for the judgement of God overtook him, that he died. After his death, Heraclius, a priest of Bordeaux, formerly an envoy of Childebert the First, was consecrated bishop. But Nantinus, with the design of avenging his uncle’s death, sought the countship of the city, and on obtaining it, inflicted much wrong upon the bishop. For he said: ‘Thou dost keep about thee the murderers who slew my uncle, and dost receive at thy board priests connected with that crime.’ And as their enmity grew deeper, he began by degrees forcibly to seize the domains left to the Church by Marachar in his will, declaring that the Church had no right to possess the property of a benefactor who had met his death at the hands of her clergy. He next killed several laymen, and then went so far as to seize a priest, bind him, and thrust him through with his lance. As the priest still lived, he bound his hands behind his back, hung him from a post, and tried to make him confess that he had been involved in the crime. The priest denied it, and losing blood freely from his wound, gave up the ghost. At this the bishop was enraged, and ordered the offender to be shut out of the church. An episcopal council was then held at Saintes, whereupon Nantinus begged for reconciliation with Heraclius, promising to return all Church property wrongfully taken by him, and to humble himself before the bishop. Who now, yielding to the injunctions of his brethren, granted his enemy’s petition, and recommending to Almighty God the cause of the murdered priest, once more received the count in Christian charity. But Nantinus, returning thence to the city, plundered, broke down, and destroyed the houses which he had wrongfully seized, saying: ‘If the Church get back the property, she shall find it all laid waste.’ Whereat the bishop, stirred once more to anger, suspended him from communion, but in the meanwhile the blessed father in God finished his earthly course, and departed to the Lord. Nantinus then had recourse to rewards and flatteries, and was restored to communion by certain other bishops. But a few months afterwards he was attacked by the aforesaid malady, and burning with exceeding heat of fever, cried aloud: ‘Alas! alas! I am burned by Bishop Heraclius; he it is who tortureth me, he who summoneth me to judgement. I confess my guilt; I remember how unjustly I did outrage to the bishop; I therefore pray for death, that I be no longer tormented in this anguish.’ While he thus cried aloud in the height of his fever, his bodily strength failed, and he breathed out his unhappy spirit, leaving the clearest signs that this befell him in punishment for his treatment of the holy bishop. For before life fled, his body became so black that you might think it to have lain upon glowing coals, and to have been burned. Therefore let all men stand amazed at these things; let them marvel, and fear to do injury to bishops, for the Lord is the avenger of His servants who put their trust in Him.