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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 8, 19. Of the Death of Abbot Daulf

The abbot Dagulf had been many times convicted of crimes, for he committed frequent robberies and murders, and in his adulteries knew no bounds. He once lusted after the wife of a neighbour, and had commerce with her; he then sought various occasions to kill the husband, who lived on land belonging to the monastery. At last the husband swore that if he came near his wife he should rue it. One day he left his dwelling, and at night Dagulf, attended by a single cleric, came to the woman’s house. They drank long till they were drunken, and lay down in a single bed. But while they slept, the husband returned, lit a fire of straw,¹ and slew them both with strokes of his axe. Let this example be a lesson to all clergy to avoid the company of strange women, since the canon law and all the holy scriptures forbid them that of any women save those on whose account they cannot be reproached.

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