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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 9, 3. Of the Man Who Came to King Guntram with a Dagger
Meanwhile the feast of the holy Marcellus came round, celebrated at Chalon in the seventh month;1 King Guntram was present. When Mass was over, and he had approached the altar to receive the sacrament, a man came up as if to say something to him. But as he was moving quickly towards the king, a knife slipped out of his hand; he was straightway seized, and found to be carrying another unsheathed knife. He was forthwith taken out of the holy church, bound, and tortured; whereupon he confessed that he had been dispatched to murder the king. ‘That’, he said, ‘was the design of the person who sent me.’ The king knew well that many were allied in hate against him; he was suspicious of attack, and had ordered his guards always to keep close about him, that no one might come near him with a sword; the only place where he might be struck was the church, where he was deemed safe and free to stand without fear. The persons of whom I have spoken were arrested, and many of them put to death. But the man himself was only beaten and set free alive; for the king held it impious to slay one who had been taken out of a church.
Notes
- 4th September.