Dating the baptism of Clovis: the bishop of Vienne vs. bishop of Tours
Danuta Shanzer
The article re-examines the text and interpretation of three crucial
passages in Avitus of Vienne's Ep. 46, the only contemporary document
attesting the baptism of Clovis, and one passage in Gregory of Tours'
Decem Libri Historiarum. The following conclusions relative to the date
and circumstances of the baptism can be drawn. 1. Avitus addresses
Clovis not as if he was a pagan convert, but as if he was a recent Arian
sympathiser, possibly even a catechumen. 2. There is no allusion to
Clovis's honorary consulship in Ep. 46, hence no terminus post quem of
508. 3. The populus adhue nuper captivus cannot be the Alamans or the
newly converted Franks. Clovis's letter to the Bishops of Aquitane and
Avitus's known involvement in the ransoming of prisoners of war are
adduced to suggest that the populus may most plausibly be identified
with Catholic with Catholic Gallo-Roman captives taken in the
Franco-Visigothic war of 507. If this right, it provides a terminus post
quem, of 507 and suggests a baptism in Christmas 508. 4. Gregory of
Tours' account of the Alamannic war is re-examined, and the following
conclusions reached: the account fuses a Clotidle-spool and a
Constantinian-spool, the battle against the Alamanni must date to late
506 (evidence from Cassiodorus and Ennodius); but Gregiry himself did
not know when it took place in absolute terms, and his relative
chronology may well be unreliable. Thus the date of the battle and the
date of the conversion can be uncoupled. The most pobable terminus post
quem remains the freeing of the populus captivus, probably after the war
of 507. The article ends by re-examining the implications of Clovis's
and Avitus's relationship and correspondence.
Contents:
Memorializing Gregory the Great: The origin and transmission of Papal
cult in the seventh and early eighth centuries.
The fluidity of barbarian identity: the ethnogenesis of Alemanni and
Suebi, AD 200-500.
Hans Hummer
>From poachers to gamekeepers: Scandinavian warlords and Carolingian
kings
Simon Coupland
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