Gregory of Tours and the Merovingian letter

Abstract

Merovingian letter-writing is traditionally studied by calling on a dozen or so high prolife letter collections. This article turns to a different source: Gregory of Tours’ Histories, the foremost work of history-writing to survive from sixth-century Gaul. By studying Gregory’s narrative descriptions of letters this article seeks to shed new light on three aspects of Merovingian epistolary culture that have proved difficult to approach solely through the epistolary evidence: first, the typological variety of letters used in Merovingian Gaul, which extended far beyond the literary compositions dominating the letter collections; second, the complex practices surrounding letter delivery, such as the use of messengers, oral performance and strategies of secret communication; and finally, the repurposing of letters after their initial moment of delivery, which includes recirculation of old letters as sources of evidence and persuasion, but also covers the way Gregory himself came to employ letters as a narrative device.