ssors, their wars and their crimes, is one which belongs to social
or political history, not to the history of the Church. The Church's
life was lived underground in the slow progress of Christian ideas.
Chlothochar, sole ruler of the Franks, died in 561. How little had the
half-century accomplished. Then came an age of division, murders,
horrors, in which the names of great ladies stand out as at least the
equals of their lords in crime. Predegund, who became the wife of
Chilperich of Neustria, and Brunichildis, the wife first of Sigebert of
Austrasia, and then of Merovech, Chilperich's son, were rivals in
wickedness. The horrors of those days are recorded in the history of
Gregory, who ruled over the see of Tours from 573 to 595. It was an
age in which, while the rulers were Christian in name, and the land was
mapped out into sees ruled by Christian bishops, and monasteries were
springing up to teach {44} the young and to set an example of religious
life, the general atmosphere was almost avowedly pagan. Men said,
tells Gregory, that "if a man has to pass between pagan altars and
God's church there is no harm in his paying homage to both," and the
lives of such men showed that it is impossible to serve God and Mammon.

Yet for a century and a half the Merwings, descendants of Chlodowech,
had among them strong rulers, great conquerors, men of iron as well as
men of blood. Early in the seventh century, from 628 to 638, there
ruled in Gaul Dagobert, the greatest of the Merwing kings. His rule
extended from the Pyrenees to the North Sea, from the ocean to the
forests of Thuringia and Bohemia. He was "ruler of all Gaul and the
greater part of Germany, very influential in the affairs of Spain,
victorious over Slavs and Bulgarians, and at home a great king,
encouraging commerce and putting into better shape the law codes of his
subjects."

[Sidenote: Break up of their kingdom.]

That was the culmination of the Merwing power. The seventh century saw
its decay, and a new step towards the medieval monarchy of the Franks.
Two causes effected the fall of the Merwings--their own vices and the
growth of feudalism with the creation of great local lords. These
threatened to break up the kingdom of Chlodowech into small states, to
disintegrate and thus destroy the united nation of the Franks.

The first cause is one which it is difficult to exaggerate. We read in
the pages of that great historian and great bishop, Greg