128 HISTORY OF THE FRANKS army including the people of Tours" against the Bretons. Later he "orders fines to be paid by the poor and the younger clergy of the church because they had not served in the army" although
- ' there was no custom for these to perform any state service."
27. Salunius and Sagittarius the bishops are degraded.] 28. King Chilperic ordered new and heavy impositions to be made in all his kingdom. For this reason many left these cities and abandoned their properties and fled to other kingdoms, think- ing it better to be in exile elsewhere than to be subject to such danger. For it had been decreed that each landowner should pay a measure of wine per acre [aripennis]. Moreover many other taxes were imposed both on the remaining lands and on the slaves, which could not be paid. When the people of Limoges saw that they were weighed down by such burdens they assembled on the first of March and wished to kill Marcus the referendary who had been ordered to collect these dues, and they would have done so, had not bishop Ferreolus freed him from the threatening danger. The assembled multitude seized the tax books and burned them. At this the king was greatly disturbed and sent officials from his court and fined the people huge sums and frightened them with tortures and put them to death. They say, too, that at that time abbots and priests were stretched on crosses and subjected to various tortures, the royal messengers accusing them falsely of having been accomplices in the burning of the books at the rising of the people. And henceforth they imposed more grievous taxes. [29. Fighting between Bretons and Franks goes on. 30. Ti- berius succeeds Justin as emperor. 31. The Bretons pillage the country about Nantes and Rennes.] 32. At Paris a certain woman fell under reproach, many charg- ing that she had left her husband and was intimate with another. Then her husband's kinsmen went to her father saying: "Either make your daughter behave properly or she shall surely die, lest her wantonness lay a disgrace on our family." "I know," said the father, "that my daughter is well-behaved and the word is not true that evil men speak of her. Still, to keep the reproach from going further, I will make her innocent by my oath." And they replied : "If she is without guilt declare it on oath upon the tomb here of the blessed Denis the martyr." "I will do so," said the father.
