Page:History of the Franks.djvu/265

THE TENTH BOOK 233 gaged in cultivating the church land. For the collectors of the tribute had suffered great losses, since in the course of long time and succeeding generations the estates had been divided into small parts and the tribute could be collected only with difficulty, and Childebert by inspiration of God directed that the trouble should be remedied and the amount which was due to the fi.sc from these should not be exacted from the collectors, and that arrearage should not deprive any tiller of church land of his benefice. 8. Where the territories of Auvergne, Gevaudan, and Rouergue meet, a synod of bishops was held to hear the case against Tetradia, widow of Desiderius, from whom count EulaHus claimed the property which she had taken with her when she fled from him. I think that I ought to relate this case in full detail and how she left EulaHus and fled to Desiderius. Eulalius, as a young man will, had behaved in several matters in a senseless fashion, and so it came about that he was often reproached by his mother and began to hate when he should have loved her. Now she used fre- quently to devote herself to prayer in the oratory of her house and to spend the watches of the night in prayer and tears while her servants slept, and at last she was found strangled in the hair shirt in which she prayed. And though no one knew who had done this nevertheless her son was charged with the murder. When Cautinus, bishop of Clermont, heard of this, he excommuni- cated him. But when the citizens gathered with the bishop at the festival of the blessed martyr Julian, Eulalius threw himself at the feet of the bishop complaining that he had been excommunicated without a hearing. Then the bishop permitted him to attend tho service of the mass with the others. But when the time for com- munion came and Eulalius went forward to the altar the bishop said: "Common talk among the people declares that you are a murderer. Now I do not know whether you have done this crime or not : therefore I leave it to the judgment of God and the blessed martyr Julian. You then, if you are fit to do so, as you say, ap- proach and take a share of the Eucharist and put it in your mouth. For God will know your conscience." Eulalius received the Eu- charist and had communion and departed. He had a wife, Te- tradia by name, noble on her mother's side, of low rank by her father. And in his house he took the maidservants for concubines