account for his "rustic" and incorrect style. This, to be sure, is a common pose, and it has been held that in Gregory's case it is but a pose, and that the copyists of his works are responsible for many of the monstra we encounter in them. Yet can this be so? does not the particularity with which he specifies mistakes – false concords, misuse of prepositions and of cases – go to shew that he at least was in earnest? Certainly his self-accusations are borne out by every page of his writings. He had read some good authors, in particular Virgil; he knew some books which no longer exist. In a little tract which deals mainly with astronomy he shews considerable acquaintance with that science, and quotes a lost chronicler, Julius Titianus. He had, too, a collection of Latin lyric poetry, which he lent to his friend Fortunatus. And it is possible (though not very relevant to our present purpose) that he knew some Syriac: a Syrian (there were not a few then resident in France, and one became bishop of Paris) helped him to translate the legend of the Seven Sleepers from Syriac into Latin. This, however, is little more than a curiosity: Gregory certainly made no use of Syriac literature. His lament is undoubtedly justified: "Periit studium litterarum a nobis." The gulf between him and Fortunatus, in respect of command of correct Latin, is immense.
To dwell upon the value of the Historia Francorum would be quite out of place here, where we are thinking of Gregory as a link in the transmission of ancient knowledge. It is more relevant to suggest in passing a comparison between this and the next national history that was written – that of Bede; for the slight work of Isidore hardly comes into consideration. In Gregory we see letters on a level confessedly low; in Bede a height has been reached which is rivalled only, in these centuries, by the best work of the Carolingian Renaissance.
The popularity of Gregory's History in medieval times was far inferior to that of his hagiological writings, which furnished much material to the compilers of breviaries and to such writers as Jacobus de Voragine. Besides the seven which he himself enumerates, dealing with St Julian of Le Mans, St Martin of Tours, the Martyrs, the Confessors, and the Anchorites, there is one – the Miracles of St Andrew – which may be confidently assigned to him, and which is perhaps more important than any of the others to the historian of Christian literature. It is our best source for the knowledge of a second or third century Greek romance, the Acts of Andrew; once eagerly read, but ultimately condemned by the Church, and only transmitted to us in fragments, and expurgated epitomes, such as this of Gregory. Not that Gregory read it in Greek. He had before him, no doubt, a complete Latin version, made, it is likely, for Manichaeans to read: since, in Manichaean circles, the apocryphal romances about the Apostles were adopted as substitutes for the Canonical Acts. Not long after Gregory's date – it may be ever in his lifetime – a complete
