of the canon law in the Liber extra, or Gregorian Decretals, which were edited by the
Dominican Raymond of Peñafort from earlier collections and new decrees. This volume
was promulgated by Gregory to the universities in 1234. The bull Parens scientiarum
(1231) made the papacy the arbiter of institutional and doctrinal disputes concerning the
University of Paris.
Thomas M.Izbicki
[See also: ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE; DOMINICAN ORDER; FRANCISCAN
ORDER; PARENS SCIENTIARUM]
Brooke, Christopher. Medieval Church and Society: Collected Essays. New York: New York
University Press, 1972, pp. 183–96.
Kuttner, Stephan. “Raymund of Peñafort as Editor: The decretales and constitutiones of Gregory
IX.” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 2(1982):65–80.
Landini, Lawrence C. The Causes of the Clericalization of the Order of Friars Minor 1209–1260 in
the Light of Early Franciscan Sources. Chicago: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Facultas
Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 1968.
GREGORY OF TOURS
(ca. 538–594). Born Georgius Florentius, the man known as Gregory pursued many
careers during his fifty-five years of life: monk, author, builder, administrator,
ambassador, propagandist, politician, and bishop of Tours. He was descended from rich
and influential families on both his father’s and his mother’s side. Senators and bishops,
especially the bishops of Langres and Tours, hung thick on the branches of his family
tree. Destined for the episcopacy, he spent his youth in the care of uncles and cousins, all
of whom were important churchmen. In 573, he was elected bishop of Tours, one of the
most powerful of all the Frankish sees, holding its episcopal throne until his death in 594.
Gregory vigorously performed his ecclesiastical duties and played an active role in
both local and national politics, as he himself tells us. His position often demanded that
he stand up for Tours against the Frankish kings, especially Chilperic I (r. 561–84) of
Neustria. He seems to have found ample time to write. At one point, he grouped his
massive literary output into five major works: ten books of Histories, seven books of
Miracles (which include four books on the miracles of St. Martin), one on the Life of the
Fathers, a Commentary on the Psalms, and a tract On the Office of the Church.
Most famous for his Histories, often improperly called History of the Franks (though
now scholars are gaining a great deal from his other works as well), Gregory is certainly
the first writer in medieval France worthy to be called a historian. The Histories were not
conceived specifically as a “History of the Franks,” but within 200 years of their
completion this became their most common name. They are by far our most valuable
source for Merovingian Gaul; the Frankish Dark Ages would be even darker without
them.
Drawing on the Bible, Eusebius, Jerome, Orosius, Sulpicius Severus, Renatus
Profuturus Frigeridus, Sulpicius Alexander, and others, Gregory’s first four books cover
world history from Adam to his own age. Book 5 begins with an elaborate preface and
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