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family and friendship in the west 431
groups of kin lined up on either side. Such feuding as there is is inextricable
from the failed attempts to deal with the conflict through the normal
process of the courts. Innocent bystanders get dragged into the mayhem,
and the most numerous casualties are the servants, whom even Gregory of
Tours seems to have seen as expendable. In the final stages it is a tale of
compensation, drunkenness and hurt pride.
There is a second story which might equally have been cast as a tale of
feud. The archdeacon of Langres, Peter, was thought to have been responsible
for the death of the bishop-elect of the diocese, Tetricus. As a result,
Tetricus’ son, Silvester, murdered the archdeacon. 134 This second story is
never described as a story of feud, for it concerns Gallo-Romans: Peter was
the brother of Gregory of Tours; moreover, the conflict was confined to
a single kin-group, for both Silvester and Peter were relatives of Tetricus.
It is, nevertheless, a story of kinship-based vengeance. Indeed, conflicts
were as likely to take place within kin-groups as between hostile families, as
can be seen easily enough from the history of the Merovingians themselves.
By the mid sixth century the family-orientated behaviour of the
Gallo-Romans was not necessarily different from that of their Germanic
counterparts. 135
However different Frankish and Gallo-Roman family structures may
once have been, they were increasingly bound by the same law. Incest legislation,
in particular, affected both groups equally. As defined by secular
sources, incest could include marriage to a distant cousin 136 or even to ‘consanguineous
relatives’ tout court. 137 By the end of the sixth century the punishment
for such a marriage was death. It was not only secular legislation,
however, which impinged. The church canons, and more particularly the
canons of councils held within the Burgundian and Frankish kingdoms,
dealt regularly with incest. 138 In this the Gallic church was strikingly more
determined than other churches of the period.
The legislation scarcely had any impact on the Merovingian family itself.
In our narrative sources, which cover the highest levels of society, incest is
rarely identified as a problem: there is only one case of marriage between
cousins in the Merovingian kingdom, and that took place in the mid
seventh century for political reasons. 139 The liaisons of Chlothar I first with
Ingund and then, concomitantly, with her sister, Aregund, ought to have
been branded as incest, but if they were, the condemnation scarcely
134 Greg. Tur. Hist. v.5.
135 For comments on the absence of real distinction between the civilized and the uncivilized,
Goffart (1988) 212. 136 PLS 13 6, 11.
137 PLS, capitulare 6, 1, 2; compare Liber Constitutionum xxxvi.
138 Orleans (511) c. 18; Epaon (517) c. 30; Lyons (518–23) c. 1; Orleans (533) c. 10; Clermont (535)
c. 12; Orleans (538) c. 11; Paris (556–73) c. 4; Auxerre (561–605) c. 27–32; Tours (567) c. 22; Mâcon
(581–3) c. 11; Lyons (583) c. 4; Mâcon (585) c. 18; Paris (614) c. 16; Clichy (626–7) c. 10, ed. C. de Clercq,
Concilia Galliae A.511–A.695, CCSL 148a (Turnhout 1963). 139 Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms 223.
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