History Assignment: The European Experience: Church, State and Society
Paper 1
This paper should be 3 pages long, typed in 12 font, double-spaced, with one inch margins all around. The pages should be stapled together. All your language and ideas and conclusions in your paper should be your own. If you have borrowed language, ideas or conclusions from any source, including our class readings and discussions, you MUST acknowledge that source and provide an appropriate citation. Use the MLA citation format.
Since this is a Writing Enhanced course, students are required to revise the first paper. Revising a paper means improving the paper's writing and/or content.
Answer the following question:
Wickham calls Gregory a "moralist" (p. 33) and that means he had strong notions of right and wrong, which guided his perception of the people he knew and his interpretation of events in his History of the Franks. He finds fault with King Sigibert; and he describes King Chilperic and Queen Fredegunda as morally corrupt and wicked rulers. How did they misbehave and what were their motives for their crimes? Of course, Bishop Gregory hated Chilperic and Fredebunda. Can you see alternative explanations for their conduct?
This paper should rely on Wickham, Medieval Europe, pp. 31-33 for the power of bishops; Bishop Gregory of Tours (d. 594); and the Frankish rulers he knew personally: King Sigibert (561-575), King Guntram (561-93), and King Chilperic (561-584) and his Queen, Fredegunda, mother of the future king, Chlotar II (584-629). See pp. 34-36 for background on the history of the kingdom of the Franks in Gregory's time. The paper focuses mainly on the reading from Bishop Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks, in the folder called "Fredegunda."