Adversus paganos: Disaster, Dragons, and Episcopal Authority in Gregory of Tours
David J. Patterson
In 589 a great flood of the Tiber sent torrent water rushing through Rome. According to Gregory Tours, floodwaters carried some remarkable detritus: several dying serpents and, perhaps most strikingly, corpse dragon. The flooding was soon followed by plague and death pope. This chain events leaves us with puzzling questions: What significance would have located in such narrative? For modern reader, account (apart from its dragon) reads like description natural disaster. Yet how did people early Middle Ages themselves perceive events? article argues that, making sense disasters at Rome 589, revealed something his historical consciousness: drawing on both biblical imagery pagan historiography, struggled identify appropriate objects blame succor wake calamity.
Comitatus-a Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies|cIRcle (University of British Columbia)