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Columbanus, also known as Columba, was born in present-day Leinster, Ireland, to a landowning family of some means shortly before 550 CE. Between the ages of 7 and 14, he received his education at home (Jon. Vita Col. 1.2–3; Bullough, 1997, 1–4). Near the end of his childhood education, Columbanus had a fateful encounter with an anonymous female hermit, who counseled him to go on a peregrinatio – an Irish custom where an individual leaves their homeland and becomes a type of exile, thus losing many legal protections – as a solution to his struggle with his libido ( Vita Col. 1.3; Richter, 2006…

Born in 466/477 CE to King Childeric (r. 458–481/482 CE) and Queen Basina, little is known about Clovis before his accession to the Frankish throne in 481/482 CE (Greg. T. Hist. 2.12; 25). What is known is that his father served as a Germanic general in the Roman army and that the Franks occupied territory within the Roman Empire, but on its borders as foederati, barbarian troops under their own leader’s command. These foederati agreed to serve in the Roman army and fight alongside Roman forces against external and internal threats. In the case of the Franks, they occupied the Roman province of G…

Georgius Florentius Gregorius, otherwise known as Gregory of Tours, was born in Merovingian Gaul on Nov 30, 538 CE (Verdon, 1989, 14). Gregory used his third name, Gregorius, to honor his maternal grandfather, Bishop Gregory of Langres (Heinzelmann, 2001, 10; 17–19). Both of Gregory’s parents were of senatorial or aristocratic background, his father’s family from Clermont and his mother, Armentaria II, from Burgundy. Gregory had a thoroughly religious upbringing, in which the power of th…