ABSTRACT

Merovingian letter-writing is traditionally studied by calling on a dozen or so high prolife letter collections. This article turns to a different source: Gregory of Tours’ Histories, the foremost work of history-writing to survive from sixth-century Gaul. By studying Gregory’s narrative descriptions of letters this article seeks to shed new light on three aspects of Merovingian epistolary culture that have proved difficult to approach solely through the epistolary evidence: first, the typological variety of letters used in Merovingian Gaul, which extended far beyond the literary compositions dominating the letter collections; second, the complex practices surrounding letter delivery, such as the use of messengers, oral performance and strategies of secret communication; and finally, the repurposing of letters after their initial moment of delivery, which includes recirculation of old letters as sources of evidence and persuasion, but also covers the way Gregory himself came to employ letters as a narrative device.

摘要

传统上，对Merovingian信件的写作是通过研究十几种高级生命信件集来进行的。本文转到了不同的来源：图尔的历史格雷戈里，这是历史写作的最重要著作，是六世纪高卢人幸存下来的作品。通过研究格雷戈里对字母的叙事性描述，本文试图为梅洛芬纪的书信文化的三个方面提供新的启示，这三个方面已被证明仅通过epi书证据难以实现：首先，梅洛芬纪高卢使用的字母的类型学多样性远远超出了文字的范围。文学作品占主导地位；第二，围绕信件投递的复杂做法，例如使用信使，口头表演和秘密交流策略；最后，信件在交付后的最初阶段便进行了重新定位，包括重新使用旧信件作为证据和说服力的来源，但也涵盖了格雷戈里本人将信件用作叙事工具的方式。