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 242 HISTORY OF THE FRANKS crimes, that is to say, who, when within the monastery, had de- spised the warning of their bishop not to go forth in despite of their bishop and had left him in the monastery under the greatest con- tempt and had broken the bars and doors and foolishly departed, involving other nuns in their sin. Moreover when the archbishop Gundigisil with his provincials had received notice of this case and come to Poitiers by order of the king and had summoned them to a hearing at the monastery, they disregarded his summons, and when the bishops went to them at the church of St. Hilary the Confessor where they were staying, going to them as is seemly for anxious pastors to do ; while they were receiving the admoni- tion of the bishops a disturbance arose, and they attacked the bishops and their attendants with clubs, and even shed the blood of deacons within the church. Then when the venerable priest Teuthar by command of the princes came to judge this case, and the time for rendering the judgment had been fixed, they did not wait for it but attacked the monastery like rebels, setting fire to casks in the court-yard and breaking the doors with crow-bars and axes, and setting fire, and beating and wounding nuns in the very oratories within the walls, and plundering the monastery, and stripping the clothes off the abbess and tearing her hair and drag- ging her violently through the streets in derision and thrusting her into a place where, although not in fetters, she was not free. And when the festival of Easter came, which is always honored, the bishop offered a ransom for the prisoner so that she could aid in baptism, but his entreaty could not secure this for any considera- tion, — Chrodield answered that she had neither known of such a crime nor ordered it, adding further that it was at a sign from her that the abbess was not killed by her people, from which we may A be confident in inferring that they were becoming more cruel — and they had killed a slave of their own monastery who was fleeing to the blessed Radegunda's tomb, and instead of improving had gone deeper into crime ; and later they entered the monastery and took possession of it; and at the order of the kings to produce the rebels in public they refused to obey, and rather took up arms against the king's command and wickedly rose with arrows and lances against the count and the people. Then lately when they appeared for a public hearing they took the holy and most sacred 1