The thaumaturge kings: the Holy Ampulla and the touching for scrofula

A dove that is not in the texts

Everything begins with a baptism about which almost nothing is known. That Clovis, king of the Franks, was baptised by Bishop Remi, at Reims, on a Christmas Day, is about the only firm point; the date wavers, according to historians, between 496 and 508, and the only contemporary document is a letter from Avitus, bishop of Vienne, apologising for having been unable to come. Gregory of Tours, writing in the 570s–590s, tells the scene in the second book of his Histoire des Francs: Queen Clotilde working on her husband, the battle against the Alamanni in which the king calls on his wife’s God, the streets of Reims hung with curtains, the perfumed baptistery, the bishop’s words — “Humbly lay down your necklaces, proud Sicambrian” — and three thousand warriors baptised after their leader, a figure that archaeologists consider impossible, since the font of the baptistery that has been found could take only three people at a time. In all this there is no dove, no phial, no oil fallen from heaven.