Fear in the Mind and Works of Gregory of Tours

This thesis uncovers and analyses Gregory, Bishop of Tours’ attitude towards the philosophical and theological concepts of the fear of God and demonically-inspired fear. It presents a new contribution to the history of Gregory of Tours and the Merovingian World, the intellectual and theological history of the wider late antique west, the history of emotions, and the history of fear. Chapters one and three use the Vulgate and a selection of theological literature from those late antique writers whose views drastically shaped the doctrine of the Church in Gaul and perspectives of Gregory of Tours, to establish what the wider intellectual attitudes towards the fear of God and those associated with demonic figures were, and to show how they developed from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Chapters two and four use Gregory’s textual references to the fear of God and those associated with demonic beings, in his Ten Books of Histories, books of Miracles, and The Life of the Fathers, to argue that he used these fears to participate in the long-standing tradition of debating Christian paideia and the formation of the virtuous self.