ABSTRACT
The great difficulty in extracting historical material from hagiography is the nature of this literary genre. It is highly stylized and conventional and abounds with standard miracle tales which the audience expects and the biographer unfailingly supplies. Meanwhile the Saxons and the Picts had joined forces to make war upon the Britons. The latter had been compelled to withdraw their forces within their camp and, judging their resources to be utterly unequal to the contest, asked the help of the holy prelates. The essential historical problem is to separate allegory from reality, invented miracle from genuine historical event. A contrasting attitude, however, dominated monastic ascetic intellectual circles in Gaul. The founder of monasticism in the west, St. Martin, was strongly anti-militaristic. Constantius, possibly a priest himself, reflected the ascetic tradition and outlook in his writings. Warfare with Germanic invaders during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries almost always took the form of campaigns of maneuver and ambush.
