This final chapter discusses a letter, attributed to Pope Gregory IV (d.844), to the bishops of Francia. In 833, Pope Gregory IV made the journey across the Alps to mediate in the conflict between Emperor Louis the Pious and his sons. The chapter addresses the issue of the identity of the author who composed the letter. It discusses both the content of the letter and the details of its transmission, because this text is highly relevant to the reception of classical ideas on free speech. The unidentified author draws upon the late antique tradition of free speech in an attempt to persuade the bishops of Francia to speak out to the emperor. An analysis of this letter shows that the classical vocabulary of free speech, which disappeared in letters and literature of the Latin West after the sixth century, was reintroduced in political discourse. The chapter shows how within the ninth-century movement to bolster spiritual authority, the old vocabulary of free speech found a new place.

This chapter discusses the lives and letters of saints and bishops who were considered truth-tellers by their contemporaries. The selected letters and saints’ lives were written in Francia between c. 550 and c. 750. In addition, two hagiographic texts and one letter from Italy and Visigothic Spain are included to compare developments in Merovingian Francia with other kingdoms and regions of the former Western Roman empire. In the selected sources we encounter Gallo-Roman, Frankish, Visigothic, Anglo-Saxon and Irish holy men who ventured to criticise those in power. Although the rhetoric of these truth-tellers and the vocabulary of their biographers do not conform to classical standards, this chapter demonstrates that their frank speech and behaviour was very much related to the late antique tradition of free speech.