Letter 3020: The recent and — as I sense — not yet fully resolved illness of our lord has kept your servants so attentive and...

Bishop Avitus to the most illustrious Ansemundus. The recent illness of our lord [the king] -- and one, as I perceive, whose unevenness has not yet been fully wiped away -- has rendered your servants so attentive and anxious that, in place of dwelling upon that devout observance which we have been accustomed to wish for especially at feast days, we count your convenient good estate sufficient for us in lieu of all the gladness of the solemnities. Wherefore, keeping up after the Lord's Nativity the service of my wonted solicitude, I desire with the whole eagerness of my prayer to know whether the common honor -- which the little church of Vienne did not merit on the present occasion -- has at least doubled the joys of the peoples of Lyon. For if you should write back that, by Christ's favor, you were able either to come forward to church, or to fulfill your customary devotion, we declare that we, restored as sharers in the gladness of our neighbors, shall feast at the very hearing of it, once we have learned by the sight of them that those to whom your presence has been granted have been refreshed.

Avitus episcopus viro illustrissimo Ansemundo. Tantum servulos vestros domni nostri recens et adhuc, quantum sentio, nondum plene detersa inaequalitas adtentos reddidit et anxios, ut pro contemplatione pietatis illius, quam festis specialius optare consuevimus, sufficere nobis commoditatem vestram pro omni sollemnium iucunditate credamus. Vnde servans post colum natalis domi- nici solitae sollicitudinis servitutem tota nosse voti ambitione desidero, si decus com- mune, quod Viennensis ecclesiola praesenti vice non meruit, vel Lugdunensium popu- lorum gaudia duplicavit. Nam si vos Christo favente aut ad ecclesiam potuisse pro- cordare aut devotionem consuetudinariam rescripseritis implesse, participes redditi laetitiae vicinorum epulaturos nos profitemur auditu, si illos, quibus praesentia vestra donata est, refectos cognoverimus intuitu.