The Chronicle of Fredegar is a chronicle that recounts the events of Frankish Gaul from 584 to around 641, although a number of later authors have continued the history to the coronation of Charlemagne and his brother Carloman on 9 October 768.

John Michael Wallace-Hadrill notes that this work "occupies a vital position in the history of Frankish Gaul ... first, because of the intrinsic importance of the information it contains; and secondly, because it is the only source of any significance for much of the period it covers. Together with the Decem Libri Historiarum of Gregory of Tours and the Neustrian chronicle known as the Liber Historiae Francorum, it constitutes a nearly continuous history of Gaul from the end of Roman rule to the establishment of the Carolingians, a period of three centuries."¹

Authorship

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The question of who wrote this work has been much debated, although Wallace-Hadrill admits that "Fredegar" is a genuine, if unusual, Frankish name.² The Vulgar Latin of this work confirms that the Chronicle of Fredegar was written in Gaul; beyond this, little is certain about the origin of this work. As a result, there are several theories about the authorship of this work.³

• The original point of view was that this Chronicle was written by one person, which was asserted without argument as late as 1878.
• Bruno Krusch, in his edition for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, first proposed (1883) that this Chronicle was the creation of three authors, a theory later accepted by Theodor Mommsen, Wilhelm Levison and Wallace-Hadrill.
• Ferdinand Lot critiqued Krusch's theory of multiple authorship, and his protests were supported in 1928 by Marcel Bardot and Leon Levillain.
• In 1934, S. Hellman proposed a modification of Krusch's theory, arguing that this Chronicle was the work of two authors.

Sources

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The author or authors used a number of works which have survived to this day. These include the Liber Conversationis of Hippolytus, the chronicle of Hydatius, the writings of Isidore of Seville, as well as an incomplete copy of the History of Gregory of Tours. However, at many places new information has been added to augment the copied accounts; and from the twenty-fourth regnal year of Guntram (584), it is a primary source for its material.

Textual transmission and printed editions

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This Chronicle exists in 34 manuscripts, which Krusch and Wallace-Hadrill group in five families. Wallace-Hadrill based his translation upon the text of MS. Paris 10910.

The editio princeps was published by Flacius Illyrius at Basel in 1568, who used MS. Heidelberg University Palat. Lat. 864 as his text. The next published edition was Antiquae Lectiones by Canisius at Ingolstadt in 1602. Freherus was the first to call the author "Fredegar" in his edition published at Hanover in 1613.

References

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• Collins, Roger, 1991. Early Medieval Europe 300-1000 (London: MacMillan)
• Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., translator, 1960. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations (Connecticut:Greenwood Press). ^*
• Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., 1957. The Barbarian West, (London: Hutchinson)

Notes

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1. J.M Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, 1960 (Reprint: Westport, Greenwood Press, 1981), p. ix. Wallace-Hadrill notes that his translation is the first of any part of this work into English (p. lxiii).
2. Wallace-Hadrill, p. xv.
3. This description of theories is taken from Wallace-Hadrill, pp. xvi-xxv.

Franks | Chronicles