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. Generally a chronicle (Latin chronica) is historical account of facts and events in chronological order. ... Look up Frank and frank in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (from Latin Gallia, c. ... Events The Visigoths conquer the Suevi kingdom in Spain. ... Events Founding of the city of Fostat, later Cairo, in Egypt. ... Charlemagne (742 or 747 – 28 January 814) (also Charles the Great; from Latin, Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, was the king of the Franks from 768 to 814 and king of the Lombards from 774 to 781. ... Carloman is the name of several members of the Frankish ruling family. ... October 9 is the 282nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (283rd in Leap years). ... Events Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman divide the Frankish kingdom after the death of their father Pippin the Short. ...

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 John Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE, (September 29, 1916- November 3, 1985) J. M. Wallace-Hadrill was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester (1955-61), a Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford (1961-74), Chichele Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford (1974-83) and a Fellow, All... Gregory of Tours (c. ... Neustria & Austrasia The territory of Neustria originated in A.D. 511, made up of the regions from Aquitaine to the northern seacoast approximating most of the north of present-day France. ... Liber historiae Francorum (The book of the history of the Franks) is a primary source for writing the history of the early Franks and the Merovingians, and a major example of Carolingian historiography, recently explored by Rosamond McKitterick (History and Memory in the Carolingian World). ... For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation) The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Ancient Roman polity in the centuries following its reorganization under the leadership of Octavian (better known as Augustus), until its radical reformation in what was later to be known as the Byzantine...

Authorship

Main article: Fredegar

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 Chronicle of Fredegar (died ca 660) is the main source for Western European events of the 7th century, a formative period whose scarcity of sources in part justifies the characterization of its silence as that of the Dark Ages. In the 7th century many institutions of the Middle Ages... Vulgar Latin, as in this political engraving at Pompeii, was the language of the ordinary people of the Roman Empire, distinct from the Classical Latin of literature. ...

• 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.

The Monumenta Germaniae Historica (frequently abbreviated MGH in bibliographies and lists of sources) is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history (broadly conceived) from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500. ... Theodor Mommsen Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (30 November 1817 - 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar and historian, generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. ...

Sources

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. In Greek mythology, Hippolytus was a son of Theseus and either Antiope or Hippolyte. ... Written by Michael Kulikowski, Modifed by Wikipedia contributors, published by Wikimedia Hydatius (c. ... It has been suggested that Isidro be merged into this article or section. ... Regnal year: the year of the reign of a sovereign. ... Guntram I(c. ...

Textual transmission and printed editions

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. Location within Switzerland Basel (English traditionally: Basle , German: Basel , French: Bâle , Italian: Basilea ) is Switzerlands third most populous city (166,563 inhabitants (2004); 690,000 inhabitants in the conurbation stretching across the immediate cantonal and national boundaries made Basel Switzerlands second-largest urban area as of 2003). ... Events March 23 - Peace of Longjumeau ends the Second War of Religion in France. ... Ingolstadt is a city in the Federal State of Bavaria, Germany. ... This page is about the year. ... Hanover (German: Hannover []), on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany. ... Events January - Galileo observes Neptune, but mistakes it for a star and so is not credited with its discovery. ...

References

• 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

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.