Chronicle of Fredegar
Encyclopedia
The Chronicle of Fredegar is a chronicle
that is a primary source of events in Frank
ish Gaul
from 584 to around 641. Later authors 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 Neustria
n 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."
of this work confirms that the Chronicle 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:
Fredegar is usually presumed to have been a Burgundian
from the region of Avenches
because of his knowledge of the alternate name Wifflisburg for this locality, a name then only coming into usage. This is further confirmed by the access he had to the annals of many Burgundian churches. He also had access to court documents and could apparently interview Lombard
, Visigoth
, and Slavic ambassadors. His awareness of events in the Byzantine world
is also usually explained by the proximity of Burgundy to Byzantine Italy.
Fredegar was alive around 660 and, within the text, references to events as late as 659 occur. Fredegar refers to his plans to treat those further but he did not continue the chronicle past 642.
; the chronicle of Hydatius
; the Chronicle of Eusebius in Jerome's
translation; the writings of Isidore of Seville
; and the edition in six books of Gregory of Tours
's Historiae - generally comprising the first six of the total 10 books of the 'Historiae' - down to the death of Chilperic I
.
A brief on the Chronicle
To the compilation and editing of these major prior works - and also an excerpt from the Vita Columbani by Jonas Bobiensis - Fredegar gave his own interpolations and supplements, and, noteworthy, two chronologies: A computation from Adam to Sigebert II
- then in the first (and only) year of his reign (613) - and a list of popes down to Theodore
. But most original and very influential was his genealogy of the Frankish kings, going back to the heroes
of Troy
and connecting the Franks to Aeneas
, Macedonia, and the Turks.
Finally there is a more contemporary section. This was initially the addition of a small set of local annals continuing Gregory to 604 and then a subsequent original work down to 613. It is often supposed that this part was written by a different person from the Fredegar who wrote the major portion of the chronicle beginning around 623. Fredegar's writing is sparse from 613 to that date, when it picks up and forms the major source for the remaining period to the death of Flaochad
in 642. For those two decades, the Chronicle is a near contemporary source for the events it describes.
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 in Hanover
in 1613, although the name first was first used in 1599 by Claude Fauchet in Antiquités gauloises, who said that it was used "through ignorance of the real author."
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
that is a primary source of events in Frank
Frankish Empire
Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...
ish Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
from 584 to around 641. Later authors continued the history to the coronation of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
and his brother Carloman
Carloman
Carloman is the name of several members of the Frankish ruling family. It is also one translation of the Bulgarian name "Kaliman":* Carloman, father of Pepin I Carloman is the name of several members of the Frankish ruling family. It is also one translation of the Bulgarian name "Kaliman":*...
on 9 October 768.
John Michael Wallace-Hadrill
John Michael Wallace-Hadrill
John Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester , a Senior Research Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford , Chichele Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford and a Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford...
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
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
and the Neustria
Neustria
The territory of Neustria or Neustrasia, meaning "new [western] land", originated in 511, made up of the regions from Aquitaine to the English Channel, approximating most of the north of present-day France, with Paris and Soissons as its main cities...
n chronicle known as the Liber Historiae Francorum
Liber Historiae Francorum
Liber historiae Francorum is a book that briefly starts as secondary source for early Franks in the time of Marcomer, and it gives a short breviarum of events until the time of the late Merovingians, where it becomes an important primary source of the contemporaneous history...
, it constitutes a nearly continuous history of Gaul from the end of Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
rule to the establishment of the Carolingians, a period of three centuries."
Authorship
The question of who wrote this work has been much debated, although Wallace-Hadrill admits that "Fredegar" is a genuine, if unusual, Frankish name. The Vulgar LatinVulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...
of this work confirms that the Chronicle 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:
- 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 HistoricaMonumenta Germaniae HistoricaThe Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...
, first proposed (1883) that this Chronicle was the creation of three authors, a theory later accepted by Theodor MommsenTheodor MommsenChristian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research...
, Wilhelm LevisonWilhelm LevisonWilhelm Levison was a German medievalist. He was well known as a contributor to Monumenta Germaniae Historica, especially for the vitae from the Merovingian era. He also edited Wilhelm Wattenbach's Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter...
, and Wallace-Hadrill. - Ferdinand LotFerdinand LotFerdinand Victor Henri Lot was a French historian and medievalist....
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.
- In 1963, Walter GoffartWalter GoffartWalter Andre Goffart is a historian of the later Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages who specializes in research on the barbarian kingdoms of those periods. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale University....
renewed the notion of a single author.
Fredegar is usually presumed to have been a Burgundian
Burgundians
The Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...
from the region of Avenches
Avenches
Avenches is a Swiss municipality in the canton of Vaud, located in the district of Broye-Vully.-History:The roots of Avenches go back to the Celts...
because of his knowledge of the alternate name Wifflisburg for this locality, a name then only coming into usage. This is further confirmed by the access he had to the annals of many Burgundian churches. He also had access to court documents and could apparently interview Lombard
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
, Visigoth
Visigoth
The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...
, and Slavic ambassadors. His awareness of events in the Byzantine world
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
is also usually explained by the proximity of Burgundy to Byzantine Italy.
Fredegar was alive around 660 and, within the text, references to events as late as 659 occur. Fredegar refers to his plans to treat those further but he did not continue the chronicle past 642.
Structure
The actual Chronicle is composed mainly of five prior works: Liber Conversationis of HippolytusHippolytus (writer)
Hippolytus of Rome was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome, where he was probably born. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome,...
; the chronicle of Hydatius
Hydatius
Hydatius or Idacius , bishop of Aquae Flaviae in the Roman province of Gallaecia was the author of a chronicle of his own times that provides us with our best evidence for the history of the Iberian Peninsula in the 5th century.-Life:Hydatius was born around the year 400 in the...
; the Chronicle of Eusebius in Jerome's
Saint Jerome
Saint Jerome is a Christian church father, best known for translating the Bible into Latin.Saint Jerome may also refer to:*Jerome of Pavia , Bishop of Pavia...
translation; the writings of Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
; and the edition in six books of Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
's Historiae - generally comprising the first six of the total 10 books of the 'Historiae' - down to the death of Chilperic I
Chilperic I
Chilperic I was the king of Neustria from 561 to his death. He was one of the sons of the Frankish king Clotaire I and Queen Aregund....
.
A brief on the Chronicle
To the compilation and editing of these major prior works - and also an excerpt from the Vita Columbani by Jonas Bobiensis - Fredegar gave his own interpolations and supplements, and, noteworthy, two chronologies: A computation from Adam to Sigebert II
Sigebert II
Sigebert II was king of Burgundy and Austrasia . Bastard son of Theuderic II, he succeeded his father in 613; but the mayor of the palace of Austrasia, Warnachar, feared that at his young age he would fall under the influence of his great-grandmother Brunhilda.Brunhilda had brought him before a...
- then in the first (and only) year of his reign (613) - and a list of popes down to Theodore
Pope Theodore
Pope Theodore may refer to:*Pope Theodore I , Palestinian-born Greek*Pope Theodore II, Pope in 897 AD, son of Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople*Antipope Theodore, antipope in 687 AD...
. But most original and very influential was his genealogy of the Frankish kings, going back to the heroes
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
and connecting the Franks to Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
, Macedonia, and the Turks.
Finally there is a more contemporary section. This was initially the addition of a small set of local annals continuing Gregory to 604 and then a subsequent original work down to 613. It is often supposed that this part was written by a different person from the Fredegar who wrote the major portion of the chronicle beginning around 623. Fredegar's writing is sparse from 613 to that date, when it picks up and forms the major source for the remaining period to the death of Flaochad
Flaochad
Flaochad was the mayor of the palace of Burgundy from 639 to 642. He was appointed by Nanthild, the queen mother, who gave him her niece, Ragnobert, in marriage...
in 642. For those two decades, the Chronicle is a near contemporary source for the events it describes.
Continuations
The Chronicle's continuation similarly relied upon other sources:Textual transmission and printed editions
This Chronicle exists in thirty-four manuscripts, which Krusch and Wallace-Hadrill group in five families. The original chronicle is lost, but exists in an uncial copy made late in its century by a Burgundian monk named Lucerius. However, most of the chronicles are Austrasian copies made late in the eighth and early in the ninth centuries. Wallace-Hadrill based his translation upon the text of MS Paris 10910.The editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....
was published by Flacius Illyrius at Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
in 1568,
who used MS Heidelberg University Palat. Lat. 864 as his text. The next published edition was Antiquae Lectiones by Canisius
Canisius
Canisius may refer to:* Saint Petrus Canisius* Henricus Canisius, canonist and historian* Theodorich Canisius, a Jesuit academic; half-brother of St...
at Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...
in 1602. Freherus was the first to call the author "Fredegar" in his edition published in Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
in 1613, although the name first was first used in 1599 by Claude Fauchet in Antiquités gauloises, who said that it was used "through ignorance of the real author."
Sources
- Collins, RogerRoger CollinsRoger J. H. Collins is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh.Collins studied at the University of Oxford under Peter Brown and John Michael Wallace-Hadrill. He then taught ancient and medieval history at the universities of Liverpool and...
, Early Medieval Europe 300–1000. London: MacMillan, 1991. - Collins, Roger. Die Fredegar-Chroniken. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2007 (Monumenta Germaniae Historica Studien und Texte, 44).
- Goffart, Walter, "The Fredegar Problem Reconsidered," Speculum 38 (1963): 206-41 Repriinted in his Rome's Fall and After (London, 1989), 319-54.
- Krusch, Bruno. "Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV cum Continuationibus." Fredegarii et aliorum chronica. Vitae sanctorum (generis regii). MGHMonumenta Germaniae HistoricaThe Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...
SS rer. Merov. I, 2, II. Hannover: 1888. - Wallace-Hadrill, J. M.John Michael Wallace-HadrillJohn Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester , a Senior Research Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford , Chichele Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford and a Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford...
, translator. , The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1960. - Wallace-Hadrill, J. M.John Michael Wallace-HadrillJohn Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester , a Senior Research Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford , Chichele Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford and a Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford...
The Barbarian West. London: Hutchinson, 1970. - Wallace-Hadrill, J. M.John Michael Wallace-HadrillJohn Michael Wallace-Hadrill CBE was Professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Manchester , a Senior Research Fellow of Merton College in the University of Oxford , Chichele Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford and a Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford...
The Long-Haired Kings. Butler & tanner Ltd: London, 1962.