| The chief and almost only sources for this chapter are the acts of Synods, the lives of saints and missionaries, and the chronicles of monasteries. The Acta Sanctorum mix facts and legends in inextricable confusion. The most important are the biographies of the Irish, Scotch, and Anglo-Saxon missionaries, and the letters of Boniface. For the history, of France during the sixth and seventh centuries we have the Historia Francorum by Gregory of Tours, the Herodotus of France (d. 594), first printed in Paris, 1511, better by Ruinart, 1699; best by Giesebrecht (in German), Berlin 1851, 9th ed. 1873, 2 vols.; and Gregorii Historiae Epitomata by his continuator, Fredegar, a clergyman of Burgundy (d. about 660), ed. by Ruinart, Paris 1699, and by Abel (in German), Berlin 1849. For the age of Charlemagne we have the Capitularies of the emperor, and the historical works of Einhard or Eginard (d. 840). See Ouvres complEtes d' Eginard, reunies pour la premi re fois et traduites en fran ais, par A. Teulet, Paris 1840-'43, 2 vols. For an estimate of these and other writers of our period comp. part of the first, and the second vol. of Ad. Ebert's Allgem. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, Leipz. 1874 and 1880. | |