Transmission and Adaptation of the Trojan Narrative in Frankish History between the Sixth and Tenth Centuries

This study involves a close examination of the story of the Trojan origin of the Franks in the following works: the Chronicle of Fredegar, the Liber historiae Francorum, the Aethici philosophi Scythae cosmographia attributed to Saint Jerome, the Historia vel gesta Francorum, the Historia de origine Francorum attributed to Dares of Phrygia, the Chronicon universale usque ad annum 741, Paul the Deacon’s Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, Frechulf of Lisieux’s Historiarum libri XII, and Aimoin of Fleury’s Historia Francorum libri IV. It traces the continuity and differences, the similarities and influences among these works that utilise the Trojan narrative in order to construct a genealogy for the Franks. The study indicates a high point in the engagement with the story between the 720s and the 770s, a period of great transformation for the Frankish world. Furthermore, not only does the analysis of the different versions of the story in these works reveal that they are heavily interconnected in terms of textuality but the manuscript evidence additionally suggests that much more complex relationships were at play as they circulated throughout the Frankish region in the ninth century. In approaching the Trojan narrative as a whole, this study not only contributes to a neglected topic in the field of medieval studies but also brings together the textual and manuscript evidence in order to reach a full understanding of its significance with regard to early Frankish history. Thus, in addition to analyses of the texts and textual comparisons among the works this study also integrates research gathered from manuscripts that include one or more of these works. In doing so, it presents interrelationships among the works that are not obvious to the modern reader and contextualises them in the broader framework of the Trojan narrative.