The ''Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium'' (Deeds of the Abbots of Fontenelle), also called the ''Gesta sanctorum patrum Fontanellensis coenobii'' (Deeds of the Holy Fathers of the Monastery of Fontenelle), is an anonymous

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

chronicle of the Abbey of Fontenelle written in phases between 823 and 867. It is the earliest monastic chronicle from western Europe. It is organized around the lives and deeds of the abbots from the abbey's foundation by

Wandregisel Saint Wandregisel (french: Wandrille) (c. 605–668 AD) was a Frankish courtier, monk, and abbot. Life The son of Walchisus, a kinsman of Pepin of Landen, he was born around 605, near Verdun in the region then known as Austrasia. He was educate ...

in 649 until the abbacy of

Ansegisus Saint Ansegisus (c. 770 – 20 July 833 or 834) was a monastic reformer of the Franks. Born about 770, of noble parentage, at the age of eighteen he entered the monastery of Fontenelle (also called St Wandrille after the name of its founder ...

in 823–833. The work itself was commissioned by Ansegisus and then revised and expanded after his death. It is the work of a single author, possibly the abbey's archivist. It can be divided into three parts. The first part covers the abbacy of Wandregisel, but his three successors— Lantbert, Ansbert and Hildebert—are missing. This gap corresponds to 668–701. The second part goes down to 806, but then the abbacies of Trasarus (806–17) and Einhard (818–23) are missing. The third part covers the abbacy of Ansegisus. A fourth part, an addendum to the main chronicle, contains summary notices of the deaths of Ansegisus' three successors and was written between 850 and 867.

Philip Grierson Philip Grierson, FBA (15 November 1910 – 15 January 2006) was a British historian and numismatist, emeritus professor of numismatics at Cambridge University and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College for over seventy years. During his long an ...

, "Abbot Fulco and the Date of the ''Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium''", ''English Historical Review'', 55, 218 (1940): 275–284.

Editions

*S. Loewenfeld
''Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium''
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum. Hanover: Hahn, 1886. *F. Lohier and J. Laporte. ''Gesta sanctorum patrum Fontanellensis coenobii''. Rouen and Paris: 1931.

Notes

{{reflist 9th-century Latin books Carolingian historiography Abbey of Saint Wandrille