This chapter offers a survey of the principal Merovingian narrative sources. It covers the key chronicles: Gregory, the Chronicles of Fredegar, and the Liber historiae Francorum, plus their relatives. It also offers a guide to the production of hagiography in the period. Throughout the emphasis is on how we might read the stories in these sources, drawing on the competing arguments that have been put forward by scholars about the nature of the texts. Only by understanding some of the strengths and weaknesses of the common approaches to the narrative sources can readers be armed to approach the complexities of Merovingian history.

The first chapter is dedicated to the origin stories that depicted the birth of the Franks and their leading family. Gregory of Tours was reluctant to discuss the topic, privileging other axes of identity. While he chose to downplay the importance of Frankish identity, his treatment of the arrival and establishment of the Franks betrays an understanding of distinct phases of Frankish history. The Trojan origin myth made its first appearance in the Chronicle of Fredegar. The second section is dedicated to the Trojan myth in Fredegar and the LHF and the possible reasons for its inclusion and for the rejection of competing origin myths. The third section discusses the Trojan comment in Paul the Deacon’s Gesta episcoporum Mettensium, which offered an idealized ancestry for Charlemagne and a curious reworking of Merovingian history. In the final section, the discussion will turn to the Trojan story found in the thirteenth-century Roman des rois. The process whereby the story was made to conform to contemporary royal and Dionysian ideologies will be presented, alongside a discussion of Primat’s usage of Childeric to explore Capetians' relations with their aristocracy.