[4] The composition of the Annales Mettenses priores has been a subject of debate, with the prevailing belief supporting Rosamond McKitterick's assertion, building on Janet Nelson's earlier arguments,[8] that the annals were created either under the jurisdiction of Gisela, Abbess of Chelles and sister of Charlemagne at Chelles Abbey in 806, or a similar monastic institute at St. Denis in Paris.
[2][9] However, Paul J. Fouracre and Robert A. Gerberding contest Gisela's influence, or any female direction within the Chelles nunnery, in the composition, and so consider it more likely that the author belonged to the monastery at Metz.
[4] They argue that the author "would have been a misogynistic one" from the way she describes Plectrude, Pepin II's wife who opposed Charles Martel, condemning her of "a womanly plan" that featured "feminine cunning more cruelly than was necessary".
Historians Roger Collins and Rosamond McKitterick have both made particular note of the efforts in the Annales to show legitimacy by tracing noble ancestry through the Pippinids;[10][7] a prime example of this, noted by Paul Fouracre, is the legendary story of Pepin of Herstal and his conflict with Gundoin at the beginning of the Annales.
[3] This story is found in no other written source, and it is often cited from the Annales purely due to its unique nature.
[3] – according to the Annales, which is also the earliest source for the Merovingian "decline" narrative, and it offers a basis upon which the Carolingians' eventual ascendance to the throne is legitimate.