Chronicon universale usque ad annum 741

The base text is the Chronica maiora of Bede, heavily interspersed with additions drawn from other sources and with a continuation in annalistic form from 721 to 741.

One set is drawn from works chronicles already used by Bede, namely the Chronicon of Jerome, the History Against the Pagans of Orosius and the Chronica maiora of Isidore.

[7] The Chronicon universale was the first universal history produced in Francia since the work of Pseudo-Fredegar in the middle of the seventh century.

It introduces the Chronicon section with the rubric INCIPIT LIBER CHRONICORUM EX DIUERSIS OPUSCULIS AUCTORUM COLLECTA IN UNUM ('[here] begins the book of the chronicles [taken] from the diverse works of authors collected in one').

[10] The Paris manuscript likewise contains only Bede's text embellished by borrowings from the Chronicon in the prologue and final section covering the sixth age.

[18] The Brussels manuscript is a collection of extracts copied by Corneille-François de Nélis in 1783, including a selection of the Chronicon universale from 710 to 741 and its continuation down to 811, the Annales Maximiniani.

[16] Although it is the first universal history of the Carolingian era, the Chronicon universale is a relatively neglected and deprecated piece of Frankish historiography.

He supplied the text with the name by which it is now known, correctly identifying it as a world chronicle even though he only edited the latter parts concerned with Germanic history.