Gesta Dagoberti
[4] Laurent Morelle suggests that Hincmar was part of a team who composed the Gesta under Hilduin's direction.
[8] Other known copies include: The Gesta is the earliest surviving work devoted exclusively to Dagobert I.
Later, after he angered his father by insulting Duke Sadragesilus of Aquitaine, he fled to a shrine contain relics of Denis and his companions.
[16] The author of the Gesta specifies many gifts Dagobert made to Saint-Denis, some with such specificity that he presumably had actual charters from the archives in front of him.
[14] On his deathbed, he had his son, Clovis II, sign a document promising to respect Dagobert's gifts to Saint-Denis.
[2] At the time of Dagobert's death, Bishop Ansoald of Poitiers was travelling on a diplomatic mission when he stopped in Sicily to meet a famous hermit named John.
The king, however, called out to the saints to whom he had been generous all his life—Denis, Martin and Maurice—who appeared out of thunder and lightning to rescue Dagobert, taking him with them to the Bosom of Abraham.
[6] The Gesta was one of the sources used by Primat of Saint-Denis for his Old French Roman des rois (1274), the earliest redaction of the Grandes Chroniques de France.
[11] It was also an important source for the Vita et passio sancti Dyonisii, an account of Denis's life, death and miracles written by the monk Yves in the early 14th century.
[22] Among its stories that are possibly true are the accounts of the punitive expedition against Duke Berthoald of Saxony and Dagobert's divorcing Gomatrude on grounds of infertility.
The rubric (in red) reads "The deeds of the lord Dagobert, king of the Franks begin..." ( Incipiuntur gesta domni dagoberti regis francorum... ).
The decorated initial Q is the start of the text itself: "Fourth in line from Clovis, the first king of the Franks to convert to the worship of God" ( Quartus ab Hlodoveo, qui primus regnum Francorum ad cultum Dei ).
