The priest Jerome continues it from the twenty-first year of Constantine’s reign.

The historian Eusebius comes down to this period in his chronicle. In his time the venerated wood of the Lord’s cross was found, through the zeal of his mother Helen on the information of Judas, a Hebrew who was called Quiriacus after baptism. This Constantine in the twentieth year of his reign caused the death of his son Crispus by poison, and of his wife Fausta by means of a hot bath, because they had plotted to betray his rule. In the eleventh year of his reign, when peace had been granted to the churches after the death of Diocletian, our blessed patron Martin was born at Sabaria, a city of Pannonia, of heathen parents, who still were not of the lowest station. Constantine was the thirty-fourth emperor of the Romans, and he reigned prosperously for thirty years. I have decided also that for the reckoning of the years the first book shall begin with the very beginning of the world, and I have given its chapters below.ģ6. With liberal culture on the on the wane, or rather perishing in the Gallic cities, there were many deeds being done both good and evil: the heathen were raging fiercely kings were growing more cruel the church, attacked by heretics, was defended by Catholics while the Christian faith was in general devoutly cherished, among some it was growing cold the churches also were enriched by the faithful or plundered by traitors - and no grammarian skilled in the dialectic art could be found to describe these matters either in prose or verse and many were lamenting and saying: “Woe to our day, since the pursuit of letters has perished from among us and no one can be found among the people who can set forth the deeds of the present on the written page.” Hearing continually these complaints and others like them I to commemorate the past, in order that it may come to the knowledge of the future and although my speech is rude, I have been unable to be silent as to the struggles between the wicked and the upright and I have been especially encouraged because, to my surprise, it has often been said by men of our day, that few understand the learned words of the rhetorician but many the rude language of the common people. Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks (selections)

Gregory of tours history of the franks