Chapter one addresses the formation of the kindom of the Franks and undertakes to examine the events of Clovis’ coming to power, of his baptism and of the delineation of the boundaries within the family between the winning and the losing lines. Constructing the story of the Franks’ forceful conquest of Soisson and of Northern Gaul in general, which goes against the archaeological evidence and information from other sources, Gregory of Tours, as this study suggests, followed his own goal of presenting the Franks as the group whose legitimacy in excercising power did not depend on the Roman empire’s sanction. His description of Clovis’ visit to Tours showed the bishop attempting to portray the king as the duly chosen lieutenant of the Byzantine emperor, but the one whose prerogatives were transferred to him not by the emperor’s legates but the bishop of Tours. Thus he saw the Frankish kings as both belonging to the Mediterranean world and distinct from it, as being part of the imperial aristocracy and elite, and at the same time as conquerors who owed their authority to no one. The chapter also suggests that Gregory of Tours made his choice of supporting the Austrasian brach of the dynasty in the person of Childebert over the Soisson branch, represented by Chilperic. This choice was due to the attempt of Chilperic as the king of Neustria to claim control of Tours to himself, whereas Childebert as the more distant ruler did not arise the same suspicions and negative attitude. This predilection towards who he thought was the “better” king he thought should transform into historical reality. But Gregory of Tours’ representation was far from being a true representation of historical trends as the branch of Childebert lost in the long run and that of Chilperic managed to become the main one and to produce all remaining kings of the Merovingians. Thus the bishop of Tours’ highly subjective approach highlighted the episcopal privilege and put to the fore the king who recognized it, while the historical situation rapidly developed towards favoring the branch that the prelate saw as ill-fitted and doomed. While Gregory espoused the idealized picture of the kingdom as an heir to the Roman diocese where the bishops and cities were key to power structures, while the situation rapidly developed towards the kings appropriating the powers of imperial representatives that had earlier been reserved for general like Aegidius. Gregory underappreciated the capability for maneuver that the youngest son of Chlotar I from his last marriage could muster and generally failed to grasp the attempts of the weakest king in the family hierarchy to aspire to the position of an educated philosopher-king and intermediary. But in Fredegar’s Chronicle the accents changed as the author sought to emphasize continuity between the Frankish kings and the Roman empire, whose generals their predecessors could have served as soldiers. In the “Liber historiae francorum” the representation of the Frankish kingdom came to resemble the straight line from the barbarian military commanders of the fifth century to the Christian kingdom of the seventh and eighth centuries. Thus one may notice that the representation of the Frankish kingdom changed significantly, from being that of the episcopal republic under the aegis of the good kings and in constant competition with the unruly representatives of the Merovingian family, to the kingdom that incorporated in its unity with the dynasty the ideal of Christian authority.