Abstract The legendary details regarding a barbarian king named Crocus (Chrocus, Croscus) have echoed in historical and hagiographical accounts well beyond their first appearance in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some of the earliest references to this violent war leader show variation as to his ethnicity and the chronology of his activity. This article emphasizes a lesser-known but early hagiographical text commemorating the martyrdom of Desiderius (Didier), bishop of Langres, to challenge the prevailing view on the relationship between the two more prominent accounts of Crocus, those of Gregory of Tours and the chronicle of Fredegar. It shows that Fredegar was not solely responsible for alterations in the character of Crocus from Gregory’s account and instead drew from an extant tradition on Crocus known in Burgundy.
J. A. Webb (2025) studied this question.