These three most ancient recensions do not differ from one another to any great extent, but the MSS. belonging to later times, when the work was often copied and used, show much greater divergencies, for alterations and additions were continually being made in it corresponding to the requirements of the local churches and monasteries where it was employed. Since the two learned editors have succeeded in detecting the original matter common to the three recensions, we are in possession of the following result: the martyrology which formed the original source of all later texts as far as they are known to us was written in Auxerre between 592 and 600. The grounds for this conclusion are briefly as follows: the compiler is evidently well informed as to ecclesiastical and secular events in Gaul, in fact far better than with regard to any other country. In naming the cities of Gaul, he gives the provinces in which they are situated, and gives also many unusual details respecting the individuals named, as for example when he gives in the case of bishops, not only the day on which they died, but the date of their ordinations as well; the names are also always given correctly, while in other documents they are often frightfully distorted. A circumstance which especially points to Auxerre as the locality from which the martyrology originated is that this not very important city is mentioned thirty times while the neighbouring and much larger city of Lyons is named only twenty-six times. Moreover, all the bishops of Auxerre, with one solitary exception, are named, while there are many gaps in the lists of the bishops of Lyons and Autun. Thirdly, a _litania_ is enjoined on the first of each month, and this custom was peculiar to the Church of Auxerre, having just been introduced at that time by Bishop Aunarius. Again, the day of the ordination of this not very famous Bishop Aunarius is marked (II. Kal. Aug.), but not as we might have expected the day of his death. The same holds good of Syagrius, Bishop of Autun; the date of his consecration (natale suscepti episcopatus) is given, but not the date of his death which happened in 599 or 600. The last Gallic bishop whose death is noticed is Avitus of Clermont († 592). On account of these facts, Duchesne arrived at the conclusion that the so-called _Martyrologium Hieronymianum_ originated at Auxerre between 592 and 600. This conclusion is not weakened by the fact that personages belonging to the seventh century are included,[774] such as Desiderius of Vienne († 606-7), Columbanus († 615), Eustasius, Abbot of Luxeuil († 629), and Abbot Attala, the date of whose death is unknown. Desiderius, indeed, appears in the Berne and Weissenburg Codices, and the three others in that of Echternach, but they have been added by the transcribers, and both De Rossi and Duchesne are agreed that none of these codices represent the original text composed at Auxerre.