Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The initial page of the Peterborough Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of historical records documenting the history of England from the 5th to the 12th centuries. It is one of the most important sources of early English history, and it is also one of the earliest and longest continuously running historical records in the world.

Overview

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was originally compiled in the late 9th century during the reign of Alfred the Great. It was written in Old English and originally consisted of several separate manuscripts that were later combined into a single document. The Chronicle was updated regularly over the centuries by various scribes and writers, with the last entry dating to 1154.

The Chronicle covers a wide range of historical events, including the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in England, the Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest, and the reigns of various English kings. It also includes information on important social, cultural, and religious developments, such as the spread of Christianity in England and the establishment of the English legal system.

The Chronicle is a valuable source for historians and scholars, as it provides a detailed and often firsthand account of many of the events and developments it covers. It is also an important literary and linguistic document, as it contains some of the earliest surviving examples of Old English prose.

Overall, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of England and the development of the English language and culture.

Surviving Manuscripts

The surviving manuscripts are listed below; though manuscript G was burned in a fire in 1731, and only a few leaves remain.

Version	Chronicle name	Location	Manuscript
A	Winchester (or Parker) Chronicle	Parker Library, Corpus Christi College	173
B	Abingdon Chronicle I	British Library	Cotton Tiberius A. vi
C	Abingdon Chronicle II	British Library	Cotton Tiberius B. i
D	Worcester Chronicle	British Library	Cotton Tiberius B. iv
E	Peterborough (or Laud) Chronicle	Bodleian Library	Laud misc. 636
F	Bilingual Canterbury Epitome	British Library	Cotton Domitian A. viii
G or A2 or W	A copy of the Winchester Chronicle	British Library	Cotton Otho B. xi + Otho B. x
H	Cottonian Fragment	British Library	Cotton Domitian A. ix
I	An Easter Table Chronicle	British Library	Cotton Caligula A. xv

Relationships between the manuscripts

The relationships between seven of the different manuscripts of the Chronicle. The fragment [H] cannot be reliably positioned in the chart. Other related texts are also shown. The diagram shows a putative original, and also gives the relationships of the manuscripts to a version produced in the north of England that did not survive but which is thought to have existed.

The manuscripts are all thought to derive from a common original, but the connections between the texts are more complex than simple inheritance via copying. The diagram at right gives an overview of the relationships between the manuscripts. The following is a summary of the relationships that are known.

• [A²] was a copy of [A], made in Winchester, probably between 1001 and 1013.
• [B] was used in the compilation of [C] at Abingdon, in the mid-11th century. However, the scribe for [C] also had access to another version, which has not survived.
• [D] includes material from Bede's Ecclesiastical History written by 731 and from a set of 8th-century Northumbrian annals and is thought to have been copied from a northern version that has not survived.
• [E] has material that appears to derive from the same sources as [D] but does not include some additions that appear only in [D], such as the Mercian Register. This manuscript was composed at the monastery in Peterborough, some time after a fire there in 1116 that probably destroyed their copy of the Chronicle; [E] appears to have been created thereafter as a copy of a Kentish version, probably from Canterbury.
• [F] appears to include material from the same Canterbury version that was used to create [E].
• Asser's Life of King Alfred, which was written in 893, includes a translation of the Chronicle's entries from 849 to 887. Only [A], of surviving manuscripts, could have been in existence by 893, but there are places where Asser departs from the text in [A], so it is possible that Asser used a version that has not survived.
• Æthelweard wrote a translation of the Chronicle, known as the Chronicon Æthelweardi, into Latin in the late 10th century; the version he used probably came from the same branch in the tree of relationships that [A] comes from.
• Asser's text agrees with [A] and with Æthelweard's text in some places against the combined testimony of [B], [C], [D] and [E], implying that there is a common ancestor for the latter four manuscripts.
• At Bury St Edmunds, some time between 1120 and 1140, an unknown author wrote a Latin chronicle known as the Annals of St Neots. This work includes material from a copy of the Chronicle, but it is very difficult to tell which version because the annalist was selective about his use of the material. It may have been a northern recension, or a Latin derivative of that recension.

All the manuscripts described above share a chronological error between the years 756 and 845, but it is apparent that the composer of the Annals of St Neots was using a copy that did not have this error and which must have preceded them. Æthelweard's copy did have the chronological error but it had not lost a whole sentence from annal 885; all the surviving manuscripts have lost this sentence. Hence the error and the missing sentence must have been introduced in separate copying steps, implying that none of the surviving manuscripts are closer than two removes from the original version.

History of the manuscripts

Winchester Chronicle

A page from the Winchester, or Parker, Chronicle, showing the genealogical preface

[A]: The Winchester (or Parker) Chronicle is the oldest manuscript of the Chronicle that survives. It was begun at Old Minster, Winchester, towards the end of Alfred's reign. The manuscript begins with a genealogy of Alfred, and the first chronicle entry is for the year 60 BC. The section containing the Chronicle takes up folios 1–32. Unlike the other manuscripts, [A] is of early enough composition to show entries dating back to the late 9th century in the hands of different scribes as the entries were made. The first scribe's hand is dateable to the late 9th or very early 10th century; his entries cease in late 891, and the following entries were made at intervals throughout the 10th century by several scribes. The eighth scribe wrote the annals for the years 925–955, and was clearly at Winchester when he wrote them since he adds some material related to events there; he also uses ceaster, or "city", to mean Winchester. The manuscript becomes independent of the other recensions after the entry for 975. The book, which also had a copy of the Laws of Alfred and Ine bound in after the entry for 924, was transferred to Canterbury some time in the early 11th century, as evidenced by a list of books that Archbishop Parker gave to Corpus Christi. While at Canterbury, some interpolations were made; this required some erasures in the manuscript. The additional entries appear to have been taken from a version of the manuscript from which [E] descends. The last entry in the vernacular is for 1070. After this comes the Latin Acta Lanfranci, which covers church events from 1070 to 1093. This is followed by a list of popes and the Archbishops of Canterbury to whom they sent the pallium. The manuscript was acquired by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury (1559–1575) and is in the collection of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College.

Abingdon Chronicle I

[B] The Abingdon Chronicle I was written by a single scribe in the second half of the 10th century. The Chronicle takes up folios 1–34. It begins with an entry for 60 BC and ends with the entry for 977. A manuscript that is now separate (British Library MS. Cotton Tiberius Aiii, f. 178) was originally the introduction to this chronicle; it contains a genealogy, as does [A], but extends it to the late 10th century. [B] was at Abingdon in the mid-11th century, because it was used in the composition of [C]. Shortly after this it went to Canterbury, where interpolations and corrections were made. As with [A], it ends with a list of popes and the archbishops of Canterbury to whom they sent the pallium.

Abingdon Chronicle II

A page from the [C] Abingdon II text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This entry is for 871, a year of battles between Wessex and the Vikings.

[C] includes additional material from local annals at Abingdon, where it was composed. The section containing the Chronicle (folios 115–64) is preceded by King Alfred's Old English translation of Orosius's world history, followed by a menologium and some gnomic verses of the laws of the natural world and of humanity. Then follows a copy of the chronicle, beginning with 60 BC; the first scribe copied up to the entry for 490, and a second scribe took over up to the entry for 1048. [B] and [C] are identical between 491 and 652, but differences thereafter make it clear that the second scribe was also using another copy of the Chronicle. This scribe also inserted, after the annal for 915, the Mercian Register, which covers the years 902–924, and which focuses on Æthelflæd. The manuscript continues to 1066 and stops in the middle of the description of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. In the 12th century a few lines were added to complete the account.

Worcester Chronicle

[D] The Worcester Chronicle appears to have been written in the middle of the 11th century. After 1033 it includes some records from Worcester, so it is generally thought to have been composed there. Five different scribes can be identified for the entries up to 1054, after which it appears to have been worked on at intervals. The text includes material from Bede's Ecclesiastical History and from a set of 8th-century Northumbrian annals. It is thought that some of the entries may have been composed by Archbishop Wulfstan. [D] contains more information than other manuscripts on northern and Scottish affairs, and it has been speculated that it was a copy intended for the Anglicised Scottish court. From 972 to 1016, the sees of York and Worcester were both held by the same person—Oswald from 972, Ealdwulf from 992, and Wulfstan from 1003, and this may explain why a northern recension was to be found at Worcester. By the 16th century, parts of the manuscript were lost; eighteen pages were inserted containing substitute entries from other sources, including [A], [B], [C] and [E]. These pages were written by John Joscelyn, who was secretary to Matthew Parker.

Peterborough Chronicle

Main article: Peterborough Chronicle

[E] The Peterborough Chronicle: In 1116, a fire at the monastery at Peterborough destroyed most of the buildings. The copy of the Chronicle kept there may have been lost at that time or later, but in either case shortly thereafter a fresh copy was made, apparently copied from a Kentish version—most likely to have been from Canterbury. The manuscript was written at one time and by a single scribe, down to the annal for 1121. The scribe added material relating to Peterborough Abbey which is not in other versions. The Canterbury original which he copied was similar, but not identical, to [D]: the Mercian Register does not appear, and a poem about the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, which appears in most of the other surviving copies of the Chronicle, is not recorded. The same scribe then continued the annals through to 1131; these entries were made at intervals, and thus are presumably contemporary records. Finally, a second scribe, in 1154, wrote an account of the years 1132–1154, though his dating is known to be unreliable. This last entry is in Middle English, rather than Old English. [E] was once owned by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury 1633–1645, so is also known as the Laud Chronicle. The manuscript contains occasional glosses in Latin, and is referred to (as "the Saxon storye of Peterborowe church") in an antiquarian book from 1566. According to Joscelyn, Nowell had a transcript of the manuscript. Previous owners include William Camden and William L'Isle; the latter probably passed the manuscript on to Laud.

Canterbury Bilingual Epitome

[F] The Canterbury Bilingual Epitome: In about 1100, a copy of the Chronicle was written at Christ Church, Canterbury, probably by one of the scribes who made notes in [A]. This version is written in both Old English and Latin; each entry in Old English was followed by the Latin version. The version the scribe copied (on folios 30–70) is similar to the version used by the scribe in Peterborough who wrote [E], though it seems to have been abridged. It includes the same introductory material as [D] and, along with [E], is one of the two chronicles that does not include the "Battle of Brunanburh" poem. The manuscript has many annotations and interlineations, some made by the original scribe and some by later scribes, including Robert Talbot.

Copy of the Winchester Chronicle

[A²]/[G] Copy of the Winchester Chronicle: [A²] was copied from [A] at Winchester in the eleventh century and follows a 10th-century copy of an Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. The last annal copied was 1001, so the copy was made no earlier than that; an episcopal list appended to [A²] suggests that the copy was made by 1013. This manuscript was almost completely destroyed in the 1731 fire at Ashburnham House, where the Cotton Library was housed. Of the original 34 leaves, seven remain, ff. 39–47 in the manuscript. However, a transcript had been made by Laurence Nowell, a 16th-century antiquary, which was used by Abraham Wheelocke in an edition of the Chronicle printed in 1643. Because of this, it is also sometimes known as [W], after Wheelocke. Nowell's transcript copied the genealogical introduction detached from [B] (the page now British Library MS. Cotton Tiberius Aiii, f. 178), rather than that originally part of this document. The original [A²] introduction would later be removed prior to the fire and survives as British Library Add MS 34652, f. 2. The appellations [A], [A²] and [G] derive from Plummer, Smith and Thorpe, respectively.

Cottonian Fragment

The Cottonian Fragment [H] consists of a single leaf, containing annals for 1113 and 1114. In the entry for 1113 it includes the phrase "he came to Winchester"; hence it is thought likely that the manuscript was written at Winchester. There is not enough of this manuscript for reliable relationships to other manuscripts to be established. Ker notes that the entries may have been written contemporarily.

Easter Table Chronicle

[I] Easter Table Chronicle: A list of Chronicle entries accompanies a table of years, found on folios 133–37 in a badly burned manuscript containing miscellaneous notes on charms, the calculation of dates for church services, and annals pertaining to Christ Church, Canterbury. Most of the Chronicle's entries pertain to Christ Church, Canterbury. Until 1109 (the death of Anselm of Canterbury) they are in English; all but one of the following entries are in Latin. Part of [I] was written by a scribe soon after 1073, in the same hand and ink as the rest of the Caligula MS. After 1085, the annals are in various contemporary hands. The original annalist's entry for the Norman conquest is limited to "Her forðferde eadward kyng"; a later hand added the coming of William the Conqueror, "7 her com willelm." At one point this manuscript was at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.

Lost manuscripts

Two manuscripts are recorded in an old catalogue of the library of Durham; they are described as cronica duo Anglica. In addition, Parker included a manuscript called Hist. Angliae Saxonica in his gifts but the manuscript that included this, now Cambridge University Library MS. Hh.1.10, has lost 52 of its leaves, including all of this copy of the chronicle.

Sources

• Abels, Richard (2005). Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Longman. pp. 15. ISBN 0-582-04047-7. 
• Bately, Janet M. (1986). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Vol. 3: MS. A.. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. ISBN 0-85991-103-9. 
• Bosworth, Joseph (1823). The Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. London: Harding, Mavor and Lepard. https://books.google.com/books?id=CRMAAAAAYAAJ. 
• Campbell, James; John, Eric; Wormald, Patrick (1991). The Anglo-Saxons. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-014395-5. 
• Campbell, James (2000). The Anglo-Saxon State. Hambledon and London. ISBN 1-85285-176-7. 
• Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-59655-6. 
• Ekwall, Eilert (1947). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 3821873. 
• Gneuss, Helmut (2001). Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. 241. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. ISBN 978-0-86698-283-2. 
• Greenfield, Stanley Brian (1986). A New Critical History of Old English Literature. New York: New York University Press. pp. 60. ISBN 0-8147-3088-4. 
• Harrison, Julian (2007). "William Camden and the F-Text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". Notes and Queries 54 (3): 222–24. DOI:10.1093/notesj/gjm124. 
• Howorth, Henry H. (1908). "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Its Origin and History". The Archaeological Journal 65: 141–204. DOI:10.1080/00665983.1908.10853082. 
• Hunter Blair, Peter (1960). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  (2003 edition: ISBN 0-521-83085-0)
• Hunter Blair, Peter (1966). Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C. – A.D. 871. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-00361-2. 
• Ker, Neil Ripley (1957). Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. Oxford: At the Clarendon. 
• Keynes, Simon; Michael Lapidge (2004). Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources. New York: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044409-2. 
• Lapidge, Michael (1999). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22492-0. 
• Plummer, Charles (1885). Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel. 
• Savage, Anne (1997). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Gadalming: CLB. ISBN 1-85833-478-0. 
• Smith, Albert Hugh (1935). The Parker Chronicle (832–900). Methuen's Old English Library, Prose Selections. 1. London: Methuen. 
• Swanton, Michael (1996). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92129-5. 
• Swanton, Michael, ed (2000). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (revised paperback ed.). London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-1-84212-003-3. 
• Thorpe, Benjamin (1861). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Rolls Series. 23. London: Longman. 
• Whitelock, Dorothy (1968). English Historical Documents v. 1 c. 500–1042. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. 
• Whitelock, Dorothy, ed (1979). English Historical Documents, Volume 1, c. 500–1042 (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-14366-0. 
• Wormald, Patrick (1991). "The Ninth Century." In Campbell et al., The Anglo-Saxons, 132–159.
• Yorke, Barbara (1990). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Seaby. ISBN 1-85264-027-8. 

External links

• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at Project Gutenberg – Public domain copy.
• The Chronicle from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume I, 1907–21.
• XML Edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by Tony Jebson.
• Digital images of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle A
• Digital images of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle B, C, D & F
• Digital images of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E
• Published Wheelocke transcript of mostly-lost Anglo-Saxon Chronicle G
• Scans of introduction detached from Anglo-Saxon Chronicle G
• Scans of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle H
• Scans of Easter Table Chronicle (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle I, beginning at 135r)
• Several poems in versions of the Chronicle are edited, annotated and linked to digital images of their manuscript pages, with modern translations, in the Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project: https://oepoetryfacsimile.org

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