Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Chronological account of events in
Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, a compilation of
seven surviving interrelated manuscript records
that is the primary source for the early history
of England. The narrative was first assembled in
the reign of King Alfred (871–899) from
materials that included some epitome of
universal history: the Venerable Bede’s Historia
ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, genealogies,
regnal and episcopal lists, a few northern
annals, and probably some sets of earlier West
Saxon annals. The compiler also had access to a
set of Frankish annals for the late 9th century.
Soon after the year 890 several manuscripts were
being circulated; one was available to Asser in
893, another, which appears to have gone no
further than that year, to the late 10th-century
chronicler Aethelweard, while one version, which
eventually reached the north and which is best
represented by the surviving E version, stopped
in 892. Some of the manuscripts circulated at
this time were continued in various religious
houses, sometimes with annals that occur in more
than one manuscript, sometimes with local
material, confined to one version. The fullness
and quality of the entries vary at different
periods; the Chronicle is a rather barren
document for the mid-10th century and for the
reign of Canute, for example, but it is an
excellent authority for the reign of Aethelred
the Unready and from the reign of Edward the
Confessor until the version that was kept up
longest ends with annal 1154.
The
Chronicle survived to the modern period in seven
manuscripts (one of these being destroyed in the
18th century) and a fragment, which are
generally known by letters of the alphabet. The
oldest, the A version, formally known as C.C.C.
Cant. 173 from the fact that it is at Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, is written in one
hand up to 891 and then continued in various
hands, approximately contemporary with the
entries. It was at Winchester in the mid-10th
century and may have been written there. It is
the only source for the account of the later
campaigns of King Edward the Elder. Little was
added to this manuscript after 975, and in the
11th century it was removed to Christ Church,
Canterbury, where various interpolations and
alterations were made, some by the scribe of the
F version. The manuscript G, formally known as
Cotton Otho B xi (from the fact that it forms
part of the Cotton collection of manuscripts at
the British Museum), which was almost completely
destroyed by fire in 1731, contained an
11th-century copy of A, before this was tampered
with at Canterbury. Its text is known from a
16th-century transcript by L. Nowell and from
Abraham Wheloc’s edition (1644).
The B version (Cott. Tib. A vi) and the C
version (Cott. Tib. B i) are copies made at
Abingdon from a lost archetype. B ends at 977,
whereas C, which is an 11th-century copy, ends,
mutilated, in 1066. Their lost original
incorporated into the text in a block after
annal 915 a set of annals (902–924) known as the
Mercian Register.
The D version (Cott. Tib. B iv) and the E
version (kept at the Bodleian Library, Oxford,
Laud Misc. 636) share many features, including
the interpolation of much material of northern
interest taken from Bede and from annals also
used by Simeon of Durham; hence they are known
as the “northern recension.” D has also
dovetailed into its text the Mercian Register
and contains a fair amount of northern material
found in no other version. It is quite detailed
in the English descent of Queen Margaret of
Scotland. D, which is kept up until 1079,
probably remained in the north, whereas the
archetype of E was taken south and continued at
St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, and was used by the
scribe of manuscript F.
The extant manuscript E is a copy made at
Peterborough, written in one stretch until 1121,
and kept up there until the early part of 1155.
It has several Peterborough interpolations in
the earlier sections. It is the version that was
continued longest, and it includes a famous
account of the anarchy of Stephen’s reign.
The F version (Cott. Domit. A viii) is an
abridgment, in both Old English and Latin, made
in the late 11th or early 12th century, based on
the archetype of E, but with some entries from
A. It extends to 1058. Finally, the fragment H
(Cott. Domit. A ix) deals with 1113–14 and is
independent of E, the only other version to
continue so late.
