Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons.
The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great (r. 871–899). Its content, which incorporated sources now otherwise lost dating from as early as the seventh century, is known as the "Common Stock" of the Chronicle.[2] Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were updated, partly independently. These manuscripts collectively are known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Almost all of the material in the Chronicle is in the form of annals, by year; the earliest is dated at 60 BC (the annals' date for Caesar's invasions of Britain). In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.
Nine manuscripts of the Chronicle, none of which is the original, survive in whole or in part. Seven are held in the British Library, one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the oldest in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was copied at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at that monastery in 1116. Some later medieval chronicles deriving from lost manuscripts contribute occasional further hints concerning Chronicle material.
Both because much of the information given in the Chronicle is not recorded elsewhere and because of the relatively clear chronological framework it provides for understanding events, the Chronicle is among the most influential historical sources for England between the collapse of Roman authority and the decades following the Norman Conquest;[3] Nicholas Howe called it and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People "the two great Anglo-Saxon works of history".[4] The Chronicle's accounts tend to be highly politicised, with the Common Stock intended primarily to legitimise the dynasty and reign of Alfred the Great. Comparison between Chronicle manuscripts and with other medieval sources demonstrates that the scribes who copied or added to them omitted events or told one-sided versions of them, often providing useful insights into early medieval English politics.
The Chronicle manuscripts are also important sources for the history of the English language;[3] in particular, in annals from 1131 onwards, the later Peterborough text provides key evidence for the transition from the standard Old English literary language to early Middle English, containing some of the earliest known Middle English text.[5]
Sources and composition of the Common Stock[edit]
Place and date of composition[edit]
Historians agree that the Common Stock of the Chronicle (sometimes also known as the Early English Annals)[6] was edited into its present form between 890 and 892 (ahead of Bishop Asser's use of a version of the Common Stock in his 893 Life of King Alfred),[7] but there is debate about precisely which year, and when subsequent continuations began to be added.[8][9]: 15 [10]: 350–52
It is not known for certain where the Common Stock was compiled, not least because the archetype is lost, but it is agreed to have been in Wessex.[11][9]: 15 [12][13][14] The patron might or might not have been King Alfred himself (Frank Stenton, for example, argued for a secular household outside the court),[13] and Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge commented that we should "resist the temptation to regard it as a form of West Saxon dynastic propaganda".[15] Yet there is no doubt that the Common Stock systematically promotes Alfred's dynasty and rule, as well as his enthusiasm for learning and the use of English as a written language. It seems partly to have been inspired by the Royal Frankish Annals, and its wide distribution is also consistent with Alfredian policies.[16][10]: 347–54 Its publication was perhaps prompted by renewed Scandinavian attacks on Wessex.[12]
Sources and reliability[edit]
The Common Stock incorporates material from multiple sources, including annals relating to Kentish, South Saxon, Mercian and, particularly, West Saxon history.[17] It is unclear how far this material was first drawn together by the editor(s) of the Common Stock and how far it had already been combined before the late ninth century: there are no obvious shifts in language features in the Common Stock that could help indicate different sources.[18] Where the Common Stock draws on other known sources its main value to modern historians is as an index of the works and themes that were important to its compilers; where it offers unique material it is of especial historical interest.
After the original Chronicle was compiled, copies were made and distributed to various monasteries. Additional copies were made, for further distribution or to replace lost manuscripts, and some copies were updated independently of each other. It is copies of this sort that constitute our surviving Chronicle manuscripts.
The manuscripts were produced in different places, and at times adaptations made to the Common Stock in the course of copying reflect the agendas of the copyists, providing valuable alternative perspectives. These colour both the description of interactions between Wessex and other kingdoms, and the descriptions of the Vikings' depredations. For example, the Common Stock's annal for 829 describes Egbert's invasion of Northumbria with the comment that the Northumbrians offered him "submission and peace". The Northumbrian chronicles incorporated into Roger of Wendover's thirteenth-century history give a different picture, however: "When Egbert had obtained all the southern kingdoms, he led a large army into Northumbria, and laid waste that province with severe pillaging, and made King Eanred pay tribute."[35][36]
Similar divergences are apparent in how different manuscripts copy post-Common Stock continuations of the Chronicle. For example, Ælfgar, earl of East Anglia, and son of Leofric, the earl of Mercia, was exiled briefly in 1055. The [C], [D] and [E] manuscripts say the following:[37][38]
Scribes might also omit material, sometimes accidentally, but also for ideological reasons. Ælfgar was Earl of Mercia by 1058, and in that year was exiled again. This time only [D] has anything to say: "Here Earl Ælfgar was expelled, but he soon came back again, with violence, through the help of Gruffydd. And here came a raiding ship-army from Norway; it is tedious to tell how it all happened."[37] In this case other sources exist to clarify the picture: a major Norwegian attempt was made on England, but [E] says nothing at all, and [D] scarcely mentions it. It has sometimes been argued that when the Chronicle is silent, other sources that report major events must be mistaken, but this example demonstrates that the Chronicle does omit important events.[38]
Errors in dating[edit]
The process of manual copying introduced accidental errors in dates; such errors were sometimes compounded in the chain of transmission. The whole of the Common Stock has a chronological dislocation of two years for the period 756–845 due to two years being missed out in the archetype.[39] In the [D] manuscript, the scribe omits the year 1044 from the list on the left hand side. The annals copied down are therefore incorrect from 1045 to 1052, which has two entries.[40]
A more difficult problem is the question of the date at which a new year began, since the modern custom of starting the year on 1 January was not universal at that time. The entry for 1091 in [E] begins at Christmas and continues throughout the year; it is clear that this entry follows the old custom of starting the year at Christmas. Some other entries appear to begin the year on 25 March, such as the year 1044 in the [C] manuscript, which ends with Edward the Confessor's marriage on 23 January, while the entry for 22 April is recorded under 1045. There are also years which appear to start in September.[40]
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.[41] The diagram at right gives an overview of the relationships between the manuscripts. The following is a summary of the relationships that are known.[5]
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.[44]
Use by Latin and Anglo-Norman historians[edit]
The three main Anglo-Norman historians, John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, each had a copy of the Chronicle, which they adapted for their own purposes.[62] Symeon of Durham also had a copy of the Chronicle.[44] Some later medieval historians also used the Chronicle, and others took their material from those who had used it, and so the Chronicle became "central to the mainstream of English historical tradition".[62]
Henry of Huntingdon used a copy of the Chronicle that was very similar to [E]. There is no evidence in his work of any of the entries in [E] after 1121, so although his manuscript may actually have been [E], it may also have been a copy—either one taken of [E] prior to the entries he makes no use of, or a manuscript from which [E] was copied, with the copying taking place prior to the date of the last annal he uses. Henry also made use of the [C] manuscript.[44]
The Waverley Annals made use of a manuscript that was similar to [E], though it appears that it did not contain the entries focused on Peterborough. The manuscript of the chronicle translated by Geoffrey Gaimar cannot be identified accurately, though according to historian Dorothy Whitelock it was "a rather better text than 'E' or 'F'". Gaimar implies that there was a copy at Winchester in his day (the middle of the 12th century); Whitelock suggests that there is evidence that a manuscript that has not survived to the present day was at Winchester in the mid-tenth century. If it survived to Gaimar's time that would explain why [A] was not kept up to date, and why [A] could be given to the monastery at Canterbury.[44]
John of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis appears to have had a manuscript that was either [A] or similar to it; he makes use of annals that do not appear in other versions, such as entries concerning Edward the Elder's campaigns and information about Winchester towards the end of the chronicle. His account is often similar to that of [D], though there is less attention paid to Margaret of Scotland, an identifying characteristic of [D]. He had the Mercian register, which appears only in [C] and [D]; and he includes material from annals 979–982 which only appears in [C]. It is possible he had a manuscript that was an ancestor of [D]. He also had sources which have not been identified, and some of his statements have no earlier surviving source.[44]
A manuscript similar to [E] was available to William of Malmesbury, though it is unlikely to have been [E] as that manuscript is known to have still been in Peterborough after the time William was working, and he does not make use of any of the entries in [E] that are specifically related to Peterborough. It is likely he had either the original from which [E] was copied, or a copy of that original. He mentions that the chronicles do not give any information on the murder of Alfred Aetheling, but since this is covered in both [C] and [D] it is apparent he had no access to those manuscripts. On occasion he appears to show some knowledge of [D], but it is possible that his information was taken from John of Worcester's account. He also omits any reference to a battle fought by Cenwealh in 652; this battle is mentioned in [A], [B] and [C], but not in [E]. He does mention a battle fought by Cenwealh at Wirtgernesburg, which is not in any of the extant manuscripts, so it is possible he had a copy now lost.[44]
Editions and translations[edit]
Early history[edit]
An important early printed edition of the Chronicle appeared in 1692, by Edmund Gibson, an English jurist and divine who later (1716) became Bishop of Lincoln. Titled Chronicon Saxonicum, it printed the Old English text in parallel columns with Gibson's own Latin version and became the standard edition until the 19th century. Gibson used three manuscripts of which the chief was the Peterborough Chronicle.[63] It was superseded in 1861 by Benjamin Thorpe's Rolls Series edition, which printed six versions in columns, labelled A to F, thus giving the manuscripts the letters which are now used to refer to them.
John Earle edited Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (1865).[64] Charles Plummer revised this edition, providing notes, appendices, and glossary in two volumes in 1892 and 1899.[65][66] This edition of the A and E texts, with material from other versions, was widely used; it was reprinted in 1952.[66]
Modern translations[edit]
The standard modern English translations are by Dorothy Whitelock, who produced a translation showing all the main manuscript variants,[67] and Michael Swanton.[68]
Modern editions[edit]
Beginning in the 1980s, a set of scholarly editions of the text in Old English have been printed under the series title "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition". They are published by D. S. Brewer under the general editorship of David Dumville and Simon Keynes.[69] As of 2021, the volumes published are:
Other modern scholarly editions of different Chronicle manuscripts are as follows. A facsimile edition of [A], The Parker Chronicle and Laws, appeared in 1941 from the Oxford University Press, edited by Robin Flower and Hugh Smith.[66] The [C] manuscript has been edited by H. A. Rositzke as "The C-Text of the Old English Chronicles", in Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie, XXXIV, Bochum-Langendreer, 1940.[66] A scholarly edition of the [D] manuscript is in An Anglo-Saxon Chronicle from British Museum Cotton MS., Tiberius B. iv, edited by E. Classen and F. E. Harmer, Manchester, 1926.[66] Rositzke also published a translation of the [E] text in The Peterborough Chronicle (New York, 1951). The [F] text was printed in F. P. Magoun, Jr., Annales Domitiani Latini: an Edition in "Mediaeval Studies of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies", IX, 1947, pp. 235–295.[66] The first edition of [G] was Abraham Whelock's 1644 Venerabilis Bedae Historia Ecclesiastica, printed in Cambridge;[66] there is also an edition by Angelica Lutz, Die Version G der angelsächsischen Chronik: Rekonstruktion und Edition (Munich, 1981).[5]