The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The annals were created at some time in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, in the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple manuscript copies were made and distributed to monasteries across England, and these copies were then independently updated. In one case the chronicle was still being actively updated as late as 1154.

Nine manuscripts survive in whole or in part, though not all are of equal historical value, and none are the original version. The oldest seems to have been begun towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was written at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at the monastery there in 1116. These manuscripts collectively are known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Having been created in Wessex, the Chronicle is not unbiased, and there are occasions when comparison with other medieval sources makes it clear that the scribes who wrote it omitted events or told one-sided versions of stories. There are also places where the different versions contradict each other; however, taken as a whole the chronicle is the single most important historical source for the period between the departure of the Romans and the Norman Conquest. In many places the information given in the Chronicle is recorded nowhere else. In addition, the manuscripts are important sources for the history of the English language; and in particular the later Peterborough text is one of the earliest examples of Middle English in existence.

Seven of the nine surviving manuscripts or fragments now reside in the British Library. The remaining two are in the Bodleian Library, and the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.[translation links]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is not a single document, but a set of related texts. All surviving manuscripts are copies, so it is not known for certain where or when the first version of the Chronicle was composed. It is generally agreed that the original version was written in the late ninth century, by a scribe in Wessex. The latest likely date of composition is 892, but earlier dates have been proposed.

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 in addition some copies were updated independently of each other. It is some of these later copies that have survived.

Manuscripts

The earliest extant manuscript, the Winchester Chronicle, was written by a single scribe up to the year 891. The scribe then wrote the year number, DCCCXCII, in the margin of the next line; subsequent material was written by other scribes. This appears to place the composition of the chronicle at no later than 892; and further evidence is provided by Bishop Asser's use of a version of the chronicle in his work Life of King Alfred, known to have been composed in 893. It is also known that the Winchester manuscript is at least two removes from the original of the Chronicle and as a result there is no proof that the Chronicle was compiled at Winchester. It is also difficult to fix the date of composition, but it is generally thought that the chronicles were composed during the reign of Alfred the Great, which lasted from 871 to 899. Alfred deliberately tried to revive learning and culture during his reign, and he also encouraged the use of English as a written language. The Chronicle itself, as well as the distribution of copies to other centres of learning, may be a consequence of the changes Alfred introduced.

There are nine surviving manuscripts, of which eight are written entirely in Anglo-Saxon (Old English), while the ninth is in Anglo-Saxon with a translation of each annal into Latin. One (the Peterborough Chronicle) contains early Middle English as well as Anglo-Saxon. The oldest (Corp. Chris. MS 173) is known as the Winchester Chronicle, or the Parker Chronicle, after Matthew Parker, an Archbishop of Canterbury who once owned it. Six of the manuscripts were printed in an 1861 edition by B. Thorpe, with the text laid out in columns labelled A through F. This nomenclature is widely used, and is given below. Following this convention, three further manuscripts are often called [G], [H] and [I].

History of the manuscripts

[A] The Winchester Chronicle

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 first scribe stopped with the year 891, and the following entries were made at intervals throughout the tenth century by several scribes. 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 eleventh century. The last entry in the vernacular is for 1070. After this comes the Latin Acta Lanfranci, which covers church events from 1070-1093. This is followed by a list of popes, and the archbishops of Canterbury to whom they sent the pallium. The manuscript was at one time owned by Matthew Parker, who was archbishop of Canterbury 1559-1575.[1]

[B] The Abingdon Chronicle I

[B] was written by a single scribe in the second half of the tenth century. 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 tenth century. It is known that [B] was at Abingdon in the mid-eleventh century, as 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.

[C] The Abingdon Chronicle II

A page from the [C] 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. It also includes an Old English translation of Orosius's world history, followed by a menologium and some verses of the laws of the natural world and of humanity. There 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 Aethelflaed. The manuscript continues to 1066, and stops in the middle of the description of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. In the twelfth century a few lines were added to complete the account.

[D] The Worcester Chronicle

[D] appears to have been written in the middle of the eleventh 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 eighth-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 Anglicized 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 sixteenth century, parts of the manuscript were lost; eighteen pages were inserted containing substitute entries from other sources. These pages were probably written by John Joscelyn, who was secretary to Matthew Parker.

[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—mostly likely 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 the 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 chronicles, does not appear here. The same scribe then continued the annal through 1131; these entries were made at intervals and are presumably contemporary records. Finally, a second scribe, in 1154, wrote an account of the years 1132-1154; his dating is known to be unreliable. This last entry is in Middle English, unlike the previous entries, and is one of the earliest texts for that language. [E] was once owned by William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury 1633-1654, and so is also known as the Laud Chronicle.

[F] The Canterbury Bilingual Epitome

At 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 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.

[A2]/[G] Copy of the Winchester Chronicle

[A2] was copied from [A] at Winchester. The last annal copied was 1001, so the copy was made no earlier than that; and an episcopal list appended to [A2] suggests that the copy was made by 1013. This manuscript was almost completely destroyed in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, where the Cotton Library was housed at that time. A few leaves remain. However, a transcript had been made by Laurence Nowell, a sixteenth century antiquary, and it was used by Abraham Wheloc in an edition of the Chronicle printed in 1643. Because of this, it is also sometimes known as [W], after Wheloc.

[H] 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 the manuscript was written at Winchester. There is not enough of this manuscript for reliable relationships to other manuscripts to be established.

[I] Easter Table Chronicle

Part of [I] was written by a scribe soon after 1073. After 1085, the annals are in various hands and appear to have been written at Christ Church, Canterbury. At one point this manuscript was at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.

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 first scribe stopped with the year 891, and the following entries were made at intervals throughout the tenth century by several scribes. 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 eleventh century. The last entry in the vernacular is for 1070. After this comes the Latin Acta Lanfranci, which covers church events from 1070-1093. This is followed by a list of popes, and the archbishops of Canterbury to whom they sent the pallium. The manuscript was at one time owned by Matthew Parker, who was archbishop of Canterbury 1559-1575.[1]

Importance
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the single most important source for the history of England in Anglo-Saxon times. Without the Chronicle, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, it would be impossible to write the history of the English from the Romans to the Norman Conquest.[18] It is clear that records and annals of some kind began to be kept in England at the time of the earliest spread of Christianity, but no such records survive in their original firm. Instead they were incorporated in later works, and the Chronicle no doubt contains many of these. The history it tells is not only that witnessed by its compilers, but also that recorded by earlier annalists, whose work is in many cases preserved nowhere else.

Its importance is not limited to the historical information it provides, however. It is just as important a source for the early development of English.[18] The Peterborough Chronicle changes from the standard Old English literary language to early Middle English after 1131, providing some of the earliest Middle English text known.

History of editions
An important early printed edition of the Chronicle appeared in 1692, by Edmund Gibson, an English jurist and divine who became Bishop of Lincoln in that year. Titled Chronicum Saxonicum, it printed Latin and Old English versions of the text in parallel columns, and became the standard edition until the nineteenth century. It was superseded in 1861 by B. Thorpe's Rolls edition, which printed six versions in columns, labelled A through F, thus giving the manuscripts the letters which are now used to refer to them. In 1892, C. Plummer produced an edition of the A and E texts, with material from other versions, entitled Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, which was widely used.

Beginning in the 1980s, a new set of scholarly editions have been printed under the series title "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition". Some volumes are still projected, such as a volume focusing on the northern recension, but existing volumes such as Janet Bately's edition of [A] are now standard references.[1] A recent translation of the Chronicle is Michael Swanton's "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which presents translations of [A] and [E] on opposite pages, with interspersed material from the other manuscripts where they differ.

Online Translation
This translation is by Rev. James Ingram (London, 1823). The text of this edition is based on that published as "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (Everyman Press, London, 1912). This electronic edition, which is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN in the United States, contains excerpts from the translation of Dr. J.A. Giles (London, 1847), which were included as an appendix in the Everyman edition; the preparer of this edition has elected to collate these entries into the main text of the translation. Where these collations have occurred, the entry has been marked with a double parenthesis (()).

This electronic edition was edited, proofed, and prepared by Douglas B. Killings, July 1996. At present there are nine known versions or fragments of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" in existence, all of which vary (sometimes greatly) in content and quality. The translation that follows is not a translation of any one Chronicle; rather, it is a collation of readings from many different versions.

The footnotes of Rev. Ingram have been included, but we must state that they should be used with extreme care, since, in many cases his views are badly out of date. This does not mean the Rev. Ingram's conclusions are necessarily incorrect, just that 175 years have passed since his time and that modern scholarship has done much to clarify the picture of the Anglo-Saxon era. These notes will provide a starting point for inquiry, but should not be treated as the last word on the subject.

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