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Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Tuesday, 28th February 2006

  Are the Anglo-Saxon times considered Ancient? Is this on the right board...? Anyway, back to business: does anyone know how the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was called during the time it was being compiled? I'm assuming it wasn't called by that name back then, in which case when did it get that name? Do we have those lovely Victorians to thank for the name?
  
  Additionally, does anyone know who wrote it and where? Is it a compilation of a number of chronicles written in different locations or was it complited in one locality?
  
  I await answers with much anticipation...

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Tuesday, 28th February 2006

  I beleive that the hyphenated 'Anglo-Saxon' was indeed first a Victorian era term. I imagine that 'Saxon' was the usual Norman/Mediaeval/Tudor word for the age and its people. I am unsure what the AS themselves would have called the Chronicle, proabbly something like Tolkien's 'Tale of Years' for his Middle Earth equivalent.
  
  Several monasteries maintained the Chronicle(s). I can remember only one: the Peterborough chronicle, as it went on being written well into the 12th century, IIRC.
  
  I will check on the others tonight in my ASC book.
  
  I know taht the early years (pre c.750AD) were compiled retrospectively from e.g. Bede and other early chroniclers. Gildas??

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  Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Tuesday, 28th February 2006

  As I am giving up the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ History Boards for Lent (I kid you not!) I decided that rather than waiting to check in my ASC book tonight, I would look on Wikipedia. It seemeth that there were Chronicles maintained at the very least at the monasteries of Worcester, Canterbury and Abingdon as well as at Perterborough (this one till 1154). In fact there was an original Chronicle (don't know where), then copies made for those monasteries (and others?) and added to with entries often of a very 'local' flavour' so you have to put together the information from each surviving manuscript to get what was going on as a whole (and even then there are probably events we are missing out on) They are very unreliable for early stuff (1st-5th centuries), as I said.
  
  Of the nine surviving copies (some fragmentary) eight are in Old English. Each entry begins 'her' (= 'here' and meaning 'at this time').
  

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Tuesday, 28th February 2006

  According to the Introduction to my modern translation, the first copies were made in the late 9th century. There seem to have been four "originals, distributed around England, each being added to by local monks. It i snot clear where the idea came from or where the four originals emanated from in the first place.
  
  Peterborough Chronicle is indeed the longest running (although not the oldest). Technically, thereofe, one should refer to the Chronicles, not Chronicle, as there were several and they sometimes disagree on dates for some events, particularly where they are being compiled from older sources or oral traditions.

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