Talk:Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Featured article star Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.


This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

Contents

[edit] Comments

This was an interesting article, but can anyone discuss (and intelligently add) 1) a date for the texts 2) some details of the historiography of the text?

...some of the writers had a particular agenda in mind -- the legitimisation of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the British Isles...

Does anyone else think that this is a bit anchronistic? I don't think that the the Anglo-Saxons had quite the preoccupationwith legitimization that modern peoples would. Besides, by the time the A-S Chronicles were written the A-S conquest was centuries old.David Stapleton 03:38, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

There were (and are :-) ) Celtish parts of the island, so the idea of legitimization is at least conceivable, but I reviewed Blair's book (my only info source in print), and I don't see any mentions of it as an issue. Unless there's a quotable authority that makes the claim, it should be whacked. Stan 04:34, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There was a widespread contemporary belief that the world would end at the millennium (AD 1000)

As far as I know this is false, and this conception of things has much to do with old historiographical errors and with an old lecture of sources. Even Anglo-Saxons from the Dark Ages, particularly scholars and christian kings like the ones who are probably behind the A.S.C. would not have dared to pretend to know the date of the end of the world. In general, during the Middle Ages, many scholars wrote that only God knew for sure when and where the end of the world would come : this idea came from St Augustine ; and Bede, also used as a major source by the A.S.C. anonymous writers, was no exception among them! Last, but not least, the times of Alfred the Great were times of Renaissance and not a dark, supertitious epoch.

Last, the Anglo-Saxons *did* have a preoccupation to legitimize their occupation of Britain: this preoccupation, though very different from the one "modern" people could have, was even one of Bede's major ideas when he wrote his H.E.G.A. : in short, they had to prove themselves to be worthy as God's chosen people to 1) explain that they had the right to rule England, in a christian perspective and 2) legitimize their newly founded church and its expansion to the borders of the Earth (in Germany, Frisia and Saxony), still they had this concern in a christian, augustinean perspective.

Of course, this remained a concern as long as the priority was to legitimize the formation of a united and unique christian english nation (in the times of Bede), and probably this wasn't any longer in the times of Alfred, when the unity of the english people was achieved. Maybe you should check B. Colgrave works (including reference translation of Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum) on this matter. 82.66.175.78 00:42, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] intelligent responses

I agree there should be some massive revision. Dating-wise, it's not a simple proposition - all of the manuscripts were carried on in semi-independence, and thusly need to be dated differently, i.e. throughout the 11th and 12th centuries even. As far as the 'blatant' Anglo-Saxon, anti-British, anti-Norman agenda, we should be rather past this entirely superficial reading of the ASC by now. Also, the end of the world stuff is complete rubbish, and, in particular when compared with, say, the ASC poems, not worth mentioning. Nonetheless, it's a complicated text, and hovers on awkward borders between fish and foul...

[edit] References to Portsmouth

Are these correct as Portsmouth was not founded until the twelth century. It would appear odd that the Chronicles contain a founding myth for a non-existant townNuttah68 10:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Portsmouth, the modern town, was indeed founded in the twelfth century. But there had been Roman settlements in the area - Portchester being a notable example - that took their names from the Latin portus, meaning a port or harbour. It's quite possible that Port (the Anglo-Saxon fellow) was named after this Latin place-name.t.maisey 15:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed: Inaccuracies?

I dispute the "Inaccuracies" section. Some rather blatant statements are made without any sources (such as "Other annals were simply invented"). There could be other explanations for the supposed inaccuracies besides the chroniclers making stuff up. We need to at least give sources for why we think these sections are "invented" or tone down the language. Otherwise the whole section violates NPOV and NOR. Roachmeister 20:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have removed part of this section and rewritten and sourced part of it. The removed section is:

Other annals were simply invented. Under 477 we read that Wlencing was the son of Ælle, but Wlencing is a patronymic meaning ‘son of Wlenca’, so he cannot also have been son of Ælle. Clearly the chronicler has carelessly extracted Wlencing from an early form of the place-name Lancing. Moving on to 501, Portsmouth is located at the mouth of a port; it is not named after Port; he was quarried out of the place-name. Then under 508 Natanleag means ‘wet meadow’, so it was not named after a slain Welsh king called Natanleod; he is an invention.

If it can be sourced, it should be added back in some form. Mike Christie (talk) 12:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike! Roachmeister 16:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To-do

  • Add information about the history of [I]. This page has a catalogue and description of the manuscripts, including some history. Cotton MS Caligula A xv is listed with the following description: "11th-century material Part A, except the annals (ff. 133-7) from 1085, are by one scribe who was writing soon after 1073. The annals from 1085 are in various hands, some of them of the Canterbury type. This part at least was written at Christ Church. Part B, ff. 142-3 are in one hand of the second half of the 11th century; ff. 144-153 are in a second hand of the 11th/12th century. The notice of a "benedictio cerei" on Easter Sunday (9 Apr.) 1083 is added by another hand in a blank space on f. 141. Was at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury in the Middle Ages." However, I can't be sure I am decoding this correctly. I have added an abbreviated form of this description to the article.
  • Clean up the lead
  • Add a section on the importance of the manuscript to historians
  • Add a section on linguistic form used
  • Add/improve a section on problems of interpretation and inconsistencies among the manuscripts
  • Add note on Wessex bias; lack of independent Mercian, East Anglian sources, or Northumbrian after 802.
  • Add map showing places of composition (Abingdon, Canterbury, Peterborough, Worcester, Winchester)

-- Mike Christie (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think everything in the list above is dealt with, one way or another. Mike Christie (talk) 03:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pedigree section

I removed this:

Some of the annals are derived from earlier sources such as Prosper and Bede and the annal for 430 demonstrates this:

Prosper of Aquitaine wrote that in 430: “Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to the Scots who believed in Christ, and was ordained as their first bishop”. This story was known to Bede and was repeated by him: “In the year 430 Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to the Scots that believed in Christ to be their first bishop”. This annal was then copied into the earliest version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (version A, compiled in 891): “430. In this year bishop Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to the Scots to strengthen their faith”. But during the twelfth century the manuscript was altered to read: “… Palladius (vel Patricius)…”. In another version of the chronicle (version E, written in 1121) Palladius disappears and is replaced by Patrick: “430. In this year Patrick was sent by pope Celestine to preach baptism to the Scots”.

Notice how with each scribe the story changes a little, so starting from Palladius being sent to the Irish who were already Christian, it eventually becomes a tale about Patrick being sent to convert the Irish.

because I can find no source for it. I can source the different versions of the text -- Swanton has a note and references on the confusion between Palladius and Patrick -- but it's the derivation from Prosper I can't source. Swanton's refs mention Prosper so I suspect this is all perfectly accurate, so if anyone can source this, please put some version of this back in. Swanton's ref is "Charles-Edwards, T.M., "Palladius, Prosper, and Leo the Great: mission and primatial authority", in D.N. Dumville et al., Saint Patrick, AD 493-1993 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 1-12". Mike Christie (talk) 12:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gibson edition

I took out the note about Gibson's "Chronicum Saxonicum" title implying that "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" was a later name for the chronicle. I can't find any source for this, and it's apparent from the Law Exchange site that there were, in fact, earlier editions, so without knowing those titles the claim can't be made. It's a bit OR anyway. Mike Christie (talk) 12:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Passed

No major issues. Chubbles 21:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further research

Here are some comments from qp10qp at the FAC review. These are points raised that I can't answer from my existing books and which need research. I've added a couple of comments of my own in response, indented below each point.

  • "It is known that the Winchester manuscript is at least two removes from the original of the Chronicle." At that point I wanted to know how that is known, if this is the earliest surviving manuscript. Later there is some explanation of all the interlinkings, but I needed more information at that point.
I think this would be very interesting but none of my sources cover it. I think a specialist paper on the ASC recensions would have to be consulted; the material I do have says that ASC recensions are wildly complex.Mike Christie (talk) 02:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I've been looking at that diagram till I'm blue in the face, trying to work out what the two removes are. The Parker joins back pretty directly to the original, even if there's a node above Aethelweard's version, so I don't see more than one remove there. Incidentally, why are the St Neot's annals so directly and closely linked to the unknown original? The description of them in the article doesn't claim such a position, as far as I can see. (I'm finding that diagram a little hard to decipher: for example, if Parker is the earliest manuscript, why is Aethelweard higher up the diagram? I'm not complaining; I find it interesting.) qp10qp 00:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The way I understand the relationships (I am not a mediævalist at all) is that the lines don't mean a single remove, they mean an unknown number of removes. So the St. Neot's annals are not necessarily closely linked to the original -- it's just that the links don't pass through any of the other known nodes. For the Parker ms, I assume that there is some artefact of copying -- some kind of transmitted error? -- that indicates it's not original, though I can't figure out how they know it's two removes from the source. Perhaps Æthelweard includes an error of some kind that is preserved in the Parker ms, but the Parker ms also includes other errors? But how could one know those errors were not introduced by the Parker scribe? Another possible source of confusion is that the diagram is not supposed to indicate date by height in the diagram -- maybe a note could be added making that clearer. Basically, all a line means is that a given manuscript on the lower end of the line appears to have used the manuscript on the higher end as a source, possibly via intervening copies. Does that clarify it? Mike Christie (talk) 01:05, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it does. I'm coming to the conclusion that the removes are calculated from the differences from the common compilations that were originally sent out together and which were probably identical. If, as you say, the Parker scribe introduced differences traceable to two other, different documents, then that would make the "at least two removes". And even if other versions of the chronicle are found in later manuscripts, their similarities would associate them with the original compilation and show up the differences in the Parker manuscript. I think. :) I'm scraping around Googlebooks at the moment, and I'll get there in the end. qp10qp 02:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I've found out that the removes of the Parker text were researched by Dumville and Lapidge, 84. I'm searching Lapidge, whose name comes up a lot on Googlebooks, though not that article: hopefully, I can catch him explaining elsewhere what he discovered. qp10qp 02:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If it is known, I'd be interested to know why the chronicles petered out when they did. Were they suppressed by the Normans? Were the monks becoming culturally French? Were the chronicles replaced by Latin equivalents? I've no idea; but I'd be interested to read about that.
No information on this one, but I agree it would be good to know. Perhaps the monasteries were no longer the sole repositories of learning, and the scholarly aspects of monastic life became less and less valued? Anyway, worth adding when known. Mike Christie (talk) 02:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I've not yet found anything which addresses this directly, but it's looking as if the main reason might have been that the monasteries were given French abbots. Crystal, in his Encyclopedia of the English Language, says that within twenty years of the Norman invasion, almost all the religious houses were under French-speaking superiors, while several new foundations were entirely French. Anglo-Saxon was not used for any legal, governmental, or administrative purposes, either. The disappearance of written Anglo-Saxon seems shockingly abrupt, but it's possible that many of the monks were already bilingual, since Edward the Confessor was French influenced, having lived there for twenty years, and many at his court were either French or could speak French (and monks tended to come from noble or high-up families). What seems to have happened then is that Old English petrified as a written language while it continued to develop orally. Crystal notes that after the fire at Peterborough, the Chronicle was copied up in Anglo-Saxon and continued in that language till 1131; but it resumed in 1154 in contemporary English, which seems to indicate that Anglo-Saxon was now, to all intents and purposes, a dead language. Since some writers suggest that the whole point of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was to boost a sense of nationalism, maybe the defeat by the Normans destroyed its cultural purpose. This is all a bit vague, so I'll continue to look for a referenceable theory about why the Chronicle ran out of steam. qp10qp 15:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it does need to be better referenced, but it sounds like you're on the right track. I'll keep an eye out too, though I'm focusing on the period before 900 so it is less likely I'll run into something about the end of the Chronicle. By the way, I really appreciate having another editor on this page -- I've done a lot of work here and enjoyed it, but it's fun to collaborate too. Thanks for jumping in. Mike Christie (talk) 18:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm just on Wikipedia for fun, so I dabble here and there as fancy takes me. I actually did my history exams at school on Anglo-Saxon subjects, but fell under the spell of a late medievalist tutor at university and so I never got to study the period academically (much to the disgust of my former school teachers), though I did Bede as a set text for the historians paper
By the way, I've noticed that all the books seem to use the term "common stock" for the original compilation, but the article doesn't. Do you think maybe it should? qp10qp 20:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I have no history background at all, though I've been reading popular history books for a while. I decided to pick up the Anglo-Saxon articles as a way to direct my reading, help Wikipedia, and, I hope, learn something, all at the same time. I don't suppose you'd be interested in working with me on a couple of the other Anglo-Saxon articles, would you? My target list is at User:Mike Christie/Anglo-Saxon articles. I'd like to get as many as possible of these up to GA or FA status. So far I've got Asser to FA, Ethelbald of Mercia to GA, and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to GA (and FA shortly, I hope). Anyway, if you're interested, let me know; I'm currently working on Aelle of Sussex. I do have some research to do on Ethelbald of Mercia, too, but I'm waiting for an interlibrary loan to get the relevant material.
Re "common stock": I haven't noticed that in the refs I'm using. Where have you seen it? If it's a commonly used phrase, by all means let's mention it, but I'd want to be sure it's not an idiosyncrasy of one or two authors. Mike Christie (talk) 21:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Here are just a few examples from a quick search of Googlebooks. I found this term cropping up pretty much everywhere in the pages I searched yesterday evening:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OZWhnrn5m6EC&pg=PA14&ots=cmnoB851gG&dq=%22common+stock%22+%22Anglo-Saxon+Chronicle%22&sig=JCvjqsCN6d4UvEYIg7ZLS3HYTok

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QU3IQNiMmUYC&pg=PA18&ots=TpOSEM7o7-&dq=This+history+is+divided+into+what+scholars+call+the+%E2%80%98common+stock%27+that+runs+as+far+as+890+or+891+and+a+series+of+continuations+that+run+to&sig=jYIrfYpCGAH6YUWqOQk17NXbFLg

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f65VUNvxQjkC&pg=PA35&ots=bd5Wb8oTyi&dq=%22common+stock%22+%22Anglo-Saxon+Chronicle%22&sig=KA3I9xnR5W3YTSuSW4PEA3zuhJI

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f8B4NAl2r48C&pg=RA1-PR20&ots=zvfh64rHgB&dq=%22common+stock%22+%22Anglo-Saxon+Chronicle%22&sig=o4K6GBiLL1ETN9sGUC78BWfkXMw

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T_l8NoM7r1sC&pg=PA180&ots=l6ECtqmHzH&dq=%22common+stock%22+%22Anglo-Saxon+Chronicle%22&sig=QOJUjcDuocaLWCCytgYKd05JS-c

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nl0_nXQD5i4C&pg=RA1-PA167&ots=LvthOwjz85&dq=%22common+stock%22+%22Anglo-Saxon+Chronicle%22&sig=lmGrqKGuc4naWEFEKUzXRfsJEUk

On the other point, I really prefer to do serious work from my own book collection rather than floundering for information on the internet, and I would not be comfortable trying to take more than a passing interest in these Anglo-Saxon articles. Googlebooks and the web are fine for chasing a few points, but they would be a laborious and dubious way to research a whole article. But do contact me for reviews, copy-edits, etc. I always enjoy reading Anglo-Saxon articles. qp10qp 22:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Can someone who knows explain the opening paragraph: "The island Britain (1) is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British) (2), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia (3), and first peopled Britain southward. ". My question is about Britons being from Armenia, obviously they were not from Armenia. Why Armenia? Surely the author could have come up with something more exotic than Armenia? Is this similar to the Roman claim of Trojan origin in the Aeneid?-- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 04:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent IP edits

Among the current edits are changes from "[A]" to "(A)" (and similar changes) for the ms. references. The square brackets are used in at least a couple of the references used for the article, but I've never seen parentheses used. I suggest we go back to square brackets. Mike Christie (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It's been twenty minutes since the IP edited, and it looks like a random IP so there's no guarantee they've read the note I've left them. I'm going to revert this change; if anyone disagrees let's discuss here. Mike Christie (talk) 23:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)