Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Versions



There are multiple versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, each with differences in text and historical coverage. The versions are:

Manuscript A (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 173 ff. 1-32)
This, the oldest surviving manuscript, is sometimes known as the Parker Chronicle, after Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury who once owned it. Little is known of its early history, only that parts of it were copied into Manuscript G some time between 1001 and 1012/13 and that by the late eleventh century it was at Christ Church, Canterbury, where the compiler of Manuscript F used it and it received a number of entries by the F-scribe and other Canterbury hands, extending to 1070 in Old English and to 1093 in Latin. The contents of some annals unique to "A" show strong Winchester connections, as do some of the hands that contributed to the text. However, the theory that the earliest section was copied at Winchester is still disputed. The prime author of the text ('Hand 1'), responsible for the main text to end of the first part of the annal for 891. Parkes dates hand 1 to 890-900. Dumville prefers an early 10th century date. Bately, Ker and Brown date Hand 1 to the late 9th or early 10th century. He cannot have been writing before 891.
Manuscript B (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.vi)
This manuscript was copied by a single scribe in the late tenth century and contains annals in Old English to 977. The manuscript has traditionally been attributed to Abingdon but this is disputed. The manuscript must have been at Christ Church, Canterbury by ca. 1100, when a list of popes was added, by the same scribe, to Manuscripts A and B. The prime author of the text ('Hand 1') cannot have been writing before 977.
Manuscript C (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.i)
This manuscript contains annals in Old English to 1066, where it breaks off in the middle of the account of Stamford Bridge. A supply sheet, written in a twelfth century hand concludes this account. It is written in seven or eight hands of the mid eleventh century and slight changes in the hands suggest it may have been updated annually ca. 1043-48. The text to 977 is so close to that of Manuscript B and that it has been proposed that B and C shared a common exemplar. The manuscript is written in seven eleventh-century hands with one supply sheet in a twelfth-century hand.
Manuscript D (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.iv)
This manuscript contains annals in Old English to 1079, where it breaks off in mid-sentence at the bottom of a half-sized folio. No more than half a page of text can have been lost as a new annal (for 1130) starts at the top of the other side. It is written in ten to eighteen hands typical of the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries. The section of the manuscript covering 262 to 692/3 has been lost. The manuscript is a conflation of a northern development of the original chronicle, known as the "Northern Recension" (which had been expanded with material from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and other northern sources) and a manuscript similar to C.
Manuscript E (Oxford, Bodlean Library, MS Laud 636)
This manuscript was most likely copied in 1121 at Peterborough (possibly to make good losses after the disastrous fire of 1116) and maintained up to 1154. Like "D", this manuscript forms part of the "Northern Recension" of the Chronicle, but also includes a set of 'Norman' chronicles in Latin and unique material relating to Peterborough. This is also known as the Laud Chronicle, after Archbishop Laud, its last private owner who acquired it in 1638 and as the Peterborough Chronicle. The manuscript is written in two twelfth-century hands. There are several marginalia in late thirteenth- or fourteenth-century hands.
Manuscript F (London, British Library, Cotton Domitian A.viii)
This bilingual chronicle with entries in Old English and Latin was written at Christ Church, Canterbury just after 1100. It was compiled from various sources, including Manuscript A, the immediate ancestor of Manuscript E (vE), the Annales Wintonienses, and a set of 'Norman' chronicles.
Manuscript G (London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.xi)
An early 11th century copy of Manuscript A. This manuscript was almost completely destroyed in a fire in 1731.