Résumé
Résumé de The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love early English history and facts told plainly, and readers of Tolkien or Beowulf curious about where England's early story comes from.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the oldest history of England written in English. It is a set of year-by-year records, kept by monks and clerics, that runs from the time of Julius Caesar to the middle of the twelfth century. No single author wrote it. It grew in stages, in several monasteries, over about three centuries.
The work began in the south of England in the late ninth century, in the kingdom of Wessex, when King Alfred ruled. Copies were made and sent to other religious houses. Each house then kept its own copy going, adding news of its own region and its own point of view. That is why we speak of manuscripts, not of one book. The Winchester copy, the Peterborough copy and several others differ, and the differences are part of the story.
In this summary you will meet the Roman and British past, the first English kings, the arrival of Christianity, and the long fight against Viking raiders. You will see Alfred hold Wessex together, his children win back the north, and a second wave of Danes end English rule. Then comes 1066 and the Normans. Let us begin with how the Chronicle came to be written at all.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A history written in English, year by yearFree
- 2Before England, Rome and the first settlers
- 3Christianity and the rise of the kingdoms
- 4The Vikings arrive and England is shaken
- 5Alfred holds Wessex and turns the tide
- 6Alfred's heirs win back the Danelaw
- 7Æthelred, new Danish raids, and Cnut
- 8The year 1066 and the Norman Conquest
- 9How to read the Chronicle today
Point clé 1 sur 9
A history written in English, year by year
The Chronicle is built from annals. An annal is a short entry for one year, often only a line or two. Some years have no entry at all, and a few entries run to several pages. The format is simple, and that simplicity is its strength. Each entry says what struck the writer as worth keeping.
Most scholars place the first compilation in the 890s, in Wessex, in the reign of King Alfred. Alfred is known for urging that books be put into English so that people could read them. The Chronicle fits that spirit. It was written in the language people spoke, not in Latin, which was the usual tongue for learned writing. That choice made it a record for a wider audience than the clergy alone.
The early entries drew on older sources. The writers used lists of kings, church records, and the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, the Northumbrian monk who finished his own work in 731. They also used oral memory and lore about founders of kingdoms. For the earliest centuries, then, the Chronicle repeats what was believed in Alfred's day, not what an eyewitness saw.
Once the first version existed, copies spread to monasteries and churches. Each one carried the story forward in its own hand. The Winchester copy is sometimes called the Parker Chronicle, after a later owner. The Peterborough copy is the one that goes on longest, to 1154. In all, historians count seven main manuscripts and a few fragments, and they label them with letters.
This means the Chronicle is a family of texts that share a trunk and then branch. Where the branches agree, we can feel fairly sure. Where they disagree, we see how different places remembered the same age. That is the first thing to hold in mind as you listen. You are hearing a record kept by many hands, each with its own loyalties.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Alfred
- King of Wessex, Alfred confronts Danish armies and is the father of Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd.
- Edward the Elder
- Alfred's son Edward the Elder campaigns against the Danes, working alongside his sister Æthelflæd.
- Æthelflæd
- Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd rules Mercia and shares her brother Edward the Elder's struggle against Danish power.
- Æthelred
- Æthelred is an English king whose reign brings renewed Danish attacks and difficult decisions about resistance.
- Augustine
- Augustine is the missionary sent by Pope Gregory to Kent, where King Æthelberht receives him.
- Æthelberht
- Æthelberht is the king of Kent who receives Augustine during the mission to convert the English.
- Harold
- Harold is Godwin's son, presented as taking the English kingdom amid the succession crisis of 1066.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 97,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 25 min
- Listening time10 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages