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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Precedence among
the sources must go to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC). Six major manuscripts
and two fragments make up what we recognise collectively as The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle. (One of the manuscripts was severely damaged but happily after some
scholars had examined it.)
Each version tells the story in a different way so they are
recognised as the work of independent scribes. They include events and material
which are relevant to, and known, at the place where they were prepared.
The provenance of
the component parts of the ASC has some relevance to how their information
should be interpreted. The chronicle contains manuscripts that are known by
letters of the alphabet:
-
A. (The Parker
MS aka ‘C.C.C. Cant173’ because of its location at Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge) It may have been written at Winchester where it was
stored until the mid 11th century when it was moved to Christ Church,
Canterbury. It is written by one hand until 891 and extends to 1093 but with
no substantive entries after 1002. Later alterations and additions were made
in the same hand as the F manuscript.
-
(B. Ends in
977.)
-
C. (The Cotton
Tiberius Bi) The MS extends to 1066 and has been mutilated, suggesting some
crude form of censorship.
-
Versions B and
C survive as copies of lost documents which include the ‘Mercian
Register’ covering the years 902 to 924.
-
D. (The Cotton
Tiberius Biv) The text from the Mercian Register is also incorporated into
this manuscript rather than keeping it as a separate narrative (as in B and
C). D records more events that are relevant to northern England.
-
E. (The Laud
Misc. 636) The manuscript from
Peterborough[i]
is copied in one hand until 1121; the originals probably decayed and are
lost. It has several additions of local events and was updated until 1154,
making it the last of the surviving chronicles to be maintained. It is now
located at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and is also known as the Abingdon
Chronicle.
-
Versions D and E are often known as the "northern
recession" because they incorporate more material of northern English
history.
-
F. (The Cotton
Domitian Aviii) An abridgement of Version E plus some material from Version
A. Probably prepared in the late 11th or early 12th century.
-
G. (The Cotton
Otho Bxi) It appears to be a copy of Version A and is a transcript made in
the 15th/16th Century. It was almost destroyed by fire in 1731.
-
H. (Cotton
Domitian) A fragment which covers the years 1113 and 1114.
Scholarship continues to shed light on the copying and
provenance of the various copies[ii].
It was normal to make copies of the manuscripts when the
original materials deteriorated. But scholars believe these were copies and not
rewrites or indeed edits of the original. The original content is believed to be
a near contemporaneous record of the limited range of events that were deemed
relevant by the scribe and their master. The ASC is, without question, an
invaluable historic record but it is, for the most part, a dull read.
The A and B Chronicles were either not maintained until
1066 or have nothing to say about the battle at Fulford. It is the
chronicles written in the north that provide the story of 1066.
C
“; . . and when his [Harold’s] fleet was gathered
together, then went he into the Isle of Wight, and there lay all the summer
and the harvest; and a land-force was kept everywhere by the sea, though in
the end it was of no benefit. When it was the Nativity of St. Mary [8th
September], then were the men's provisions gone, and no man could any longer
keep them there. Then were the men allowed to go home, and the king rode up,
and the ships were dispatched to London; and many perished before they came
thither. When the ships had reached home, then came King Harald from Norway,
north into Tyne, and unawares, with a very large ship-force - no small one; it
might be [text is corrupt but John of
Worcester who copied this passage inserts the number 500], or more. And
Tosty the earl came to him with all that he had gotten, all as they had before
agreed; and then they went both, with all the fleet, along the Ouse, up
towards York. Then was it made known to King Harold in the south, as he was
come from on ship-board, that Harald King of Norway and Tosty the Earl were
landed near York. Then went he [King Harold of England] northward, day and
night, as quickly as he could gather his forces. Then, before that King
Harold could come thither, then gathered Edwin the Earl and Morcar the Earl
from their earldom as great a force as they could get together; and they
fought against the army, and made great slaughter: and there was much of the
English people slain, and drowned, and driven away in flight; and the Northmen
had possession of the place of carnage. And this fight was on the vigil of St.
Matthew the apostle, and it was Wednesday [20th September]. And then,
after the fight, went Harald, King of Norway, and Tosty the Earl, into York,
with as many people as seemed meet to them. And they delivered hostages to
them from the city, and also assisted them with provisions; and so they went
thence to their ships, and they agreed upon a full peace, so that they should
all go with him south, and subdue this land. Then, during this, came Harold,
King of the Angles, with all his forces, on the Sunday, to Tadcaster, and
there drew up his force, and went then on Monday throughout York; and Harald,
King of Norway, and Tosty the Earl, and their forces, were gone from their
ships beyond York to Stanfordbridge, because it had been promised them for a
certainty, that there, from all the shire, hostages should be brought to meet
them. Then came Harold, King of the English, against them, unawares, beyond
the bridge, and they there joined battle, and very strenuously, for a long
time of the day, continued fighting: and there was Harald, King of Norway, and
Tosty the Earl slain, and numberless of the people with them, as well of the
Northmen as of the English: and the Northmen fled from the English. Then was
there one of the Norwegians who withstood the English people, so that they
might not pass over the bridge, nor obtain the victory. Then an Englishman
aimed at him with a javelin, but availed nothing; and then came another under
the bridge, and pierced him terribly inwards under the coat of mail. Then came
Harold, king of the English, over the bridge, and his forces onward with him,
and there made great slaughter, as well of Norwegians as of Flemings. And the
King's son, Hetmundus [Olaf], Harold let go home to Norway, with all the
ships.”
This translation retains the note-taking, almost
breathless, style of the original. Modern translations are easier to read
because they adjust the word order to suit the way English is written and spoken
today. But a part of the exercise, which is not documented here, was to compare
available versions as the sense can be changed when the language is modernised.[iii]
D
“And the while, came Tosty the earl into Humber with
sixty ships. Edwin the earl came with a land-force and drove him out; and the
boatmen deserted him. And he went to Scotland with twelve small vessels; and
Harald, the King of Norway, met him with three hundred ships, and Tosty
submitted to him; and they both went into Humber, until they came to York. And
Morcar the earl, and Edwin the earl, fought against them; and the king of the
Norwegians had the victory. And it was made known to King Harold how it there
was done, and had happened; and it happened on the Vigil of St Matthew [20th
September]:”
E
“[Tosty] went to Scotland with twelve small vessels and
Harald, the Norse king, met him with three hundred ships, and Tosty submitted
to him; and both went up the Humber until they reached York. And Earl
Morcar and Earl Edwin fought against them and the king of Norway had the
victory.”
Both D & E relate versions of the Stamford Bridge
battle.
The absence of any mention of the battle at Fulford in the
southern chronicles, as opposed to the northern chronicles, might indicate that
the southerners were either unaware of the northern events or did not feel it
was part of their mandate to record both battles ‘up north’. Perhaps the
northern events were not seen as relevant, given what followed at Hastings. It
might represent an act of censorship but there is no evidence at all for this.
The ASC is not a daily diary. The events of a single year
are normally compacted into a few words and many years have no entry. Version A
has a single line for 1043, another for 1050. There appears to be nothing for
these chroniclers to report in 1060 or 1064. What was recorded for the year 1066
is wordy by the frugal standards of these chroniclers. Fortunately, they
provided a framework for subsequent historians who expanded the chronicles in
their work. Happily, the style changed after 1066 and they become more
informative.
The work of Ian Howard and others has shown that care must
be exercised when assessing some dates as some of the early annalists took
September as the start of the year. News of the northern events could have
reached them before they made their record. He has also highlighted the
geographical bias and some instances of what we would now recognise as political
spin within the ASC.[iv]
[i]
According to Frank Barlow, the E version was written at St Augustine’s
Abbey, Canterbury
[ii]
An example is appendix 2 of Ian
Howard ‘Swein Forkbeard’s invasion
and the Danish Conquest of England 991-1017’ Boydell 2003
[iii]
One example would be the way the events after the battle at Stamford Bridge
are presented which range from ‘the Saxons took the seamen in the rear’
to ‘A force then attacked the Norse army from behind’.
[iv]
Ian Howard ‘Swein Forkbeard’s
invasion and the Danish Conquest of England 991-1017’
[v]
For example, Eadmer and the unnamed Waltham scribe who was author of Harold
of Godwinson.
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