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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(Paperback) - 1998 Edition Paperback

by Various (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original ms. of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great. Multiple copies were made of that original which were distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated. In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154. Nine mss survive in whole or in part, tho not all are of equal historical value & none of them is the original version. The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was written at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at that monastery in 1116. Almost all of the material in the Chronicle is in the form of annals, by year. The earliest are dated 60 BC (the annals' date for Caesar's invasions of Britain) & historical material follows up to the year in which the chronicle was written, at which point contemporary records begin. These mss collectively are known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
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    English
  2. Publisher
    Taylor & Francis Ltd
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00N1BTXGC
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 33 ratings

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
33 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Badazz
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Organized and Readable
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2013
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This book is a translated, highly organized, adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This is a government record of the deeds of the English through the dark ages. It is a government sponsored recounting of their history. Many of the poems and passages are every bit as good as the Bible.

An interesting read for anyone who wants to study the history of Dark Age England.
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robert gille
5.0 out of 5 stars Good deal
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
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Great service
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Susan McFadden
5.0 out of 5 stars Successor to Garmonsway's Translation
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017
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A good successor to Garmonsway's parallel translation of the various Chronicle texts - good translation, ample notes, solid introduction. It also has good maps and supplementary material for the history.
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Jordan M. Poss
4.0 out of 5 stars Good edition of an important work
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2008
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Michael Swanton's edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a good, handy reference in modern English. A group of manuscripts (eight in all) rather than a single unified book, the Chronicle is the first continuously-maintained vernacular national historical work in Western history. Swanton has here translated and edited the manuscripts to form a continuous whole, and included extensive notes.

I bought this edition in college and have used it for a lot of classwork and independent research since then. The translation is clear and simple and the notes are certainly helpful.

The only thing I dislike about this book is the way in which the text is presented. Rather than each manuscript being presented as-is, they are divided up and rearranged so that all of the manuscripts form a piecemeal chronology from Creation to the final entry in 1154. If you're trying to follow the account of a particular manuscript it can be frustrating, as you have to flip back and forth quite a bit, but this is really a small complaint.

Swanton has included a lengthy introduction that details the various manuscripts of the Chronicle, and extensive back matter including family trees, bibliography, maps, photos, and a detailed index of names and places.

Highly recommended.
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Caraculiambro
5.0 out of 5 stars excellently done
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2012
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Heavily annotated and carefully brought together, this volume is a must-have for any OE scholar or student.

One thing that might irritate you: he mashes all the Chronicles together by date, not separating them into separate sections (although he indicates which is which in the running text).
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ryl scott
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice book this is nice a shipload of information popes ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2014
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Nice book this is nice a shipload of information popes king if you got this book you got to get the anglo saxon chart to go with highly recommended get this book while the price is this low
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Christopher Sweet
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely useful
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2014
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This is a great translation and scholarly adaptation of the Old English manuscripts upon which it is based. Not only does it cover the most popularly used copy but it also lists the differences between it and other manuscripts.
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Ian M. Slater
5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: A Great Replacement
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2004
"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" is the collective name for a whole set of chronicles, originally scattered across England. Arranged mainly year-by-year, they contain contemporary, or purportedly contemporary, accounts of important events: wars, the deaths of kings, bishops, and popes, and some interesting poems about such events.

They are clearly derived from a single original form, but show considerable variation, due to different scribal practices and where and when they were copied and continued. Information in one copy can often be supplemented or corrected from another, allowing a better glimpse of "Dark Age" England. They are mainly in Old English, but some have Latin entries, and there are medieval translations into Latin. (The fact that chronicles were *not* kept in Latin was unusual, and suggests that King Alfred was right about the poor state of learning in Viking-assaulted England.) It has been recognized since Elizabethan times as an important work, and one or another manuscript served as the basis of series of translations into English since the nineteenth century. Eventually, efforts were made to present two or more manuscripts together, producing a new round of translations.

This translation was originally published by J.M. Dent in 1996, and intended as a replacement for that publisher's Everyman's Library "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" translation of 1953, the highly-regarded, and often disliked, work of Norman Garmonsway. Highly regarded, because it was very accurate and followed the layout of a standard text edition of 1892, which displayed the considerable variety among the manuscripts. This layout allowed the student referring to a copy of Earle and Plummer's edition to find the appropriate passage in the original language with little effort. Disliked, because the same arrangement is very hard to follow, and the small print in the notes and index was annoyingly hard to read. The 1953 edition was revised in 1954, and issued in paperback in the 1970s with a few bibliographic updates. It was a state-of-knowledge treasure at the time, but an explosion in historical and archeological work in the following decades made it ever more creaky with age. My copy of the paperback is falling apart from use, some of that use a matter of getting used to the layout -- I share both views about it. [2012: I've reviewed a digital incarnation -- Kindle and iBook that I know of -- of Garmonsway.]

Well, those who disliked the layout will have to try reading a single-text or composite translation, instead of this one. Michael Swanton has preserved the 1892 placement of the text. Fortunately, his translation seems as precise as Garmonsway's -- a statement I feel qualified to make, having worked through the Chronicle texts in "Bright's Old English Reader" and several other student's editions. On the whole, it is, I think, more readable (although I miss the old phrasing in a few passages). The pages are physically larger, and so is the type, (although the notes are still just below my comfort level), and the genealogical tables and maps are both easy to read and detailed enough to be useful.

[2012 update: The composite translation I had in mind, and somehow failed to mention, is that edited by Dorothy Whitelock, in the revised edition of 1961. Since it gives major variants in parallel columns, and minor ones in footnotes, it is really no easier to follow, and not as convenient for use with a standard text edition -- on which see below.]

Sooner or later, of course, Swanton's annotations will begin to show their age too, although the technology of the next fifty years may allow more frequent and more radical improvements in published works than was possible in the twentieth century. Meanwhile, a collaborative edition of all the texts is in the process of publication, and a new understanding of the growth of the Chronicle may emerge, suggesting new ways of arranging and presenting the material. For now, however, Michael Swanton has provided an essential tool -- and buried in it is a lot of good reading.

[2012 update. The three volumes of Earle-revised-by-Plummer "Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel" are available for downloading from archive.org. Of the several formats offered, pdf is probably the most reliable -- no OCR problems with a text with strange characters and made up of obsolete words and forms.]
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