MS C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Politics of Mid-Eleventh-Century England

Bibliographic Data

ID9799707
AuthorsStephen Baxter (King's College London, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume122
Issue499
Pages1189-1227
Publication date2007-12-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe English Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ehr/cem322
OpenAlexW2052179299
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This article examines the annals from 1035 to 1066 in three manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, conventionally known as C, D and E. It shows that each of these texts contains a politically inflected version of contemporary politics, and seeks to explain why. The article summarises current thinking on MSS D and E: that the annals in D were composed by persons close to Archbishop Ealdred, follow his career and interests closely, are royalist in character, but otherwise tend to avoid partisan commentary; and that those in E were composed at St Augustine's, Canterbury, and are partisan in favour of Earl Godwine and his family. It then examines the character of C's annals closely, arguing that they display three distinctive characteristics: antipathy towards Godwine's family, interest in Mercian affairs generally, and sympathy for the family of Leofric, earl of Mercia, in particular. The article demonstrates that the families of Godwine and Leofric were factional rivals, and argues that this helps to explain the character of C's annals: they are ‘anti-Godwineson’ because they were composed at one of the religious houses in Mercia where Leofric and his family were held in high regard. MS C (which is near contemporary) may have been written at Abingdon, but its principal source for this period was a set of annals composed in the Midlands. The closing decades of Anglo-Saxon history can thus be followed in three sets of annals whose political prejudices were partly a function of the politics they describe

Eleventh · Political science · Politics · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History

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