| Anglo Saxon England No 9. |
It is broadly true to say that about the year 900 A.D., the age of speculation is coming to an end of the dark ages and we are reaching at last a period of comparitive certainty when our imagination can be bridled by authenticated fact.
We can appreciate the differences most clearly when we realize that we can for the first time write with reasonable confidence the history of administration and governmental institutions. Indeed all the main branches of history - legal, social, economic, ecclesiastical - are beginning to stand out in their own distinctiveness in the records of time. No longer need we exalt the subsidiary sources of information like archaeology, place-names and geography into primary sources and base our conclusions upon them, for they fall into their proper place as affording confirmation to deductions drawn from written documents.
There is one exception to this generalisation; the literary and documentary evidence for what was taking place in the Danelaw is so defective that place-names and personal names have there to be pressed into service. But, on the whole, evidence in writing is adequate enough to let us piece together a coherent political history of England in the two centuries before the Norman Conquest.
The Chronicals
The main obstacle to our knowledge of the early centuries has been the lack of a chronological survey except for the period 597 - 731 A.D., covered by the invaluable Ecclesiastical History of Bede, for after him, as before him, no one else attempted to write a narrative history. The reign of Alfred, however. saw the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon Chronical, which provides the indispensable framework of developments before 1066. Indeed, it is only in England that the nation's history has been set down more or less year after year over such a long period of time (892 - 1154). The part played by Alfred himself in the work of compilation is a matter of debate that is of slight consequence; the important fact is that it was the product of the literary activity of his reign and was completed shortly after 891 A.D., so far as the early history of the West Saxon people is concerned.
The Winchester Chronical
Essentially a Wessex record, this is the oldest, and is well nigh contemporary writing. For seven scribes at Winchester kept the story up to date after 891 A.D., until the close of Edward the Elder's reign in 924. Then for some unfortunate reason interest in it died away and the document lay untouched until 955 A.D., by which time the next scribe could apparently remember remarkably little about the intervening period. The work was continued until 1001 A.D., when it was neglected for seventy years, During that time it was removed to Canterbury where the ten short entries were added for the years 1002 to 1070, when the Winchester Chronical in Anglo-Saxon ends.
The Worcester and the Peterborough Chronicals
Another copy of the Alfredian work was sent north, very probably to Ripon. There it was re-copied and in it was included additional information relating to the northern affairs. The Northumbrian 'Gesta' cover the years 733 - 806 that is from the time that Bede is no longer of service to us, and therefore, although mainly a list of assassinations and depositions, this is our sole authority for the history of that part of the country. Between 800 - 900 A.D., we know practically nothing of what was taking place there, but then a series of 'Northumbrian Annals' for 906 - 66 was also added by the northern scribes. Copies of this augmented chronical were then distributed elsewhere. One must have been sent into Mercia and there it received another accretion, the 'Mercia Register', or the 'Annals of Ethelfleda', which gives a brief description of the warfare with the Danes between 902 and 924 A.D. Eventually this version reached Worcester abbey, where it was re-copied about 1100 A.D., to give us an updated account as far as 1079 and contains the best English account of the battle of Hastings and subsequent events. Entries continued to be added at Canterbury and a century later at Peterborough.
The Abingdon Chronical
Although Latin was at the time acknowledged to be the language of scholarship, these chronicals were written throughout in the vernacular Anglo-Saxon, a remarkable event in the literature of Europe. The chronicals are unequal in their value, written as they were by many scribes at various times and in various places and under the influence of different traditions.
The most glorious age of the Wessex Monarchy between the death of Edward the Elder and the accession of Ethelred the Unready is passed over in almost total silence. Thus for Ethelstan's reign only four events of general interest are recorded; the accession of the king and his death, an expedition against the Scots which dismissed in two lines, the battle of Brunanburh which is described in spirited verse that never divulges where the battle took place.
Generally the chronicals were of praise to the king in whose territory they were written. On the one hand the scribe of the Peterborough Chronical, whilst it was at Canterbury, was living within the territories of earl Godwin had given him partisan support in his contest with the king, as also did the writer of the Worcester Chronical. On the other hand, the Abingdon Chronical is avidly anti-Godwin, accusing him of taking part in the atrocious massacre of 1036, stressing the evil deeds of his sons, and recognising in 1066 A.D., that William of Normandy had a certain legal title to the throne. Nothing can better reveal the danger of citing the Anglo-Saxon Chronical as though it represented a single historical source.
I have now to bring this to an end, sadly the work is too long to include here but my wish is that you have enjoyed reading about your heritage. As we are dedicated to recovering artifacts which are related to the times written and when you do finally find that Saxon coin remember you have recovered some part of our heritage. We are re-writing history, coins which were never known to exist are now coming to light. Good hunting.