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Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the early sections of the Historia Regum attributed to Symeon of Durham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael Lapidge
Michael Lapidge
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

It has long been recognized that the early sections of the so-called Historia Regum, a work attributed to Symeon of Durham (ob. c. 1130) and preserved uniquely in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 139 (written c. 1164 at Sawley, Lancashire) at 5 3v–130v, originally constituted a separate work, probably composed in the pre-Conquest period and subsequently incorporated into the Historia Regum. Thomas Arnold, who edited the Historia Regum for the Rolls Series in 1885, was persuaded ‘that the more attentively any experienced person may study the curious document between pages 14 and 94 [of the edition], the more firmly will he be convinced that it is a composition of the tenth…century’. His conclusions were based on the Latin style of the work, which he regarded as ‘pretentious and bombastical on the one hand, obscure and ineffectual on the other’ and which affiliated the work, in his opinion, with other Anglo-Latin works of the tenth century. Because he believed that certain passages in the work betrayed an origin in the congregation of St Cuthbert (then at Chester-le-Street), Arnold referred to the compiler of the early sections of the Historia Regum as the ‘Cuthbertine’. His conclusions appear to have been accepted by later historians; for example, W. H. Stevenson (who referred to the early sections of the work as SD 1) wrote as follows: ‘we may readily grant that SD 1 was an older compilation, but the evidence that it was drawn up in the tenth century is, in the absence of a MS of that period, necessarily hypothetical’. No such manuscript has yet come to light, but in recent times Arnold's postulation of a tenth-century origin for the early sections has been accurately and comprehensively reinvestigated by Peter Hunter Blair. By a series of detailed stylistic arguments Hunter Blair has been able to show that the first five sections of the Historia Regum (occupying pp. 3–91 of Arnold's edition) may reasonably be regarded as the work of oneauthor. These five sections are as follows: (1) Kentish legends, particularly pertaining to the Kentish martyrs Æthelberht and Æthelred (pp. 3–13); (2) lists of Northumbrian kings (pp. 13–15); (3)material derived from Bede, particularly the Historia Abbatum (pp. 15–30); (4) a chronicle from 732 to 802 (pp. 30–68); (5) a chronicle from 849 to 887, based mainly on Asser (pp. 69–91). Hunter Blair also recognized that two passages had been interpolated at a later date into the material of these first five sections: one concerning the relics of Acca of Hexham (pp. 32–8), the other concerning those of Alchmund, also a bishop of Hexham (pp. 47–50); he reasonably suggested that these interpolations were added at Hexham in the early twelfth century. As to the date of compilation of the five early sections Hunter Blair was able to affirm, albeit cautiously, Arnold's suggestion of a tenth-century date, but he concluded that ‘in the end judgement will perhaps rest upon opinions about [their] latinity’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 10 , December 1981 , pp. 97 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 The Cistercian abbey of Sawley was formerly in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but (as a result of the county redistribution of 1974) is now in Lancashire. On the date and origin of this manuscript, see the following detailed discussions by Dumville, D. N.: ‘The Corpus Christi “Nennius”’, BBCS 25 (1972–1974), 369–80;Google Scholar‘“Nennius” and the Historia Brittonum’, Studia Celtica 10–11 (1975–1976), 78–95;Google Scholar‘Celtic-Latin Texts in Northern England, c. 1150–c. 1250’, Celtica 12 (1977), 19–49;Google Scholar and ‘The Sixteenth-Century History of Two Cambridge Books from Sawley’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 7 (1977–1981), 427–44.Google Scholar See also the discussions by Baker, D., ‘Scissors and Paste: CCCC 139 Again’, Stud. in Church Hist. 11 (1975), 83–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Offler, H. S., ‘Hexham and the Historia Regum’, Trans. of the Architecturaland Archaeol. Soc. of Durham and Northumberland n.s. 2 (1970), 51–62Google Scholar, as well as the important article by P. Hunter Blair cited below, n. 6. A facsimile on microfiche of this important manuscript (with printed introduction), edited by D. N. Dumville, is forthcoming as part of a scries edited by R. I. Page and published by D. S. Brewer Ltd.

2 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, 2 vols., RS (London, 1885), 11, 1–283;Google Scholar there is a translation of the early sections of the Historia Regum by Stevenson, J., The Church Historians of England III.ii (London, 1855), 425–81Google Scholar (this translation, however, is based on the earlier edition of the work in Petrie, H. and Sharpe, J., Monumenta Historica Britannica (London, 1848), at pp. 645–88).Google Scholar My quotations are from Arnold's edition, but 1 have corrected against the manuscript in all cases, principally because Arnold failed to distinguish marginal and interlinear additions by later hands from the work of the main scribe. A new edition is forthcoming (see below, n. 79).

3 Symeonis Opera, p. xxv.

4 Ibid. p. xvii.

5 Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, W. H., rev. D. Whitelock (Oxford, 1959), p. lix.Google Scholar

6 ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum attributed to Symeon of Durham’, Celt and Saxon: Studies in the Early British Border, ed. Chadwick, N. K. (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 63–118.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. esp. pp. 114–16.

8 Ibid. pp. 87–90. The Hexham material is not limited solely to these two extensive interpolations, of course; see Offler, ‘Hexham and the Historia Regum’, and Dumville, D. N., ‘The Ætheling: a Study in Anglo-Saxon Constitutional History’, ASE 8 (1979), 1–33, at 26Google Scholar, n. 4.

9 ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, p. 118.

10 Ibid. pp. 103–4.

11 See my extensive discussion of the authorship question in ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, MS 41 (1979), 331–53Google Scholar, as well as my more cursory remarks ASE 4 (1975), 91–4Google Scholar, and in ‘The Medieval Hagiography of St Ecgwine’, Vale of Evesham Hist. Soc. Research Papers 6 (1977), 77–93.Google Scholar I do not propose to reinvestigate the question of Byrhtferth's authorship of these two saints' lives here; however, it will emerge from my following discussion that there are too many stylistic oddities and predilections shared by the saints' lives and the Enchiridion to be dismissed as coincidence, and that the conclusions I reach concerning the authorship of the Historia Regum will in turn corroborate arguments advanced elsewhere concerning Byrhtferth's authorship of the two saints' lives.

12 Note Byrhtferth's specific statement: ‘We gesetton on þissum enchiridion, þæt ys manualis on Lyden and handboc on Englisc…’ (Byrhtferth's Manual, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS o.s. 177 (London, 1929), 131).Google Scholar In other words, the name of the work is Enchiridion, and ‘manual’ and ‘handbook’ are merely glosses on the Greek word; here, as always, Byrhtferth prefers the obscure word to the commonplace. It is probable that he derived the term from Asser's Life of King Alfred: ‘quem enchiridion suum, id est manualem librum, nominari uoluit’ (ed. Stevenson, p. 75);Google Scholar for Byrhtferth's knowledge of Asser, see below, p. 121.

13 The manuscript was written at Ramsey during the period 1081 X 1092 and subsequently transferred to Thorney; see Hart, C. R., ’The Ramsey Computus’, EHR 85 (1970), 29–44, 31–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ker, N. R., ‘Membra Disiecta’, Brit. Museum Quarterly 12 (1938), 130–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Evidence that this manuscript is a late-eleventh-century copy of a computistical commonplace-book assembled by Byrhtferth is as follows: (1) it is prefaced by a diagram ascribed to him (‘hanc figuram edidit Bryhtferd…’, 7V); (2) its computistical contents are prefaced by his signed Epilogus (12v); and (3) virtually all the computistical material in the manuscript is drawn on and elucidated by Byrhtferth in his Enchiridion; see the important discussion by Peter S. Baker, ‘Byrhtferth's Enchiridion and the Computus in Oxford, St John's College 17’, below, pp. 123–42. Arguments for regarding the manuscript as Byrhtferth's compilation are given by Forsey, G. F., ‘Byrhtferth's Preface’, Speculum 3 (1928), 505–22, at 506–7;CrossRefGoogle Scholarvan de Vyver, A., ‘Les Oeuvres inedites d'Abbon de Fleury’, RB 47 (1935), 125–69, at 144–5;Google Scholar and Hart, C. R., ‘The Ramsey Computus’, pp. 32–3Google Scholar, and ‘Byrhtferth and his Manual’, MÆ 41 (1972), 95–109Google Scholar, esp. 108–9.

14 See Lapidge, M., ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, ASE 4 (1975), 67–111.Google Scholar

15 arcbisterium (VSO, pp. 413, 418, 429 and 431; VSE, p. 376); onoma (VSO, pp. 404 and 410; VSE, p. 377; Encb, pp. 200 and 202); exenia does not occur in Byrhtferth's writings, but is not a rarity.

16 The following sentence is found in the Chronica Maiora which Bede appended to his De Temporum Ratione: ‘epinicion quippe triumphum, palmam significat’ (Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII, ed. Mommsen, T., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Antiq. 13 (Berlin, 1894–1898), 247–327, at 326).Google Scholar

17 De Virginitate, ch. xx (Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH, Auct. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 249Google Scholar, line 17).

18 E.g. VSO, p. 427: ‘utendum puto anabibazon uerbo, quod significat sursum scandens’. The word anabibazo (àvaβiβáζw) is not found in glossaries, and whence Byrhtferth learned it is not clear; furthermore, he knew enough about verb conjugation to give (correctly) the masc. nom. form of the present participle (àvaβiβaζώv). One suspects that he learned some smattering of Greek from Abbo.

19 Ed. Ehwald, p. 75, line 3.

20 That the glosses accompanying the Enchiridion in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 328 are by Byrhtferth himself has been demonstrated convincingly by Baker, Peter S., ‘Studies in the Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale Univ., 1978), pp. 51–7Google Scholar, and idem, ‘The Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey’, Speculum 55 (1980), 22–37.

21 ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, p. 104.

22 Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896) 1, 365 and 385.Google Scholar

23 Byrhtferth uses a similar formula in Old English: ‘We byddað þa boceras and þa getydde weras, þe þas þing fulfremedlice cunnon, þæt heom hefelice ne þincen [ =ut oneri non sit] þas þing þe we medomlice iungum cnihtum gesettað and sendað’ (Ench, p. 32).

24 Ed. Plummer 1, 373.

25 Ed. Ehwald, p. 250, line 19.

26 Opera, Bedae Venerabilis, I: Optra Didascalica, ed. Jones, C. W. et al. , Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 123A (Turnhout, 1975), 214.Google Scholar Because the HR author prefaced his discussion with ‘inquit plinius’, Arnold assumed that the source of the discussion was Pliny's Historia Naturalis (11.13). However, in spite of what the HR author says, his wording agrees with Bede, not with Pliny, and it is apparent that he was copying from a manuscript of the De Natura Rerum which was provided withBede's characteristic source-marks (i.e. Plinius must have been written in the margin beside the chapter on eclipses; cf. discussion by Jones, Ibid. p. 187). This lazy scholarly technique of appearing to quote a primary source by way of a secondary source is not unknown today.

27 Ibid. pp. 224–5; the passage in question is that in HR beginning ‘Aestus oceani lunam sequitur’ (p. 54) and ending ‘transmissa uidetur’ (p. 55).

28 Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Jones, C. W., Med. Acad. of America Publ. 41 (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), 233 = HR, p. 55:Google Scholar ‘sicut enim luna quatuor punctis…quinque enim puncti horam faciunt’. This passage was not identified by Arnold, who consequently ascribed it (erroneously) to the HR author.

29 Note that Byrhtferth's Beda cwyð corresponds exactly to the HR author's addition Beda testatur (p. 55).

30 Bedae Opera de Temporibus, ed. Jones, p. 233.Google Scholar

31 It is worth noting that these two treatises of Bede were also copied side by side into Byrhtferth's computistical commonplace-book, Oxford, St John's College 17, 62r–5r (the De Natura Rerum, acephalous, beginning ch. xvi) and 65v–123r (the De Temporum Ratione).

32 See my remarks, ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, p. 340.

33 A similarly verbose way of saying ‘fifty’ occurs later in HR: ‘septem uidelicet septimanis dierum et monade, hoc est quinquaginta diebus suppletis’ (p. 85).

34 See, for example, Ambrose, , De Virginibus ad Marcellinam, i.x (Migne, Patrologia Latina16, col. 205);Google ScholarJerome, , Commentarius in evangelium Mattbei, ch. 11 (PL 26, col. 92);Google Scholar and Augustine, , De Sancta Virginitate, ch. LXV (PL 40, col. 423).Google Scholar See also my ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, p. 340.

35 The grammatical errors (iustitie and fortitudines for the abl. sg.) presumably originate with the exceedingly careless scribe of Ashmole 328. The four cardinal virtues are listed again at Ench, p. 92, and are also found in the Old English homily preserved at the end of Ashmole 328 and printed by Crawford (Ench, pp. 247–8). As Baker has shown (‘The Old English Canon’, pp. 32–4), this homily is almost certainly by Byrhtferth.

36 See my discussion, Aldhelm: The Prose Works, trans. M. Lapidge and M. Herren (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 1–3Google Scholar, and ‘The Hermeneutic Style’, pp. 73–5.

37 Ed. Ehwald, p. 250, line 19.

38 Two examples may be given: the sentence (VSE, p. 361) ‘sic ex auro hyacincto purpuraque bis tincto cocco siue uermiculo cum bysso retorto’ is taken verbatim from the prose De Virginitate, ch. xv (ed. Ehwald, p. 244, lines 18–19)Google Scholar, and the words (VSO, p. 413)‘hortante deinde proreta et sonante naucleru’ are from ch. 11 of the same work (Ehwald, p. 230, lines 22–3). Byrhtferth's indebtedness to Aldhelm is immense.

39 ‘Byrhtferth's Preface’, pp. 514–15.

40 Carmen de Virginitate, lines 23–7 and 74–80. There are also numerous reminiscences of this poem in Byrhtferth's prose – e.g. tota [sic] mentis conamine (VSO, p. 404) is from line 89 – but this is hardly the place to give a list.

41 Ed. Plummer 1, 373 and 365.

42 See discussion by Whitbread, L., ‘After Bede: the Influence and Dissemination of his Doomsday Verses’, ASNSL 204 (1967), 250–66Google Scholar, esp. 252–5 on the HR author's knowledge of the poem. Whitbread assumed that HR was compiled at Hexham and hence that its recension of Bede's poem never left Northumbria; this view will need revision in the light of the arguments presented here. Also Whitbread was unaware that the poem is extensively quoted in VSE.

43 Epil, p. 517: ‘ edidit idem[scil. Beda] quamplurimos sacros apices librorum, elimauitque luce clarius bis binorum dicta euangelistarum nonnulla’. The works in question must be In Marcum and In Lucam, Bede's only known commentaries on the gospels.

44 See Bolton, D. K., ‘The Study of the Consolation of Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England’, Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge 44 (1977), 33–78;Google Scholar Miss Bolton studies the commentaries on Boethius contained in tenth- and eleventh-century English manuscripts. For the literary application of a knowledge of Boethius by a Winchester poet contemporary with Byrhtferth, see my remarks, ‘Three Latin Poems from Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 85–137Google Scholar, at 103–4.

45 The quotations from the metra are as follows: HR, p. 14 (1, met. ii, lines 3, 25 and 27), p. 14 (11, met. vii, lines 12–14), pp. 55–6 (1, met. v, lines 29–36), p. 62 (iv, met. v, lines 21–2), p. 65 (11, met. i, lines 7–10), p. 66 (11, met. ix, lines 10–12), p. 67 (iv, met. vi, lines 27–9), p. 67 (iv, met. v, lines 21–2, as at HR, p. 62, but quoted accurately this time), p. 77 (in, met. iv, lines 1–3), p. 78 (in, met. v, lines 7–8 ) and pp. 89–90 (11, met. iv, lines 1–4 and 17–22). A famous sentence from 1, pr. iv (‘beatas fore res publicas, si eas uel studiosi sapientiae regerent, uel si earum rectores studere sapientiae contigisset’) is twice quoted in HR (pp. 64 and 81) but is not identified by Arnold. Another sentence from 11, pr. v (beginning ‘tunc est preciosa pecunia…’) quoted on p. 90 of HR is erroneously identified by Arnold.

46 Three Lives of English Saints, ed. Winterbottom, M. (Toronto, 1971), pp. 67–87.Google Scholar

47 HR, p. 85, n. a.

48 See especially Epil, p. 519: ‘[Abbo sophista]…per cuius beneuolentiam percepimus huius rei intelligentiam necnon aliarum rerum peritiam', cf. Ench, p. 232 etc.

49 VSO, pp. 413, 417 and 422; VSE, p. 391 etc.

50 Blair, Hunter, ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, pp. 86–99.Google Scholar

51 See Hart, ‘The Ramsey Computus’.

52 Ibid. p. 57.

53 The poem is listed (with bibliography) in Schaller, D. and Könsgen, E., Initia carminum Lalinorum stuculo undecimo antiquiorum (Göttingen, 1977), as no. 9480Google Scholar, and edited in Anthologia Latina, ed. Riese, A. (Leipzig, 1894), as no. 676Google Scholar, and in Poetae Latini Minores, ed. Baehrens, E., 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1879–1883) v, at 349–50;Google Scholar for discussion, see Bieler, L., ‘Adversaria zu Anthologia 676’, Antidosis: Festschrift für Walther Kraus, ed. Hanslik, R., Lesky, A. and Schwabl, H. (Vienna, 1972), pp. 41–8.Google Scholar

54 See Jones, C. W., Bedae Pseudepigrapha: Scientific Writings falsely attributed to Bede (Ithaca, N.Y., 1939), pp. 67 and 77.Google Scholar However, it is well to ask where, if the poem is spurious, Byrhtferth found the distich attributing it to Bede, and to remember that the HR author's version of De Die Iudicii preserves an eight-line dedication to Acca which marks it as a genuine work of Bede.

55 The poem is entered on 14r.

56 I have edited this poem, with commentary and full discussion of the manuscript recensions of the Metrical Calendar of York on which it is ultimately based, as ‘A Metrical Calendar from Ramsey’, RB (forthcoming).

57 A later scribe has written ad calorem nimium in the margin, thus revealing that be recognized the source of the sentence to be the Book of Job; but the main scribe did not (apparently) complete the sentence, or he found it incomplete in his source.

58 ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, p. 341.

59 Aratoris Subdiaconi De Actibus Apostolorum, ed. McKinlay, A. P., Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 72 (Vienna, 1951), 25.Google Scholar

60 In addition to the interpolations I have omitted from my discussion sect. 6 (in Hunter Blair's numeration), which carries the history down to 957, because, as far as I am able to judge, its entries have no recognizable Byrhtferthian features. But the question requires further consideration; in any case one must ask why Byrhtferth's historical compilation would have ended at 887, approximately a century before the time he was writing. Furthermore the possibility of alteration and interpolation by the twelfth-century scribes of CCCC 139 must constantly be borne in mind, so that that we remain cautious in regarding every single word in the first five sections as the ipsissimum uerbum of Byrhtferth.

61 In the light of my investigations above it is interesting to notice Arnold's inspired insight: ‘Let the reader look at pp. 14, 31, 55, 76, 84 and remark the curious way in which illustrative scraps of metre are cited from Boethius…then let him read some pages of the Life of St. Oswald of York, written by a Ramsey monk of the late 10th century; he will feel, I think, that both works belong to nearly the same period, the same grade of culture’ (Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia 1, xvii).

62 VSO mentions Archbishop Ælfric as living and was therefore composed 995 x 1005; Ench was being written in 1011; and VSE was written probably 1014 X 1020, as I have suggested elsewhere (‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’, p. 342).

63 I am reluctant to accept titles used by earlier editors, such as the ‘Northumbrian Chronicle’ or the Gesla Veterum Northanhymbrorum, simply because they apply appropriately only to sect. 4 (incorporating the ‘York annals’), whereas sect. 1 is concerned with Kentish history and sect. 5 almost exclusively with West Saxon history. A satisfactory title would have to embrace this regional diversity.

64 The work is listed in the Bollandists' Bibliotheca Hagiographica Lalina, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1898–1899), as no. 2643.Google Scholar

65 Ibid. nos. 2641–2.

66 See Ker, N. R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), p. 154.Google Scholar

67 Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, W. D., RS (London, 1886), p. 55.Google Scholar

68 An edition of this text has been prepared by Dr David Rollason as an appendix to his forthcoming book, The Mildrith Legend: a Study in Early Medieval Hagiograpby in England. I am grateful to him for supplying me with a transcript of his text.

69 Blair, P. Hunter, ‘The Moore Memoranda on Northumbrian History’, The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadaick Memorial Studies), ed. Fox, C. and Dickins, B. (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 245–57, at p. 246.Google Scholar

70 Dumville, D. N., ‘The Anglian Collection of Royal Genealogies and Regnal Lists’, ASE 5 (1976), 23–50, esp. 25–6 and 32.Google Scholar

71 ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, pp. 83–4.

72 Ibid. p. 91. On the manuscript, see Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores 11, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1972), no. 191Google Scholar, and Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 261.Google Scholar

73 Bedae Venerabilis Opera IV: Opera Rhythmica, ed. Fraipont, J., CCSL 122 (Turnhout, 1955), 439–44;Google Scholar cf. also Whitbread, L., ‘A Study of Bede's Versus De Die ludicii’, PQ 23 (1944), 193–221.Google Scholar

74 It is doubtful whether we shall ever know who compiled the ‘ York annals’; nevertheless I am forcibly impressed by the conjecture of William Stubbs over a century ago: ‘It is not improbable that Alcuin was instrumental in a remote way in the composition of the [‘York annals’]; the references to events of European rather than domestic interest, and especially to the history of the great emperor, seem to imply it. It ends too about the time of Alcuin's death, as if the writer had not thought it worthwhile to continue it. There is, however, no distinct trace of Alcuin's hand in it…’ (Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hovedene, 4 vols., RS (London, 1868–1871), 1, xi).Google Scholar

75 On this manuscript, see now Gneuss, H., ‘Die Handschrift Cotton Otho A. xii’, Anglia 94 (1976), 289–318.Google Scholar

76 Asser's Life of King Alfred, p. lix.

77 ‘Some Observations on the Historia Regum’, p. 101.

78 There is some exploration of this subject by Hart, C. R., in ‘Byrhtferth's Northumbrian Chronicle’, EHRGoogle Scholar forthcoming. In many ways Dr Hart's researches on Byrhtferth have run a parallel course to my own and I am grateful to him for showing me his article before publication and for discussing Byrhtferth on many occasions.

79 An edition of this work is in progress by D. N. Dumville and myself as vol. xvi of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. D. N. Dumville and S. D. Keynes.Google Scholar

80 London, BL Royal 13. A. vi (origin unknown, s. xiimed) and Oxford, St John's College 97 (Durham, s. xiiiin).

81 See Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hovedene, ed. Stubbs 1, xxvi–xxviii and xxxi–xxxix; cf. Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 225–6.Google Scholar

82 The passages corresponding to Byrhtferth's sect. 2 and 4 are ptd Chronica Magistri Roger:’ de Hovedene, ed. Stubbs (with passages from the Historia post Bedam in reduced type), 1, 3–19.Google Scholar

83 It has been suggested by Gransden, A.(Historical Writing in England, p. 31)Google Scholar that some entries from what I call the‘York annals’ were incorporated in the so-called Chronicle of Melrose; it will be necessary to establish whether Byrhtferth's historical miscellany was the intermediary of these entries in this work. The Chronicle of Melrose has been edited in facsimile by A. O., and Anderson, M. O. (London, 1936);Google Scholar see their discussion of sources for the early section (p. xi).

84 I am very grateful to Peter Dronke for commenting on an earlier draft of this article and above all to David Dumville for sharing with me his unrivalled knowledge of CCCC 139 and for advising me on many difficult problems of interpretation.