The collection of annals we now call the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was first compiled systematically during the reign of King Alfred (871–99). There is no conclusive evidence of his personal involvement, but the ambitious scheme to present a chronological record of the history of the English kingdoms in the vernacular fits well with Alfred's programme of educational revival (see p. 2), promoted in the context of an increasing sense of English nationalism. The Chronicle in fact records, in its characteristically terse and formulaic way, events from the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in AD 43 up to the Alfredian period itself. Subsequently it was continued up to the Norman Conquest and beyond, stopping only in the year 1154, when King Stephen died.

The history of the Chronicle is complex. Seven main versions are preserved, each differing in some way from the others, often radically, though they can be divided into four distinct groups. A prototype was probably produced somewhere inWessex around 891 by at least two compilers, presumably working in a monastic setting, where annalistic writing would have been practised. For the entries covering the previous 850 years, the compilers relied on Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (see p. 69), along with genealogies, classical sources and probably some pre-existing annals in Latin; thereafter, events were recorded soon after their occurrence. It seems that copies of the prototype Chronicle were distributed through the kingdom and that later bulletins were then sent out to be added to these.