Charles Plummer

“ ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. It is usual to speak of “the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”; it would be more correct to say that there are four Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. It is true that these all grow out of a common stock, that in some even of their later entries two or more of them use common materials; but the same may be said of several groups of medieval chronicles, which no one dreams of treating as single chronicles. Of this fourfold Chronicle there are seven MSS. in existence ”

“ Edmund Gibson of Queen’s College, Oxford, afterwards bishop of London, published an edition in 1692. He used Wheloc’s edition, and E, with collations or transcripts of B and F. Both Wheloc and Gibson give Latin translations. In 1823 appeared an edition by Dr Ingram, of Trinity College, Oxford, with an English translation. Besides A, B, E, F, Ingram used C and D for the first time. But both he and Gibson made the fatal error of trying to combine the disparate materials contained in the various chronicles in a single text. ”

“ From 1018 the relations of C, D, E become too complicated to be expressed by any formula; sometimes all three agree together, sometimes all three are independent; in other places each pair in turn agree against the third. It may be noted that C is strongly anti-Godwinist, while E is equally pro-Godwinist, D occupying an intermediate position. ”