The ''Peterborough Chronicle'' (also called the Laud manuscript and the E manuscript) is a version of the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
s'' originally maintained by the monks of
Peterborough Abbey
Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Pau ...
in
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...
. It contains unique information about the
history of England
England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BBC News. Retrieved 7 February ...
and of the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
after the
Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
; according to
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
J. A. W. Bennett, it is the only prose history in English between the Conquest and the later 14th century.
The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'' were composed and maintained between the various
monasteries
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...
of Anglo-Saxon England and were an attempt to record the history of Britain throughout the years AD. Typically the chronicles began with the birth of Christ, went through
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
and
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
history, then continued to the present. Every major religious house in England kept its own, individual chronicle, and the chronicles were not compared with each other or in any way kept uniform. For example, in the opening paragraph of this chronicle it is said that the Britons that settled in South Britain came from "Armenia". ("Armenia" is probably a mistaken transcription of
Armorica
Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; br, Arvorig, ) is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic Coast ...
, an area in Northwestern Gaul.)
However, whenever a monastery's chronicle was damaged, or when a new monastery began a chronicle, nearby monasteries would lend out their chronicles for copying. Thus, a new chronicle would be identical to the lender's until they reached the date of copying and then would be idiosyncratic. Such was the case with the ''Peterborough Chronicle'': a fire compelled the abbey to copy the chronicles from other churches up to 1120.
When
William the Conqueror
William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...
took England and
Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to:
*Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066
* Anglo-Norman language
**Anglo-Norman literature
* Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...
became the official language, the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'' generally ceased. The monks of
Peterborough Abbey
Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Pau ...
, however, continued to compile events in theirs. While the ''Peterborough Chronicle'' is not professional history, and one still needs
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
histories (e.g.
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a ...
's ''Gesta Regum Anglorum''), it is one of the few surviving first-hand accounts from the period 1070 to 1154 in England written in English and from a non-courtly point of view.
It is also a valuable source of information about the early
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
language itself. The first continuation, for example, is written in late
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, but the second continuation begins to show mixed forms, until the conclusion of the second continuation, which switches into an early form of distinctly Middle English. The linguistic novelties recorded in the second continuation are plentiful, including at least one true innovation: the feminine pronoun "
she
She most commonly refers to:
*She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English.
She or S.H.E. may also refer to:
Literature and films
*'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...
" (as ''"scæ"'') is first recorded in the ''Peterborough Chronicle'' ().
The chronicle from the original copied text through the continuations shows the history of the loss of
grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
in West Saxon English, going from the copied portion which while mostly conforming to Old English grammatical gender does have some discrepancies, through the first continuation in which modifiers are re-adapted to other functions and there is a large discrepancy with Old English grammatical gender, to the second continuation in which grammatical gender is completely lost or nearly so.
The fire and the continuations
Today, the ''Peterborough Chronicle'' is recognised as one of the four distinct versions of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' (along with the ''Winchester Chronicle'' or ''Parker Chronicle'', the ''Abingdon Chronicle'' and the ''Worcester Chronicle''), but it is not wholly distinct (). There was a fire at Peterborough (Friday, 4 August 1116) that destroyed the monastery's library, and so the earliest part of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' at Peterborough is a copy of
Winchester Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Historic England. "Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (1095509)". ''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 September 2014. Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winches ...
's chronicle (). For the 11th century, the chronicle at Peterborough diverges from Parker's, and it has been speculated that a proto-''"Kentish Chronicle"'', full of nationalistic and regionalistic interests, was used for these years; however, such a single source is speculative (). The Peterborough copyists probably used multiple sources for their missing years, but the
Dissolution of the Monasteries makes it impossible to be sure. Regardless, the entries for the 12th century to 1122 are a jumble of other chronicles' accounts, sharing half-entries with one source and half with another, moving from one source to another and then back to a previous one. This shifting back and forth raises, again, the vexatious possibility of a lost chronicle as a single, common source.
It is after 1122 that the Peterborough manuscript becomes unique. Therefore, the document usually called ''The Peterborough Chronicle'' is divided into the "''first continuation''" and the "''second continuation''" from the time of the fire and the copying. The two continuations are ''
sui generis
''Sui generis'' ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind", "in a class by itself", therefore "unique".
A number of disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. These include:
* Biology, for species that do not fit in ...
'' both in terms of the information they impart, the style they employ, and their language. The first continuation covers 1122–1131. The second continuation runs from 1132–1154 and includes the reign of King
Stephen
Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
.
The copied portion uses grammatical gender and inflections like in Old English, but there are discrepancies.
First continuation (1122–1131)
Although the second continuation holds the most importance, the first continuation has unique records of events in the Peterborough area and provides an insight into ordinary people's lives. The first continuation records the Conquest, the incursion of
Sweyn Sweyn is a Scandinavian masculine given name which may refer to:
Kings:
* Sweyn Forkbeard (960–1014), King of Denmark, England, and Norway as Sweyn I
* Sweyn or Svein Knutsson (c. 1016–1035), King of Norway as Sweyn II
* Sweyn II of Denmark (10 ...
of Denmark, and rumours of other turbulence about the throne. However, it has no evidence at all for
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
opposition and rebellion against William and his sons. An arguably eyewitness account describes the burning of Peterborough Abbey itself, due to the drunkenness of the monks. It also covers ecclesiastical scandals, such as the
Abbot of Glastonbury __NOTOC__
The Abbot of Glastonbury was the head (or abbot) of Anglo-Saxon and eventually Benedictine house of Glastonbury Abbey at Glastonbury in Somerset, England.
The following is a list of abbots of Glastonbury:
Abbots
See also
* Abbot's Ki ...
bringing in
mercenaries
A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...
to control his religious house. Further, there is a significant change in language from the previous late Old English that begins with the entry for the years 1122–1131, with mixtures of Old English and Middle English vocabulary (and increasing
Gallic formations) and syntax (a simplification of the pronouns and
strong verbs, as well as a decrease in the
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
s of the nouns).
Both the first and second continuation authors have sympathy for the common man. As Bennett suggests, Peterborough is the one source for compassion of the
laity
In religious organizations, the laity () consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother.
In both religious and wider secular usage, a layperson ...
found in contemporary accounts. The first continuation expresses as much outrage at the hanging of forty-four thieves in 1122, some of whom were innocent, as at the burning of the monastery at
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
. The monastic author suggests that taxes were too high, putting the impoverished villagers in a dilemma of stealing or starving. Therefore, the nobles were guilty of a double sin. First, they executed the innocent and used excessive cruelty with the guilty. Second, it was at least as sinful for the nobles to compel theft with their avarice as for the poor to steal for bread. When the
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
king,
Henry I of England
Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in ...
foisted his kinsman upon Peterborough as abbot (he was already abbot of
Saint-Jean d'Angély Saint-Jean (French for Saint John) may refer to:
Places Belgium
* Sint-Jan, a borough of Ypres, sometimes referenced as ''Saint-Jean'' in a World War I-related context
Canada
*Lac Saint-Jean
*Lac-Saint-Jean-Est Regional County Municipality
*L ...
[Cecily Clark, "'This Ecclesiastical Adventurer': Henry of Saint-Jean d'Angély" ''The English Historical Review'' 84 No. 332 (July 1969), pp. 548–560.]), the chronicler protests at some length at the illegality and impiety of the appointment. He also mentions that the
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif (Motif E501 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) that occurs in the folklore of various northern European cultures. Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by ...
was seen at the same time as the appointment, as an ill omen. When Henry was eventually removed by death, the monk again takes the position that this was divine remedy, for Henry had tried to make Peterborough part of the
Cluniac Order
Cluny Abbey (; , formerly also ''Cluni'' or ''Clugny''; ) is a former Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was dedicated to Saint Peter.
The abbey was constructed in the Romanesque architectural style, with three churches ...
and had attempted to have his own nephew be the next abbot, "oc Crist it ne uuolde" ("but Christ did not will it").
The first continuation shows a major change in grammatical gender and inflections from how they were used in Old English. Though there are still 3 genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, several nouns seem to have been shuffled among the categories in a manner that can't be completely explained by a move towards natural gender or the gender of French nouns, as the inflections marking gender are re-purposed for other functions.
Second continuation (1132–1154)
The second, or final, continuation is remarkable for being in one authorial voice, and it relates the events of
The Anarchy
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin, the only legiti ...
in England. Scholars speculate that the second continuation is dictated (because the language may reflect a version of early Middle English that scholars place later than Stephen and
Matilda
Matilda or Mathilda may refer to:
Animals
* Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder
* Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse
* Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...
) or written as the recollections of a single elderly monk. It is a highly moving account of torture, fear, confusion, and starvation.
Henry I Henry I may refer to:
876–1366
* Henry I the Fowler, King of Germany (876–936)
* Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (died 955)
* Henry I of Austria, Margrave of Austria (died 1018)
* Henry I of France (1008–1060)
* Henry I the Long, Margrave of the ...
died in 1135, and Stephen and Matilda both had a claim to the throne. The monastic author describes the rebellion of the
baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
s against Stephen, the escape of Matilda, and the tortures that the soldiers of the baronial powers inflicted upon the people. The author blames Stephen for the Anarchy for being "soft and good" when firmness and harshness were needed. When Stephen captured the rebelling barons, he let them go if they swore allegiance. According to the author,
:"Þa the suikes undergæton ðat he milde man was and softe and god, and na iustise ne dide, þa diden hi alle wunder" (1137)
:: ("When the traitors understood that he (Stephen) was a gentle man, and soft and good, and did not execute justice, they committed all manner of atrocity.")
The barons then attempted to raise money as quickly as they could. They needed money and manpower to build
castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
s (which the author regards as novel and rare), and so they robbed everyone they met:
:"æuric rice man his castles makede and agænes him heolden; and fylden þe land ful of castles. Hi suencten suyðe þe uurecce men of þe land mid castelweorces; þa þe castles uuaren maked, þa fylden hi mid deoules and yuele men. Þa namen hi þa men þe hi wendan ðat ani god hefden, bathe be nihtes and be dæies, carlmen and wimmen, and diden heom in prisun and pined heom efter gold and syluer untellendlice pining; for ne uuaeren naeure nan martyrs swa pined alse hi waeron."
:: ("Every chieftain made castles and held them against the king; and they filled the land full of castles. They viciously oppressed the poor men of the land with castle-building work; when the castles were made, then they filled the land with devils and evil men. Then they seized those who had any goods, both by night and day, working men and women, and threw them into prison and tortured them for gold and silver with uncountable tortures, for never was there a martyr so tortured as these men were.")
The monastic author sympathises with the average farmer and artisan and talks about the devastation suffered by the countryside. He is outraged by the accounts of torture he relates and laments,
:"Me henged up bi the fet and smoked heom mid ful smoke. Me henged bi the þumbes other bi the hefed and hengen bryniges on her fet. Me dide cnotted strenges abuton here hæued and uurythen it ðat it gæde to þe haernes… I ne can ne I ne mai tellen alle þe wunder ne all þe pines ðat he diden wrecce men on þis land."
:: ("One they hung by his feet and filled his lungs with smoke. One was hung up by the thumbs and another by the head and had coats of mail hung on his feet. One they put a knotted cord about his head and twisted it so that it went into the brains ... I neither can nor may recount all the atrocities nor all the tortures that they did on the wretched men of this land.")
Death and famine followed, as the farms were depleted and farmers murdered. If two or three riders came to a village, the monk said, everyone fled, for fear that they were robbers. Trade therefore came to a standstill, and those in want had no way to get supplies. Those travelling with money to purchase food would be robbed or killed along the way. The barons said that there was no God. The chronicler records that people said openly that Christ slept, along with His saints; he states that "this — and more than we can say — we suffered 19 winters for our sins."
After the account of The Anarchy, the chronicler goes on to church matters. He speaks of the abbot Martin, who replaced the illegitimate Henry, as a good abbot. Martin had a new roof put on the monastery and moved the monks into a new building. He also, according to the author, recovered certain monastic lands that had been previously held "by force" by noblemen. Which lands these are is unclear, but they had probably been claimed by the nobles through the practice of placing younger sons in monasteries, making and revoking gifts of land, and by some early form of
chantry
A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings:
# a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or
# a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area in ...
. The ''Chronicle'' ends with a new abbot entering upon the death of Martin, an abbot named William. This abbot presumably halted the writing of the ''Chronicle''.
Grammatical gender is almost completely gone, though Jones notes some authors consider the word ''that'' to still function as a neuter
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...
here.
Unique authorial voice
The two Peterborough continuations sympathise with the
poor, and this makes them almost unique in Latin or English history. They also focus more on life outside of the abbey than other ''Chronicles''. The general ''Chronicle'' is somewhat insular. While most versions note the national events, such as a progress of the king or a change in sovereign, discussion of the countryside around the monastery is limited. Portents and omens receive coverage, but rarely do the chroniclers discuss political alliances (as the author of the second continuation does with his denunciation of the bishops who were allied with Matilda) or the legalities of monastic rule (as the author of the first continuation does in his lament over Abbot Henry). The monks who compiled the continuation at Peterborough were either consciously striking out in a new direction (perhaps under the direction of Abbot Martin) or continuing a type of chronicle that was confined to their own monastery (that was lost with the fire). It does not seem likely that Peterborough was in any sense a lax or secular monastery, as the description of drunkenness causing the fire would not have made the abbey singular in the age.
The continuations are also unique in their linguistic shifts. When copying from
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
, they preserve the
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
and
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
of late Old English, and when they get to events for which they have no copy text the language abruptly changes to a newer form. Given that the loan would have taken place just before the continuation, the change in language reflects either a dramatic attempt at greater
vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
by the continuation authors or a significant and quick change in the language itself as Norman influences spread. Because the chronicle is in
prose
Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...
, the artificiality of verse form does not entail the preservation of linguistic archaisms, and historians of English can trace the beginnings of Middle English in these pages.
History of the manuscript
The manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' is now held by the
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...
. It was donated to the library by
William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
, who was then
Chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
of
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
as well as
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
, on 28 June 1639. Laud included the manuscript together with a number of other documents, part of the third of a series of donations he made to the library in the years leading up to the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
. It is currently identified in the library catalogue as ''Laud Misc. 636''; previously it was designated as ''O. C. 1003'' based on the "Old Catalogue" by Edward Bernard. The Bodleian has made a series of images of Laud Misc 636 available.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
MS. Laud Misc. 636Entry in the Bodleian Libraries' catalogue of Medieval manuscripts
Translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, including the Peterborough Chronicle, primarily based on the A manuscript*
ttps://classesv2.yale.edu/access/content/user/haw6/Vikings/AS%20Chronicle%20Peterborough%20MS.html ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'': Peterborough manuscript at Yale''The Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar, With Copious Notes, Illustrating the Structure of the Saxon and the Formation of the English Language: And a Grammatical Praxis With a Literal English Version''(1823) at Googlebooks
{{italic title
Old English literature
Middle English
Middle English literature
English chronicles
12th-century history books
History of Peterborough
English manuscripts
Historical writing from Norman and Angevin England
Bodleian Library collection