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Any scholar determined to provide the academic community with a comprehensive reading of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles has set themselves a Herculean task. The Chronicles are a recording of historical events in England from the beginning of the Christian Era to 1154. The inspiration to compile and often translate to the vernacular brief entries from church annals, and then progressively longer historical accounts, poems and genealogies, is thought to come from Alfred, King of West Saxons (848-99) as part of his drive to revive learning and literature in England. After Alfred's death, scribes carried on amassing prose narratives, poems and genealogies, as well as transcribing the existing entries. Such a massive historical project leaves us now with a set of documents so complex that a planned edition is likely to consist of over 20 volumes. In this remarkable study Thomas Bredehoft asks: what was the cultural force of such a singular document? Who might have been reading it, who was steering its formation at various periods, and to what end? What modern scholars have been too willing to dismiss as a scattershot collection of unrelated annals, is, Bredehoft convincingly argues, a powerful and consciously driven tool to forge, through linking literature and history, a patriotic Anglo Saxon national identity.

English prose literature --- Transmission of texts --- Anglo-Saxons --- English literature --- Saxons --- Literary transmission --- Manuscript transmission --- Textual transmission --- Criticism, Textual --- Editions --- Manuscripts --- Criticism, Textual. --- History --- Historiography. --- Anglo-Saxon chronicle. --- Saxon chronicle --- Peterborough chronicle (Text) --- Angelsächsische Chronik --- Great Britain

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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is among the earliest vernacular chronicles of Western Europe and remains an essential source for scholars of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. With the publication in 2004 of a new edition of the Peterborough text, all six major manuscript versions of the Chronicle are now available in the Collaborative Edition. Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle therefore presents a timely reassessment of current scholarly thinking on this most complex and most foundational of documents.This volume of collected essays examines the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle through four main aspects: the production of the text, its language, the literary character of the work, and the Chronicle as historical writing. The individual studies not only exemplify the different scholarly approaches to the Chronicle but they also cover the full chronological range of the text(s), as well as offering new contributions to well-established debates and exploring fresh avenues of research. The interdisciplinary and wide-ranging nature of the scholarship behind the volume allows Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to convey the immense complexity and variety of the Chronicle, a document that survives in multiple versions and was written in multiple places, times, and political contexts.

Old English literature --- History of the United Kingdom and Ireland --- Historical linguistics --- English language --- English prose literature --- Anglo-Saxons --- Civilization, Anglo-Saxon --- Transmission of texts --- Criticism, Textual. --- Historiography. --- Sources. --- History --- Anglo-Saxon chronicle. --- Anglo-Saxon chronicle --- Language. --- Great Britain --- Angelsaksische kroniek --- Chronique anglo-saxonne --- 091 =20 --- 930.21 <41> --- 930.21 <41> Historiografie. Geschiedenis van de geschiedwetenschap--Verenigd Koninkrijk van Groot-Brittannië en Noord-Ierland --- Historiografie. Geschiedenis van de geschiedwetenschap--Verenigd Koninkrijk van Groot-Brittannië en Noord-Ierland --- 091 =20 Handschriftenkunde. Handschriftencatalogi--Engels --- Handschriftenkunde. Handschriftencatalogi--Engels --- Prose anglaise --- Civilisation anglo-saxonne --- Transmission de textes --- History and criticism --- Sources --- ca 450-1100 (Vieil anglais) --- Histoire et critique --- Historiographie --- Histoire --- Grande-Bretagne --- Literary transmission --- Manuscript transmission --- Textual transmission --- Criticism, Textual --- Editions --- Manuscripts --- English literature --- Anglo-Saxon civilization --- Saxons --- Historiography --- Civilization --- Saxon chronicle --- Peterborough chronicle (Text) --- Angelsächsische Chronik --- Language --- Old English, ca. 450-1100 --- Criticism [Textual ] --- England --- Civilization [Anglo-Saxon ] --- To 1500 --- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066 --- Norman period, 1066-1154