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After the original chronicle was compiled, copies were kept at various Monasteries and were updated independently. Sometimes items important to the locals, such as the fertility of the harvest or the paucity of bees, would be eagerly recorded, whereas distant political events could be overlooked. A combination of the individual annals allows us to develop an overall picture, a document that was the first continuous history written by Europeans in their own language. Thus the various versions of the chronicle are an important development in Historiography as well as a useful historical documents in their own right. There are nine surviving manuscripts (including two copies), of which eight are written entirely in Anglo-Saxon , while the ninth is in Anglo-Saxon with a translation of each annal into Latin . One (the Peterborough Chronicle ) contains early Middle English as well as Anglo-Saxon. The oldest (Corp. Chris. MS 173) is known as the Parker Chronicle, after Matthew Parker who once owned it, or the '''Winchester Chronicle'''. The surviving manuscripts are:
Version A is of particular importance for the dating of the chronicle. The manuscript is in the handwriting of some thirteen or fourteen scribes and the first scribe wrote as far as 891. For this reason the composition of the chronicle is generally dated to the reign of King Alfred . Some of the annals are derived from earlier sources such as Prosper and Bede and the annal for 430 demonstrates this: to the Scots that believed in Christ to be their first bishop”. This annal was then copied into the earliest version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (version A, compiled in 891): “430. In this year bishop Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to the Scots to strengthen their faith”. But during the twelfth century the manuscript was altered to read: “… Palladius (vel Patricius)…”. In another version of the chronicle (version E, written in 1121) Palladius disappears and is replaced by Patrick: “430. In this year Patrick was sent by pope Celestine to preach baptism to the Scots”. Notice how with each scribe the story changes a little, so starting from Palladius being sent to the Irish who were already Christian, it eventually becomes a tale about Patrick being sent to convert the Irish. Other annals were simply invented. Under 477 we read that Wlencing was the son of Ælle, but Wlencing is a patronymic meaning ‘son of Wlenca’, so he cannot also have been son of Ælle! Clearly the chronicler has carelessly extracted Wlencing from an early form of the place-name Lancing. Moving on to 501, Portsmouth is located at the mouth of a port; it is not named after Port; he was quarried out of the place-name. Then under 508 Natanleag means ‘wet meadow’, so it was not named after a slain Welsh king called Natanleod; he is an invention. And under 514 we find Wihtgar, who in 534 is given the Isle of Wight, and in 544 is buried at Wihtgaraburg. But Wihtgaraburg does not mean 'Wihtgar's fortress' but 'the fortress of the inhabitants of Wight', and Wight itself is derived from Romano-British ''Vectis'' (Ekwall 1947). Clearly, if these annals are fiction, as they plainly are, then the other early annals are suspect. The translated texts (together with explanatory materials) are available in books and on the Internet, so scholars at all levels can now consult them directly. See Anglo-Saxon Kingdom Genealogy for a comparison of the genealogies of the Canterbury and Winchester manuscripts with the one given by Snorri Sturluson in his Edda . SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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