The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Authorship and Origins Part C. Chronicling at Canterbury before and after the Conquest S. R. Jensen This paper looks at the correlations between MSS C, D and E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle over the course of the eleventh century. It first argues that MSS C, and '√D' and '√E' (the antecessors of D and E, respectively), all begin their lives at Canterbury in the 1040s, with C being allocated to Siward, suffragan bishop at St Martin's; √E earmarked for Wulfric, bishop of St Augustine's; and √D ultimately assigned to the keeping of Ealdred, bishop of Worcester. It then suggests that √D is taken to York as Ealdred's personal copy, kept up there until the archbishop's death in late 1070, removed to Durham just before the attacks on the City, continued at Durham to 1084, and subsequently brought back to Canterbury by 1085, where it is used in the revision of C and of √E, as well as in the making of D. It stresses that D is not in any way a contemporary text; proposes that there is no significant link between C and Abingdon; and suggests that there is scant evidence for an early northern recension of the Chronicle. The analysis relies largely on comparisons between the blocks of composition and the stretches of handwriting in the different texts. Copyright© S. R. Jensen, 2016 Printed and published by: ARRC Publishing, P. O. Box 886, Narrabeen. NSW. 2101. Australia ISBN: 978-0-9875081-0-2 This work is currently available only in electronic form, although the series in all its parts will eventually be presented in hard copy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Authorship and Origins Part C. Chronicling at Canterbury before and after the Conquest Analysis of the language and style of Manuscript 'E' of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for the years between 1070 and 1121—undertaken partly in conjunction with Manuscript 'D'—has uncovered three things. The first is a Canterbury (and conceivably episcopal) connection for the later parts of the E-source, here called '√E'—with one writer contributing material between 1085 and 1090 as well as at 1083, and with two further chroniclers continuing on from 1091 to 1110 and from 1111 to 1121. The second is the existence of an out-of-house, and visibly 'northern' component of a source-text, here referred to as '√D', extending as a block from the last quarter of 1070 (after the demise of Archbishop Ealdred of York) to a notional 1084, and employed around 1085 in the construction of D and the update of √E. The third is the fact that the compilers of D can be seen to extract sundry items from √E itself, which means that they are unquestionably working at the place where √E is located at the time—which is, on best evidence, Canterbury.1 What, though, was the scale of chronicling activity at Canterbury? What were its outcomes? And how does Manuscript 'C' come into the picture? This paper provides a close analysis of the annals of C, D and E, with a view to explaining the linkages between Canterbury, Abingdon, Worcester, York and Durham.2 The specific factors for consideration are the initial compilatory 1Analysis conducted in an earlier part of this series: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Authorship and Origins. Part A. The Annals between 1070 and 1121 (Sydney, 2008), available online at academia.edu. Manuscript E ed. Susan Irvine, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS. E, ASCCE 7 (Cambridge, 2004); MS. D ed. G. P. Cubbin, The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, MS. D, ASCCE 6 (Cambridge, 1996). A Canterbury setting for a chronicle like √E (if not √E itself) is confirmed by the many parallels between MSS E and 'F', given that the scribe of F has been identified as one of the annotators of MS. 'A', a text known to have been at Christ Church in the late eleventh century. David Dumville, Facsimile of MS. F: the Domitian Bilingual, ASCCE 1 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 15, mentions the possibilities of a Christ Church Library mark on the first page of F (fol. 30r), and of F as the text recorded as Cronica latine et anglice in a fourteenth-century Christ Church library catalogue. Manuscript F ed. Peter S. Baker, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS F, ASCCE 8 (Cambridge, 2000). Manuscript E is a copy made at Peterborough in the early 1120s. Complete facsimiles of MSS B, C, D and F are now online, and may be found at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/02/anglo-saxon-chronicles-now-online.html 2Manuscript C ed. Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS C, ASCCE 5 (Cambridge, 2001). For a description of C, see N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957; re-issued 1990), No. 191, pp. 251-253. Ker notes (p. 252) that fols 160-163 should be in the order—161, 163, 160, 162. 1 processes of C, √D and √E and their early added 'extras' (on Abingdon, or Canterbury, or both); the consistency of style in the annals of √E between 1032 and 1061; the post-Conquest additions to √E; the use of √E by the scribes of D; the points of intersection between C and D from 1049 to 1066; the chronological challenges of √D in the 1060s and 1070s; the pointers to √D as an Ealdredian-turned-Durham text; and the employment of √D in the compilation of D and the augmentation of both √E and C.3 The area of scrutiny is confined to the annals of the eleventh century.4 For the purpose of the discussion, noticeable errors of chronology within the three versions are 'corrected'. Accordingly, the blunder in √E of 1036 for 1035 and the run of misplaced annals between 1039 and 1051 are both put right; as are the further problems of the duplication of the dates 1043 and 1046 in E,5 and its mistake of writing 1064 for 1065. Manuscript C has no original dates for 1055, 1056, 1065 and 1066, but they are supplied as in the recently-edited text.6 The question of how to best undo the chronological and sequential tangles of D and E in the 1060s and 1070s forms a necessary part of the analysis, although the date given in D for the 3There are numerous theories about the provenance of C and D and √E. The most important ones follow. Dorothy Whitelock, ed., English Historical Documents c. 500–1042 (New York, 1955), p. 119, argues for E (√E) as a northern text relocated to St Augustine's and continued there from 1031 onwards. David N. Dumville, 'Some Aspects of Annalistic Writing at Canterbury in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries', Peritia 2 (1983), 23-57 (esp. 24-38), argues for a text of the Chronicle annotated at Abingdon around 1045, copied as C, brought to Canterbury, reproduced as √E, and continued to 1063 or so at St Augustine's. O'Keeffe suggests (p. xc) that C was commissioned at Canterbury by Bishop Siward (suffragan to Archbishop Eadsige, and formerly Abbot of Abingdon) and that the succession-notices of Abingdon abbots are ancillary to the main text. In a lengthy discussion on 'place of composition', Cubbin (pp. lvi-lxxxiii) argues that D is an eleventh-century Worcester collation of a northern recension (like E) and an Alfredian one (like C), and also pinpoints several Worcester (and Yorkist) elements in the text of D. And Irvine (pp. lxiv-lxxv) proposes that C and √E may share a common exemplar for some of their annals after 983, but sees no evidence of √E as a copy of a text like C between 1022 and 1045. 4All quotations are from the relevant editions, unless the manuscript reading is of particular importance. 5The primary problem, stemming from √E, is also in F, but the replication of 1043 and 1046 is now in E alone: 1035, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1043, 1044, 1045, 1046, 1047, 1048, 1049, 1050, 1051, 1052 (Proposed Original) 1036, 1039, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1043, 1043, 1044, 1045, 1046, 1046, 1047, 1048, 1052 (MS. E) 1036, 1039, 1040, 1041, 1042, 1043, 1044, 1045, 1046, 1047, 1048, 1049, [10]50, [10]51, [1052] (MS. F) The dates of F are clear enough from 1040 to 1043, and from 1047 to [10]50, but alterations to those (presumably) intended as 1044, 1045, and 1046 (see fol. 68r) suggest that there were some chronological difficulties in the source. There might have been other problems in the exemplar of F in the 1050s, as only one date, 1056, appears in F after [10]51. There is a possibility that the text is incomplete, rather than mutilated: an investigation is warranted. 6The relevant dates are inserted in modern hands, as discussed by O'Keeffe in the footnotes to the annals in question. Their initial absence suggests preliminary assembly but no finishing touches for C. This in in keeping with the disordered and formerly-unbound pages, and the two blanks left during the copying of the annal for [1066], the one relating to the name of the river entered by Tostig (the Humber) and the other to the number of ships in the fleet of the Norwegian king, Harold (three hundred). 2 death of Ealdred of York is clearly wrong and is straightaway re-allocated to the year '1070';7 and the numbering of D, which is one year in advance from 1045 to 1052(a), is readily emended.8 It must be stressed from the outset that D is a late copy, made in or soon after the year 1085, and so any early interaction between C and a text of the D-type must have been with √D (or a document of very similar content).9 And it should be re-iterated that, even though D breaks off at 1079, it might (like √E) have continued on, as a copy, as far as the year 1084.10 Indeed, certain scribes of D incontrovertibly take material second-hand from √E in the year 1085.11 What, then, are the arguments for chronicling at Canterbury? We can make a start on the investigation by looking at the footings of C.