Textual Histories: Readings in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

250 Pages·2001·12.056 MB·English

by  Thomas A. Bredehoft

TEXTUAL HISTORIES: READINGS IN
THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE
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Textual Histories
Readings in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
THOMAS A. BREDEHOFT
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2001
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-4850-1
©
Printed on acid-free paper
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bredehoft, Thomas A.
Textual histories : readings in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-4850-1
1. Anglo-Saxon chronicle. 2. English prose literature - Old English,
ca. 450-1100 - Criticism, Textual. 3. Great Britain - History -
Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066 - Historiography. 4. Great Britain -
History - Norman period, 1066-1154 - Historiography. I. Title.
DA150.B742001 942.01 C2001-901769-3
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing
activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP).
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS VI1
LIST OF PLATES JX
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi
Introduction 3
1: The Common Stock Genealogies 14
1.1 The Metrical Form of the Genealogies 15
1.2 The Manuscript Presentation of the Common Stock Genealogies 23
1.3 The Historiographic Function of the Common Stock Genealogies 30
2: Cynewulf and Cyneheard in the Context of the Common Stock 39
2.1 Variation and Innovation in Annal 755: Orality and Literate
Practice 41
2.2 Structural Indicators and the Meaning of Annal 755 within the
Common Stock 53
3: The Post-Alfredian Annals 61
3.1 The Dynastic Continuations 63
3.2 The Northern Recension 67
4: The Chronicle Poems 72
4.1 Manuscript Presentation and the Identification of the Chronicle
Poems 73
4.2 Metre and the 'Poems of Irregular Meter' 91
4.3 The Place of Poetry in the Chronicle 99
vi Contents
5: Latin in the Chronicle 119
5.1 Latin in the Old English Chronicle 120
5.2 Asser and ^thelweard 126
6: Conclusions 137
6.1 The Ends of the Chronicle and the End of Anglo-Saxon History 138
6.2 Reading the Chronicle and Its Record 147
APPENDIX 155
NOTES 171
BIBLIOGRAPHY 213
INDEX OF ANNALS AND MANUSCRIPTS 221
SUBJECT INDEX 225
Illustrations follow page 100
AcknowledgmentsS
This project (I am somewhat mortified to discover) has occupied nearly a dec-
ade of my life, and the debts I have incurred during that time deserve more
than these brief paragraphs can encompass. Nevertheless:
To this project's earliest readers, Nicholas Howe, Alan K. Brown, and
Andrea Lunsford, I owe a debt of gratitude for their patience and attention.
Nick Howe, especially, has proved more than willing to read draft upon
draft, until I have come to suspect he knows this project somewhat better
than I do myself. Geoffrey Russom and Dan Donoghue read early versions
of a portion of chapter 1; their comments were enormously helpful in my
thinking about the metrical structure of the genealogies and their place in the
Chronicle. Portions of chapters 1 and 6 have been presented at conferences
(the Modern Language Association [1993] and the International Society of
Anglo-Saxonists [1995, 1999]); my thanks to the organizers of these confer-
ences and panels for the opportunity to try my early ideas out upon informed
audiences. Paul E. Szarmach and Timothy C. Graham gave me the opportu-
nity to participate in their NEH Summer Seminar in 1997; there I first began
to grapple effectively with the question of the formal identity of late Old
English verse.
This project would have been physically impossible without the gracious
access to manuscripts allowed me at the British Library in London, at the
wonderful Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, and at the
Bodleian Library in Oxford. At the latter, I owe an especial debt to Martin
Kauffmann, who made it possible for me to consult the Peterborough manu-
script of the Chronicle. For permission to reproduce photographic images,
I am happy to thank the Trustees of the British Library and the Master and
Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
For financial support at various stages of this project, it is my pleasure to
viii Acknowledgments
thank both the Ohio State University (and its English Department) and the
University of Northern Colorado (and its College of Arts and Sciences).
Having the support of my colleagues and institutions has been a wonderful
experience; having their financial support has been even more rewarding.
Plates
Plate I BL Cotton Vespasian B vi, fo. 109r
Plate II CCCC 173, fo. Ir
Plate III CCCC 173, fo. 13r
Plate IV BL Additional 34,652, fo. 2v
Plate V CCCC 173, fo. lOr
Plate VI BL Cotton Tiberius A vi, fo. 12r
Plate VII BL Cotton Tiberius B i, fo. 140r
Plate VIII BL Cotton Tiberius B iv, fo. 53r