The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle | Page 8

would lead to the composition of brief
chronicles (27), and other vehicles of instruction, necessary for the improvement of a
rude and illiterate people. The first chronicles were, perhaps, those of Kent or Wessex;
which seem to have been regularly continued, at intervals. by the archbishops of
Canterbury, or by their direction (28), at least as far as the year 1001, or by even 1070;
for the Benet MS., which some call the Plegmund MS., ends in the latter year; the rest
being in Latin. From internal evidence indeed, of an indirect nature, there is great reason

to presume, that Archbishop Plegmund transcribed or superintended this very copy of the
"Saxon Annals" to the year 891 (29); the year in which he came to the see; inserting, both
before and after this date, to the time of his death in 923, such additional materials as he
was well qualified to furnish from his high station and learning, and the confidential
intercourse which he enjoyed in the court of King Alfred. The total omission of his own
name, except by another hand, affords indirect evidence of some importance in support of
this conjecture. Whether King Alfred himself was the author of a distinct and separate
chronicle of Wessex, cannot now be determined. That he furnished additional supplies of
historical matter to the older chronicles is, I conceive, sufficiently obvious to every reader
who will take the trouble of examining the subject. The argument of Dr. Beeke, the
present Dean of Bristol, in an obliging letter to the editor on this subject, is not without its
force; -- that it is extremely improbable, when we consider the number and variety of
King Alfred's works, that he should have neglected the history, of his own country.
Besides a genealogy of the kings of Wessex from Cerdic to his own time, which seems
never to have been incorporated with any MS. of the "Saxon Chronicle", though prefixed
or annexed to several, he undoubtedly preserved many traditionary facts; with a full and
circumstantial detail of his own operations, as well as those of his father, brother, and
other members of his family; which scarcely any other person than himself could have
supplied. To doubt this would be as incredulous a thing as to deny that Xenophon wrote
his "Anabasis", or Caesar his "Commentaries". From the time of Alfred and Plegmund to
a few years after the Norman Conquest, these chronicles seem to have been continued by
different hands, under the auspices of such men as Archbishops Dunstan, Aelfric, and
others, whose characters have been much misrepresented by ignorance and scepticism on
the one hand; as well as by mistaken zeal and devotion on the other. The indirect
evidence respecting Dunstan and Aelfric is as curious as that concerning Plegmund; but
the discussion of it would lead us into a wide and barren field of investigation; nor is this
the place to refute the errors of Hickes, Cave, and Wharton, already noticed by Wanley in
his preface. The chronicles of Abingdon, of Worcester, of Peterborough, and others, are
continued in the same manner by different hands; partly, though not exclusively, by
monks of those monasteries, who very naturally inserted many particulars relating to their
own local interests and concerns; which, so far from invalidating the general history,
render it more interesting and valuable. It would be a vain and frivolous attempt ascribe
these latter compilations to particular persons (31), where there were evidently so many
contributors; but that they were successively furnished by contemporary writers, many of
whom were eye-witnesses of the events and transactions which they relate, there is
abundance of internal evidence to convince us. Many instances of this the editor had
taken some pains to collect, in order to lay them before the reader in the preface; but they
are so numerous that the subject would necessarily become tedious; and therefore every
reader must be left to find them for himself. They will amply repay him for his trouble, if
he takes any interest in the early history of England, or in the general construction of
authentic history of any kind. He will see plagarisms without end in the Latin histories,
and will be in no danger of falling into the errors of Gale and others; not to mention those
of our historians who were not professed antiquaries, who mistook that for original and
authentic testimony which was only translated. It is remarkable that the "Saxon
Chronicle" gradually expires with the Saxon language, almost melted into modern
English, in the year 1154. From this period almost to the Reformation, whatever

knowledge we have of the affairs of England has been originally derived either from the
semi-barbarous Latin of our own countrymen, or from the French chronicles of Froissart
and others.
The revival of good taste