Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Language, Literature, History

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is among the earliest vernacular chronicles of Western Europe and 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 manuscripts are now available in the Collaborative Edition. The time is therefore ripe to reassess the state of scholarly thinking on this most complex and most foundational of documents. This essay collection reflects the nature and importance of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as linguistic, literary, and historical evidence. In exemplifying different scholarly approaches, it further covers the full chronological range of the text(s), and presents new contributions on both well-established debates and essays that explore fresh directions.