Peterborough Chronicle

The Peterborough Chronicle (also called "The Laud Manuscript") is one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles that contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman Conquest. According to philologist J.A.W. Bennett, it is the only prose history in English between the Conquest and the later 14th century.

Related Topics:
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - History of England - Norman Conquest

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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were composed and maintained between the various monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England and were an attempt to record the history of the world. Each Chronicle began with the Creation, went through the Bible history, Rome, and then up to its current time. Every major religious house in England kept its own, individual chronicle, and the chronicles were not compared with each other or in any way kept uniform. However, whenever a monastery's chronicle was damaged, or when a new monastery began a chronicle, nearby monasteries would lend out their chronicles for copying. Thus, a new chronicle would be identical to the lender's until they reached the date of copying and then would be idiosyncratic. Such was the case with the Peterborough Chronicle: a fire compelled the abbey to copy the chronicles from other churches up to 1120.

Related Topics:
Monasteries - England - Chronicle - 1120

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When William the Conqueror took England and Anglo-Norman became the official language, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles generally ceased. The monks of Peterborough Abbey, however, continued to compile events in theirs. While the Peterborough Chronicle is not professional history, and one still needs Latin histories (e.g. William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum), it is one of the few first-hand accounts of the period 1070 to 1154 in England written in English and from a non-courtly point of view.

Related Topics:
William the Conqueror - Anglo-Norman - Peterborough Abbey - Latin - William of Malmesbury - 1070 - 1154

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It is also a valuable source of information about the early Middle English language itself. The first continuation, for example, is written in late Old English, but the second continuation begins to show mixed forms, until the conclusion of the second continuation, which switches into an early form of distinctly Middle English. The linguistic innovations recorded in the second continuation are plentiful, and at least one innovation, the feminine pronoun "she" (as "scæ"), is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (Bennett).

Related Topics:
Middle English - Old English

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