Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities Vol 1 (Original Texts).djvu/42

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xviii
preface

the text, not only by fuller extracts from Beda, but by the addition of many events relating especially to Mercia and Northumbria, which would seem to imply the existence of a distinct Chronicle, at least during the greater part of the eighth century; and it probably also agreed with Manuscript E., in that portion which is now lost in that copy. Afterwards it is nearly the same as Manuscripts A. and G., to the beginning of the tenth century, when it interweaves the account of Æthelflæd's exploits, sometimes abridged, chronologically, but rather confusedly, and with some repetitions. After the middle of the tenth century it has some peculiar circumstances relating to the Northumbrian affairs, whenceforward it agrees generally with Manuscripts C, E., and F. Its variations were first printed by Dr. Ingram. The portion extending from A.D. 1043 to the end, has been printed by Lye, as an appendix to his Saxon Dictionary, from a faulty transcript by Lambard, now at Christ Church, Canterbury."[1] In the chronology of the eighth and ninth centuries, this manuscript is, in numerous instances, a year behind the three preceding manuscripts, herein agreeing with the chronicles of the north country, as Simeon of Durham, etc., and as appears to have originally been the case with the Corpus Christi Manuscript, previous to erasure.

E. "The Bodleian Manuscript, Laud. 636 (formerly E. 80), from the Incarnation to A.D. 1154, a small quarto, originally interleaved in folio; it is written in double columns from A.D. 12. to A.D. 476, afterwards in single columns. The hand as well as the ink vary but little to A.D. 1122, whence to A.D. 1154, where it ends, mutilated, it is in various hands. On the margin, between A.D. 1128 and AD. 1140, is inserted a brief Chronicle in French, from Brutus to Edward I.; and on the interleaving, and some-

  1. Monumenta Historica Britannica, Preface, p. 76.