The beginnings of historical writing in Anglo-Saxon England
The paper contains an overview of what is known on the earliest attempts in historical writing in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Most of the paper is concerned with the kingdom of Northumbira for most of what is known on the early Anglo-Saxon historiography comes from the North. The central figure in this story is Venerable Bede who wrote the earliest extended historical works: the History of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Chronica minora and Chronica maiora, and the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Taken together they narrate the world history, the history of the country, and the history of the home monastery of Bede. The structure and the content of these works are discussed, the greatest attention being paid to Historia ecclesiastica as an attempt in writing down ‘national’ history and its placing into the world context. The next question asked in the paper is that of the forms of historical writing which could precede the activity of Bede. These include the list of Northumbrian kings (mentioned by Bede in III: 1 and III: 9 as something of probably official importance), and, perhaps, short annals and notes in liturgical calendars. More is known of minor forms of historical writing which appeared when the works of Bede started to circulate in manuscripts, or even were a ‘side effect’ of Bede’s historiographical activity. These include various continuations of Bede’s ‘annals’ (the chronological summary in V: 24 of Historia ecclesiastica), the Moore memoranda on Northumbrian history (a king-list and a set of chronological notes in one of the earliest manuscripts of Historia ecclesiastica), the episcopal lists, and the annals in Easter tables (known in so-called Frankish annals of Lindisfarne and Kent). So, in Northumbria we see, first, some very brief forms of recording of the past, then the activity of one individual who created several comprehensive historical works, the circulation of which, in turn, provoked the emergence of a variety of brief historical records. We know very little of early historical writing outside Northumbria. There are brief Kentish annals in Easter tables, and hypothetically scholars speak of the early annals of Wessex and Mercia reflected by later chronicles. More is known of the oral dynastic traditions in these kingdoms which are partly reflected by Bede, Historia Brittonum, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle etc. The letters to Bede in which the material for his Historia ecclesiastica was collected also can be regarded as attempts in writing down local history. The paper also contains an overview of the historical writing in England in the late eighth – the mid-eleventh centuries: the church histories by Alcuin and Æthelwulf, the collection of minor texts in Cotton Vespasian B.vi, the works of Alfredian time (and the emergence of historical writing in Old English), the later annalistic writing, the Chronicle of Æthelweard, etc. In the last chapter some general observations are made on the beginnings of historical writing in Anglo-Saxon England.
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