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Peterborough Chronicle

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Literature

   The Peterborough Chronicle (also called the Laud Manuscript), one of
   the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 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.
   The opening page of the Laud Manuscript. The scribal hand is the
   copyist's work rather than either the First or Second continuation
   scribes.
   Enlarge
   The opening page of the Laud Manuscript. The scribal hand is the
   copyist's work rather than either the First or Second continuation
   scribes.

   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 Biblical and Roman history, then continued to
   the present. 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.

   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
   from 1070 to 1154 in England written in English and from a non-courtly
   point of view.

   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 novelties recorded in the second continuation are plentiful,
   including at least one true innovation: the feminine pronoun "she" (as
   "scæ") is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (Bennett).

The fire and the continuations

   Today, the Peterborough Chronicle is recognized as one of the four
   distinct versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (along with the
   Winchester Chronicle or Parker Chronicle, the Abingdon Chronicle and
   the Worcester Chronicle), but it is not wholly distinct (Bennett,
   "Early"). There was a fire at Peterborough that destroyed the
   monastery's library, and so the earliest part of the Anglo-Saxon
   Chronicle at Peterborough is a copy of Winchester Cathedral's chronicle
   (Ramsay). For the 11th century, the chronicle at Peterborough diverges
   from Parker's, and it has been speculated that a proto- Kentish
   Chronicle, full of nationalistic and regionalistic interests, was used
   for these years; however, such a single source is speculative
   (Cambridge). The Peterborough copyists probably used multiple sources
   for their missing years, but the dissolution of the monasteries makes
   it impossible to be sure. Regardless, the entries for the 12th century
   to 1122 are a jumble of other chronicles' accounts, sharing
   half-entries with one source and half with another, moving from one
   source to another and then back to a previous one. This shifting back
   and forth raises, again, the vexatious possibility of a lost chronicle
   as a single, common source.

   It is after 1122 that the Peterborough manuscript becomes unique.
   Therefore, the document usually called The Peterborough Chronicle is
   divided into the "first continuation" and the "second continuation"
   from the time of the fire and the copying. The two continuations are
   sui generis both in terms of the information they impart, the style
   they employ, and their language. The first continuation covers
   1122–1131. The second continuation runs from 1132–1154 and includes the
   reign of King Stephen.

First continuation (1122–1131)

   A coin struck by rebelling forces during the Anarchy showing Matilda as
   sovereign.
   Enlarge
   A coin struck by rebelling forces during the Anarchy showing Matilda as
   sovereign.

   Although the second continuation holds the most importance, the first
   continuation has unique records of events in the Peterborough area and
   provides an insight into ordinary people's lives. The first
   continuation records the Conquest, the incursion of Sweyn of Denmark,
   and rumors of other turbulence about the throne. However, it has no
   evidence at all for Saxon opposition and rebellion against William and
   his sons. An arguably eyewitness account describes the burning of
   Peterborough Abbey itself, due to the drunkenness of the monks. It also
   covers ecclesiastical scandals, such as the abbot of Glastonbury
   bringing in mercenaries to control his religious house. Further, there
   is a significant change in language from the previous late Old English
   that begins with the entry for the years 1122–1131, with mixtures of
   Old English and Middle English vocabulary (and increasing Gallic
   formations) and syntax (a simplification of the pronouns and strong
   verbs, as well as a decrease in the declensions of the nouns).

   Both the first and second continuation authors have sympathy for the
   common man. As Bennett suggests, Peterborough is the one source for
   compassion of the laity found in contemporary accounts. The first
   continuation expresses as much outrage at the hanging of forty-four
   thieves in 1122, some of whom were innocent, as at the burning of the
   monastery at Gloucester. The monastic author suggests that taxes were
   too high, putting the impoverished villagers in a dilemma of stealing
   or starving. Therefore, the nobles were guilty of a double sin. First,
   they executed the innocent and used excessive cruelty with the guilty.
   Second, it was at least as sinful for the nobles to compel theft with
   their avarice as for the poor to steal for bread. When the Norman Henry
   of Poitou was forced on Peterborough as abbot (when he was already
   abbot of St. Jean d'Angély), the chronicler protests at some length at
   the illegality and impiety of the appointment. He also mentions that
   the Wild Hunt was seen at the same time as the appointment, as an ill
   omen. When Henry was eventually removed by death, the monk again takes
   the position that this was divine remedy, for Henry had tried to make
   Peterborough part of the Cluniac Order and had attempted to have his
   own nephew be the next abbot, "oc Crist it ne uuolde" ("but Christ did
   not will it").

Second continuation (1132–1154)

   The "softe and god" King Stephen, or Stephen of Blois, whom the
   Peterborough author blames for The Anarchy.
   Enlarge
   The "softe and god" King Stephen, or Stephen of Blois, whom the
   Peterborough author blames for The Anarchy.

   The second, or final, continuation is remarkable for being in one
   authorial voice, and it relates the events of The Anarchy in England.
   Scholars speculate that the second continuation is dictated (because
   the language may reflect a version of early Middle English that
   scholars place later than Stephen and Matilda) or written as the
   recollections of a single elderly monk. It is a highly moving account
   of torture, fear, confusion, and starvation.

   Henry I died in 1135, and Stephen and Matilda both had a claim to the
   throne. The monastic author describes the rebellion of the barons
   against Stephen, the escape of Matilda, and the tortures that the
   soldiers of the baronial powers inflicted upon the people. The author
   blames Stephen for the Anarchy for being "soft and good" when firmness
   and harshness were needed. When Stephen captured the rebelling barons,
   he let them go if they swore allegiance. According to the author,

          "Ða ðe suikes undergæton that he milde man was, and softe and
          god, and no iustice ne dide, ða diden hi alle wunder"

                ("When these men understood that he (Stephen) was a gentle
                man, and soft and good, and did not execute justice, then
                they all wondered (at him).") [All textual quotations
                taken from Bennett and Smithers.]

   The barons then attempted to raise money as quickly as they could. They
   needed money and manpower to build castles (which the author regards as
   novel and rare), and so they robbed everyone they met:

          "ævric rice man his castles maked and agenes him heolden; and
          fylden the land ful of castles. Hi suencten suythe the uurecce
          men of the land mid castelweorces; tha the castles uuaren maked,
          tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. Tha namen hi tha men
          the hi wendan that any god hefden, bathe be nihtes and be dæies,
          carlmen and wimmen, and diden heom in prison and pined heom
          efter gold and sylver untellendlice pining; for ne uuaerern
          naevre mas martyrs swa pined alse hi waeron."

                ("Every chieftain made castles and held them against the
                king; and they filled the land full of castles. They
                viciously oppressed the poor men of the land with
                castle-building work; when the castles were made, then
                they filled the land with devils and evil men. Then they
                seized those who had any goods, both by night and day,
                working men and women, and threw them into prison and
                tortured them for gold and silver with uncountable
                tortures, for never was there a martyr so tortured as
                these men were.")

   The monastic author sympathises with the average farmer and artisan and
   talks about the devastation suffered by the countryside. He is outraged
   by the accounts of torture he relates and laments,

          "Me henged up bi the fet and smoked heom mid full smoke. Me
          henged bi the þumbes other bi the hefed and hengen bryniges on
          her fet. Me dide cnotted strenges abuton here hæued and wrythen
          it ðat it gæde to þe haernes… I ne can nelne mai tellen alle ðe
          wunder ne all ðe pines that he diden wrecce men on ðis land."

                ("One they hung by his feet and filled his lungs with
                smoke. One was hung up by the thumbs and another by the
                head and had coats of mail hung on his feet. One they put
                a knotted cord about his head and twisted it so that it
                went into the brains… I neither can nor may recount all
                the atrocities nor all the tortures that they did on the
                wretched men of this land.")

   Death and famine followed, as the farms were depleted and farmers
   murdered. If a mounted traveller came to a village, the monk said,
   everyone fled, for fear that he was a robber knight of one of these
   barons. Trade therefore came to a standstill, and those in want had no
   way to get supplies. Those travelling with money to purchase food would
   be robbed or killed along the way. The barons said that there was no
   God. Common peasants, the monk says, thought that Jesus slept and that
   God had turned his face away from the land, and he says that "all this
   and more we suffered 19 winters for our sins."

   After the account of The Anarchy, the chronicler goes on to church
   matters. He speaks of the abbot Martin, who replaced the illegitimate
   Henry, as a good abbot. Martin had a new roof put on the monastery and
   moved the monks into a new building. He also, according to the author,
   recovered certain monastic lands that had been previously held "by
   force" by noblemen. Which lands these are is unclear, but they had
   probably been claimed by the nobles through the practice of placing
   younger sons in monasteries, gifting and revoking the gift of land, and
   by some early form of chantry. The Chronicle ends with a new abbot
   entering upon the death of Martin, an abbot named William. This abbot
   presumably halted the writing of the Chronicle.

Unique authorial voice

   The Bodleian Library, Oxford, where the Peterborough Chronicle has been
   preserved since the time of Archbishop Laud.
   Enlarge
   The Bodleian Library, Oxford, where the Peterborough Chronicle has been
   preserved since the time of Archbishop Laud.

   The two Peterborough continuations sympathize with the poor, and this
   makes them almost unique in Latin or English history. They also focus
   more on life outside of the abbey than other Chronicles. The general
   Chronicle is somewhat insular. While most versions note the national
   events, such as a progress of the king or a change in sovereign,
   discussion of the countryside around the monastery is limited. Portents
   and omens receive coverage, but rarely do the chroniclers discuss
   political alliances (as the author of the second continuation does with
   his denunciation of the bishops who were allied with Matilda) or the
   legalities of monastic rule (as the author of the first continuation
   does in his lament over Abbot Henry). The monks who compiled the
   continuation at Peterborough were either consciously striking out in a
   new direction (perhaps under the direction of Abbot Martin) or
   continuing a type of chronicle that was confined to their own monastery
   (that was lost with the fire). It does not seem likely that
   Peterborough was in any sense a lax or secular monastery, as the
   description of drunkenness causing the fire would not have made the
   abbey singular in the age.

   The continuations are also unique in their linguistic shifts. When
   copying from Winchester, they preserve the orthography and syntax of
   late Old English, and when they get to events for which they have no
   copy text the language abruptly changes to a newer form. Given that the
   loan would have taken place just before the continuation, the change in
   language reflects either a dramatic attempt at greater vernacular by
   the continuation authors or a significant and quick change in the
   language itself as Norman influences spread. Because the chronicle is
   in prose, the artificiality of verse form does not entail the
   preservation of linguistic archaisms, and historians of English can
   trace the beginnings of Middle English in these pages.

History of the manuscript

   The manuscript of the Chronicle is now held by the Bodleian Library. It
   was donated to the library by William Laud, who was then Chancellor of
   Oxford University as well as Archbishop of Canterbury, on June 28,
   1639. Laud included the manuscript together with a number of other
   documents, part of the third of a series of donations he made to the
   library in the years leading up to the English Civil War. It is
   currently identified in the library catalogue as Laud Misc. 636;
   previously it was designated as O. C. 1003 based on the "Old Catalogue"
   by Edward Bernard.
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