Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 173: The Parker Chronicle

IIIF Drag-n-drop purl.stanford.edu/wp146tq7625
Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 173: The Parker Chronicle
Alternate Title:
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Anglo-Saxon Laws. Sedulius
Language:
English, Old (ca. 450-1100) and Latin
Extent:
ff. 56 + 27
Dimensions:
290 Height (mm) and 210 Width (mm)
Publication Info:
Winchester
Approximate Date:
[ca. 1099]; Winchester, [ca. 700 CE - 1099]
Provenance:
Volume I: It was in the Library of Christ Church, Canterbury, no. 311 in Prior Eastry's Catalogue (Ancient Libraries, pp. xxvi, 509). The first leaf with press-mark etc. has disappeared since Parker's timeThe first remaining page is numbered 3 by Parker.. It appears to have been written at Winchester down to the year 1001, and thereafter at Christ Church, Canterbury. Professor Earle suggested that it was transferred from Winchester to Canterbury when the monks at the latter place were endeavouring to repair the losses in their library caused by the fire of 1067 (Plummer, p. xxv note). Another possibility (New Pal. Soc.) is that Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester, may have brought it with him when he became archbishop in 1006. At the Dissolution the volume came into the hands of Dr Nicholas Wotton the first Dean of Canterbury, who gave it to Parker. See Introduction.
Table of contents:
  • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A-version, preceded by the West-Saxon Royal Genealogy
  • Acta Lanfranci
  • Anglo-Saxon Laws of Alfred and Ine
  • Lists of popes and English bishops
  • Letter I to Macedonius
  • Carmen paschale
  • Hymn A solis ortus cardine
  • Letter II to Macedonius
  • Verses of Damasus on St Paul
  • Elegia
  • De ciuitate Dei, xviii.23 (excerpts) with three versions of Sibylline prophecies
Description:
In CCCC MS 173 is found the Parker Chronicle, one of the most important manuscripts for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon history. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the earliest history written in English, seems to have originated under the impetus of Alfred the Great's educational reforms, and a core set of annals was composed which were then augmented variously over the years in different places. Every version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is therefore different and has its own complicated transmission history. The Parker Chronicle, also known as the A-version, is the oldest manuscript surviving. It was started in the late ninth century and continued into the eleventh. It originated somewhere in Wessex, probably Winchester where it has mid tenth-century provenance, but had moved to the cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury by the end of the eleventh century. Although the Chronicle is the most famous part of the manuscript, it also contains other very important material. In the same section as the Chronicle there are important early texts of the Old English laws of Alfred the Great and the late seventh-century laws of his distant predecessor on the throne of Wessex, King Ine (d. in or after 726), as well as a list of bishops and popes. A second volume was already bound with the Chronicle manuscript in the Middle Ages: this contains works by the late Antique poet Sedulius (fl. first half of the fifth century), in particular his Carmen paschale, a retelling of the gospels in bombastic Virgilian Latin verse. This part of the manuscript is older than the Chronicle, probably dating to the third quarter of the eighth century, and is an important witness to English scholarship before the disruption caused in the ninth century by Viking attacks. It seems to have the name of Frithestan, bishop of Winchester 909-31, on f. 57r. The volume was greatly valued by Parker and his circle; Parker brought the list of archbishops of Canterbury up to date to include own name. It was also used in the earliest printed book in Old English, Parker's Testimonie of Antiquitie.
More details »