The Anglian collection is a collection of Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and regnal lists. These survive in four manuscripts; two of which now reside in the British Library. The remaining two belong to the libraries of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and Rochester Cathedral, the latter now deposited with the Medway Archives.
All manuscripts appear to derive from a common source, now lost. Based on content and the pattern of divergence, Dumville dates the composition of the common source to 796 in Mercia. [1] Both the genealogies and the episcopal lists were part of this original compilation, and have passed in tandem, with the surviving manuscripts all several steps removed from this original. All the manuscripts include genealogies for the kingdoms of Deira, Bernicia, Mercia, Lindsey, Kent and East Anglia. Three of them (C, T and R) also contain a West Saxon genealogy (which may have been a source for the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List), [2] and regnal lists for Northumbria and Mercia. This may represent material omitted or lost from the fourth (V) rather than addition to the other three. The genealogies are presented in reverse order, beginning with a ruler at the time it was composed and naming each successive generation back to Wodin, and in the Lindsey and Wessex pedigrees, beyond. The papal and episcopal lists, to a greater or lesser extent, have been updated during the course of transmission of the individual copies, but with the exception of the Wessex pedigree, the genealogies have largely remained unchanged except for error. Scholars agree that a collection of genealogies similar to those in the Vespasian manuscript was also a source for the genealogical section of Historia Brittonum . [3] [4] Dumville suggested specifically that the Historia used a Northumbrian precursor to the genealogical portion of the Anglian collection, provisionally dating its compilation to the 760s or 770s. [5]
The surviving manuscripts are listed below, in what is currently thought to be the chronological order of their composition. [5]
| Version | Location | Manuscript |
|---|---|---|
| V | British Library | Cotton MS. Vespasian B vi. fols. 104—109 |
| C | Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge | CCCC 183 fols. 59—67 |
| T | British Library | Cotton MS. Tiberius B v., pt. 1, Anglo-Saxon Miscellany fols. 2—73,77—88, and Cotton MS. Nero D ii., fols 238–241 |
| R | Rochester, Cathedral Library [6] | A.3.5, Textus Roffensis fols. 102—118 |
This is the oldest of the four surviving versions, and represents a separate branch of transmission than that leading to the other manuscripts. A single hand using Mercian script has recorded the genealogies and episcopal lists, bringing them down to the time of composition, 805 × 814 (probably closer to the end of that span). Mercian scribes would later update the episcopal lists, first to about 833 and much later to the 12th century, while the papal lists were updated to the time of later-9th century Pope Adrian II. The leaves containing the Anglian collection bear no resemblance to the remainder of the codex in which they were found, and probably were only bound together at the time they entered the Cottonian Library. The pages containing the Anglian collection have now been removed from their original volume and framed individually, and are catalogued as Vespasian B vi/1.
The Parker version of the Anglian collection is part of a larger volume all written by the same two scribes using an Anglo-Celtic hand, and including most notably Bede's Vita Sancti Cuthberti. This volume was composed in South West England, perhaps at Glastonbury, and later in the Middle Ages was held by the Durham Cathedral Priory. At the start of the codex is an illustration of a king presenting a tome to a saint, leading to the hypothesis that this codex is the volume the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto described as being given to the congregation of Saint Cuthbert by king Æthelstan in the mid-930s, which matches the period to which some, but not all, of the episcopal lists are brought. This identification would place its composition in Wessex in the period 934 × 937. Manuscript C, along with T and R have material not found in V. They all have Northumbrian and Mercian regnal lists and a pedigree for Wessex, all present well before the dates of the surviving manuscripts and perhaps in the original. The pattern of shared updates suggest that the manuscript ancestral to all three was last updated in Mercia in the 840s before being moved to Wessex. The Mercia regnal list of C also contains two unique memoranda.
The Anglian collection version T forms part of a computational, geographical and astrological collection. The volume is from the south of England and based in the writing was probably composed in the second quarter of the 11th century, though the chronological material in the regnal lists was most recently updated in the 990s. The Anglian collection material appears to have been copied at Canterbury from a now-lost manuscript held at Christ Church, and it then passed to Winchester, where additions to the Winchester Chronicle derived from the T manuscript. The Wessex royal pedigree has been extended both more recently and earlier, giving a descent that traces the three sons of king Edgar (and hence dates 966 × 969) back to Adam. It appears to have been added at Glastonbury before the manuscript went to Canterbury. The genealogies and regnal lists have a quirky arrangement and many errors, most notably a deletion that splices together the Northumbria and Mercian regnal lists, though these seem to have originated earlier on the course of transmission.
The errors and other unique feature in T mark it as the source for a set of Anglo-Saxon genealogies that found their way to Iceland. A set of pages from the library of P. H. Resen (1625—1688) date from the just after the middle of the 13th century, and contain the royal pedigrees of Deira, Kent and Wessex, as well as the descent from their shared ancestor Woden to 'Sescef' (i.e. "Se Scef" - 'this Scef' of the expanded Wessex pedigree). Anthony Foulkes has suggested that this is a copy of an earlier set of selective notes taken from manuscript T and transmitted to Iceland, where it provided the core genealogical material elaborated upon in the Preface to Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda and Langfeðgatal to provide the Scandinavian dynasties with a genealogy tracing to antiquity. [7]
The volume containing the R manuscript was composed at Rochester soon after 1122, using a common source with T for the Anglian collection. Though the same scribe wrote the entire codex, it appears to represent what were once two separate manuscripts, now bound together. The Anglian collection text is quite similar to that of T, and probably came from the same source, though some of the errors once shared with T have been erased and corrected. The last shared updates between T and R seem to date from 990 at Canterbury.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
Ceawlin was a King of Wessex. He may have been the son of Cynric of Wessex and the grandson of Cerdic of Wessex, whom the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle represents as the leader of the first group of Saxons to come to the land which later became Wessex. Ceawlin was active during the last years of the Anglo-Saxon expansion, with little of southern England remaining in the control of the native Britons by the time of his death.
Cynric was King of Wessex from 534 to 560. Everything known about him comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There, he is stated to have been the son of Cerdic, who is considered the founder of the kingdom of Wessex. However, the Anglian King-list and parts of the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, instead says that Cynric was the son of Cerdic's son Creoda. Similarly, the paternal genealogy of Alfred the Great given in Asser's The Life of King Alfred, includes the name Creoda, while the account of the king's maternal ancestry in the same work calls Cynric son of Cerdic.
Ine, also rendered Ini or Ina, was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor, Cædwalla, who had expanded West Saxon territory substantially. By the end of Ine's reign, the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Essex were no longer under West Saxon sway; however, Ine maintained control of what is now Hampshire, and consolidated and extended Wessex's territory in the western peninsula.
The Book of Cerne is an early ninth-century Insular or Anglo-Saxon Latin personal prayer book with Old English components. It belongs to a group of four such early prayer books, the others being the Royal Prayerbook, the Harleian prayerbook, and the Book of Nunnaminster. It is now commonly believed to have been produced sometime between ca. 820 and 840 AD in the Southumbrian/Mercian region of England. The original book contains a collection of several different texts, including New Testament Gospel excerpts, a selection of prayers and hymns with a version of the Lorica of Laidcenn, an abbreviated or Breviate Psalter, and a text of the Harrowing of Hell liturgical drama, which were combined to provide a source used for private devotion and contemplation. Based on stylistic and palaeographical features, the Book of Cerne has been included within the Canterbury or Tiberius group of manuscripts that were manufactured in southern England in the 8th and 9th centuries AD associated with the Mercian hegemony in Anglo-Saxon England. This Anglo-Saxon manuscript is considered to be the most sophisticated and elaborate of this group. The Book of Cerne exhibits various Irish/Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Continental, and Mediterranean influences in its texts, ornamentation, and embellishment.
Creoda may have been one of the first kings of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, ruling toward the end of the 6th century.
Beorhtwulf was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 839 or 840 to 852. His ancestry is unknown, though he may have been connected to Beornwulf, who ruled Mercia in the 820s. Almost no coins were issued by Beorhtwulf's predecessor, Wiglaf, but a Mercian coinage was restarted by Beorhtwulf early in his reign, initially with strong similarities to the coins of Æthelwulf of Wessex, and later with independent designs. The Vikings attacked within a year or two of Beorhtwulf's accession: the province of Lindsey was raided in 841, and London, a key centre of Mercian commerce, was attacked the following year. Another Viking assault on London in 851 "put Beorhtwulf to flight", according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the Vikings were subsequently defeated by Æthelwulf. This raid may have had a significant economic impact on Mercia, as London coinage is much reduced after 851.
Ceolwulf II was the last king of independent Mercia. He succeeded Burgred of Mercia who was deposed by the Vikings in 874. His reign is generally dated 874 to 879 based on a Mercian regnal list which gives him a reign of five years. However, D. P. Kirby argues that he probably reigned into the early 880s. By 883, he was replaced by Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who became ruler of Mercia with the support of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex.
Cynegils was King of Wessex from c. 611 to c. 642. Cynegils is traditionally considered to have been King of Wessex, even though the kingdoms of the Heptarchy had not yet formed from the patchwork of smaller kingdoms in his lifetime. The later kingdom of Wessex was centred on the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire but the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that the kingdom of Cynegils was located on the upper River Thames, extending into northern Wiltshire and Somerset, southern Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and western Berkshire, with Dorchester-on-Thames as one of the major royal sites. This region, probably connected to the early tribal grouping known as the Gewisse, a term used by Bede for the West Saxons, lay on the frontier between the later kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia.
Mercian was a dialect spoken in the Anglian kingdom of Mercia. Together with Northumbrian, it was one of the two Anglian dialects. The other two dialects of Old English were Kentish and West Saxon. Each of those dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, all of Northumbria and most of Mercia were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. Part of Mercia and all of Kent were successfully defended but were then integrated into the Kingdom of Wessex. Because of the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is little to no salvaged written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after Alfred the Great's unification, until the Middle English period.
British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C. II, or the Tiberius Bede, is an 8th-century illuminated manuscript of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. It is one of only four surviving 8th-century manuscripts of Bede, another of which happens to be MS Cotton Tiberius A. XIV, produced at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey. As such it is one of the closest texts to Bede's autograph. The manuscript has 155 vellum folios. This manuscript may have been the Latin text on which the Alfredian Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History was based. The manuscript is decorated with zoomorphic initials in a partly Insular and partly Continental style.
The Iclingas were a dynasty of Kings of Mercia during the 7th and 8th centuries, named for Icel or Icil, great-grandson of Offa of Angel, a legendary or semi-legendary figure of the Migration Period who is described as a descendant of the god Woden by the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies.
Beonna was King of East Anglia from 749. He is notable for being the first East Anglian king whose coinage included both the ruler's name and his title. The end-date of Beonna's reign is not known, but may have been around 760. It is thought that he shared the kingdom with another ruler called Alberht and possibly with a third man, named Hun. Not all experts agree with these regnal dates, or the nature of his kingship: it has been suggested that he may have ruled alone from around 758.
Alberht was an eighth-century ruler of the kingdom of East Anglia. He shared the kingdom with Beonna and possibly Hun, who may not have existed. He may still have been king in around 760. He is recorded by the Fitzwilliam Museum and the historian Simon Keynes as Æthelberht I.
Creoda is a shadowy figure from early Wessex history whose existence is disputed.
The Prologue is the first section of four books of the Prose Edda, and consists of a euhemerized account of the origins of Norse mythology. According to the Prologue, the Norse gods originate from the Trojans described in Homer's poetry, and are King Priam's descendants. Priam's grandson Thor traveled throughout the world after leaving Thrace, fighting monsters and a dragon; he eventually came far north where he married a local named Sif. From them descended both the Norse gods as well as royal lines of various kingdoms.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons.
A number of royal genealogies of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, collectively referred to as the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, have been preserved in a manuscript tradition based in the 8th to 10th centuries.
Langfeðgatal is an anonymous, twelfth-century Icelandic genealogy of Scandinavian kings.
The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List is the name given in modern scholarship to a list of West-Saxon kings. It is one of the main sources for understanding the early history of Wessex and the attempts of its dynasties to project an image of dynastic stability.