arrangement, but as they are defective both in rhythm and alliteration, I have printed them continuously, as in the manuscripts.
Of the chronology of the Anglo-Saxons, before their conversion to Christianity, or from what data the writers of the Chronicle reduced the time of events, down to the coming of Augustine (A.D. 596), to the era of the Incarnation,[1] we have no knowledge; though that our pagan forefathers had some system of time-reckoning there cannot be a doubt.
In this edition of the Saxon Chronicle, the texts of the several manuscripts are printed entire; a plan which, at first sight, may appear objectionable, on the score of the great mass of repetition it necessarily occasions of matter not only substantially but frequently verbatim and even literatim identical. But to produce the Chronicle complete, there was no midway between the plan here adopted, and the less satisfactory one hitherto followed, of taking the most esteemed manuscript for a text, and printing beneath all deviations from it, in the shape of various readings, unpleasant and inconvenient to consult, and, it is believed, by only a few readers, ever consulted; and frequently equalling in mass, and sometimes exceeding, the text itself. Nor does this method afford the requisite facility to those desirous of weighing the several narratives of the same event against each other, as the narrative of a West Saxon against that of a Mercian; or of a partisan of earl Godwine and Harold against that of one inimical to their house. And to the investigator of
- ↑ There are some anomalous appearances with respect to the time of beginning the year in MS. C. (Cott. Tiber. B. i.), before this period; but henceforward to the year 1053, it can hardly be questioned that the computation from Easter is followed in that copy. This event, therefore (king Eadward's marriage), according to our mode of reckoning, would belong to the year 1045. R. P. note to An. 1044.
