ABSTRACT
The period from 1066 to 1307 has advantages for the scholar over the Anglo-Saxon period of British history in that sources are more common, though of course there is no complete ‘break’ in coverage between the pre-1066 and post-1066 practice of historical writing in England despite the drastic political (and cultural) upheaval and the shift in the ‘second language’ of official record from Old English to French. (Latin remained the main language of record for the secular administration and monasteries/cathedrals alike, but the scope of action and survival of records increases substantially over the next half-century.) In Wales and Scotland the basic sources remain as before for the immediate post-1066 period, though events that impinged on England are now covered by the Latinate or French writers there, and as parts of Wales were militarily/politically absorbed by the Marcher Anglo-Norman elite they were integrated into English administrative and cultural practices. In Scotland Anglicisation and increasing use and survival of records commenced in Malcolm III’s reign, peaked under his youngest son David and his family, and make knowledge of basic events easier though not on an English scale. In Ireland, Anglo-Norman influence and greater (and Europeanised) use of records was not to commence until the conquest after 1169, though ‘modern’ practices and greater systematic recording had begun earlier in the C12th in the Church; pre-Anglicisation local chronicles continue for all three ‘Celtic’ (not a contemporary term) realms.
