Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Bede's two world chronicles¹ and the summary of events at the end of the Ecclesiastical History² are a different kind of historical writing from the rest of the Ecclesiastical History and the History of the Abbots. They are chronicles, recording briefly the events of each year in chronological order. Such chronicles are not in a literary form. A literary history has a sustained theme and the subject matter often overrides the chronological sequence of events. The distinction between the chronicle and literary history goes back to ancient times: Jerome's translation of Eusebius's Chronicle typifies the chronicle and Caesar's Gallic War literary history. Although this distinction was recognized throughout the middle ages,³ it was not a rigid one. The yearly entries (that is the annals) in chronicles are sometimes detailed and well composed, so that they are almost literary in form.