What is Anglo-Saxon Chronicle?
{{Italic title}} [[File:Peterborough.Chronicle.firstpage.jpg|thumb|228px|right|The initial page of the ''[[Peterborough]] Chronicle''.<br /> ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=F7sVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA277 Translation of this scanned page.]'' <ref>Joseph Bosworth, ''The Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar,'' p. 277. (This book is in public domain)</ref>]] [[File:Entry_for_827_in_the_Anglo-Saxon_Chronicle,_which_lists_the_eight_bretwaldas.gif|thumb|228px|right|Another page, showing the [[calligraphy]]; not by the same hand as above.]] The '''''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''''' is a collection of [[annals]] in [[Old English language|Old English]] chronicling the history of the [[Anglo-Saxons]]. The annals were initially created late in the 9th century, probably in [[Wessex]], during the reign of [[Alfred the Great]]. Multiple [[manuscript]] copies were made and distributed to [[monastery|monasteries]] across England and were independently updated. In one case, the chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154. Nine manuscripts survive in whole or in part, though not all are of equal historical value and none of them is the original version. The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was written at [[Peterborough Cathedral|Peterborough Abbey]] after a fire at that monastery in 1116. Almost all of the material in the chronicle is in the form of annals, by year; the earliest are dated at 60 BC, and historical material follows up to the year in which the chronicle was written, at which point contemporary records begin. These manuscripts collectively are known as the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. The Chronicle is not unbiased: there are occasions when comparison with other medieval sources makes it clear that the scribes who wrote it omitted events or told one-sided versions of stories; there are also places where the different versions contradict each other. Taken as a whole the Chronicle is the single most important historical source for the period in England between the end