The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the most important documents that has come down to us from the middle ages. It was originally compiled on the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately A.D. 890, and subsequently maintained and added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the 12th Century. The original language was Anglo-Saxon (Old English), but later entries were probably made in an early form of Middle English. This document is the ultimate timeline of British history from its beginnings up to the end of the reign of King Stephen in 1154. The Chronicle certainly does not present us with a complete history of those times and is probably not 100% accurate, either, but that doesn’t diminish its enormous value in helping us to arrive at a clearer picture of what actually happened in Britain over a thousand years ago.