3-057-472 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, c1046. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, probably begun at the command of King Alfred, was the first history of England in the English language. Six versions of the Chronicle, kept up to date at different monasteries, survive, four of which are in the British Library. Illustrated here is a page from a text probably copied at Abingdon Abbey in about 1046. The last paragraph describes the defeat of the Danes by King Alfred at Edington in Wiltshire in 878.