Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities Vol 1 (Original Texts).djvu/31

 PREFACE

It is deeply to be regretted that an historic monument so important, and of such great interest to all students of our early times, not only in Britain, but throughout all Germanic lands, as the, should afford us no information with regard to its several writers, or to the mode in which it gradually grew into the form in which we now possess it. Equally devoid are we of all indirect or collateral evidence, tending to cast a glimmering of light on these points. Conjecture, therefore, and that founded only on probability, is all we can have recourse to, in an attempt to account for the phenomenon. One point, however, seems indisputable, viz., that the several manuscripts, whether West Saxon or Mercian, are derived from a common original; whence the question naturally arises, how and by whom was such original issued to the several monasteries, which, from their rank, or the reputation of one or other of their inmates, for learning or superior penmanship, were deemed qualified for the proposed object of multiplying copies; and where it received such additional matter as, on account of local