Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle according to the Several Original Authorities Vol 1 (Original Texts).djvu/34

 Ecclesiastical History of Beda, the principal source whence our early chroniclers have derived their matter.

What has just been stated, with reference to king Ælfred, may perhaps tend in some degree to account for the distribution of copies of the Chronicle among certain religious houses, during the reign of that prince: but how it was continued in after-times we are without any intimation whereupon to found more than a probable conjecture; although all the extant copies, not excepting that which least resembles the others (Domit. A. VIII.), bear proofs of a common prototype, as must be evident to every reader of the several texts displayed in the present edition. Of this subject, the passage from the Scotichronicon, quoted below, offers a curious and not improbable illustration; though, perhaps, too vague and too recent to be considered as evidence.

While regarding Alfred as the probable originator of the Saxon Chronicle, it must, at the same time, be evident that in England there already existed written memorials of our early times, whence he, or rather perhaps his coadjutors, derived materials; and to such Beda alludes, in the words: "A principio voluminis hujus usque ad tempus quo gens Anglorum fidem Christi percepit, ex priorum maxime scriptis, hinc inde collectis, ea quæ promeremus didicimus." He also