The 'Anglian Collection' of royal genealogies (original) (raw)

The four main versions of this collection are presented in the table below. They include the three manuscript versions printed by David Dumville and the spellings of the Historia Brittonum, but not the Textus Roffensis, a twelfth-century compilation that is virtually identical to the Tiberius B v version. According to Dumville, the archetype of the collection probably dates from 765×774. It may have been Northumbrian in origin, hence the primacy of Northumbrian pedigrees.

The earliest witness to it that survives is in the_Historia Brittonum version_, where it can be dated 787×796 (when Ecgfriþ was king in Mercia, having been crowned some nine years before his father’s death, but before the accession of Cœnwulf, whose genealogy does not appear in the Historia). It perhaps belongs to the turbulent year 796, when Æþelræd I died and his successor Osbald was expelled after 27 days by Eardwulf. The *Oslaf recorded by the Historia may have been an unsuccessful contender for the throne at this time.

The version contained in Cotton MS Vespasian B vi dates to 805×814, as shown by both the early ninth-century hand and the names of the latest bishops recorded in the lists it contains (not shown here). The Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 183 version preserves a revision of 934×937, possibly made in Glastonbury. Cotton MS Tiberius B v then contains further revisions down to 990, made at Christ Church, Canterbury.

The forms given by the Historia Brittonum are Welsh Latin of the tenth century, with a number of errors. I have attempted to restore these names to forms that may have been in the original text used by the compiler.