Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''}}
[[File:Peterborough.Chronicle.firstpage.jpg|right|thumb|165px|The "B" looks quite nice.]]{{Books}}
The '''''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''''' (''ASC'', for short) is a document tracing the history of the Anglo-Saxon people from 60 BCE (around the time of [[Julius Caesar]]'s first [[British]] campaign) up until 850 [[Common Era|CE]], though it does mention the arrival of the Scots in Hibernia ([[Ireland]]) and of the Picts in Caledonia ([[Scotland]]), both of which are generally accepted to have begun earlier than Caesar's invasions of Britain. It was widely copied, and many different versions exist, none of which agree in all particulars as they were each updated in the place where they were stored.

==Genealogies==

The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' contains genealogies tracing the royal line back to the [[Norse mythology|Norse]] god Odin<ref group=note>Or rather Woden, the name from which we get the word Wednesday.</ref> whence sprang its claims to legitimacy. In [[Paganism|pagan]] times, the Saxons practiced ancestor veneration, and even into the early [[Christianity|Christian]] period they put such stock by accurate portrayal of one's ancestors that a whole bevy of family sagas were reproduced with the utmost truthfulness to avoid having a band of angry relatives burn the writers' houses down.<ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17919/17919.txt George W. Dasent's preface to ''The Story of Burnt Njal'']</ref>

This put the [[monk]]s who were the early Christian chroniclers between a rock and a hard place: Odin had been officially reclassified as a [[demon]] at that time,<ref group=note>See the wording of the Saxon Oath of Renunciation, written by the Church for Saxon converts to recite: [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/middleages/chapter1.htm "And I forsake all the [[devil]]'s works and words, Thor and Woden and Saxnot..."]</ref> and it was not good to have demons in one's ancestral line. But neither could the chroniclers disavow the old line; [[Charlemagne]] had only recently had to kill 4500 recalcitrant pagan Saxons.<ref>{{wpa|Massacre of Verden}}</ref> Christianity was not very popular with the people at that point, as it was imposed from the top down, a process that was greatly aided by the pagan belief that the king was of divine descent. Furthermore, the sort of Christianity being practiced had extremely heavy syncretic influence from the old paganism, not being very recognizable to a Christian of today. See, for example, the Anglo-Saxon poem ''Dream of the Rood'',<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20090203211509/http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/rood.htm</ref> which describes an event that happened both to [[Jesus]] and Balder, and calls the former by some of Balder's epithets.

So, to keep their royal line intact, Odin was reclassified as a man, a dead king, and [[Noah]] (yes, the one who is most famous for his large [[Noah's Ark|ark]]) was stuck at the front of the list of kings. To make up for the fact that all but ''one'' of the names in the modified list were entirely Saxon, several mythical kings listed as ancestors of Odin were reclassified as descendants of Noah.<ref group=note>A very similar process was used on Scandinavian royal lines during its Christianization, hence why belief and even reverence for Odin persisted well into the 19th Century</ref>

The current British royal family claims descent from the sixth century Saxon king {{wpl|Cerdic of Wessex}}, and through Cerdic, from Odin.

==The ASC and young-earth creationism==

Just naturally the above interpretation of the genealogies led to considerable strains on the [[Bible]], with some ''extremely'' unbiblical statements making their way into the chronicle. For example, although {{bible|Genesis|10|32}} has it that [[Noah]] had only ''three'' sons, who were all adults at the time of the [[Great Flood]], the ''ASC'' reclassifies one of the mythical kings, Sceaf, as a fourth son of Noah who was born on the ark.<ref>''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'',  854 CE.</ref>

Of course, the more far-out and implausible something is, the more the [[young earth creationism|young-earth creationists]] love it. So, instead of correctly dismissing the genealogy as syncretic [[bullshit]], which (unlike most other things) they actually ''could'' do without compromising their world-view, they go to great pains to insist that the chronicle is a completely accurate record that entirely proves their point.

The creationist Bill Cooper<ref group=note>Not to be confused with conspiracy theorist [[William Cooper]].</ref> argues that Sceaf is actually Japheth, the son of Noah who was said to have populated [[Europe]].<ref name="ATFChap6">[http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/ch6.html ''After the Flood'', chapter 6.]</ref>

That none of the Saxon chroniclers actually ''said'' this (and furthermore contradicted it by noting Sceaf's supposed birthplace) does not appear to concern Cooper ("B.A. Hons"<ref>http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/cover1.jpg</ref>); his reasoning is that [[Certum est quia impossibile est|since the chroniclers made such blatant mistakes, they were, as a matter of course, right on the mark]]:

{{cquote|If it really had been a fact that certain unscrupulous Christian monks had fraudulently invented the pre-migration Saxon genealogies, ... is it at all conceivable that they would have used a form of Japheth's name that was utterly unfamiliar to those very readers whom they hoped to convince? And surely, no educated monk would have made such a silly error over Japheth being both in the Ark when every one of his readers would have known that Japheth, far from being born in the Ark, had helped to build it! ... we are not dealing here with any attempted fraud or piece of Christian fiction.<ref name="ATFChap6"/>}}

That (despite his own insistence that he would use only pre-Christian documents)<ref name="ATFContents">http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/contents.html</ref> he used only the Christian-era ones to support these claims, and quote-mined and misrepresented those, does not appear to concern him either; he was criticized even by other YECs for shoddy scholarship and misrepresenting the Prose Edda.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110413082331/http://www.amazon.com/review/R27ONDIGRNQGVU Well researched, but...] by William J. Hoyt "Bill Hoyt" (May 24, 2007) ''Amazon.com'' (archived from April 13, 2011).</ref>

Not to mention that the chronicle describes all sorts of other outlandish and clearly made up events. For instance:<ref>http://asc.jebbo.co.uk/d/d-L.html</ref>
{{Ctransquote|In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery [[dragon]]s were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen people destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.|Old English|Her wæron reðe forebecna cumene ofer Norðhymbra land, ⁊ þæt folc earmlic bregdon, þæt wæron ormete þodenas ⁊ ligrescas, ⁊ fyrenne dracan wæron gesewene on þam lifte fleogende. Þam tacnum sona fyligde mycel hunger, ⁊ litel æfter þam, þæs ilcan geares on .vi. Idus Ianuarii, earmlice hæþenra manna hergunc adilegode Godes cyrican in Lindisfarnaee þurh hreaflac ⁊ mansliht.|||}}

==External links==

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/657 The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''] at Project Gutenberg
* Bill Cooper's [http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper ''After the Flood'']

==Notes==
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==References==

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