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SWANTON, MICHAEL 1997: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and 
edited by Michael Swanton (Dent, London); xxxvi + 364 pages; ISBN 
0-460-87867-0; £ 12.99 in the United Kingdom only.

THIS paperback edition of Professor Swanton’s translation of the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle will be warmly welcomed. It was first issued in hardback in 
1996, and immediately became the version of the Chronicle which all students
of early English history and literature had to have.

The material of the Chronicle is stirring stuff. It is the first continuous 
history of any modern European nation in its own language. Compiled over 
several centuries, it describes the invasion of post-Roman Britain by the En -
glish; the development of their society; their conversion to Christianity from 
the year 597 onwards; the Viking attacks of the ninth and tenth centuries, and 
the English response to them (sometimes cowardly, sometimes heroic); and 
the Norman Conquest of 1066. The writing of the Chronicle was continued at
Peterborough, in the English Midlands, until the year 1154. The annals for 
these last years provide an unforgettable picture of the atrocities committed 
in King Stephen’s reign, when people said openly that ‘Christ and his saints 
slept’.

Professor Swanton provides a fitting treatment of this venerable docu-
ment. His translation, which effectively replaces the one made in 1953 by 
Norman Garmonsway for the Everyman series, shows differing versions of 
the Chronicle text on facing pages. He provides full commentary and up-to-
date bibliography. His work on the last is especially valuable, since it enables 
historians and others to update themselves on the enormous amount of re -
search that has been published on the Chronicle in recent decades. His trans-
lation also comes complete with maps, genealogical tables, and some excel-
lent photographs. These last range from a picture of the dragon from a real 
Viking ship, to a gold ring worn on the finger of king Alfred’s grandfather. 
The ring was found in 1780 in a cartru t at Laverstock, just outside Salisbury. 
(One wonders how it was lost, and who lost it.) It is typical of the unexpected 
things to be found in this edition that Professor Swanton should tell us this.



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In short, Michael Swanton’s version of the Chronicle has now become the 
essential edition of this text. The results of his labours will be with us for 
many years. His translation should be found in the library of every institution 
that takes the study of early England and its language seriously.

Andrew Breeze

University of Navarre

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