Women in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and related texts, to 1080

This thesis provides an analysis of gender in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and related documents to 1080. Women have a low profile in the historical narratives of the period and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is no exception. Only 8% of individuals in the ‘common-stock’ are women, a figure which is comparable to similar texts and also follows in the Biblical tradition. The women who are recorded are virtually all royal and the majority of references are for their marriages and kinship links. Other roles thought worthy of recording are, in decreasing order; actions by women; death, burial or translation; actions done to women; abbesses and other religious women; rulers; birth and baptism. It is also established that high-status women of the time were likely to have been aware of the contents of the Chronicle.After 892 the Chronicle continues in seven different versions with varying monastic, political and geographic influences which are reflected in the references to women. The number and proportion of women varies over the centuries, with the ninth-century containing the lowest number, reflecting the nature of the sources available to the authors of the ‘common-stock’. As the Chronicle becomes a record of events in more recent memory the number of references rises significantly, suggesting that women had a higher prominence in oral history.Sections of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were also incorporated into two Latin texts, Asser’s Life of King Alfred written in 893 and Æthelweard’s late tenth-century Chronicon. These two texts show that non-annalistic sources have an increased number of references to women. They also give insights into contemporary debates, such as the role of queens, and show the importance of family connections across many generations to both women and men.