Con2: An Edition of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, 924-983

This edition of the "Second Continuation" of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles was presented in print form to the Graduate School of Saint Louis University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts (Research) degree, during Summer 1996.

The edition is no longer available on this site, but you can still access the background chapters on hypertext through my Webfolio, or by following the links below.

Contents:

I. The Search for Reader-Centered Hypertext

II. The Hypertext Edition: Reading Old English

III. Rationale for this Edition of Con2

IVa. Mark-Up and Editorial Conventions, with Frames

IVb. Mark-Up and Editorial Conventions, without Frames

V. The Chronicle Manuscripts

VI. Compressed Version of this Archive

VIIa. The Archive with Frames

VIIb. The Archive without Frames

VIII. Works Cited

 

DIGEST

This thesis describes a World Wide Web-accessible archive and edition of four of the six major texts of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, annals 924-983, which contain the section that Jackson Campbell called the "Second Continuation." This section of the Chronicle can be divided into two parts: annals 934-946 are represented in MSS ABCD and appear to have been derived from the same source. The scribe of MS E either did not have access to this source or simply summarized the material. Annals 955-977 can be considered as a separate unit because at 955 there is a change of hand in MS A, and at 977 MS B ends and the A and C texts cease to agree again before 983. The Con2 archive illustrates a number of problems in the design of hypertext authoring environments that complicate editing and reading electronic editions of Old English texts. Current web browsers are poorly equipped to handle many of the tasks that Old English scholars are required to perform because they rely on design metaphors which afford connective, rather than comparative, linking schemes. Software designed specifically for reading literary texts is also not designed to help compare texts that exist in several versions. Wider recognition of the role of the user interface in shaping the reader's experience of literary texts would improve the design and effectiveness of hypertext applications.

 

[logo] © 1996-2000 Craig Branham
Saint Louis University
17-Jun-00

http://www.slu.edu/departments/english/chron/