The Peterborough Chronicle (also called the Laud Manuscript), one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman Conquest. According to philologist J.A.W. Bennett, it is the only prose history in English between the Conquest and the later 14th century.


The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were composed and maintained between the various monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England and were an attempt to record the history of the world. Each chronicle began with the Creation, went through Biblical and Roman history, then continued to the present. Every major religious house in England kept its own, individual chronicle, and the chronicles were not compared with each other or in any way kept uniform. However, whenever a monastery's chronicle was damaged, or when a new monastery began a chronicle, nearby monasteries would lend out their chronicles for copying. Thus, a new chronicle would be identical to the lender's until they reached the date of copying and then would be idiosyncratic. Such was the case with the Peterborough Chronicle: a fire compelled the abbey to copy the chronicles from other churches up to 1120.

When William the Conqueror took England and Anglo-Norman became the official language, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles generally ceased. The monks of Peterborough Abbey, however, continued to compile events in theirs. While the Peterborough Chronicle is not professional history, and one still needs Latin histories (e.g. William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum), it is one of the few first-hand accounts of the period from 1070 to 1154 in England written in English and from a non-courtly point of view.

It is also a valuable source of information about the early Middle English language itself. The first continuation, for example, is written in late Old English, but the second continuation begins to show mixed forms, until the conclusion of the second continuation, which switches into an early form of distinctly Middle English. The linguistic novelties recorded in the second continuation are plentiful, including at least one true innovation: the feminine pronoun "she" (as "scæ") is first recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle (Bennett).

Although the second continuation holds the most importance, the first continuation has unique records of events in the Peterborough area and provides an insight into ordinary people's lives. The first continuation records the Conquest, the incursion of Sweyn of Denmark, and rumors of other turbulence about the throne. However, it has no evidence at all for Saxon opposition and rebellion against William and his sons. An arguably eyewitness account describes the burning of Peterborough Abbey itself, due to the drunkenness of the monks. It also covers ecclesiastical scandals, such as the abbot of Glastonbury bringing in mercenaries to control his religious house. Further, there is a significant change in language from the previous late Old English that begins with the entry for the years 1122–1131, with mixtures of Old English and Middle English vocabulary (and increasing Gallic formations) and syntax (a simplification of the pronouns and strong verbs, as well as a decrease in the declensions of the nouns).

Both the first and second continuation authors have sympathy for the common man. As Bennett suggests, Peterborough is the one source for compassion of the laity found in contemporary accounts. The first continuation expresses as much outrage at the hanging of forty-four thieves in 1122, some of whom were innocent, as at the burning of the monastery at Gloucester. The monastic author suggests that taxes were too high, putting the impoverished villagers in a dilemma of stealing or starving. Therefore, the nobles were guilty of a double sin. First, they executed the innocent and used excessive cruelty with the guilty. Second, it was at least as sinful for the nobles to compel theft with their avarice as for the poor to steal for bread. When the Norman Henry of Poitou was forced on Peterborough as abbot (when he was already abbot of St. Jean d'Angély), the chronicler protests at some length at the illegality and impiety of the appointment. He also mentions that the Wild Hunt was seen at the same time as the appointment, as an ill omen. When Henry was eventually removed by death, the monk again takes the position that this was divine remedy, for Henry had tried to make Peterborough part of the Cluniac Order and had attempted to have his own nephew be the next abbot, "oc Crist it ne uuolde" ("but Christ did not will it").

The two Peterborough continuations sympathize with the poor, and this makes them almost unique in Latin or English history. They also focus more on life outside of the abbey than other Chronicles. The general Chronicle is somewhat insular. While most versions note the national events, such as a progress of the king or a change in sovereign, discussion of the countryside around the monastery is limited. Portents and omens receive coverage, but rarely do the chroniclers discuss political alliances (as the author of the second continuation does with his denunciation of the bishops who were allied with Matilda) or the legalities of monastic rule (as the author of the first continuation does in his lament over Abbot Henry). The monks who compiled the continuation at Peterborough were either consciously striking out in a new direction (perhaps under the direction of Abbot Martin) or continuing a type of chronicle that was confined to their own monastery (that was lost with the fire). It does not seem likely that Peterborough was in any sense a lax or secular monastery, as the description of drunkenness causing the fire would not have made the abbey singular in the age.

The continuations are also unique in their linguistic shifts. When copying from Winchester, they preserve the orthography and syntax of late Old English, and when they get to events for which they have no copy text the language abruptly changes to a newer form. Given that the loan would have taken place just before the continuation, the change in language reflects either a dramatic attempt at greater vernacular by the continuation authors or a significant and quick change in the language itself as Norman influences spread. Because the chronicle is in prose, the artificiality of verse form does not entail the preservation of linguistic archaisms, and historians of English can trace the beginnings of Middle English in these pages.