Peterborough Chronicle - Unique Authorial Voice

Unique Authorial Voice

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.