• DOI:10.1515/ANGL.1986.1986.104.1
• Corpus ID: 162322618

THE WEST SAXON GENEALOGICAL REGNAL LIST: MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS

@inproceedings{Dumville1986THEWS,
  title={THE WEST SAXON GENEALOGICAL REGNAL LIST: MANUSCRIPTS AND TEXTS},
  author={David Norman Dumville},
  year={1986}
}

• D. Dumville
• Published 1986
• History

The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List is a brief text which catalogues the kings of the West Saxons from Cerdic (placing bis arrival in Wessex in A.D. 494) to Alfred in whose reign (871-99) it probably achieved its present form. Reign-lengths, Statement of the längs' blood-right to rule, and t wo pedigreestatements displaying the descent of ^Ethelwulf from Cerdic, the dynastic founder, and of Cerdic from Woden, the source of Anglo-Saxon royalty, comprise almost the whole of the Genealogical Regnal List. It is thus a regnal list incorporating genealogical matter. In some manuscripts it is accompanied by continuations extending into the later tenth or early eleventh Century, while in some it is closely associated with the AngloSaxon Chronicle. This List is one of the important sources for any consideration of the dynastic history of the West Saxon Cerdicing line. It is the more surprising, therefore, that it has never been published properly and that some manuscript-versions have effectively remained unknown to or unused by scholars. In the present paper I accordingly give a critical text of the relevant matter, with a limited discussion of textual history but reserving the main historical consideration for a paper to be published elsewhere. It is hoped that in this way the work can be made 1 I am indebted to Professor Janet Bately for her helpful comments on a draft of the present article. Its companion is "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the chronology of early Wessex", Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 4, forthcoming. Piecemeal (and often inaccurate) publication of individual copies of the List has so far been the rule. For a number of previous references to the List, see n. l of the aförementioned paper. The only sustained discussion of the List (and then merely of its pedigrees) has been that of K. Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies", Proceedings of the British Academy, 39 (1953), 287-348.