Pagina:Annales monastici Vol IV.djvu/21

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PREFACE. xiii the entry " nihil memoriale " being given by Osney as the sole entry in several years where there is nothing corresponding in Wykes, I do not think any conclusion can be drawn, — as, if the Osney annalist were copying from Wykes, he might as well insert the words where he found no entry, as Wykes leave them out were he copying from Osney. ^ The entries referring to the abbey of Osney itself are, as would be expected, fuller in the Osney MS., and those of Wykes have every appear- ance of being taken from it (see pp. 10, 19, &e.) ; while there are in Wykes many allusions to Oxford, which are not in the Osney MS., and which it is very difficult to suppose that the annalist would have passed over, if he had had Wykes's book before him. That for a considerable portion of the annals the Instances two chronicles are entirely independent, while both ^en^^and before and after one is taken from the other, is, I difference think, clear, both from the general style of the two, as chroni*des from several instances of minute agreement or diffe- rence. Thus in 1135 (p. 20) both make Stephen be- siege and take Oxford instead of Exeter castle (castrum Oxonice instead of castrum ^a;omce) ; in 1174 (p. 36) Wykes calls the bishop of Winchester (Richard of Poi- tiers) Feter, though Osney gives his name correctly ; in 1226 (p. 67) both make Charles the successor of Louis VIIT., a confusion between S. Louis and his brother Charles of Anjou ; in 1237 (p. 84) botli, by an error in following Matthew Paris, state the council of London to

  • ' Fritheswitha; Oxoniae, et loculo ' From the earlier years in which

" honorifice repositae." So under this occurs, it might have been the year 1222, (pp. 62, 63,) Wykes thought that the reference was to is much fuller on the council of Florence of Worcester, who has Oxford hell in the abbey of Osney. nothing under the year 1076, «vhere In the general history this is almost the first of these entries, " nihil me- always the case. See the accounts " moriale," occurs, and very little of the unfortunate expedition of under the next two years, 1082, Henry III. into Britanny in 1230 1084. But this is not the case far- iu the two chronicles (p. 71). ther on. VOL. IV. b 7/