Pagina:Annales monastici Vol IV.djvu/44

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XXXVl PREFACE. years to be disturbed ; as the additions have been fre- quently inserted in the blank spaces opposite to the numbers of years with which they have no connexion, the years having been regularly numbered on when the MS. was first %vritten ; in some instances the number of the year has been altered, but in others the insertion has been made without regard to its proper place, simply because there was no room where it ought have appeared. Thus in pp. 3G7-369 the chronology from 851 to 903 is in a sad state of confusion, several bishops and kings being placed before their predecessors.^ Red and blue inks have been used for many of the insertions, especially those relating to the bishops of Worcester and priors of the monastery. The last entries on f. 1 88 are all in the same hand, written probably about the date of the last of them, 1377. Wharton's A large portion of these annals has already appeared in print, in the first volume of Wharton's Anglia Sacra, whei'e it occupies pp. 469—530. Wharton printed most of the references to Worcester ; but as regards his other extracts, he is very capricious. He has also incorporated with his text some entries which have no connexion with the annals ; —thus on one of the vacant leaves at the end of the MS. (f 189 h.) a late hand has written the names of the bishops of Worcester, with the number of years during which each held the see opposite to his name ; these Wharton has inserted in the annals, making regular sentences out of each entry.^ He does not seem to have had any fixed principle as to what of general histoiy he omitted or inserted. Nor are his extracts always correct ; for instance in p. 479 under 1 205, he prints quasi for quoistio ; p. 519, 1. 43 inccepta is an error for inserta, &c. MS. Cot- The basis of the Annals of Worcester is the Winches- ton. Ves- pas. E. 4, 1 See the notes to p. 367. I have placed the succession of bishops correctly in the Table of Contents at the end of this preface. - AngUa Sacra, i. pp. 473-475, &c.