Annales guelferbytani - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Annales guelferbytani (AG, rarely "Guelferbytan Annals") are a set of Latin

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...

annals

Annals

Annals are a concise form of historical representation which record events chronologically, year by year. The Oxford English Dictionary defines annals as "a narrative of events written year by year"...

covering the years 741–805 (with added notices for 817 and 823) that were composed in Regensburg

Regensburg

Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...

, the capital of the Duchy of Bavaria

Duchy of Bavaria

The Duchy of Bavaria was the only one of the stem duchies from the earliest days of East Francia and the Kingdom of Germany to preserve both its name and most of its territorial extent....

, in 812–13. They are found in a manuscript (called "August, O, 67.5") of the ducal library of Wolfenbüttel

Wolfenbüttel

Wolfenbüttel is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, located on the Oker river about 13 kilometres south of Brunswick. It is the seat of the District of Wolfenbüttel and of the bishop of the Protestant Lutheran State Church of Brunswick...

, which contains fourteen folios, though folio 13r was added later (in 826) and folios 13v–14v later still.

The AG form one of the Reichsannalen
Reichsannalen
The Reichsannalen are a class of annals composed anonymously in the Carolingian Empire throughout the 9th century. They first appeared under Pepin the Short in 741 and became ubiquitous at monasteries throughout the empire in the following decades...

, a series of eighth-century annals devoted, broadly, to contemporary events across Francia. For the years up to 751 the AG share a source with the Annales nazariani (AN) and the Annales alamannici
Annales Alamannici
The core text of the Annales Alamannici covers the years 709 through to 799. Spread over several Swabian monasteries, the annals were continued independently in several places, in the Reichenau Abbey up to 939 , in St. Gallen up to 926. The St...

(AA) in the lost so-called "Murbach Annals" from Murbach Abbey

Murbach Abbey

Murbach Abbey was a famous Benedictine monastery in Murbach, southern Alsace, in a valley at the foot of the Grand Ballon in the Vosges.The monastery was founded in 727 by Eberhard, Count of Alsace, and established as a Benedictine house by Saint Pirmin. Its territory once comprised 3 towns and 30...

. This source also gave rise to the Annales laureshamenses
Annales laureshamenses
The Annales laureshamenses or Annals of Lorsch are a set of annals of the history of Francia covering the years from 703 to 803 with a brief prologue. They were perhaps begun as a continuation of the "Minor Chronicle" of Bede, contained in his De temporibus...

, the Annales mosellani
Annales mosellani
The Annales mosellani or mosellenses or Moselle Annals are a set of minor Reichsannalen covering the years 703 to 798. Its entries are brief and unliterary, but broad in scope and generally accurate. They have only partially been translated into English.J. M...

, and the Fragmentum chesnii
Fragmentum chesnii
The Fragmentum ' chesnii or chesnianum, sometimes called the Annales Laureshamenses antiquiores, is a brief set of Reichsannalen describing the history of Francia during the years 768 to 790...

by another route. The AG also share a continuation with the AN and AA up to 789. After that they are an anonymous, independent source. They inform us of an expedition by Pepin of Italy against the Principality of Benevento ordered by his father, Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

, in 791 after the two returned from a joint expedition against the Wends

Wends

Wends is a historic name for West Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used...

and Hunia (the land of the Huns, i.e., Avaria). This campaign, unique to the AG, may correspond to a known Beneventan expedition of 792.

Editions

G. H. Pertz, ed. Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...

, Scriptores, I (Hanover: 1826), pp. 19–46.
- Pars prima, years 741–768, pp. 23–31.
- Continuatio, years 769–790, pp. 40–44.
- Pars altera, years 791–805, 817 and 823, pp. 45–46.
Walter Lendi, ed. Untersuchungen zur frühalemannischen Annalistik (Freiburg: 1971), pp. 147–67.

Editions

Further reading