Pagina:Annales monastici Vol IV.djvu/26

E Wikisource
Haec pagina nondum emendata est

xvni PREFACE. Gale's edition. style, and beginning each year with an elaborate way of expressing the date in phraseology which he is always trying to vary. Gale, in his edition of this chronicle, has entitled it " Chronicon Thomse Wikes, aliter chronicon Salisbu- " riensis monasterii," that being the title which a modern hand has prefixed to the MS. For its supposed con- nexion with Salisbury I see no ground ; none of the paragraphs where Salisbury is mentioned seem to be original ; for instance, that in 1 077 comes from Osney, in 1092 from Florence of Worcester, in 1123 from Newburgh, in 1184 from Osney; and these are by no means frequent enough to call for remark, or to make it likely that the author had any especial interest in that church or monastery. Gale deserves credit for many emendations of the MS. caused by the scribe's carelessness or ignorance ; but there are many blunders throughout his edition, and not unfrequent audacious alterations of the text. A remarkable instance of this may be seen under the year 1245 in the account of the Dominicans at Oxford (Gale, p. 46, 1. 24, p. 94 of the present volume). After the year 1289, where the Titus MS. concludes, Gale printed the " Continuatio " from the Tiberius MS. without any break, — though he has not given the whole. A note at the end of his index some- what obscurely states that this latter portion is taken from a different MS. ; he speaks of it as being not by Thomas Wykes. The general character of the Annals of Osney, as far, that is, as the point where I suppose Wykes to have Annals of taken up the authorship, does not differ greatly from the ^sney. usual character of the monastick annalists. There is, however, but little, comparauively speaking, relative to Osney itself; and thus it presents a marked contrast to such annals as those of Dunstable or Worcester. In the earlier portions, where the annalist is transcribing an earlier chronicle, he is frequently careless ; where he General character of the