Explanation of the date as 12 July 927
First, thanks to Professor Sarah Foot, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Christ Church college, Oxford - and author of the book on Athelstan. Professor Foot took the time to give me the following background, confirming definitively the basis of the date and year as 12 July 927.
Professor Foot confirmed the year as 927 as follows
The information about Æthelstan’s acquisition of the Northumbrian kingdom and the submission at Eamont comes from a single manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (known conventionally by the letter D) which was compiled somewhere in Northern England using a range of sources, some Northumbrian and some Mercian. The manuscript shares with the (Mercian) manuscript C some dislocation in AD dating in the later ninth and early tenth century. So although the entry clearly gives the year as dccccxxvi, it does so in error for the year of grace 927 (just as the previous entry, which describes Sihtric’s marriage to Æthelstan’s sister, erroneously dates that to Jan 925 and not January 926. (My footnote 32 on p. 18 which reads 'ASC 926D’ refers to that marriage, not to Æthelstan’s conquest of Northumbria the following year.
So the Eamont submission must be dated to the year of grace 927. I entirely appreciate the difficulty of trying to use the Chronicle from online sources; the absolute authority on these matters is The Anglo-Saxon chronicle, a revised translation, edited by Dorothy Whitelock, with David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker; introduction by Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd (corrected) impr. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode 1965. That text (in which all dates are corrected to the proper year of grace) is reproduced in Dorothy Whitelock, ed., English historical documents, c. 500-1042, 2nd edn, London : Eyre & Spottiswoode 1979, as number 1; the annal in question is printed on p. 220 . You ought to be able to get hold of one or the other via a public library.
Professor Foot confirmed the date as follows
As for which day of July the events occurred they must be attributed to the 12th. The Old English is perfectly clear:
'…. on þære stwoe þe genemned is æt Eamotum on .iiii. icus Iulii' at the place called Eamont on 4 ides July,
The 11th of July (which was one of the feast days of St Benedict) is named universally in all early English calendars as 5 ides July; 11th was 5th before the Ides, and the 12th was 4 days before the ides. They counted days before the Ides differently from us [i.e. including both the start and end date]. The feast of Benedict is universally 5 ides, so that has to mean that the chronicle’s reference to 4 ides means 12 July.
12 July 927 was a Saturday
First, thanks to Professor Sarah Foot, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Christ Church college, Oxford - and author of the book on Athelstan. Professor Foot took the time to give me the following background, confirming definitively the basis of the date and year as 12 July 927.
Professor Foot confirmed the year as 927 as follows
The information about Æthelstan’s acquisition of the Northumbrian kingdom and the submission at Eamont comes from a single manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (known conventionally by the letter D) which was compiled somewhere in Northern England using a range of sources, some Northumbrian and some Mercian. The manuscript shares with the (Mercian) manuscript C some dislocation in AD dating in the later ninth and early tenth century. So although the entry clearly gives the year as dccccxxvi, it does so in error for the year of grace 927 (just as the previous entry, which describes Sihtric’s marriage to Æthelstan’s sister, erroneously dates that to Jan 925 and not January 926. (My footnote 32 on p. 18 which reads 'ASC 926D’ refers to that marriage, not to Æthelstan’s conquest of Northumbria the following year.
So the Eamont submission must be dated to the year of grace 927. I entirely appreciate the difficulty of trying to use the Chronicle from online sources; the absolute authority on these matters is The Anglo-Saxon chronicle, a revised translation, edited by Dorothy Whitelock, with David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker; introduction by Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd (corrected) impr. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode 1965. That text (in which all dates are corrected to the proper year of grace) is reproduced in Dorothy Whitelock, ed., English historical documents, c. 500-1042, 2nd edn, London : Eyre & Spottiswoode 1979, as number 1; the annal in question is printed on p. 220 . You ought to be able to get hold of one or the other via a public library.
Professor Foot confirmed the date as follows
As for which day of July the events occurred they must be attributed to the 12th. The Old English is perfectly clear:
'…. on þære stwoe þe genemned is æt Eamotum on .iiii. icus Iulii' at the place called Eamont on 4 ides July,
The 11th of July (which was one of the feast days of St Benedict) is named universally in all early English calendars as 5 ides July; 11th was 5th before the Ides, and the 12th was 4 days before the ides. They counted days before the Ides differently from us [i.e. including both the start and end date]. The feast of Benedict is universally 5 ides, so that has to mean that the chronicle’s reference to 4 ides means 12 July.
12 July 927 was a Saturday
