Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, common designation of several texts in Old English that record the history of England from the beginning of the Christian era to the middle of the 12th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the primary source for English history from the 10th to the 12th century, including the language and literature of that period. It is the earliest known history of a European people recorded in the language of that people by successive generations of scribes.

Those parts of the Chronicle originating before the reign of Alfred, king of Wessex, were based, in part, on earlier Latin sources. Such sections of the Chronicle are less important historically and less abundant than the sections dating from his reign. King Alfred may have ordered the collation of the earlier records and begun the systematic registration of events that characterizes later sections of the Chronicle, especially those dealing with his own reign and with the two and a half centuries that followed it. No proof of this exists, however.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the first important prose work in English literature. Although it contains chiefly unadorned annals, it has some vivid descriptive passages and notable poems. One of the best, the ballad account of the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, was translated by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson into modern verse. Seven different versions of the Chronicle are known to exist. They deal in part with the same material but differ in the historical periods covered and in the emphasis given to the various events.

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