Hereward The Wake - Sources of Our Information

Sources of Our Information

Several primary sources exist for Hereward's life, though the accuracy of their information is difficult to evaluate. They are the version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written at Peterborough Abbey (ASC), the Domesday Book (DB), the Liber Eliensis (Book of Ely) and, much the most detailed, the Gesta Herewardi (Gesta). To a small extent, they are sometimes mutually contradictory. This probably indicates, as the preface to the Gesta suggests, that conflicting oral legends about Hereward were already current in the Fenland in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In addition, there may be some partisan bias in the early writers: the notice of Hereward in the Peterborough Chronicle, for instance, was written in a monastery which he was said to have sacked, some fifty years after the date of the raid. On the other hand, the original version of the Gesta was written in explicit praise of Hereward; much of its information was provided by men who knew him personally, principally, if the preface is to be believed, a former colleague-in-arms and member of his father's former household named Leofric the Deacon.

These primary sources have each been published more than once, with one form or another of commentary. The form in which they are generally available is therefore a secondary source. This has to be taken with care especially where they are published as a translation of the original Latin or Old English into modern language, without a transcription of the original.

There is a wide variety of secondary sources of information, but they must be treated with caution: the popular, romanticised view of Hereward often has little basis in the medieval sources, owing more to the fictional depiction by Charles Kingsley and later authors.