This is attested only in one manuscript, Chartres Bibliothèque Municipale MS 98, unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War. It appears to have been of eleventh century date, making it the oldest known manuscript of the text. However, it differs radically from other versions, not least in its truncation (it broke off mid-sentence, as Guorthigernus addresses Hengistus, a me quod postulas).
This recension significantly lacks the computus of §16, which gives a terminus post quem for all other recensions of the fourth regnal year of Merfyn Frych, King of Gwynedd, 828×9. It also contains a passage towards the end of §31 that indicates that it should be dated to some point after the mid-eighth century (sicut libine abas iae in ripum ciuitate inuenit uel reperit, ‘as Slébine, Abbot of Iona (752-767) came across or discovered in the city of Ripon’), specifically 753. In other words, the passage dating the Historia Brittonum to 828×9 is secondary and provides us with a terminus ante quem for the Chartres Recension, which should therefore be placed in the late eight or early ninth centuries.
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