The creation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles was a vast endeavour over an extended period of time, involving the work of multiple generations of authors, compilers and scribes. Commitment to the annals’ record waxed and waned across more than two-and-a-half centuries, but it is clear from the surviving versions and other witnesses that after the initial circulation of the common stock annals c.892, the Chronicle was included in many libraries in many places, always ready for revisiting by those interested in extending or revising it.

The genesis of the common stock annals in the ninth century is largely hidden from view. However, the two most prominent figures among the early makers of the Chronicle are the first compiler and a later chronicler who revised and continued the annals. The first compiler's work is discernable in the creation of the annals’ anno domini sequence building on two sources: Bede's Epitome and a series of annals derived from Canterbury. The first compiler framed his annals in the time of grace, the last age of the world initiated by the birth of Christ. This chronicler had a great taste for Anglo-Saxon royal pedigrees, and not just those of the house of Wessex. Nevertheless, the kings of the West Saxons were his primary interest, and from the origins of the Cerdicing line in the fifth century down to his own time none of these kings is omitted from the annals’ story. Precisely when this compiler's own time might have been is uncertain.