annals

Annals are chronological records of events, typically arranged by year and focusing on notable occurrences such as political events, wars, births, deaths, and natural phenomena. The term comes from the Latin annales, meaning yearly, and has been used across many cultures to describe year-by-year accounts kept by states, churches, or ruling households. In practice, annals emphasize dates and sequence rather than detailed narrative analysis, and they often serve to supplement more expansive histories with concise yearly outlines.

Historical usage spans both ancient and medieval contexts. Notable examples include Tacitus’s Annals, a primary source on the early Roman Empire written as a year-by-year memorial of rulers and events. In medieval Europe, many monasteries and cities produced annals, such as the Annals of Ulster, the Annales Cambriae, and various Anglo-Saxon chronicles, which record events year by year with sparse interpretation. In East Asia, official histories and court chronologies sometimes functioned similarly, organizing events by year to preserve institutional memory.

In modern times, the term annals also refers to periodical or annual publications that summarize research, findings, or statistics for a given field or time period. The singular annal denotes a single yearly entry, while the plural annals denotes a collection. Scholars use annals as sources for dating events, tracing genealogies, and identifying long-term trends, though they must assess biases and gaps inherent in ancient and medieval records. See also chronicle, chronology, and annalistic writing.