 All the manuscripts described above share a chronological error between the years 756 and 845 , but it is apparent that the composer of the Annals of St Neots was using a copy that did not have this error and which must have preceded them . Æthelweard 's copy did have the chronological error but it had not lost a whole sentence from annal 885 ; all the surviving manuscripts have lost this sentence . Hence the error and the missing sentence must have been introduced in separate copying steps , implying that none of the surviving manuscripts are closer than two removes from the original version . 
