In the middle ages, when the order of the liturgical feasts was partly determined by the date of Easter, the custom was early established in the Western Church of drawing up tables to indicate that date for a certain number of years or even centuries. These Paschal tables were thin books in which each annual date was separated from the next by a more or less considerable blank space. In these spaces certain monks briefly noted the important events of the year. It was at the end of the 7th century and among the Anglo-Saxons that the compiling of these Annals was first begun. Introduced by missionaries on the continent, they were re-copied, augmented and continued, especially in the kingdom of Austrasia. In the 9th century, during the great movement termed the Carolingian Renaissance, these Annals became the usual form of contemporary history; it suffices to mention the _Annales Einhardi_, the _Annales Laureshamenses_ (or "of Lorsch"), and the _Annales S. Bertini_, officially compiled in order to preserve the memory of the more interesting acts of Charlemagne, his ancestors and his successors. Arrived at this stage of development, the Annals now began to lose their primitive character, and henceforward became more and more indistinguishable from the Chronicles.
In modern literature the title annals has been given to a large number of standard works which adhere more or less strictly to the order of years. The best known are the _Annales Ecclesiastici_, written by Cardinal Baronius as a rejoinder to and refutation of the _Historia eccesiastica_ or "Centuries" of the Protestant theologians of Magdeburg (12 vols., published at Rome from 1788 to 1793; Baronius's work stops at the year 1197). In the 19th century the annalistic form was once more employed, either to preserve year by year the memory of passing events (_Annual Register_, _Annuaire de la Revue des deux mondes_, &c.) or in writing the history of obscure medieval periods (_Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte_, _Jahrbücher des deutschen Reiches_, Richter's _Reichsannalen_, &c.). (C. B.*)
ANNAM, or ANAM, a country of south-eastern Asia, now forming a French protectorate, part of the peninsula of Indo-China. (See INDO-CHINA, FRENCH). It is bounded N. by Tongking, E. and S.E. by the China Sea, S.W. by Cochin-China, and W. by Cambodia and Laos. It comprises a sinuous strip of territory measuring between 750 and 800 m. in length, with an approximate area of 52,000 sq. m. The population is estimated at about 6,124,000.