In the chief manuscript of John of Worcester's Chronica Chronicarum (CC), understood to have been his own working copy, OCCC MS 157, the text of the chronicle itself begins only on page 77. The first part of the manuscript contains a large, miscellaneous collection of texts, mostly concerned with establishing chronology – the historian's tool-box: regnal and episcopal lists, consular tables, lists of popes, genealogies and so on. But the very first item stands out. It is a short compilation on the history of the church at Worcester, beginning with a narrative describing the foundation of the see in AD 679, followed by notices of grants of land and privileges by kings and others, carefully arranged in chronological order. The text was copied by two collaborating scribes on a separate quire formed of two bifolia that may represent one of the last additions to the manuscript. It has received relatively little attention, but it is significant because it reflects an early attempt to reconstruct a timeline for the history of the church and its estates over an extended period. The details of the benefactions have clearly been gleaned from intensive research in the church's archive; many of the items can be linked with extant charters, quoting or paraphrasing the texts, while others describe transactions for which no other record survives. The final item deals with acquisitions and donations by Wulfstan II, the latest of 1093; it also mentions his successor Samson. This short compilation can be understood as another offshoot of the ambitious study, reorganisation and refurbishment of the Worcester muniments initiated by Wulfstan, as outlined in the narrative sections of Hemming's Cartulary. But it also overlaps with the wider historical project at Worcester in the post-Conquest period, with its strong national focus.

The only full printed text is that in the Monasticon. The preliminary account of the origin of the see, which includes dubious material on the division of the Mercian kingdom into five dioceses, was extracted and printed by Benjamin Thorpe in an appendix to the chronicle of ‘Florence’ of Worcester, culled from the chronological preliminaries to OCCC MS 157. This portion was reprinted with extensive critical notes by Haddan and Stubbs in 1871, and has fed into modern scholarly discussion of the early history of Worcester.