Everything about The Scotichronicon totally explained
The
Scotichronicon is a
15th century work of literature which has been described by the
National Library of Scotland as "probably the most important
mediaeval account of early
Scottish history" and as providing both a strong expression of national identity and a window into the world view of mediaeval commentators.
The work was undertaken by
Walter Bower in
1440, by desire of Sir
David Stewart of
Rosyth, and was a continuation of the
Chronica gentis Scotorum of
John of Fordun.
The completed work, in its original form, consisted of sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the sixth (to 1163) are Fordun's — or mainly his, for Bower added to them at places. In the later books, down to the reign of
Robert I (1371), he was aided by Fordun's
Gesta Annalia, but from that point to the close the work is original and of contemporary importance, especially for
James I, with whose death it ends. The task was finished in
1447.
Bower has been described as a less competent chronicler than Fordun, being described as "garrulous, irrelevant and inaccurate", and "he makes every important occurrence an excuse for a long-winded moral discourse".
Bower engaged in a reduction or "abridgment" of the Scotichronicon in the last two years of his life, which is known as the
Book of Cupar, and which is preserved in the
Advocates' library,
Edinburgh (MS. 35. 1. 7). Other abridgments, not by Bower, were made about the same time, one about 1450 (perhaps by
Patrick Russell, a
Carthusian of
Perth) preserved in the Advocates' library (MS. 35. 6. 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, also preserved in the same collection (MS. 35. 5. 2). Copies of the full text of the Scotichronicon, by different scribes, are extant. There are two in the
British Library, in
The Black Book of Paisley, and in Harl. MS. 712; one in the Advocates' library, from which
Walter Goodall printed his edition (Edin., 1759), and one in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
- Modern Edition: Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt and others, 9 volumes (1987-1998).
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