John of Fordun - Wikipedia John of Fordun From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search John of Fordun (before 1360 – c. 1384) was a Scottish chronicler. It is generally stated that he was born at Fordoun, Mearns. It is certain that he was a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century; and it is probable that he was a chaplain in St Machar's Cathedral of Aberdeen.[1] The work of Fordun is the earliest attempt to write a continuous history of Scotland. We are informed that Fordun's patriotic zeal was roused by the removal or destruction of many national records by Edward III of England and that he traveled in England and Ireland, collecting material for his history. Collectively, this work, divided into five books, is known as the Chronica Gentis Scotorum. The first three are unverified historically, which therefore casts doubt on their accuracy, yet they also form the groundwork on which Boece and George Buchanan afterwards based some of their historical writings. Thomas Innes argued that some of the history these men presented was doubtful in his Critical Essay (i, pp. 201–2,4), but Innes himself had his own political agenda and his work has also been criticized by modern historians.[1] The 4th and 5th books contain much valuable information, and become more authentic the more nearly they approach the author's own time. The 5th book concludes with the death of King David I in 1153. More recent scholarship, largely by Professor Dauvit Broun of Glasgow University, suggests that the portion of what has hitherto been considered Fordun's chronicle, after 1153 should be regarded as two separate works, neither of which can, in any meaningful sense, be attributed to Fordun himself. We now refer to the list of yearly events after the death of King David I in 1153 as the separate works Gesta Annalia I and Gesta Annalia II.The new thinking, put forward by Professor Broun, has been presented to Scottish school pupils, by Bill Glennie in the following helpful terms • We should regard John of Fordun's work as the chronicle alone. • So Fordun's own work proceeds no further than the death of King David I in 1153. • Fordun can not be regarded in any meaningful sense as the author of ‘Gesta Annalia’. • We should regard ‘Gesta Annalia’ as a separate work. • In fact we should regard ‘Gesta Annalia’ as not one work but two. • An examination of the surviving manuscripts reveals two separate texts. • For convenience these are called ‘Gesta Annalia I’ and ‘Gesta Annalia II’. • ‘Gesta Annalia I’ ends when King Alexander III despatches an embassy to France to find him a new wife in February 1285. • ‘Gesta Annalia II’ begins with Alexander III's marriage to his new bride in October 1285. • ‘Gesta Annalia I’ is the rump – what's left – of a much longer work. • The author of ‘Gesta Annalia’ ended this work around February 1285. • At some point a scribe copied ‘Gesta Annalia I’ and appended it to Fordun's chronicle. • Might that scribe have been Fordun himself? Did he append ‘Gesta Annalia I’ to his own chronicle? That, writes Dauvit Broun, ‘is an open question’. • So when we read ‘Gesta Annalia I’ we are reading a copy of an original work. • But we should assume that whoever copied the original work left it largely undisturbed, i.e. without altering the text. • There is a consistency of writing and presentation of the history in ‘Gesta Annalia I’ which we don't always find in ‘Gesta Annalia II’ Gesta Annalia II’ is a more challenging – and some would suggest more interesting – work. • Whereas there is a consistency in the style and presentation of ‘Gesta Annalia I’, that is not the case in ‘Gesta Annalia II’. The above bullet points are reproduced from Bill Glennie's advice to Scottish School pupils studying 'Scotland: Independence and Kingship, 1249-1334' at Advanced Higher. Historical texts published before this new thinking was accepted will still refer to Fordun as the author of comments relating to the period after 1153. These comments are now cited as Gesta Annalia I or II. Besides these five books, published around 1360, Fordun also wrote part of another book, and collected materials for bringing down the history to a later period. These materials were used by a continuator who wrote in the middle of the 15th century, and who is identified with Walter Bower, abbot of the monastery of Inchcolm. The additions of Bower form eleven books, and bring down the narrative to the death of King James I of Scots in 1437. According to the custom of the time, the continuator did not hesitate to interpolate Fordun's portion of the work, with additions of his own, and the whole history thus compiled is known as the Scotichronicon. The first printed edition of Fordun's work was that of Thomas Gale in his Scriptores quindecim (vol. iii), which was published in 1691. This was followed by Thomas Hearne's (5 vol.) edition in 1722. The whole work, including Bower's continuation, was published by Walter Goodall at Edinburgh in 1759. In 1871 and 1872 Fordun's chronicle, in the original Latin and in an English translation, was edited by William F. Skene in The Historians of Scotland. The preface to this edition collects all the biographical details and gives full references to manuscripts and editions. References[edit] ^ a b William Ferguson, The identity of the Scottish nation: an historic quest, Edinburgh University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-7486-1071-5 Notes[edit]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fordun, John of". Encyclopædia Britannica. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 643–644.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource. For further discussion of the political motivations which may have influenced the approach taken in the Chronica Gentis Scotorum, see : Goldstein, J. The Matter of Scotland: Historical Narrative in Medieval Scotland University of Nebraska Press (1993); esp. Chapter 4. External links[edit] Skene, Felix James Henry; Skene, William Forbes (1872), John of Fordun's Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, retrieved 9 August 2008 Authority control BIBSYS: 13026244 BNF: cb12429538s (data) GND: 100948995 ISNI: 0000 0000 7141 3815 LCCN: n89644417 NLA: 36328459 NTA: 192750720 SUDOC: 178170771 Trove: 1247033 VIAF: 78774389 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n89644417 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_of_Fordun&oldid=982558832" Categories: 1380s deaths People from Kincardine and Mearns Scottish historians Scottish clergy 14th-century Scottish writers 14th-century historians Historians of Scotland Medieval Scottish writers 14th-century Roman Catholics Medieval Scottish historians Hidden categories: Use British English from September 2019 Use dmy dates from September 2019 Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Year of birth uncertain Year of death uncertain Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages Català Deutsch Español Esperanto Français Italiano Norsk bokmål Português Русский Scots Edit links This page was last edited on 8 October 2020, at 22:07 (UTC). 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