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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Last updated on Monday June 16, 2008 at 04:01:40 PDT (GMT -0700)
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