John Barbour - Biography, Father of Scots language poetry, The Brus, Legends of the Saints, Buik of Alexander

Poet, clergyman, and scholar, probably born in Aberdeen, NE Scotland, UK. He was Archdeacon of Aberdeen from 1357, or earlier, till his death. His national epic, The Brus, written in the 1370s, is a narrative poem on the life and deeds of King Robert I, the Bruce, preserving many oral traditions.

Biography

In a letter of safe-conduct dated 1357, allowing him to go to the University of Oxford for study, he is described as archdeacon of Aberdeen. In 1375 (he gives the date, and his age as 60) he composed what is commonly considered as his best known poem, The Brus, for which he received, in 1377, the gift of ten pounds Scots, and, in 1378, a life-pension of twenty shillings, which he devoted to provide for a mass to be sung for himself and his parents, and this was duly done in the Kirk of St Machar until the Reformation.

Additional rewards followed, including the renewal of his exchequer auditorship (though he may have continued to enjoy it since his first appointment) and ten pounds to his pension.

Father of Scots language poetry

Considerable controversy has arisen regarding Barbour's literary work. If he is the author of the five or six long poems which have been ascribed to him by different writers, he adds to his importance as the father of Scots poetry the reputation of being one of the most voluminous writers in Early Scots, certainly the most voluminous of all Scots poets.

The Brus

The Brus, in 14,000 octosyllabic lines and twenty books, is a narrative poem with a purpose partly historical, partly patriotic.

Despite a number of errors of fact, notably the confusion of the three Bruces in the person of the hero, the poem is historically trustworthy as compared with contemporary verse-chronicle, and especially with the Wallace of the next century, but it is much more than a rhyming chronicle; No one has doubted Barbour's authorship of the Brus, but argument has been attempted to show that the text as we have it is an edited copy, perhaps by John Ramsay, a Perth scribe, who wrote out the two extant texts, preserved in the Advocates Library, Edinburgh, and in the library of St John's College, Cambridge.

Legends of the Saints

Yet another work was added to the list of Barbour's works by the discovery in the library of the University of Cambridge, by Henry Bradshaw, of a long Scots poem of over 33,000 lines, dealing with Legends of the Saints, as told in the Legenda A urea and other legendaries. The general likeness of this poem to Barbour's accepted work in verse-length, dialect and style, and the facts that the lives of English saints are excluded and those of St. Machar (the patron saint of Aberdeen) and St. Ninian are inserted, made the ascription plausible.

Buik of Alexander

Attempts have been made to name Barbour as the author of the Buik of Alexander (a translation of the Roman d'Alexandre and associated pieces), as known in the unique edition, c.