Scottish literature in the Middle Ages

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A page from the Book of Aneirin shows the first part of the text from the Gododdin, c. sixth century.

Scottish literature in the Middle Ages is

Scottish Gaelic, Scots
, French and Latin.

Much of the earliest

Vita Columbae by Adomnán
, was also written in Latin.

As the state of Alba developed into the Kingdom of Scotland from the eighth century, a flourishing literary elite there regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin, sharing a common literary culture with Ireland and elsewhere. It is possible that much Middle Irish literature was written in Medieval Scotland, but has not survived because the Gaelic literary establishment of eastern Scotland died out before the fourteenth century. After the Davidian Revolution of the thirteenth century, a flourishing French language culture predominated, while Norse literature was produced from areas of Scandinavian settlement.

In the late Middle Ages,

Anglic language, finished in 1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden
in the same year.

Early Middle Ages

See also:
Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
Dream of the Rood

After the collapse of Roman authority in the early fifth century, four major circles of political and cultural influence emerged in Northern Britain. In the East were the

The Old North", the most powerful and longest surviving of which was the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia (later the northern part of Northumbria), which reached into what are now the Borders of Scotland in the south-east.[2] To these languages Christianisation, particularly from the sixth century, added Latin as an intellectual and written language. No written literature for the Picts has survived into the modern era.[1] However, there is surviving literature from what would become Scotland in Brythonic, Gaelic, Old English and Latin.[1]

Much of the earliest

Battle of Gwen Ystrad is attributed to Taliesin, traditionally thought to be a bard at the court of Rheged in roughly the same period.[3]

Very few works of

annals that are probably from Scotland.[4]

In Old English there is the

Northumbrian Old English from early Medieval Scotland.[6] It has also been suggested based on ornithological references that the poem The Seafarer was composed somewhere near the Bass Rock in East Lothian.[7]

Early works in

Life of St. Ninian, was written in Latin in Whithorn, perhaps as early as the eighth century.[10]

High Middle Ages

See also: Scotland in the High Middle Ages

Beginning in the later eighth century,

Norse.[14]

Picture from a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript of the Roman de Fergus

From the eleventh century French, Flemish and particularly English became the main languages of Scottish burghs, most of which were located in the south and east.[15] At least from the accession of David I (r. 1124–53), as part of a Davidian Revolution that introduced French culture and political systems, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court and was probably replaced by French. After this "de-gallicisation" of the Scottish court, a less highly regarded order of bards took over the functions of the filidh, and they would continue to act in a similar role in the Highlands and Islands into the eighteenth century. They often trained in bardic schools. A few of these, like the one run by the MacMhuirich dynasty, who were bards to the Lord of the Isles,[16] continued until they were suppressed from the seventeenth century.[13] Members of bardic schools were trained in the complex rules and forms of Gaelic poetry.[17] Much of their work was never written down, and what survives was only recorded from the sixteenth century.[12]

It is possible that more

Gille Brighde Albanach. His Heading for Damietta (c. 1218) dealt with his experiences of the Fifth Crusade.[19]

The twelfth century, a period that saw the arrival of new religious orders and changes in the structure of the church, was the high point of Scottish

St. Andrews, Glasgow and Dunkeld. Many earlier saints' lives are preserved in the Aberdeen Breviary (1509–10), compiled for William Elphinstone, Archbishop of Aberdeen.[20]

Two facsimiles of the Book of the Dean of Lismore

In the thirteenth century,

Latin was a literary language with works that include the "Carmen de morte Sumerledi", a poem which exults the victory of the citizens of Glasgow over Somairle mac Gilla Brigte,[23] and the "Inchcolm Antiphoner", a hymn in praise of St. Columba.[24]

Late Middle Ages

See also:
Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and Makar

In the late Middle Ages,

The Book of the Dean of Lismore was compiled by the brothers James and Donald MacGregor in the early decades of the sixteenth century. Besides Scottish Gaelic verse, it contains a large number of poems composed in Ireland as well verse and prose in Scots and Latin. The subject matter includes love poetry, heroic ballads and philosophical pieces. It also is notable for containing poetry by at least four women.[25] These include Aithbhreac Nighean Coirceadail (f. 1460), who wrote a lament for her husband, the constable of Castle Sween.[26]

James I, who spent much of his life imprisoned in England, where he gained a reputation as a musician and poet

The first surviving major text in Scots literature is

historical romance with the verse chronicle. They were probably influenced by Scots versions of popular French romances that were also produced in the period, including The Buik of Alexander, Launcelot o the Laik, The Porteous of Noblenes by Gilbert Hay[17] and Greysteil, which would remain popular through the late sixteenth century.[20]

Much Middle Scots literature was produced by

Kirk; however William Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris (c. 1505) provides evidence of a wider tradition of secular writing outside of Court and Kirk, now largely lost.[30] Writers such as Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry.[17] Major works include Richard Holland's satire the Buke of the Howlat (c. 1448).[20] Much of their work survives in a single collection, the Bannatyne Manuscript collated by George Bannatyne (1545–1608) around 1560. It contains the work of many Scots poets who would otherwise be unknown.[20]

In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. Although there are earlier fragments of original Scots prose, such as the Auchinleck Chronicle,

Anglic language, finished in 1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden in the same year.[17]

References

Notes

  1. ^
    ISBN 1-85109-440-7
    , p. 305.
  2. ISBN 1-85285-195-3
    , p. 48.
  3. ISBN 0-313-30054-2
    , p. 508.
  4. ^ a b Koch, Celtic Culture, p. 1576.
  5. ^ Koch, Celtic Culture, p. 999.
  6. ISBN 1-4051-1313-8
    , p. 108.
  7. ISBN 0-521-18936-5
    , p. 16.
  8. ISBN 0-7486-1615-2
    , p. 94.
  9. ISBN 0-543-96628-3
    , p. 217.
  10. ^ Clancy, "Scottish literature before Scottish literature", p. 19.
  11. ISBN 0-582-77292-3
    , p. 54.
  12. ^
    ISBN 0-19-538623-X
    .
  13. ^
    ISBN 0-521-89088-8
    , p. 76.
  14. ISBN 0-7185-0084-9
    , p. 238.
  15. ISBN 1-86232-151-5
    , p. 133.
  16. ISBN 0-7486-1299-8
    , p. 220.
  17. ^
    ISBN 0-7486-0276-3
    , pp. 60–7.
  18. ISBN 1-85182-516-9
    , pp. 87–107.
  19. ISBN 0-86241-787-2
    , pp. 247–283.
  20. ^
    ISBN 0-19-211696-7
    , pp. 117–8.
  21. ISBN 0-330-53997-3
    .
  22. ^ Clancy and Márkus, The Triumph Tree: Scotland's Earliest Poetry, 550–1350, pp. 7–8.
  23. ISBN 0-901824-68-2
    , p. 495.
  24. ISBN 0-947988-81-5
    , p. 97.
  25. ISBN 1-59884-964-6
    , pp. 262–3.
  26. ^ Koch and Minard, The Celts: History, Life, and Culture, pp. 33–4.
  27. ISBN 0-86241-681-7
    , p. 3.
  28. ISBN 81-269-0041-5
    , p. 23.
  29. ISBN 1-4051-3740-1
    , p. 410.
  30. ISBN 0-7131-6309-7
    , pp. 102–3.
  31. ^ Thomas Thomson ed., Auchinleck Chronicle (Edinburgh, 1819).
  32. ISBN 0-7546-6273-X
    , p. 111.

Bibliography
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