Walter Bower (or Bowmaker; 24 December 1449) was a Scottish
canon regular and
abbot of
Inchcolm Abbey in the
Firth of Forth, who is noted as a
chronicler
A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
of his era. He was born about 1385 at
Haddington, East Lothian, in the
Kingdom of Scotland. In 1991,
Donald Watt said of Bower's ''
Scotichronicon'' that "We are more and more convinced that this book
is one of the national treasures of Scotland, which should be studied in depth for many different kinds of enquiry into Scotland's past."
Life
Some sources say that, at the age of eighteen, Bower assumed the religious habit; he was trained at the
University of St Andrews. After finishing his philosophical and theological studies, he visited Paris to study law. Bower was unanimously the
abbot of the
Augustinian community on
Inchcolm
Inchcolm (from the Scottish Gaelic "Innis Choluim", meaning Columba's Island) is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. It was repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, and was fortified during both Wo ...
in 1417. He also acted as one of the commissioners for the collection of the
ransom of King
James I of Scotland in 1423 and 1424. Later, in 1433, he took part in a diplomatic mission to Paris to discuss the possibility of marriage of the king's daughter to the
Dauphin of France. He played an important part at the Council of Perth of 1432 in the defence of Scottish rights.
During Bower's closing years he was engaged on his work, the ''
Scotichronicon'', on which his reputation now chiefly rests. This work, undertaken in 1440 by desire of a neighbour, Sir David Stewart of
Rosyth Castle
Rosyth Castle is a fifteenth-century ruined tower house on the perimeter of Rosyth Naval Dockyard, Fife, Scotland.
It originally stood on a small island in the Firth of Forth accessible only at low tide, and dates from around 1450, built as a s ...
, 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 in 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.
In the two remaining years of Bower's life he was engaged on a reduction or "abridgment" of this work, which is known as the ''Book of Cupar'', and 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 monk of
Perth), also preserved in the Advocates' library (MS. 35. 6. 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, preserved in the same collection (MS. 35. 5. 2). Copies of the full text of the ''Scotichronicon'', by different scribes, still exist. There are two in the
British Library, in ''
The Black Book of Paisley'', and in
Harley 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.
See also
W. F. Skene's edition of Fordun in the series of ''Historians of Scotland'' (1871). Personal references are to be found in the ''
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland'', iii. and iv.
A revised and updated translation of Bower's work was produced under the leadership of Professor
D. E. R. Watt, in nine volumes, published between 1987 and 1997. The critical edition of Bower's Latin text in Watt et al. has been amended and corrected by Chris Nighman in light of the discovery that Bower made extensive use of Thomas of Ireland's collection of authoritative quotations, the ''
Manipulus florum'' (1306).
Bibliography
*Scotichronicon (ed. Goodall), Edinburgh, 1759
*John of Fordun, ed. Skene, ap. Historians of Scotland, preface and introductions)
*Tytler's Lives of Scottish Worthies, ii. 198–202
*Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. George Burnett, iii. and iv.
*See also Marjorie J. Drexler's list
References
Citations
Sources
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*Nighman, Chris L. (2019), "Walter Bower's reception of the Manipulus florum (1306) in composing the Scotichronicon (c.1440)," The Innes Review 70.1: 55–64.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bower, Walter
1380s births
1449 deaths
Scottish chroniclers
Canonical Augustinian abbots and priors
15th-century Scottish historians
15th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests
Scottish diplomats
Scottish abbots
People from Haddington, East Lothian
Historians of Scotland