Online Encyclopedia

WALTER BOWER (1385-1449)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 343 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

WALTER BOWER (1385-1449)  , Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at Haddington . He was abbot of Inchcolm (in the Firth of Forth) from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James I., king of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the
See also:
embassy to Paris on the business of the
See also:
marriage of the king's daughter to the dauphin . He played an important
See also:
part at the council of Perth (1432) in the defence of Scottish rights . During his closing years he was engaged on his
See also:
work the Scotichronicon, on which his reputation now chiefly rests . This work, undertaken in 1440 by
See also:
desire of a neighbour,
See also:
Sir David Stewart of Rosyth, was a continuation of the Chronica Gentis Scotorum of Fordun . The completed work, in its
See also:
original form, consisted of sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the
See also:
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
See also:
death it ends . The task was finished in 1447 . In the two remaining years of his
See also:
life he was engaged on a reduction or " abridgment " of this work, which is known as the
See also:
Book of
See also:
Cupar, and is preserved in the Advocates' library,
See also:
Edinburgh (MS . 35 . I .

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
See also:
scribes, are extant . There are two in the
See also:
British Museum, 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, Cambridge .

Goodall's is the only

See also:
complete
See also:
modern edition of Bower's text . See also W . F . Skene's edition of Fordun in the series of Historians of Scotland (1871) .
See also:
Personal references are to be found in the
See also:
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, iii. and iv . The best
See also:
recent account is that by T . A . Archer in the
See also:
Diet. of Nat . Biog .

End of Article: WALTER BOWER (1385-1449)
[back]
SIR GEORGE FERGUSON BOWEN (1821—1849)
[next]
JAMES SCOTT BOWERBANK (1797-1877)

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.