WYNTOWN, ANDREW, or Andrew of Wyntown, the venerable
rhyming chronicler of Scotland, lived towards the end of the fourteenth
century; but the dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was a Canon
regular of the priory of St Andrews, the most flourishing and
important religious establishment in the kingdom; and in or before the year
1395, he was elected prior of St Serf’s inch, in Lochleven. [St Serf
is the name of a small island in that beautiful loch, not far from the
island which contains the castle of Lochleven, celebrated as the
prison-house of the queen of Scots.] Of this he himself gives an account in
his "Cronykil."
Of my defautte it is my name
Be baptisme, Andrew of Wyntowne,
Of Sanct Andrew, a chanoune
Regulare: but, noucht forthi
Of thaim al the lest worthy.
Bot of thair grace and thair favoure
I wes, but meryt, made pricure
Of the ynch within Lochlevyne.
Innes mentions "several
authentic acts or public instruments of Wyntown, as prior, from 1395 till
1413, in ‘Extracts from the Register of the Priory of St Andrews,’"
which points out part of the period of his priorship; and as the death of
Robert, duke of Albany, is noticed in the "Cronykil," Wyntown must have
survived till beyond 1420, the year in which the duke died. Supposing, as is
probable, that he brought down his narrative of events to the latest period
of his life, we may conjecture his death to have occurred not long after the
above date.
It was at the request of "Schyr
Jhone of the Wemys," ancestor of the earls of Wemyss, [A younger son of this
family settled in the Venetian territories, about 1600; and a copy of
Wyntown’s work is in the possession of his descendants.] that Wyntown
undertook his Chronicle; [Book i. Prologue, i. 54.] which, although
the first historical record of Scotland in our own language, was suffered to
lie neglected for several centuries. In 1795, Mr David Macphersen laid
before the public an admirable edition of that part of it, which more
particularly relates to Scotland, accompanied with a series of valuable
annotations. Like most other old chroniclers, Wyntown, in his history, goes
as far back as the creation, and takes a general view of the world, before
entering upon the proper business of his undertaking. He treats of angels,
of the generations of Cain and Seth, of the primeval race of giants, of the
confusion of tongues, of the situation of India, Egypt, Africa, and Europe,
and of other equally recondite subjects, before he adventures upon the
history of Scotland; so that five of the nine books into which his Chronicle
is divided, are taken up with matter, which, however edifying and
instructive at the time, is of no service to the modern historical inquirer.
Mr Macpherson, therefore, in his edition, has suppressed all the extraneous
and foreign appendages, only preserving the metrical contents of the
chapters, by which the reader may know the nature of what is withheld; and
taking care that nothing which relates to the British islands, whether true
or fabulous, is overlooked. It is not likely that any future editor of
Wyntown will adopt a different plan; so that those parts which Mr Macpherson
has omitted, may be considered as having commenced the undisturbed sleep of
oblivion.
Though Wyntown was
contemporary with Fordun, and even survived him, it is certain that he never
saw Fordun’s work; so that he has an equal claim with that writer to the
title of an original historian of Scotland; and his "Cronykil" has
the advantage over Fordun’s history, both in that it is brought down to a
later period, and is written in the language of the country--
"Tyl
ilke mannys wnderstandyng."
"In Wyntown’s Chronicle,"
says Mr Macpherson, "the historian may find, what, for want of more ancient
records, which have long ago perished, we must now consider as the original
accounts of many transactions, and also many events related from his own
knowledge or the reports of eye-witnesses. His faithful adherence to his
authorities appears from comparing his accounts with unquestionable
vouchers, such as the Federa
Angliae, and the existing remains of
the ‘Register of the Priory of St Andrews,’ that venerable monument of
ancient Scottish history and antiquities, generally coeval with the facts
recorded in it, whence he has given large extracts almost literally
translated." His character as an historian is in a great measure common to
the other historical writers of his age, who generally admitted into their
works the absurdity of tradition along with authentic narrative, and often
without any mark of discrimination, esteeming it a sufficient standard of
historic fidelity to narrate nothing but what they found written by others
before them. Indeed, it may be considered fortunate that they adopted this
method of compilation, for through it we are presented with many genuine
transcripts from ancient authorities, of which their extracts are the only
existing remains. In Wyntown’s work, for example, we have nearly three
hundred lines of Barbour, in a more genuine state than in any manuscript of
Barbour’s own work, and we have also preserved a little elegiac song on the
death of Alexander III., which must be nearly ninety years older than
Barbour’s work. Of Barbour and other writers, Wyntown speaks in a generous
and respectful manner, [He even avows his incompetency to write equal to
Barbour, as in the following lines:-- The Stewartis originale, The
Archdekyne has tretyd hal, In metre fayre mare wertwsly, Than I can thynk be
my study, &c. –Cronykil, B. viii. c. 7. v. 143.] and the same liberality of
sentiment is displayed by him regarding the enemies of his country, whose
gallantry he takes frequent occasion to praise. Considering the paucity of
books in Scotland at the time, Wyntown’s learning and resources were by no
means contemptible. He quotes, among the ancient authors, Aristotle, Galen,
Palaephatus, Josephus, Cicero, Livy, Justin, Solinus, and Valerius Maximus,
and also mentions Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Statius, Boethius, Dionysius,
Cato, Dares Phrygius, Origen, Augustin, Jerome, &c
Wyntown’s Chronicle being in
rhyme, he ranks among the poets of Scotland and he is in point of time the
third of the few early ones whose works we possess, Thomas the Rhymer and
Barbour being his only extant predecessors. His work is entirely composed of
couplets, and these generally of eight syllables, though lines even of ten
and others of six syllables frequently occur. "Perhaps," says Mr Ellis, "the
noblest modern versifier who should undertake to enumerate in metre the
years of our Lord in only one century, would feel some respect for the
ingenuity with which Wyntown has contrived to vary his rhymes throughout
such a formidable chronological series as he ventured to encounter. His
genius is certainly inferior to that of his predecessor Barbour; but at
least his versification is easy, his language pure, and his style often
animated."
There are various manuscripts
of Wyntown’s work, more or less perfect, still extant. The one in the
British Museum is the oldest and the best; and after it rank, in antiquity
and correctness, the manuscripts belonging to the Cotton Library and to the
Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh.
See also
Wyntoun's
Original Chronicle |