Considering the service which he
rendered, and the value which was put upon his work even in his own day,
it seems strange that so little is known of the actual life of the author
of "The Bruce." The absence of this information is only to be accounted
for by the fact that curiosity regarding the details of writers' lives was
then a thing unknown. The preservation of the little knowledge of
Barbour's life which we possess is owed almost entirely to the
circumstance of his share as a churchman in public life, and probably he
himself would have been the last to suppose that the details of his
existence as a writer would in any way interest the world.
Born in Aberdeenshire, it is
understood, about the year 1316, two years after the battle of
Bannockburn, he was literally a child of the age of which he wrote.
Whether or not he took any part personally in the stirring deeds of that
time cannot now be ascertained, but in his early years there must have
been many about him who had been companions-in-arms with the heroes of the
great struggle. It is not, however, until the year 1357 that Barbour,
comes into public notice. In that year was signed the Treaty of Berwick,
by which, after his long captivity, David IL, the son of Bruce, returned
to Scotland, and by which a truce of ten years was declared between the
two countries. Part of the new policy of conciliation then inaugurated by
Edward III. was to admit the youth of Scotland to attend the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge. In each case the students were admitted to
English territory by special permit, and one of the permits still extant
bears that John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen, was allowed to pass to
Oxford with three scholars under his charge for purposes of study. Seven
years later, in 1364, his name appears on a similar permit, and in 1368 he
received further letters of, protection, enabling him to pass with certain
companions through England on his way to the University of Paris. Such
journeys to foreign universities were common among Scottish scholars even
after the foundation of St. Andrews University in 1450, and, indeed, a
romantic chapter might be written on the adventures of these wandering
scholars, from Michael Scot and Duns Scotus to George Buchanan and the
Admirable Crichton, who throughout the Middle Ages were to be found
upholding the light of learning in every university of Europe.
At the date of Barbour's last
passage through London, Chaucer would be a young man of twenty-six, and it
would have been most interesting to know whether any meeting occurred
between the two. 'No details of the scholar's travels, however, are
extant.
In 1373 the poet became a clerk of
audit to the household of Robert II., and it appears to have been after
that date that he composed his great work. Whether or not the first of the
Stuart kings was sagacious enough, like the Roman Augustus, to perceive
the advantages and to suggest the composition of a national epic is not
now discoverable ; but it was, at any rate, within the sphere of Court
influence that Barbour performed the part of a northern Virgil. A record
of ten pounds given him by the king in 1377 has been taken to mark the
date of completion of "The Bruce," and the royal recognition of the work.
He also received successively from the king a grant of certain tithes in
the parish of Rayne in Garioch, a Crown wardship, at that time probably a
somewhat lucrative appointment, a perpetual annuity of 20s.; and finally,
in 1388, a pension of ten pounds. The last payment of this pension
occurred in 1395, and that or the following year was probably, therefore,
the date of the poet's death. The annuity of 20s. he bequeathed to the
Dean and Chapter of Aberdeen for the saying of an annual mass for his
soul, and as that mass, down to the time of the Reformation, was said
regularly for him in Aberdeen Cathedral on the 9th of March, this was
probably the exact day of his demise. So considerably, it will appear, may
the record of a poet's life depend upon dry entries of Exchequer. An
antique tablet formerly in the graveyard, but now on the inner wall of St.
Machar's Cathedral, Aberdeen, is believed to have marked the poet's last
resting-place. It still bears the name of John Barbour, archdeacon.
From several references by the later
chronicler Wyntoun, as well as by Barbour himself, the Archdeacon was
author also of a second poem named "The Brut." This composition appears to
have recorded the descent of the Scottish kings from Brutus, a grandson of
AEneas. 'Nothing remains of it, however, save some two thousand lines
uncertainly attributed to it in Lydgate's MS. Troy-books in the Cambridge
Library. He is also believed to have been the author of another work,'
"The Book of Legends of the Saints," discovered in the Cambridge Library
not many years ago, and printed in 1889. Possibly it was in recognition of
these works that the poet's later bounties were granted by the king, but
no indication of the fact remains.
Of the language in which it is
written, the beautiful Lowland Scots, Barbour's "Bruce" is the classic
monument and example; and writers of the mongrel and misspelled English
and corrupted local vulgarisms which too often pass for " Scots Doric" in
the literature of to-day would do well to make themselves acquainted with
the genius and dignity of the actual language at its fountain-head. It
would be impossible to render into modern English of equal simplicity and
strength many of Barbour's most ordinary passages : and for this reason,
amongst others, regret might be expressed that in Scottish universities
and schools the study of poems like "The Bruce " has been abandoned so
completely in favour of English models. There is a bloom about passages
like the following-the introduction to the episode of the king's crossing
from Arran to Carrick - which is not surpassed by any natural description
in Chaucer :
This wes in ver, quhen wynter-tyd;
With his blastis hiduyss to byd,
Was our drywyn; and byrdis smale,
As turturis and the nychtyngale,
Begouth richt sariely to syng,
And for to mak in thair syngyng
Swete notis and sownys ser
And melodys plesand to her,
And the treis begouth to ma
Burgeans and brycht blomys alsua,
To wyn the helyng off thair hewid;
And all gressys begouth to spryng.
In-to that tyme the nobill king,
With his flote and a few mengye,
Thre hundyr I trow their mycht be,
Is to the se, owte off Arane,
A litill forouth ewyn, gane.
Hitherto, somewhat unjustly,
Barbour's best-known poem has been chiefly valued as a historical
document. Its worth in this respect stands beyond doubt. For a great part
of the history of the time of which it treats, and especially for the
personal episodes of its hero's career, "The Bruce" remains the only
authority. It is true that other contemporary records of the English and
Scottish wars of the period exist, but on the Scottish side these are
confined to the dry bones of charters, Parliament rolls, and the like,
while the English chronicles touch only externally upon points in which
the interests of England are involved. Thus for the living, internal
history of his country, and for a representation of the spirit which made
and animated the Scotland of that time, Barbour remains all but the sole
source of information.
Another contemporary rhyming
chronicle upon the same subject is said to have existed. This was by one
Peter Fenton, a monk in the Abbey of Melrose in 1369, and it told the
story of its hero "from the Battle of Bannockburn forth." It is referred
to in a "History of Robert the Bruce" by one Patrick Gordon, gentleman,
published at Dort in the year 1015; but the manuscript was badly tattered
when Gordon saw it, and nothing is known of it now.
No weight of doubt has ever been cast upon the
historical truth of the general tenor of Barbour's story. In all essential
points of contact, except one, it agrees with contemporary English
records; and even such episodes of the hero's personal prowess as might
reasonably have been deemed somewhat exaggerated continue to receive
confirmation as a better knowledge of the manners and circumstances of
that time becomes available. Thus the apparent extravagance of an episode
like that of the slaughter of the five men of Lorne by the single arm of
Bruce, disappears when it is known that the five were probably half-naked
and ill-armed mountaineers, and that they had to cope with a knight in
complete mail, as well as of uncommon personal strength. Another
apparently romantic story, too, that of the carrying of Bruce's heart to
Spain, received striking corroboration from the fact that, upon the
opening of the king's tomb at Dunfermline, some eighty years ago, the
breast bone of the skeleton was found sawn through.
The historical value of Barbour's poem is immensely
increased by its contemporaneous character. Though the poet was not
himself actually engaged in the actions which he records, many of his
friends, as has been already remarked, must have been eye-witnesses of
them. For one of the episodes, indeed, that of Edward Bruce's campaign in
Galloway, Barbour expressly quotes his informant:
A knycht that then wes in his rowt,
Worthi and wycht, stalwart and stout,
Curtaiss and fayr and off gud fame,
Schyr Alane of Catkert by name,
Tauld me this taile as I sall tell.
For this reason it may be believed, not only that the
narrative of action is authentic, but that in many interesting cases, such
as the speech to his chiefs before Bannockburn, and the affecting farewell
of the dying king at Cardross, the actual words of Bruce himself have been
preserved.
The single departure from historic fact of which
Barbour is known to be guilty possesses a reason of its own. Something of
the ancient instinct of the bard was associated with that of the historian
in his mind ; he was writing an epic poem rather than a cut-and-dry
history, and so in the beginning of his work lie perpetrated a
considerable anachronism. In the interest of the unities it suited the
poet to make his hero, Bruce, Earl of Carrick, the same person as Bruce,
Lord of Annandale, who had been Baliol's competitor for the Scottish
crown. A point of poetic justice was achieved by depicting the noble who
formerly suffered as the same with him who finally found redress at the
hands of fortune, whereas, in sober fact, it was the grandfather who
suffered in Baliol's time, and the grandson who triumphed at Bannockburn.
Similarly, poetic necessity demanded that throughout the narrative light
should be cast chiefly upon the virtues of Bruce and upon the faults of
Edward. This, however, there is good reason to believe, has in no case
been done by suggestio falsi, but everywhere, in the few instances
in which it occurs, only by suppressio veri.
The hero of the poem, as Mr. Cosmo Innes has pointed out, "was not to
be degraded by the announcement that he had ever sworn fealty to Edward
and once done homage to Baliol, or ever joined any party other than that
of his country or of freedom." Nowhere, however, does Barbour do injustice
to the nobility of his hero's adversaries, and it follows that throughout,
alike in colour and in statement of fact, his poem possesses all the value
of authentic history.
But it is as poetry that "The Bruce " ought to be
chiefly considered. There can be little doubt that the first object of its
author was the poetic one. lie recounted, it is true, the details of the
most momentous period of Scottish national history: but these were merely
the materials of an epic of universal human interest whose theme was
freedom. Regarding this fact he does not leave the reader long unaware,
and the famous panegyric near the beginning of his work remains probably
the noblest outburst on the subject:
A! fredome is a noble thing,!
Fredome mayss man to haiff liking;
Fredome all solace to man gyffis,
He levys at ese that frely levys.
A noble hart may haiff nane ess,
Na ellys nocht that may him pless,
Gyff fredome failihe; for fre liking
Is yharnit our all other thing;
Na he, that ay hes levyt fre,
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
That is couplyt to foule thyrldome,
Bot gyff he had assayit it,
Than all perquer he suld it wyt,
And suld think fredome mar to pryss
Than all the gold in warld that is.
In lines like these, and indeed throughout the entire
poem, as Pinkerton, one of its editors, has said, "the hero seems to have
inspired the author."
All the qualities of a great epic are to be found in
"The Bruce." The subject is national and heroic, the characters are bold
and noble, and the action is majestic. The style may here and there lack
superficial polish, and the movement of the verse may at times appear
somewhat rugged ; but for representation of real manners, for rapid
narration of incident, for life, vividness, and strong good sense, the
poem must be ranked among the greatest. Inspired at first hand by actual
circumstances and by the national enthusiasm of the time, "The Bruce," as
a faithful portrayal of events and manners, was not only accepted at
Court, but immediately became popular with the nation. Containing nothing
supernatural or unbelievable in its machinery, it can in no respect be
considered an imitation either of classic or exotic compositions, but
stands boldly out as an indigenous and characteristic growth of the
northern soil, and remains to the present day a living and vigorous
fountain of refreshment for those who would drink at the wells of national
strength.
The time of the composition of "The Bruce" was one for
the production of great work. It is amid the volcanic convulsions of earth
that the gems are formed which sparkle afterwards as its brightest
possessions, and similarly it is amid the upheavals of nations that genius
breaks into new creation. Barbour had at hand the noblest of all materials
in the struggle and birth of a nation. In his treatment of these he may
have fallen short of the excellence of transcendent masters like Homer and
Virgil; but it has to be remembered that his was almost the first work of
literature in the language which he used, and none can deny that, with
native characteristics of simplicity, strength, and enthusiasm, he has
painted the greatest national picture, and has bequeathed to the modern
reader the true national epic of Scotland in the Scottish tongue.
