John Fordun

John Fordun († shortly after 1363 or around 1387) was a Scottish chronicler whose work the historian Walter Bower expanded and continued around 1440 as "Scotichronicon".

Life

Little is known about John Fordun's life. The only sources are the prologues of the later editors of Bower's work. In the early 17th century, the English historian William Camden put forward the thesis that has been widespread since then that John Fordun came from the parish of Fordoun in the Mears in the former central Scottish county of Kincardineshire and then took his name. There are no contemporary documents for this. Watt rather believes that John Fordun named himself after a Fordun estate near Auchterarder in Perthshire . It is also not known whether John Fordun had family ties to other Scots of that surname.

Walter Bower tells in the foreword of the "Scotichronicon" about his conversation with an older doctor who remembered Fordun very well and who described him as a simple priest without a high school diploma. According to a copyist who copied Bower's work around 1450, Fordun was chaplain of Aberdeen Cathedral , so of too low a rank to be mentioned in documents there. The fact that he was able to achieve such a high literary quality in his chronicle despite his humble origins can be explained more by his presumed birthplace in Perthshire, where he was more likely to have learned the Gaelic language and tradition than if he had grown up in the Mears.

plant

Because of the small number of local books on Scottish history (allegedly because the English King Edward I had burned them or abducted them to England), Fordun wanted to make up for this loss and for this purpose traveled across England and Ireland , taking notes from the annals of the Monastery libraries and from conversations with historians. In fact, the historical information in Fordun's work is far more reliable than the older Scottish chronicles.

In 1691 Thomas Gale published the first print version of Fordun's work in the third volume of his "Scriptores quindecim". In 1722 Thomas Hearne presented the next edition in five volumes. Walter Bower's “Scotichronicon”, which also contains the entire text by Fordun, was published by Walter Goodall (Edinburgh 1759). Finally, the Scottish historian and antiquarian William Forbes Skene organized the authoritative edition of Fordun's books from 1871 to 1872 with the original Latin text and an English translation for the historical compilation "The Historians of Scotland". For the first time he only used those manuscripts that did not contain any changes or additions by Bowers. The Skene edition, however, contains many unreliable readings, incomplete collations of the various manuscripts and a confusing text layout, with three long sections having to be found in appendices. However, no new edition has yet been submitted. One of the difficulties is that all of the manuscripts that have survived were not written until after Fordun's death and that their authors apparently made various corrections to compensate for differences to other copies of Fordun's work.

John Fordun wrote two historical works that he did not name. Skene provided them with the titles "Gesta Annalia" and "Chronica gentis Scotorum". The "Annals" consist of 231 notes on important events in the Scottish past and range from approx. 900 to 1363 (in some manuscripts to 1385). These sketchy notes are rarely provided with somewhat more detailed explanations or sources. On the other hand, the “Chronicle” is a literarily high-quality work in five books, which are divided into numbered chapters provided with rubrics. The work, based on a broader source base, is the first continuous account in all of Scottish history. It begins with the ancient legend of Scota and Gaythelos, the eponymous founders of the Scottish Kingdom; In general, the first book only contains mythological information. The second book traces Scottish history up to the time of the Roman emperors Magnus Maximus and Theodosius I (395 AD), the third to the German Emperor Charlemagne (814), the fourth to the reign of the Scottish King Macbeth (1057) and the fifth book up to the death of King David I (1153). The "Chronicle" also contains numerous sources. To round off the work, 15 chapters are appended at the end of two manuscripts, which trace the Saxon family tree of St. Margaret († 1093) back to Cerdic von Wessex (495). They are probably wrongly interpreted by Skene as the beginning of a sixth book of the "Chronicle" that was no longer executed.

This family tree is missing in two manuscripts, which combine both of Fordun's works into a single one by omitting the first 41 notes of the "Annals", which go back to 1153. In all other manuscripts, however, the two works are handed down separately. Important historical documents relating to the Scottish struggle against English oppression are added in four manuscripts (e.g. the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320). Since there are no references to these documents in Fordun's "Annals", it is unclear whether they were recorded by Fordun or by later copyists.

The sources used by Fordun especially from 1200 onwards are mostly reliable and often no longer available today. In contrast, when telling the very early Scottish past in the first three books, mostly only fabulous and often fictional passages appear, while trustworthy representations such as the Irish annals are not taken into account.

It is difficult to date Fordun's works. Should he have undertaken extensive journeys through England, it would be in the years after 1357, since such tours have only been possible for Scottish visitors again after long hostilities since then. Since the beginning of the year 1363 is described in detail in the "Annals", but the visit of King David II to Westminster at the end of this year is not mentioned, it can be assumed that Fordun finished his work on the work at that time and that it was in some manuscripts five final chapters (until 1385) were added by later copyists. In research there are different views as to the extent to which Fordun already found the material presented in the "Chronicle" in his sources and to what extent he put the material together himself. But there is no indication of the time when the "Chronicle" was written.

In his work, Fordun supports those kings who were legitimately elected and who listened to advice. He was dismayed by the internal disputes among the Scottish nobility. The liberation of the Scots from the English invasion was a particularly happy event for him. The portrayal of the legendary origins of his people should underpin his stance. You have to look at your work as a whole to understand your nationalist views. In Scotland at that time and also in the next century his point of view was largely shared and his work could not be displaced so quickly by Bower's much more extensive chronicle, because at least three manuscripts of Fordun's works were still copied in the late 15th century. Although its history representation must be used with caution for early Scottish history, it has been an indispensable resource for historians, especially from the 11th century onwards.

output

• WF Skene (editor and translator): Johannis de Fordun Chronica gentis Scotorum (John of Fordun's Chronicle of the Scottish nation). 2 volumes, Edinburgh 1871–1872.

literature

• THE Watt: Fordun, John. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004, Volume 20, pp. 355-357.
• GWS Barrow : Fordun, John. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 4, Col. 633f.

Remarks

1. ↑ so Watt (see lit.), p. 355
2. ↑ so z. B. Barrow (see lit.), col. 633
3. ↑ p. 355
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} so Watt, p. 356
5. ^ Prologue to the "Book of Cupar", a manuscript of the "Scotichronicon" stored in Dublin
6. ↑ Watt, p. 356
7. ↑ Barrow, Col. 634
8. ↑ z. B. in a manuscript on Wolfenbüttel from the 14th century
9. ↑ so Watt (p. 356) to justify his approach of Fordun's death year around 1363