Walter Bower

Walter Bower or Bowmaker (* 1385 in Haddington ( East Lothian in the east of Scotland ); † December 24, 1449 ) was the author of the "Scotichronicon" a Scottish historian and Abbot of Inchcolm (since 1418).

Origin and youth

The biography of Walter Bower can only be described incompletely due to a lack of sources . In addition to his own information in the "Scotichronicon", some records in the "Exchequer Rolls" (treasury rolls ) of Scotland (Vol. 3 and 4) provide important information on this .

Walter Bower's family circumstances are unknown. Perhaps he was related to a John Bowmaker who is attested as a magistrate of Haddington from 1395 to 1398. At the Roman court he was represented in 1436 by a John Bowmaker, the rector of a church in Stirlingshire . After all, in 1437 he was the authorized representative for a papal commission to an Alexander Bowmaker, an Augustinian cathedral lord in the small East Scottish town of St. Andrews . But no family relationships between Walter Bowers and those named Bowmaker can be established.

Since the "Scotichronicon" goes into detail on the contemporary history of Haddington and its surroundings, Bower should have grown up there and later kept in contact there. Probably around 1400 he became a canon of the Cathedral of St. Andrews, as he apparently reports from his own knowledge about Bishop Walter Trail († 1401). No doubt he was trained as a novice from 1400 under James Biset, who served as prior from 1394 to 1416 , and who played a major role in the founding of the oldest Scottish university, that of St. Andrews . This received in 1414 by the antipope Benedict XIII recognized by Scotland . As an eyewitness, Bower undoubtedly vividly describes many privileges and the celebrations in St. Andrews on the occasion of this joyous event. On November 29, 1417 Benedict XIII appointed him. to the abbot of the Augustinian monastery on the islet Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth . At that time he must have already acquired a Bachelor of Canon Law . On April 17, 1418, the Bishop of Dunkeld consecrated him abbot. According to his own statements, in 1420 he also received a bachelor's degree in theology . He presumably graduated from the new University of St. Andrews, since no study abroad can be proven.

Abbot of Inchcolm

As Abbot of Inchcolm, Bower, with papal assistance, forced the Bishop of Dunkeld to compromise the dispute over possession of the nearby Vicariate of Dalgety. Since he knew about canon law, he was able to defend the possessions of his abbey and for this purpose on February 27, 1430 also secure papal aid. Since English pirates raided his island almost every summer, he had to reside on the mainland at that time. But in the late 1440s, towards the end of his life, he had defenses built on Inchcolm.

In vain did Bower seek the office of abbot in the wealthy Augustinian monastery at Holyrood near Edinburgh . As early as 1420 he had hopes in this regard, but in 1423 another applicant, supported by the Scottish governor, was given the management of this more profitable monastery. In 1436/1437, however, this abbot got into an argument with one of his canons , whom Bower used to make himself the guardian of law in Holyrood by virtue of papal authorization. However, most canons successfully resisted his intervention, so that Bower ended his life as Abbot of Inchcolm.

Political tasks

Bower was one of the leading Scottish churchmen, although he only headed a small abbey. After the return of King Jacob I of Scotland from long-term English captivity (1424), he probably often took part in its meetings. In 1423 and 1424 he had collected taxes as one of the two commissioners to collect the ransom for Jacob I. He and his former colleague were to take on the same task again in 1433, this time to obtain the dowry for the engagement of the Scottish king's daughter to the Dauphin ; but the king himself released them from too rigorous a collection. In his chronicle he reports how reluctantly the population raised these extra taxes. After the submission of Lord Alexander MacDonald , the king wanted to be able to keep him better under control and had his mother, the Countess von Ross, interned at Inchcolm in 1431 under the supervision of Bowers.

By Bowers own report you can learn at least from his participation in a major policy choice: In October 1433 was on the Synod to Perth discuss a response to a British offer of peace. Bower and his friend, the Abbot of Scone , urged the rejection of the English proposal, since James I had taken an oath that Scotland would only make peace with England with the consent of France. The majority of the clergy agreed with Bower, and the whole matter later turned out to be a ruse on the part of the English. He says with satisfaction that the abbot of Melrose , who had advocated the adoption of the peace initiative, had to withdraw his opinion when the Inquisitor accused him of heresy .

In the parliamentary session of January 1435 he was a member of a committee for dealing with complaints. As a legal scholar, he is likely to have performed such functions on several occasions, but there are no documents.

Apparently Bower wanted an authoritarian connection between state and church and later developed this position theoretically in his chronicle. If he actually favored strong rulers, the deep regret expressed in his chronicle about the death of King Jacob I (1437) is understandable. Little is known about his life in the following years. At the beginning of the 1440s he played a role in the troubled situation of the guardianship government for Jacob II , the minor son and successor of Jacob I, took part in church councils on April 3, 1441 and February 9, 1442, and heard himself again in July 1445 complaints in parliament. The Crown paid tribute to his services by making the land of his abbey a barony on June 8, 1445 , in order to be able to repair the damage caused by the pirates more easily. After a long illness he died at the end of 1449.

plant

It was only in the last decade of his life that Bower wrote his “Scotichronicon” rather reluctantly . Although he does not mention his name anywhere in the work, his authorship can be derived very convincingly from other testimonies. This chronicle is one of the most important medieval writings in Scotland on which Bower's later fame is based. It is not known whether he had written books before. In 1440 a neighbor, Sir David Stewart von Rosyth , asked him to copy the "Chronica gentis Scotorum" of the chaplain and historian John Fordun , which was written 80 years earlier and extended until 1153, and continues to this day. Bower wrote his chronicle between November 1441 and October 1445, adding another eleven to Fordun's five books. He also expanded the five books of his predecessor with neatly separated long additions, which he identified as his own work by placing the word "scriptor" in front. The much less detailed “Gesta Annalia” Forduns then served him as the basis for the presentation of history up to around the middle of the 14th century, but he expanded it considerably with more and more additional material. For the period from around 1370, the 15th and 16th volumes of the "Scotichronicon" exclusively represent Bower's work and are historically highly significant as a contemporary source, especially for the reign of Jacob I, which ended with his death (1437). So he could rightly claim the last eleven books of the "Scotichronicon" practically as a separate work.

Bower's autograph , which was supposed to be kept in the monastery of Inchcolm, is now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript No. 171) and contains numerous supplementary notes in the main text in all five remaining copies from the 15th century are inserted. Magnus Makculloch, who studied in Leuven in 1477 , made copies of the "Scotichronicon" in 1481 and 1483/1484 for the Augustinian monastery in Scone and for Archbishop William Scheves of St. Andrews. Since two additional pages deal with the reign of Jacob II (1437–1460) in the manuscript for Archbishop Scheves, some historians hardly wanted to see a continuation of Bowers in Makchulloch. Two copies of the "Scotichronicon" are now in the British Library ( "The Black Book of Paisley" and Harleian MS. 712) and one in the Advocates Library in Edinburgh (which Walter Goodall used for his 1759 edition).

Bower wrote an epitome of his chronicle as early as 1444 , which is known as the "Book of Cupar" and is today in a later copy in the Advocates Library in Edinburgh (MS. 35, 1, 7). It also contains some additional information. Other extracts produced copyists at the same time, so in 1450 probably a Patrick Russell, the Carthusians in Perth was (Advocates Library, MS. 35, 6, 7) and received in 1461 an unknown writer (in the same collection, MS. 35 , 5, 2), the epitome of which, however, according to William Forbes Skene , editor of Fordun's work, deviates significantly from the original from the 23rd chapter of the 6th book.

The "Scotichronicon" contains many often reliable, Forduns "Gesta Annalia" supplementary information about Scottish history for the period from 1153 onwards . For example, Bower provided additional information about Robin Hood , one of the very few early notes about this legendary robber. Because of his didactic intentions, he expanded the central theme of his work to include events on the European continent since Roman times, often treating French history in more detail than English. He was probably able to incorporate the experiences of his presumed teachers from St. Andrews from their Paris studies. Numerous allusions to classical and medieval authors, in order to fit Scottish history into a European context, underline his academic knowledge.

Bower wanted his readers to be entertaining to read, but as a godly cleric he did not neglect to vividly depict the agony of sinners in hell. Although he is just as determined as Fordun for Scottish independence from England, he also gives warning considerations about the morally correct behavior of politicians. He wrote from his own experience that he had in mind the party quarrels that were so damaging to his people after the death of Jacob I. The scholarly work reveals a lot through its wide-ranging reflections about the customs and conceptions of Scotland at that time.

Both of Bower's writings were published in Latin with English translation and commentary.

output

• Donald ER Watt (Ed.): Scotichronicon , 9 volumes, Aberdeen 1987-1998.

literature

• Donald ER Watt: Walter Bower . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 2004, Vol. 6, pp. 921f.
• Walter Bower . In: Dictionary of National Biography , 1886, Vol. 6, pp. 52f.

Remarks

1. ↑ The place of birth is given in the Book of Cupar , the year of birth in the Scotichronicon (14, 50: when Richard II. Dryburgh and Edinburgh burned down).
2. ^ Exchequer Rolls of Scotland , III 364; III 433.
3. ↑ That he achieved this university rank, one concludes from "Scotichronicon" 6, 55-57.
4. ^ "Scotichronicon" 15, 30.
5. ↑ His related measures between 1420 and 1435 are documented in some surviving documents.
6. ^ "Scotichronicon" 16, 9.
7. ^ "Scotichronicon" 16, 16; 16, 20.