Editing Walter Bower

{{Short description|15th-century Scottish canon and chronicler}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2019}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| name = Walter Bower
| image = 2016 - Trip to Inchcolm (26008626346).jpg
| caption = Inchcolm Abbey
| birth_date = c. 1385
| birth_place = [[Haddington, East Lothian]],<br>[[Scotland]]
| death_date = 24 December 1449 (aged about 65)
| nationality = [[Kingdom of Scotland|Scottish]]
| occupation = Canon regular and chronicler
| honorific_prefix = Abbot
}}

'''Walter Bower''' (or '''Bowmaker'''; {{circa|1385}}{{snd}}24 December 1449) was a Scottish [[canon regular]] and [[abbot]] of [[Inchcolm Abbey]] in the [[Firth of Forth]], who is noted as a [[chronicler]] of his era. He was born about 1385 at [[Haddington, East Lothian|Haddington]], East Lothian, in the [[Kingdom of Scotland]].{{sfn|Watt|1997|p=44}} In 1991, [[D. E. R. Watt|Donald Watt]] said of Bower's ''[[Scotichronicon]]'' that "We are more and more convinced that this book 
is one of the national treasures of Scotland, which should be studied in depth for many different kinds of enquiry into Scotland's past."{{sfn|Watt|1992|p=286}}

==Life==
Some sources say that, at the age of eighteen, Bower assumed the religious habit; he was trained at the [[University of St Andrews]]. After finishing his philosophical and theological studies, he visited Paris to study law.{{sfn|Chambers|Thomson|1857|p=296}}{{sfn|Archer|1886|p=52}} Bower was unanimously the [[abbot]] of the [[Augustinians|Augustinian community]] on [[Inchcolm]] in 1417.{{sfn|Watt|1997|p=44}} He also acted as one of the commissioners for the collection of the [[ransom]] of King [[James I of Scotland]] in 1423 and 1424. Later, in 1433, he took part in a diplomatic mission to Paris to discuss the possibility of marriage of the king's daughter to the [[Dauphin of France]]. He played an important part at the Council of Perth of 1432 in the defence of Scottish rights.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=343}}

During Bower's closing years he was engaged on his work, the ''[[Scotichronicon]]'', on which his reputation now chiefly rests. This work, undertaken in 1440 by desire of a neighbour, Sir David Stewart of [[Rosyth Castle]], was a continuation of the ''[[Chronica Gentis Scotorum]]'' of [[John of Fordun]]. The completed work, in its original form, consisted of sixteen books, of which the first five and a portion of the sixth (to 1163) are Fordun's — or mainly his, for Bower added to them in places. In the later books, down to the reign of [[Robert I of Scotland|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 death it ends. The task was finished in 1447.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=343}}

In the two remaining years of Bower's life he was engaged on a reduction or "abridgment" of this work, which is known as the ''Book of Cupar'', and is preserved in the [[Advocates Library]], Edinburgh (MS. 35. 1. 7). Other abridgments, not by Bower, were made about the same time, one about 1450 (perhaps by [[Patrick Russell (monk)|Patrick Russell]], a [[Carthusian]] [[monk]] of [[Perth, Scotland|Perth]]), also preserved in the Advocates' library (MS. 35. 6. 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, preserved in the same collection (MS. 35. 5. 2). Copies of the full text of the ''Scotichronicon'', by different scribes, still exist. There are two in the [[British Library]], in ''[[The Black Book of Paisley]]'', and in [[Harleian Library|Harley MS]] 712; one in the Advocates Library, from which [[Walter Goodall]] printed his edition (Edin., 1759), and one in the library of [[Corpus Christi College, Cambridge]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=343}}

See also [[William Forbes Skene|W. F. Skene]]'s edition of Fordun in the series of ''Historians of Scotland'' (1871). Personal references are to be found in the ''[[Exchequer Rolls of Scotland]]'', iii. and iv.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=343}}

A revised and updated translation of Bower's work was produced under the leadership of Professor [[D. E. R. Watt]], in nine volumes, published between 1987 and 1997. The critical edition of Bower's Latin text in Watt et al. has been amended and corrected by Chris Nighman in light of the discovery that Bower made extensive use of Thomas of Ireland's collection of authoritative quotations, the ''[[Manipulus florum]]'' (1306).{{sfn|Nighman|2019|p=}}

==Bibliography==
*Scotichronicon (ed. Goodall), Edinburgh, 1759{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}
*John of Fordun, ed. Skene, ap. Historians of Scotland, preface and introductions){{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}
*Tytler's Lives of Scottish Worthies, ii. 198–202{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}
*Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. George Burnett, iii. and iv.{{sfn|Archer|1886|p=53}}
*See also Marjorie J. Drexler's list{{sfn|Drexler|1979|p=278-283}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
*{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/scottishnationor01ande
 |chapter=Bower, Walter
 |title=The Scottish nation: or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland
 |volume=1
 |first=William |last=Anderson |author-link=William Anderson (Scottish writer)
 |publisher=A. Fullarton & co. |year=1877|page=[https://archive.org/details/scottishnationor01ande/page/362/mode/1up 362]}}
*{{cite DNB|last=Archer|first=Thomas Andrew|author-link=Thomas Andrew Archer|wstitle=Bower, Walter |volume=6|year=1886|no-icon=1}}{{PD-notice}}
* {{Eminent Scotsmen|Bower, Walter|1|270-276}}
*{{cite book |volume=1|last1=Chambers |first1=Robert |last2=Thomson |first2=Thomas |title = A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen. New ed., rev. under the care of the publishers. With a supplementary volume, continuing the biographies to the present time |date=1857 |publisher=Blackie |location=Glasgow |page=[https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict01chamiala/page/296 296] |url=https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict01chamiala}}{{PD-notice}}
*{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Bower, Walter|volume=4|page=343|no-icon=1}}{{PD-notice}}
*{{cite book |last=Drexler |first=Marjorie J. |title=Attitudes to Nationality in Scottish Historical Writing from Barbour to Boece |date=1979 |publisher=Edinburgh University thesis |location=Edinburgh |pages=278–283 |url=https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/8764/1/Drexler1979.pdf |access-date=28 April 2019}}
*{{cite journal |last=Nighman |first=Chris L. |year=2019 |title=Walter Bower's reception of the Manipulus florum (1306) in composing the Scotichronicon (c.1440) |journal=The Innes Review |issue=70.1 |pages=55–64}}
*Nighman, Chris L. ed. (2017), "The Manipulus/Scotichronicon Project" (https://scotichronicon-project.wlu.ca)
*{{cite book |last1=Paterson |first1=J. W. |title=The abbey of Inchcolm |date=1937 |publisher=HMSO |location=Edinburgh |pages=4, 17 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031895520;view=1up;seq=23 |access-date=28 April 2019}}
*{{cite journal|last=Watt|first=D E R|date=April 1997|title=A National Treasure? The Scotichronicon of Walter Bower|journal=Scottish Historical Review|volume=76|publisher=Edinburgh University Press (subscription required) |page=44|doi=10.3366/shr.1997.76.1.44|url=http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/shr.1997.76.1.44}}
*{{cite book |last=Watt|first=Donald E. R. |title = Abbot Walter Bower of Inchcolm and his Scotichronicon |date=1992 |publisher=Scottish Church History Society |location=Edinburgh |pages=[https://archive.org/details/rschsv024p3watt/page/286 286]–304 |url=https://archive.org/details/rschsv024p3watt}}{{PD-notice}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-rel}}
{{succession box |
  before=Laurence|
  title=[[Abbot of Inchcolm]]|
  after=John Kers|
  years=1417–1449|
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bower, Walter}}
[[Category:1380s births]]
[[Category:1449 deaths]]
[[Category:Scottish chroniclers]]
[[Category:Canonical Augustinian abbots and priors]]
[[Category:15th-century Scottish historians]]
[[Category:15th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests]]
[[Category:Scottish diplomats]]
[[Category:Scottish abbots]]
[[Category:People from Haddington, East Lothian]]
[[Category:Historians of Scotland]]
[[Category:15th-century Christian abbots]]