John of Fordun facts for kids

John of Fordun (born before 1360 – died around 1384) was a Scottish historian. He is thought to have been born in Fordoun, a place in Mearns. We know for sure that he was a priest and that he wrote his history in the late 1300s. He was probably a chaplain (a type of priest) at St Machar's Cathedral in Aberdeen.

Fordun's work was the first real attempt to write a complete history of Scotland. He started this big project because he felt very patriotic. He was upset that many of Scotland's old records had been taken or destroyed by Edward III of England. To gather information for his history, Fordun traveled across England and Ireland.

John of Fordun: Scotland's Early Historian

His Main Work: The Chronica Gentis Scotorum

Fordun's main history book is called the Chronica Gentis Scotorum. It is divided into five parts. The first three parts are based on older stories and legends. Because of this, their historical accuracy is not fully proven. However, these parts were used by later historians like Boece and George Buchanan for some of their own writings.

Fordun's book helped create a special "origin story" for Scotland. He claimed that Scottish kings had an unbroken family line going all the way back to Fergus I in 330 BC. This story was a way for Scotland to show its long history and independence. It helped to counter a legend from England, which claimed English kings had a right to rule all of Britain.

The fourth and fifth books of Fordun's work contain much more reliable information. They become more accurate as they get closer to Fordun's own time. The fifth book ends with the death of King David I in 1153.

New Ideas About Fordun's Work

More recently, a historian named Professor Dauvit Broun from Glasgow University has suggested new ideas about Fordun's history. He believes that the parts of the history that describe events after 1153 were not actually written by Fordun himself. Instead, these parts should be seen as two separate works. They are now called Gesta Annalia I and Gesta Annalia II.

Professor Broun's new idea is that John of Fordun's own history only goes up to the death of King David I in 1153. This means Fordun did not write the Gesta Annalia. This idea comes from looking closely at the old handwritten copies of the texts. These copies show two different texts, which are now called Gesta Annalia I and Gesta Annalia II.

Gesta Annalia I finishes in February 1285. This is when King Alexander III sent a group to France to find him a new wife. Gesta Annalia II then starts with Alexander III's marriage in October 1285. It is thought that Gesta Annalia I is part of a much longer work that is now mostly lost. It seems the writer of Gesta Annalia finished this work around February 1285. Later, a scribe (someone who copied books by hand) copied Gesta Annalia I and added it to Fordun's history. Professor Broun says it's "an open question" whether Fordun himself might have been that scribe.

Based on these ideas, the Gesta Annalia I we have today is a copy of an older work. However, it seems the person who copied it did not change the text much. The writing style and how the history is presented are very consistent in Gesta Annalia I. This consistency is not found as much in Gesta Annalia II. Gesta Annalia II is considered a more complex and perhaps more interesting work.

The Scotichronicon

Before these new ideas were accepted, history books would often say that Fordun wrote about events after 1153. Now, these parts are referred to as Gesta Annalia I or II.

Besides his five books, which were published around 1360, Fordun also started another book. He also collected materials to continue Scotland's history to a later time. These materials were used by another writer, known as a continuator, who wrote in the mid-1400s. This continuator is believed to be Walter Bower, who was the abbot (head) of the monastery of Inchcolm.

Bower added eleven more books to Fordun's work. These additions brought the history up to the death of King James I of Scots in 1437. As was common at the time, Bower added his own parts into Fordun's original work. The entire history, put together by Fordun and Bower, is known as the Scotichronicon.

Publishing Fordun's History

The first time Fordun's work was printed was in 1691. It was part of a collection by Thomas Gale called Scriptores quindecim. After that, Thomas Hearne published his own five-volume edition in 1722. The complete work, including Bower's additions, was published by Walter Goodall in Edinburgh in 1759.

In 1871 and 1872, Fordun's history was edited by William F. Skene. This edition was part of The Historians of Scotland series. It included the original Latin text and an English translation. The introduction to this edition gathered all the known facts about Fordun's life and listed all the old manuscripts and printed editions.