Andrew of Wyntoun

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Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (c. 1350 - 1420) was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and later, a canon of St. Andrews.

Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled metre entitled, Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland (which marks the earliest mention of Robin Hood). Wyntoun wrote the 'Chronicle' at the request of his patron, Sir John of Wemyss, whose representative, Mr. Erskine Wemyss of Wemyss Castle, Fife, possessed the oldest extant manuscript of the work. The subject is the history of Scotland from the mythical period to the accession of James I in 1406.

[edit] Surviving text

The text is preserved in eight manuscripts, of which three are in the British Library, the Royal (17 D xx.), the Cottonian (Nero D. xi.) and the Lansdowne (197); two in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh (1923 and 1924), one at Wemyss Castle (u.s.); one in the university library at St Andrews, and one, formerly in the possession of the Boswells of Auchinleck, later the property of Mr John Ferguson, Duns, Berwickshire. The first edition of the Chronicle (based on the Royal manuscript) was published by David Macpherson in 1795, the second by David Laing, in the series of "Scottish Historians" (1872). Both are superseded by F. J. Amours (ed.), The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun: Printed on Parallel Pages from the Cottonian and Wemyss MSS., with the Variants of the Other Texts, The Scottish Text Society, 1st series, 50, 53–54, 56–57, 63, 6 vols (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1903-14), which remains the standard edition.