George Bannatyne (1545–1608), a native of

Angus, Scotland Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agr ...

, was an

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

and

burgess __NOTOC__ Burgess may refer to: People and fictional characters * Burgess (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Burgess (given name), a list of people Places * Burgess, Michigan, an unincorporated community * Burgess, Missouri, U ...

.Scott's memoir of Bannatyne
/ref> He was the seventh of twenty-three children, including Catherine Bannatyne, born of James Bannatyne of Kirktown of Newtyle in Forfarshire and Katherine Tailefer. He is most famous as a collector of Scottish poems. He compiled an anthology of Scots poetry while in isolation during a plague in 1568. His work extended to eight hundred folio pages, divided into five parts. The anthology includes works from Scottish Chaucerians as well as many anonymous writers.

The Bannatyne manuscript

Bannatyne began compiling his manuscript in 1568 while isolated in his home in Edinburgh during an outbreak of the plague. He was inspired to create the anthology as a means to preserve Scottish Literary heritage. The

Bannatyne Manuscript The Bannatyne Manuscript is an anthology of literature compiled in Scotland in the sixteenth century. It is an important source for the Scots poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The manuscript contains texts of the poems of the gr ...

is, with the Asloan and

Maitland manuscripts The Maitland Manuscripts are an important source for the Scots language, Scots literature of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. They contain texts of the work of the makars of the period and much material which is not attributed to any author ...

, one of the great sources of

Middle Scots Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually ...

literature. It contains many works by

Henryson Robert Henryson (Middle Scots: Robert Henrysoun) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots ''makars'', he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renai ...

Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and gave its name to an ecc ...

Lyndsay Lindsay or Lindsey () is an English surname and given name. The given name comes from the Scottish surname and clan name, which comes from the toponym Lindsey, which in turn comes from the Old English toponym ''Lindesege'' ("Island of Lind") ...

, Alexander Scott and

Alexander Montgomerie Alexander Montgomerie (Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair Mac Gumaraid) (c. 1550?–1598) was a Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet, or makar, born in Ayrshire. He was a Scottish Gaelic speaker and a Scots speaker from Ayrshire, an area which wa ...

.A transcript of the manuscript (Volume 2 of 4) at archive.org
/ref> The document was passed by Bannatyne to his descendants, Janet and her husband George Foulis of Woodhall and Ravelston, and then, via several private owners, to the

Advocates' Library The Advocates Library, founded in 1682, is the law library of the Faculty of Advocates, in Edinburgh. It served as the national deposit library of Scotland until 1925, at which time through an Act of Parliament the National Library of Scotland ...

. It is now held by the

National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Naitional Leebrar o Scotland) is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. As one of the largest libraries in the ...

.National Library of Scotland
/ref>

The Bannatyne Club

The

Bannatyne Club The Bannatyne Club, named in honour of George Bannatyne and his famous anthology of Scots literature the Bannatyne Manuscript, was a text publication society founded by Sir Walter Scott to print rare works of Scottish interest, whether in history ...

was founded by

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

in honour of George Bannatyne for the purpose of promoting and studying Scottish history and literature.

Recent Scholarship

More recent scholarship on the

suggests an earlier date of 1565 for its composition. 9A. A. MacDonald, 'The Bannatyne Manuscript: a Marian Anthology', ''IR'' xxxvii (1986), 36-47) demonstrate this and Michael Lynch points out that its compilation at this time was appropriate given that it contains a great deal of love poetry and was put together at the time of the royal marriage between Mary I and Lord Darnley.Lynch, M. A New History of Scotland, Pimlico, 1991, p213.

The Bannatyne manuscript

The Bannatyne Club

Recent Scholarship

References

Further reading