{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The Poppleton manuscript is the name given to the fourteenth-century

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

probably compiled by Robert of Poppleton, a

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Ca ...

friar who was the Prior of Hulne, near

Alnwick Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116. The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish bor ...

. The manuscript contains numerous works, such as a map of the world (with index), and works by

Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in ''Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), t ...

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography ...

and

Gerald of Wales Gerald of Wales ( la, Giraldus Cambrensis; cy, Gerallt Gymro; french: Gerald de Barri; ) was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taugh ...

. It is now in the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

(Ms Latin 4126). The manuscript is famous because it contains seven consecutive documents concerning medieval

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, some of which are unique to the manuscript, and regarded as important sources. The first six, at least, had probably been compiled previously in Scotland, in the early thirteenth century. They comprise: # '' de Situ Albanie''; which appears to be an introduction to the following five or six texts. The Poppleton MS preserves the only copy of this. # ''Cronica de origine antiquorum Pictorum'' (i.e. ''Chronicle on the Origins of the Ancient Picts''); part of the

Pictish Chronicle The Pictish Chronicle is a name used to refer to a pseudo-historical account of the kings of the Picts beginning many thousand years before history was recorded in Pictavia and ending after Pictavia had been enveloped by Scotland. Version A Ther ...

, this is largely a

pastiche A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking i ...

of wider Latin learning regarding the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...

and Scots. It contains extracts from the ''Etymologiae'' of

Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...

and

Nennius Nennius – or Nemnius or Nemnivus – was a Welsh monk of the 9th century. He has traditionally been attributed with the authorship of the '' Historia Brittonum'', based on the prologue affixed to that work. This attribution is widely considere ...

's ''Historia Brittonum''. # A Pictish King List; part of the Pictish Chroncle, this is a largely un-Gaelicized list of Pictish Kings, containing an opening mythological section not present in many other Pictish king lists. Unlike related Pictish king-lists, it gets cut off at the accession of

Cináed mac Ailpín Kenneth MacAlpin ( mga, Cináed mac Ailpin, label=Medieval Gaelic, gd, Coinneach mac Ailpein, label=Modern Scottish Gaelic; 810 – 13 February 858) or Kenneth I was King of Dál Riada (841–850), King of the Picts (843–858), and the Kin ...

. It reveals its origins at Abernethy by preserving a spurious foundation "charter" for the monastery there, reputedly granted by King Nechtan (fl. early seventh century), whom it calls ''Nectonius magnus filius Uuirp''. # ''

Chronicle of the Kings of Alba The ''Chronicle of the Kings of Alba'', or ''Scottish Chronicle'', is a short written chronicle of the Kings of Alba, covering the period from the time of Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín) (d. 858) until the reign of Kenneth II (Cináed mac ...

''; it is a short chronicle of the

Kings Kings or King's may refer to: *Monarchs: The sovereign heads of states and/or nations, with the male being kings *One of several works known as the "Book of Kings": **The Books of Kings part of the Bible, divided into two parts **The ''Shahnameh'' ...

Alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kin ...

, from the period of King

(d. 858) until the reign of King

Cináed mac Maíl Coluim Cináed mac Maíl Coluim ( gd, Coinneach mac Mhaoil Chaluim, label= Modern Scottish Gaelic, anglicised Kenneth II, and nicknamed , "The Fratricidal"; died 995) was King of Scots (''Alba'') from 971 to 995. The son of Malcolm I (Máel Coluim mac D ...

(r. d. 995). As for the ''de Situ Albanie'', the Poppleton MS preserves the only copy. # A List of

Dál Riata Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is n ...

n and

Scottish monarchs The monarch of Scotland was the head of state of the Kingdom of Scotland. According to tradition, the first King of Scots was Kenneth I MacAlpin (), who founded the state in 843. Historically, the Kingdom of Scotland is thought to have grown ...

; this joined pair of king-lists starts from the legendary

Fergus Mór mac Eirc Fergus may refer to: Given name or surname * Fergus (name), including lists of people and fictional and mythological characters Places *Fergus, Ontario, Canada *River Fergus, County Clare, Ireland * Lake Fergus, South Island, New Zealand * L ...

, and ends with

William I William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 10 ...

. # A

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

of William I; this genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, via Gaidhel Glas. It is just a record or partial translation of a Gaelic genealogy, in which ''mac'' and ''meic'' have been replaced with ''filius'' and ''filii''. Virtually all ancestors before

David I David I may refer to: * David I, Caucasian Albanian Catholicos c. 399 * David I of Armenia, Catholicos of Armenia (728–741) * David I Kuropalates of Georgia (died 881) * David I Anhoghin, king of Lori (ruled 989–1048) * David I of Scotland ...

have their names in the

Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engl ...

genitive form. # A foundation legend of

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourt ...

; it may not have been compiled by the author of ''de Situ Albanie'' in the thirteenth century, simply because it does not fit in with the logic presented by documents one to six, and is unrelated to the legend or topic is mentioned in ''de Situ Albanie''. The value of the manuscript has been shown in the publications of

William Forbes Skene William Forbes Skene WS FRSE FSA(Scot) DCL LLD (7 June 1809 – 29 August 1892), was a Scottish lawyer, historian and antiquary. He co-founded the Scottish legal firm Skene Edwards which was prominent throughout the 20th century but disappeare ...

, Alan Orr Anderson, and his wife Marjory Anderson. Dozens of articles have been written in the last half-century about various aspects of the Scottish content, although studies of the whole manuscript have been rarer.

Bibliography

* Anderson, Alan Orr, ''Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500-1286'', Vol. 1, (Edinburgh, 1923) * Anderson, Marjorie O., ''Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland'', (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 235–60 * Broun, Dauvit, "The Seven Kingdoms in De Situ Albanie: A Record of Pictish political geography or imaginary Map of ancient Alba?" in E.J. Cowan & R. Andrew McDonald (eds.), ''Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era'', (Edinburgh, 2000, rev. 2005), pp. 24–42 * Skene, William F., ''Chronicles of the Picts and Scots: And Other Memorials of Scottish History'', (Edinburgh, 1867)

External links

Another summary of the Scottish contents
14th-century books Medieval literature Medieval documents of Scotland Pictish culture English manuscripts 14th-century manuscripts Bibliothèque nationale de France collections Scottish manuscripts Medieval documents of England