Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

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 contains an early mention of ''

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

''; it is also cited by the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' as the earliest work in English to use the word "

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

": pelling modernised"He was a constant Catholic;/All

Lollard Lollardy was a proto-Protestantism, proto-Protestant Christianity, Christian religious movement that was active in England from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholic C ...

he hated and heretic." 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 A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of the work. The subject of the 'Chronicle' is the history of Scotland from the mythical period to the death of

Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany (c. 1340 – 3 September 1420) was a member of the Scottish royal family who served as regent (at least partially) to three Scottish monarchs ( Robert II, Robert III, and James I). A ruthless politician, Albany ...

in 1420. The nine original manuscripts of the ''Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland'' still subsist today and are preserved within various facilities throughout the United Kingdom. Three out of the eight original manuscripts are currently preserved by the

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, two are in the possession of the

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in Edinburgh; one, within the

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Library; another, within the confines of Wemyss Castle and the eighth, privately owned by Mister John Ferguson of

Duns, Scottish Borders Duns is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was the county town of the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Berwickshire. History Early history Duns Law, the original site of the town of Duns, has the remains of an Iron Age hillfo ...

, Berwickshire. The first edition of the 'Chronicle' (based on the Royal manuscript) was published by David Macpherson in 1795; the second edition was produced by David Laing and published in 1872 and the current standard edition was published by F. J. Amours as ''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 ''Chronicle'' is entirely composed of couplets, usually of eight syllables, although frequently there also are lines of six or 10 syllables.

References

* ''Oxford English Dictionary'', New York:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1989

External links

*
The Robin Hood passage
at the TEAMS Medieval Texts website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wyntoun, Andrew Of Scottish chroniclers 15th-century Scottish writers 15th-century Scottish historians Priors of Loch Leven Year of birth uncertain Early Scots poets 14th-century Scottish historians 1420s deaths