Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- Heroes of War: Ambroise's Heroes of the Third Crusade
- Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems
- Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France in the Fifteenth Century
- War and Knighthood in Christine de Pizan's Livre des faits d'armes et de chevallerie
- Barbour's Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect
- ‘Peace is good after war’: The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition
- The Invisible Siege – The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer
- Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur
- Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing
- Speaking for the Victim
- Index
Barbour's Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- The De re militari of Vegetius in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- Heroes of War: Ambroise's Heroes of the Third Crusade
- Warfare in the Works of Rudolf von Ems
- Chronicling the Hundred Years War in Burgundy and France in the Fifteenth Century
- War and Knighthood in Christine de Pizan's Livre des faits d'armes et de chevallerie
- Barbour's Bruce: Compilation in Retrospect
- ‘Peace is good after war’: The Narrative Seasons of English Arthurian Tradition
- The Invisible Siege – The Depiction of Warfare in the Poetry of Chaucer
- Warfare and Combat in Le Morte Darthur
- Women and Warfare in Medieval English Writing
- Speaking for the Victim
- Index
Summary
IN AN ARTICLE published in 1991, Peter Burke posed the question of what a historical narrative would be like that dealt ‘not only with the sequence of events and the conscious intentions of the actors in these events, but also with structures – institutions, modes of thought, and so on – whether these structures act as a brake on events or as an accelerator’. In Barbour's Bruce we have such a story.
John Barbour's task, whether commissioned or self-appointed and later rewarded, was not an easy one. Writing c. 1375 for Robert II, king since 1371, and his court, Barbour might have confidently expected a lively interest in his poem, particularly as the early 1370s had been a time of renewed hostilities between Scotland and England as well as of friction within Scotland itself. A poem celebrating the king through whose efforts unity and independence had been secured must, therefore, have been of great topical interest. However, Barbour's chosen subject, King Robert Bruce (who reigned 1306–1329), was not only a man of legendary fame, to which songs and stories testified, but also a controversial figure, especially with regard to his political choices and manner of warfare. Had not the chronicler Langtoft earlier in the century ridiculed the king for skulking about in the woods naked, eating herbs and roots?
The scribes who recorded payment of the perpetual annuity awarded to Barbour in 1499 stated that such payment was due to Barbour pro compilatione liber de gestis quondam Roberti de Brus.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Writing WarMedieval Literary Responses to Warfare, pp. 107 - 126Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004