Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 87
79
identical with that of the last paragraph of art. 8 in the Dalhousie
manuscript.74
The evidence reviewed here suggests that the study of the nation’s
history was intensively cultivated during the reign of James IV, and
that it is in this context that the Scottish material in the Dalhousie
manuscript should be understood. The milieu in which such study was
pursued was doubtless fairly restricted, but it is hardly insignificant
that the rank-and-file clergy such as Gilbert Haldane, who was rector
of Dalry, or John Gibson, rector of Renfrew and canon of Glasgow
Cathedral, now interested themselves in these matters: Gibson owned
the abstract of the Scotichronicon in National Library of Scotland MS
Adv. 35.6.8, written by his namesake John Gibson, Junior, and com-
pleted in 1502.75 Lastly, it may be noted that the Asloan manuscript
has a table of contents in the scribe’s hånd from which it may be
deduced that the Brevis Chronica was originally preceded by an article
with the rubric “ane tractact [sic] of a Part of fie Ynglis cronikle”;76 this
article was in turn preceded by the Chronicle of Scotland in a Part,
with which it displays considerable marks of affinity. In view of this
affinity, and of the concordances between Asloan and Dalhousie with
respect to the Chronicle of Scotland in a Part and Brevis Chronica, it
seems not impossible that behind both manuscripts (and the Wyntoun
manuscripts mentioned above) lies an integrated corpus of source
material existing both in Latin and in Scots translation.
IV
It was remarked by way of introduction that the Dalhousie manu-
script now contains 35 leaves, and it has also been noticed that a
74 Durkan and Ross, Early Scottish Libraries, plate VII; cf. Ross’s introduction, p. 10.
The corresponding text in the Dalhousie manuscript is at BM III, 60.
75 Cf. Fordun, ed. Skene, p. xxiv. Adv. 35.6.8 is a summary of the so-called Black
Book of Paisley (British Library MS Roy. 13 E.x); it is written in a rather cramped hånd
and is entirely lacking in decoration, which tends to confirm the assumption that it was
exclusively intended for private study. See also David Murray, The Black Book of
Paisley and Other Manuscripts of the Scotichronicon (Paisley, 1885), pp. 63-68, 92-93.
76 Craigie, The Asloan Manuscript, I, xiii; the text of the article in question is at pp.
197-214.