Matthew P. McDiarmaid and James A.C. Stevenson (eds)

Barbour’s Bruce: A! Fredome is a Noble Thing! Volumes I, II, & III

(Boydell & Brewer, 2023), 264pp. $170.00

The text commonly known as The Brus stands as one of the most important narrative sources for studying the history of early fourteenth-century Scotland. The book was composed in the early-to-mid 1370s by John Barbour (d.1395), archdeacon of Aberdeen, under the patronage of Scotland’s first Stewart king, Robert II (d.1390). The text itself takes the form of an epic poem and recounts the life and deeds of Robert II’s famous grandfather, Robert Bruce (d.1329). The poem was originally published as three separate volumes between 1980 and 1985; this very welcome publication has consolidated all three previously published volumes into a single unrevised paginary reprint. Its publication is timely. The field of late medieval Scottish studies is in a very healthy position, particularly in the arena of literature and Scots-language studies. The last number of years have witnessed the production of some very welcome contributions to the field of late medieval Scottish literary studies including An International Companion to Scottish Literature, 1400-1650 (Glasgow, 2018) edited by Nicola Royan and Caitlin Flynn’s recently published The Narrative Grotesque in Medieval Scottish Poetry (Manchester, 2022) to name but two recent publications. Late medieval Scottish studies (including literary and historical studies) have also benefitted from a supportive academic community in the area of primary sources. The Scottish History Society continue to publish excellent critical editions of source material relating to Scotland’s pre-modern past. The Scottish Text Society has been equally active here. This new edition of The Brus represents a collaboration between the Scottish Text Society and Boydell and Brewer and was the second such project completed in 2023. The same year saw the publication of another foundational source for late medieval Scotland, The Wallace, a similar epic poem written by Blind Harry (d.1492) in the late fifteenth century. The Wallace vividly recounted the career of the famous Scottish patriot William Wallace (d.1305) and was originally published in two volumes (1968 and 1969). As with The Brus, Boydell and Brewer helpfully re-published both volumes as a single unrevised paginary edition.

The original editions of The Brus were published to widespread acclaim and contained detailed introductions to John Barbour himself, the text of poem, source material, other possible literary influences, as well as an impressive narrative commentary and a hugely helpful glossary. These sections have each been reprinted in full in this single edition. The three separate volumes have been out of print now for several years: on its own, this new single edition will undoubtedly be a major asset for students and researchers of late medieval Scotland. One of the main advantages of reprinting an unrevised paginary edition is that scholars can continue using the original three volumes alongside this new edition without needing to be worried about different page numbers. However, there was an opportunity with this new publication to include an extra historiographical essay, highlighting some of the recent and exciting work that has emerged on The Brus, the kingship of Robert Bruce, and fourteenth-century Scotland more generally in the last number of years. Running to just under 14,000 octosyllabic lines, The Brus is a foundational source for studying several aspects of Scotland’s late medieval past. Naturally, it is essential reading material for anyone working on the life and times of Scotland’s first Bruce monarch and The Brus features prominently in the various biographies of Robert I, the most recent and significant of which was Michael Penman’s Robert I: King of Scots (Yale, 2014). Barbour’s poem documents key events within the history of later thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Scotland including the course of the royal successional crisis in the wake of Alexander III’s death in 1286, the outbreak of war between England and Scotland in 1295, Bruce’s relationship with the Comyns, his eventual decision to declare himself king, and the bitter struggle that ensued including his invasions of Ireland and northern England. Indeed, scholarship on Robert Bruce (and early fourteenth-century Scotland in general) shows no signs of slowing down. Michael Brown published an excellent study Bannockburn: The Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307-1323 (Edinburgh) in 2008; Colm McNamee’s The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306-1328 (Edinburgh) has been republished as new updated edition; while the Scottish Historical Review published a special edition in 2022 on the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath that examined the legacy of Bruce’s kinship.

Naturally, Barbour did not witness any of these events discussed in his poem: his information is reliant on a mixture of the Scottish people’s collective memory and second- or third-hand testimony. Scholars are well aware of the challenges of using such a source: The Brus is, first and foremost, a work of royal and dynastic propaganda designed to portray Robert I in the best light possible. The text not only needs to be treated with a healthy degree of caution in how it portrays the king and his contemporaries, it should be read critically within context and alongside other sources. The Brus is also a valuable source for studying other aspects of late medieval Scottish history. For instance, while the text has primarily been used to explore Robert I’s life, The Brus also sheds a good deal of light on Scottish society in the later fourteenth century. This is an issue which historians have become increasingly attuned to in recent years. A collection of essays Barbour’s Bruce and its Cultural Contexts: Politics, Literature and Chivalry edited by Stephen Boardman and Susan Foran (Woodbridge, 2015) considered what The Brus could tell us about the political and social landscape early in the reign of Robert II. Barbour’s text is not only a window into Scottish attitudes towards chivalry, the poem also allows for an investigation of how Robert Bruce was remembered by his Stewart successors. Indeed, it is not an overstatement to suggest that Robert Bruce was held in the same high degree of reverence by the Stewarts (and their subjects) as Henry V of England (d.1422) was by his Lancastrian, Yorkist, and Tudor successors.

It is a well-known fact that Robert II came to power upon the death of his uncle, David II (d.1371). Scholarly consensus is that the relationship between uncle and nephew was fraught. David II was captured at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346 and spent eleven years in captivity in England and his nephew displayed a marked unwillingness to ransom him. Following the French defeat at Poitiers in 1356 and the ensuing Treaty of Brétigny (1360), Scotland was forced to accept a new peace treaty with England. David II had been released in 1357 to speed up the process of securing the ransom but had little success in raising the funds from his subjects. By the mid-1360s, the cash-strapped David was considering major modifications to the Scottish succession as a means of reducing the outstanding ransom. Archie Duncan edited and published a seminal document pertaining to the Anglo-Scottish negotiations of the mid-1360s – the Quaestio, more commonly known as ‘A Question on the Succession’ – with the Scottish History Society in 1994. By this point, the Scots, thanks to the Valois’ unwillingness to renew hostilities with England, had become increasingly isolated in Northern Europe: the Quaestio delineates the various debates as to what the Scots were willing to concede to Edward III (d.1377) to secure a more lasting peace. The tone of the Quaestio is particularly downbeat. It seems that a sizeable portion of the Scottish establishment did not believe that Scotland could defeat England without significant French support and many were willing to countenance major modifications to the Scottish royal succession (i.e., naming an English prince as heir to the childless David II) to avoid a future conflict. Stephen Boardman has recently suggested that The Brus should be read as a riposte to the overly-negative attitudes espoused by the Quaestio. Barbour’s poem not only sought to emphasise a direct link between Robert II and his illustrious grandfather, Robert I, it tapped into Scottish collective memory and patriotic feeling during a period of intense political uncertainty.

The lack of an extra historiographical essay documenting some of these recent advances on research into The Brus is, nonetheless, a minor quibble. Overall, Boydell and Brewer are to be thoroughly congratulated on producing a fine new edition of this important text. As with the original three volumes, this single addition should appeal to a wide academic audience and will be an obligatory source for anyone working on the kingship of Robert Bruce or late medieval Scotland more generally. It should also serve as a very useful textbook in the classroom and I can well imagine it being used by undergraduates in both history and Scottish literature class alike.

Simon Egan
Queen’s University Belfast