15th-century Scottish makar (poet)
Robert Henryson
(
Middle Scots
:
Robert Henrysoun
) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460?1500. Counted among the
Scots
makars
, he lived in the
royal burgh
of
Dunfermline
and is a distinctive voice in the
Northern Renaissance
at a time when the culture was on a cusp between
medieval
and renaissance sensibilities. Little is known of his life, but evidence suggests that he was a teacher who had training in law and the
humanities
, that he had a connection with
Dunfermline Abbey
and that he may also have been associated for a period with
Glasgow University
. His poetry was composed in
Middle Scots
at a time when this was the
state language
. His writing consists mainly of
narrative works
. His surviving body of work amounts to almost 5000 lines.
Works
[
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]
Henryson's surviving canon consists of three
long poems
and around twelve miscellaneous short works in various genres. The longest poem is his
Morall Fabillis
,
a tight, intricately structured set of thirteen fable stories in a
cycle
that runs just short of 3000 lines. Two other long works survive, both a little over 600 lines each. One is
The Tale of Orpheus and Erudices his Quene
,
his dynamic and inventive version of the
Orpheus
story. The other is his
Testament of Cresseid
, a tale of moral and psychological subtlety in a tragic mode founded upon the literary
conceit
of "completing" Criseyde's story-arc from
Chaucer
's Troilus and Criseyde. Emily Wingfield has explored its significance in relation to the deployment of the Trojan Legend in political discourse between England and Scotland.
[1]
The range of Henryson's shorter works includes
Robene and Makyne
,
a
pastourelle
on a theme of love, as well as a bawdy passage of comic
flyting
which targets the medical practises of his day, a highly crafted and compressed poem of
Marian
devotion, some allegorical works, some philosophical meditations, and a prayer against the
pest
. As with his longer works, his outward themes often carry important
subtexts
.
[
citation needed
]
Constructing a sure chronology for Henryson's writings is not possible, but his Orpheus story may have been written earlier in his career, during his time in
Glasgow
, since one of its principal sources was contained in the university library. Internal evidence has been used to suggest that the
Morall Fabillis
were composed during the 1480s.
[
citation needed
]
Biographical inferences
[
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]
There is no record of when or where Henryson was born or educated. The earliest found unconfirmed reference to him occurs on 10 September 1462, when a man of his name with license to teach is on record as having taken a post in the recently founded
University of Glasgow
. If this was the poet, as is usually assumed, then the citation indicates that he had completed studies in both
arts
and
canon law
.
[2]
Almost all early references to Henryson firmly associate his name with Dunfermline.
[3]
He probably had some attachment to the city's
Benedictine
abbey,
[
citation needed
]
the burial place for many of the kingdom's
monarchs
and an important centre for
pilgrimage
close to a major ferry-crossing
en route
to
St Andrews
. Direct unconfirmed evidence for this connection occurs in 1478 when his name appears as a witness on abbey charters.
[4]
If this was the poet, then it would establish that one of his functions was as
notary
for the abbey, an institution which possessed and managed a vast portfolio of territory across Scotland.
[5]
The almost universal references to Henryson as schoolmaster are usually taken to mean that he taught in and had some duty to run the
grammar school
for Dunfermline's
abbatial burgh
.
[6]
A partial picture of what this meant in practice may be derived from a
confirmatio
of 1468 which granted provision to build a "suitable" house for the habitation of a "
priest
" (as master of grammar) and "scholars" in Dunfermline, including "poor scholars being taught free of charge".
[7]
Dunfermline, as a
royal burgh
with capital status, was routinely visited by the court with
residences
directly linked to the abbey complex. There is no record of Henryson as a court poet, but the close proximity makes acquaintance with the royal household likely.
[
citation needed
]
He was active during the reigns of
James III
and
James IV
, both of whom had strong interests in literature.
According to the poet
William Dunbar
, Henryson died in Dunfermline. An
apocryphal
story by the English poet
Francis Kynaston
in the early 17th century refers to the
flux
as the cause of death, but this has not been established.
[8]
The year of death also is unknown, although c.1498-9, a time of
plague
in the burgh, has been tentatively suggested.
[9]
However, Dunbar gives the
terminus ad quem
in a couplet (usually considered to have been composed
c.
1505) which simply states that Death
in Dunfermelyne
- ...hes done roune
(has whispered in private)
- with
Maister
Robert Henrysoun
.
(William Dunbar,
Lament for the Makaris
, lines 81?2)
[10]
Almost nothing else is known of Henryson outside of his surviving writing. It is not known if he originated from Dunfermline and a suggestion that he may have been linked to the
Fife
branch of the
Clan Henderson
is not possible to verify,
[11]
although his name is certainly
of that ilk
.
General style
[
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]
Henryson generally wrote in a
first-person
voice using a familiar tone that quickly brings the reader into his confidence and gives a notable impression of authentic
personality
and
beliefs
.
[
citation needed
]
The writing stays rooted in daily life and continues to feel grounded even when the themes are
metaphysical
or elements are fantastic. His language is a supple, flowing and concise
Scots
that clearly shows he knew
Latin
,
[
citation needed
]
while scenes are usually given a deftly evocative Scottish setting which can only have come from close connection and observation.
[12]
This detailed, intimate and realistic approach, at times, strongly suggests matters of personal experience and attitudes to actual contemporary events, yet the specifics remain elusive in ways that tantalise readers and critics. Some of this sense of intrigue may be in part accidental, but it is also heightened by his cannily controlled application of a philosophy of fiction, a frequently self-proclaimed feature of the work.
[13]
No concrete details of his life can be directly inferred from his works, but there are some passages of
self-reflection
that appear to contain autobiographical implications, particularly in the opening stanzas of his
Testament of Cresseid
.
[
citation needed
]
Henryson's Scots
[
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]
Henryson wrote using the
Scots language
of the 15th century. This was in an age when the use of
vernacular
languages for literature in many parts of Europe was increasingly taking the place of
Latin
, the long-established
lingua franca
across the continent.
[
citation needed
]
Extant poems
[
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]
All known and extant writings attributed to Robert Henryson are listed here. In addition, the scholar
Matthew P McDiarmid
identified from an index a lost poem by Henryson which began:
On fut by Forth as I couth found
(not listed below).
[14]
Long works
[
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]
Short works
[
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]
Individual fables
[
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]
Seven of the stories in Henryson's cycle are Aesopian fables derived from
elegiac Romulus
texts, while the other six (given in italics) are
Reynardian
in genre. The three titles given with bold numbers provide evidence for the integral unity of the overall structure.
Bibliography
[
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]
- Gray, Douglas (1979),
Robert Henryson
, E.J. Brill,
ISBN
9789004059177
- Barron, W.R.J. (ed.) (1981),
Robert Henryson: Selected Poems
, Carcanet New Press
ISBN
9780856353017
- McDiarmid, Matthew P. (1981),
Robert Henryson
,
Scottish Academic Press
,
ISBN
0-7073-0306-0
- Fox, Denton (ed.) (1981),
The Poems of Robert Henryson
, Clarendon Press,
ISBN
9780198127031
- David Murison (ed.) (1989),
Selected Poems by Robert Henryson
, The Saltire Society,
ISBN
9780854110100
- Fleming, Morna (ed.) (2003),
The Flouer o Makarheid
, The Robert Henryson Society, Dunfermline
- Wingfield, Emily (2014),
The Trojan Legend in Medieval Scottish Literature
, D.S. Brewer,
ISBN
978-1-84384-364-1
See also
[
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]
Notes and references
[
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]
- ^
Wingfield, Emily (2014),
The Trojan Legend in Medieval Scottish Literature
, D.S. Brewer, Cambridge,
ISBN
978-1-84384-364-1
, pp. 121 - 149.
- ^
The University of Glasgow,
Munimenta,
II, 69, dated 10 September 1462, admits a Robert Henryson,
licenciate
in Arts and
bachelor
of Decreits (Canon Law), as a member of the University. It is considered strongly likely, from secondary evidence, that this was the poet.
- ^
These are all posthumous references, such as on the title pages of the early printed editions of his work that started to appear after his lifetime.
- ^
The dates are 18 and 19 March and 6 July 1478 and the signature is
Magistro Roberto Henrison publico notario.
See
McDiarmid, M.P.
1981:
Robert Henryson,
Scottish Academic Press, p.3.
- ^
The scholar John MacQueen contextualises this record of the poet as a notary in Scotland against the Act of 1469 which gave James III power to appoint
notaries public
over and above the rights of the Pope and the
Holy Roman Emperor
and the consequent expulsion of notaries appointed by the Emperor
Frederick III
of Germany.
MacQueen, J.
2006:
Complete and Full with Numbers: the Narrative Poetry of Robert Henryson,
Rodopi, Amsterdam, pp.10 and 12.
- ^
The title page of the 1570 edition of Henryson's Fables, for instance, refers to the poet as "scholemaister of Dunfermeling".
- ^
Confirmatio,
dated 26 November 1468. Published in Kirk, J. ed. 1997:
Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome: 1447?1471,
Scottish Academic Press. p.396.
- ^
See
Robert L Kindrick, Introduction
which quotes Kynaston's general thoughts on Henryson and the "merry, though somewhat unsauory tale".
- ^
See McDiarmid, M.P. 1981:
Robert Henryson,
Scottish Academic Press, p.12
- ^
The title
maister
is a further indication that the poet was indeed the university-educated Henryson associated with Glasgow University.
- ^
Laing, David (1865)
The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson
pp. x-xii.
- ^
See
Wittig, K.
1958:
The Scottish Tradition in Literature,
Oliver and Boyd, chapter 2, for appraisals of Henryson's descriptive technique.
- ^
"Certainly the present writer would like to know more about Robert Henryson as he lived outside his verse than about any other Scots poet." (McDiarmid, M.P. 1981:
Robert Henryson,
Scottish Academic Press, p.1.) McDiarmid's first chapter goes on to develop a surprisingly full speculative picture of the poet's life gleaned from evidence in his poetry, secondary historical evidence for the period and the surviving citations of his name in an extremely broken record.
- ^
McDiarmid, M.P. 1981:
Robert Henryson,
Scottish Academic Press, p.4
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