I will discuss the competing English and Scottish origin myths as they developed in 12th through 15th centuries, and how these myths are taken up by Scottish poets and used to articulate a national identity.
These myths, which pit (English) Trojan against (Scottish) Greek ancestries find their fullest expression in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britaniae and John of Fordun’s Chronica Gentis Scotorum, but are also invoked in legal and diplomatic discourses and extensively cited in arguments before the papal court.
I demonstrate that Scottish historiography comes into its own as a nationalist movement in response to English aggression. I then explore how this legendary history is taken up by poets in the reign of James IV and used to articulate notions of Scottish identity and create a national community out of the shared experiences of Scottish readers.
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