Writing About Love in Late Medieval Scotland

Abstract

Few critics have paid much attention to Scottish medieval love poetry. In The French Background of Middle Scots Literature, published as long ago as 1934, Janet M. Smith voiced what probably still remains the common opinion. She remarked that “the ideal of courtly love … never took root in Scotland,” and continued, “Apart from the King’s Quair we have remarkably little medieval love poetry.”¹ In recent years there has been growing recognition of the richness of Scottish poetry in the fifteenth century, yet little of the abundant scholarship devoted to its study and analysis has focused on love poetry—the only exceptions being the attention paid to two undoubted masterpieces, The Kingis Quair of James I and Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid. It is true that only a small body of Scottish love lyrics is now extant, but there were many other modes of writing about love in the late Middle Ages. The purpose of this chapter is largely descriptive: to indicate the nature of the surviving material, most of which dates from the late fourteenth century to the early sixteenth century. It is designed also to illustrate the variety of tone in these writings, the influence upon Scottish authors of traditions emanating both from France and England, and, most strikingly, the powerful impact of Chaucer and the so-called Chaucerian poets. Its arrangement is generic: I shall look, in turn, at lyrics; two specimens of historical romance; dream visions and courtly allegory; and, lastly, writings that are explicitly moral or didactic. Such a brief essay must necessarily be selective, not exhaustive; it aims to call attention to interesting, and sometimes neglected, poems.

Précis: This chapter surveys love poetry in medieval Scotland, examining a number of genres, such as lyric, historical romance, dream vision, and allegory. It indicates the traditions—especially that of fin amor—that influenced these writings, and the variety of tone that they display.