One of the oldest surviving copies of a poem describing the Scottish wars of independence has gone on display at Cambridge University in time for the battle’s 700th anniversary.
‘The Brus’ – a 1,400 line epic poem written in 1375 by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen – was made famous for its vivid description of the Battle of Bannockburn which was fought on June 23 and 24 1314.
The centrepiece of the work is a stirring and bloody description of the battle, which remains a significant source for historians studying the Wars of Scottish Independence waged by Robert the Bruce.
Experts have painstakingly restored the decaying edition over several months, which will be on display at St John’s College this week.
Kathryn McKee, special collections librarian at St John’s, said: “The 700th anniversary essentially gave us the impetus for doing the work.
“It’s likely to result in a fresh wave of interest in Bannockburn and we wanted the book to be available in a fit state.
“The Brus is a unique and nationally important treasure.
“This project means that we can now make it available to researchers, or put it on public display, without having to compromise its long-term preservation.”
The St John’s edition of The Brus was given to St John’s College in the 1630s by Thomas, fourth Earl of Southampton.
This particular manuscript was written in 1487, and is believed to have been transcribed by John Ramsay, Prior of the Carthusians at Perth, in Scotland.
It is written on high-quality “rag paper”, or cloth, but after centuries of use the manuscript had become badly damaged.
A number of pages were torn, sections were difficult to read because of dirt and marking, and the volume was so tightly bound it could not even be opened.
The university commissioned specialists from the Cambridge Colleges’ Conservation Consortium to restore the text last year.
No edition of the poem written in Barbour’s own hand has survived.
The only other 15th Century edition of ‘The Brus’ is held at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.