George Bannatyne (1545–1608), a native of Angus, Scotland, was an Edinburgh merchant and burgess. He was the seventh of twenty-three children, including Catherine Bannatyne, born of James Bannatyne of Kirktown of Newtyle in Forfarshire and Katherine Tailefer. He is most famous as a collector of Scottish poems. He compiled an anthology of Scots poetry while in isolation during a plague in 1568. His work extended to eight hundred folio pages, divided into five parts. The anthology includes works from Scottish Chaucerians as well as many anonymous writers.
Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet, playwright, publisher, librarian and impresario of early Enlightenment Edinburgh. Ramsay's influence extended to England, foreshadowing the reaction that followed the publication of Percy's Reliques. He was on close terms with the leading men of letters in Scotland and England. He corresponded with William Hamilton of Bangour, William Somervile, John Gay and Alexander Pope.
William Dunbar was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguished by its great variation in themes and literary styles. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. His surname is also spelt Dumbar.
David Laing LLD was a Scottish antiquary.
Richard Holland or Richard de Holande was a Scottish cleric and poet, author of the Buke of the Howlat.
John Bellenden or Ballantyne of Moray was a Scottish writer of the 16th century.
Alexander Arbuthnot (1538–1583) was a Scottish ecclesiastic poet, "an eminent divine, and zealous promoter of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland". He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in both 1573 and 1577.
A Satire of the Three Estates, is a satirical morality play in Middle Scots, written by makar Sir David Lyndsay. The complete play was first performed outside in the playing field at Cupar, Fife in June 1552 during the Midsummer holiday, where the action took place under Castle Hill. It was subsequently performed in Edinburgh, also outdoors, in 1554. The full text was first printed in 1602 and extracts were copied into the Bannatyne Manuscript. The Satire is an attack on the Three Estates represented in the Parliament of Scotland – the clergy, lords and burgh representatives, symbolised by the characters Spiritualitie, Temporalitie and Merchant. The clergy come in for the strongest criticism. The work portrays the social tensions present at this pivotal moment in Scottish history.
Alexander Scott was a Scottish Court poet. He is believed to have spent most of his time in or near Edinburgh. Thirty-six short poems are attributed to him, including Ane New Yeir Gift to Quene Mary, The Rondel of Love, and a satire, Justing at the Drum. His poems are included in the Bannatyne Manuscript (1568) complied by George Bannatyne. According to an older view, "he has great variety of metre, and is graceful and musical, but his satirical pieces are often extremely coarse".
The Book of the Dean of Lismore is a Scottish manuscript, compiled in eastern Perthshire in the first half of the 16th century. The chief compiler, after whom it is named, was James MacGregor, vicar of Fortingall and titular Dean of Lismore Cathedral, although there are other probable scribes, including his brother Donnchadh and William Drummond, curate of Fortingall. It is unrelated to the similarly named Book of Lismore, an Irish manuscript from the early 15th century.
Androw Myllar was the first Scottish printer.
The Chepman and Myllar Press was the first printing press to be established in Scotland.
"The Wife of Auchtermuchty" is a Scots poem of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
"Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be" is an anonymous allegorical poem of the fifteenth or sixteenth century written in Scots.
Quha Hes Gud Malt And Makis Ill Drynk is a brief, anonymous Scots poem of the sixteenth century which praises skillful brewers and curses unskillful ones. Throughout the poem, the brewers are assumed to be female. The poem is found in the Bannatyne Manuscript.
Poetry of Scotland includes all forms of verse written in Brythonic, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, English and Esperanto and any language in which poetry has been written within the boundaries of modern Scotland, or by Scottish people.
Scots-language literature is literature, including poetry, prose and drama, written in the Scots language in its many forms and derivatives. Middle Scots became the dominant language of Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (1375). Some ballads may date back to the thirteenth century, but were not recorded until the eighteenth century. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works included Andrew of Wyntoun's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry's The Wallace. Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I, who wrote the extended poem The Kingis Quair. Writers such as William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry. In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. The first complete surviving work is John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s. The landmark work in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil's Aeneid.
Walter Kennedy was a Scottish poet.
"Christis Kirk on the Green" is an anonymous Middle Scots poem in 22 stanzas, now believed to have been written around the year 1500, giving a comic account of a brawl at a country fair. It was for many years mistakenly attributed either to James I of Scotland or to James V of Scotland. It gave rise to a whole tradition of humorous poems on similar subjects by Scottish poets down the centuries, including Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns, and is still one of the most frequently published works in Middle Scots. "Christis Kirk on the Green" has been called one of the finest performances in 15th-century British poetry.
Ane New Yeir Gift to Quene Mary is a poem written by Alexander Scott (1520?-1582/1583) in 1562, as a New Year's gift to Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary had recently returned to Scotland from France following the death of her first husband, Francois II of France (d.1560). The poem was written in an effort to placate Mary's displeasure following her official reception into the City of Edinburgh organised by its burgh council in August 1561, at which Protestant imagery was highlighted. As a committed Catholic Mary had taken offence.
