Abbreviations
Bawcutt
The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas, ed. Priscilla Bawcutt, STS (2003)
Coldwell
Virgil's Aeneid translated into Scottish Verse by Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, ed. David F.C. Coldwell, 4 vols, STS 3rd Ser. 30, 25, 27-8 (Edinburgh & London, 1951-6).
Fraser
Sir William Fraser, The Douglas Book, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1885)
Small
The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas, ed. John Small, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1874)
Introduction
Of the major work of Gavin Douglas, the Eneados, five complete manuscript texts are preserved (DoG 3-7), as well as some manuscript fragments and extracts (DoG 8-9). The most clearly authoritative of the extant manuscripts is a transcript of a copy made by Douglas's secretary, Matthew Geddes (DoG 3).
Two other poems which have been generally attributed to Douglas, Conscience and King Hart, are to be found in the Maitland Folio MS (DoG 1-2).
Douglas's own handwriting can be found in nine surviving letters by him, all written within the last few years of his life (DoG 10-18). These are all listed and discussed in Priscilla Bawcutt, ‘The Correspondence of Gavin Douglas’, in Stewart Style 1513-1542: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. Janet Hadley Williams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 52-61, and are printed in full in Small (1874) and in Fraser (1885).
One other notable item printed in Small (but not given an entry here) is a ‘memorial’ written in 1521, comprising a list of accusations against the Duke of Albany. A copy is in the British Library (Cotton MS Caligula B. III, ff. 311fr-13r). Although printed in Small, I, cvi, as being in Douglas's handwriting, the document is in a professional hand, is not ascribed to Douglas, and is only possibly of his authorship. A synopsis of the text appears in Calendars of State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. III, part 2 (1867), No. 1898.
Peter Beal