George Bannatyne

George Bannatyne (born 1545, Newtyle, Angus, Scot.—died 1608?) was the compiler of an important collection of Scottish poetry from the 15th and 16th centuries (the golden age of Scottish literature). A prosperous Edinburgh merchant, he compiled his anthology of verse, known as the Bannatyne Manuscript, while living in isolation during a plague in 1568. His anthology contains many of the best-known poems of the courtly poets known as makaris, or Scottish Chaucerians; it also preserves...