There is very little hard biographical fact regarding the life of the medieval poet, Robert Henryson, and what can be gleaned is simply patched and stitched together from scant evidence, historical, literary and otherwise. While critics differ on the poet’s birth date, suggesting years anywhere between 1425 and 1450, it seems reasonable to suggest that he is the Robertus Henrisone to be found in the 1462 records of the University of Glasgow. While this connection is speculative, the notion that Henryson was university-trained gains further credence when one considers the vast and sophisticated learning to be found throughout the poet’s corpus, and the fact that William Dunbar, among others, refers to him in his ‘Lament for the Makars’ (c.1506) as ‘Maister Robert Henrysoun’, indicating Henryson had a Masters degree.

Dunbar also associates Henryson with the kingdom of Fife, and in early editions of his work, he is referred to as Dunfermline’s schoolmaster. The school was a place of particular educational prestige and culture, being linked to the neighbouring Benedictine Abbey. The status and fortune of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland at this time was considerable, and Henryson’s post associates him with its prosperity and reputation. Connected with this is the speculation that Henryson worked as a legal representative for the abbey. We may never know the truth of Henryson’s life, but the portrait tentatively drawn by critics and historians is of a man of no small importance, in both civic and literary terms.

Similarly, there is no confirmed evidence of the date of the poet’s death. In ‘Lament for the Makars’, which contains the refrain ‘Timor Mortis Conturbat Me’, translated as ‘the fear of death perturbs me’, William Dunbar bemoans the deaths of major Scots poets. The poem, written around the end of 1505 or beginning of 1506, includes Henryson’s name amongst the roll call of deceased writers. Henryson’s work is timeless, and its gentle humanism suggests a sympathetic and erudite man.