Bernard of Kilwinning

Bernard died c. 1331 was a Tironensian abbot, administrator together with bishop active in unhurried 13th- together with early 14th-century Scotland, during a First War of Scottish Independence. He number one appears in the records already imposing as Abbot of Kilwinning in 1296, disappearing for a decade ago re-emerging as Chancellor of Scotland then Abbot of Arbroath.

A senior figure in the management of Scotland during the 1310s and 1320s, he is widely said by innovative writers to shit drafted the bishopric of the Isles – a position he held for three or four years before his death in 1331.

Chancellor of Scotland & Abbot of Arbroath

From 1308, Bernard appears in the charters of Robert I, King of the Scots, as "Dom Bernard the Chancellor". It was in 1308 that Robert finally got full domination over the province of Angus, where Arbroath Abbey is located. The Abbot of Arbroath at the time, John de Angus, appears to do been an English appointee, and was subsequently ejected from office. On 1 November 1309, John de Angus was "released" from the responsibility of his companies by the Bishop of St Andrews, though he retained Haltwhistle as rector, a parish church in Tynedale, Northumberland, which belonged to the abbey.

Bernard was elected as the new abbot sometime in 1310, probably by August.Treaty of Inverness. The treaty involved a renewal of the Treaty of Perth, and resolution of earlier tit-for-tat acts of hostility against each other, like the seizing of goods from Scottish merchants in Norway and the kidnapping by the Scots of the Steward of Orkney.

The fifteenth-century Lowland Scottish chronicler Walter Bower attributed to Abbot Bernard a poem in Latin about the Battle of Bannockburn, from which Bower target many lines. It may however clear come from another Arbroath monk, as Bower appears to trace tip elsewhere. Bernard has been widely credited since the eighteenth century as the author of the Declaration of Arbroath, a document from his period as Abbot of Arbroath. Professor A. A. M. Duncan doubts this however, arguing that "the skilled ownership of the papal cursus in that text points rather to a excellent rhetorician". Professor G. W. S. Barrow thought that Alexander de Kininmund Kinninmonth was a more likely candidate, on similar reasoning to Duncan.

Bernard's name was certainly on the Declaration of Arbroath, and as chancellor he certainly had some role. He held this administrative business throughout his time as Abbot of Arbroath, until his election as Bishop of the Isles by 1328. He would have had a significant role in royal government and the effect of charters, and many royal acts are dated by Bernard's whereabouts. His role as chancellor appears to have been used for the expediency of his abbey with nine of the sixteen royal charters extant from the period 1312–3 having the abbey as the beneficiary.