Bannatyne manuscript (Clan MacLeod)

Not to be confused with the Bannatyne Manuscript of Edinburgh merchant and amateur poet George Bannatyne (1545–1608).

The Bannatyne manuscript is a traditional account of Clan MacLeod. It consists of 142 sheets of foolscap paper. The author's name does not appear in it. Although the work is undated, a watermark dates the paper upon which it is written to 1829. The textual material from which the manuscript is based is generally regarded to have been the work of William Macleod Bannatyne, Lord Bannatyne (died 1833).

Lord Bannatyne was the son of Roderick Macleod (died 1784), and Isabel (fl. 1736–1744), daughter of Hector Bannatyne of Kames. It was through his mother that William Macleod Bannatyne inherited the estate of Kames and assumed the name "Bannatyne". William Macleod Bannatyne is known to have compiled an earlier account of the clan in 1767.

Another candidate for the authorship of the Bannatyne manuscript is Bannatyne William Macleod, a cousin of William Macleod Bannatyne (died 1857). The manuscript, therefore, seems to date from 1829 to the year of Bannatyne William Macleod's death in 1857.

References

• MacLeod, RC (1927). The MacLeods of Dunvegan. The Clan MacLeod Society – via Internet Archive.
• Morrison, A (1986). "The Origin of Leod". Associated Clan MacLeod Societies Genealogical Resource Centre. Archived from the original on 3 August 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2010.
• Sutherland, A (2005). The Brahan Seer: The Making of a Legend, c1570–2001 (PhD thesis). University of Aberdeen.
• Sutherland, A (2009). The Brahan Seer: The Making of a Legend. Oxford: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-03911-868-7.
• Macleod, E Vincent (2004). "Bannatyne, Sir William Macleod, Lord Bannatyne (1744–1833)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1311. Retrieved 7 September 2016. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)