The year of John Barbour’s birth we do not know, an item which is lacking also for Chaucer: 1320 is a good round guess. Nor have we any knowledge of his family. If, however, the _St. Ninian_ in the _Legends of the Saints_ be of Barbour, a claim for which there is much to be said,[28] it may give us a clue. The adventure of Jak. Trumpoure, there told, connects with the fact that Jaq. (James) Trampour had land in Aberdeen bordering on that of an Andrew Barbour.[29] It may be conjectured that the latter was John Barbour’s father, or other near relative, since the vivid personal details of the affair in the _St. Ninian_ must have come from Trumpour himself, and the fact that he was a neighbour of the Barbours would explain how. The name Barbour (_Barbitonsoris_) is obviously plebeian. Some ancestor followed the business of barber, as some one of Chaucer’s possibly did that of “hose-making.” The established spelling, Barbour, shows a French termination which takes also the form Barbier, whence Mr. Henderson concludes that John Barbour “was of Norman origin.”[30] But the spelling is merely an accident of transcription; the oldest form is Barber(e) (1357, 1365),[31] which the scribe of the Edinburgh MS. also uses, and which Wyntoun rhymes with _here_ and _matere_; in a few cases it is Barbar. As we might expect, the name was common enough in the English-speaking districts of Scotland. [28] See Neilson in _Scottish Antiquary_, vol. xi., p. 102 ff., and Buss, _ex adverso_, in _Anglia_, Band ix., p. 495. [29] Jamieson’s _Memoir_, p. iv. [30] _Scottish Vernacular Literature_, p. 41. [31] For this reason Buss always gives the name as Barbere.