In this book David Howlett presents a documented account of the origins of a brilliant Scottish Latin literature from the end of the 11th century and the 12th. Editions of thirty texts from original manuscripts -- liturgical, diplomatic, poetic, hagiographic, historical, genealogical, and theological -- many translated here for the first time, illustrate both links with earlier English, Irish, and Welsh Latin traditions and links within the emerging class of Scottish Latin writers. One purpose of this literature was to provide in a common acquired language cultural monuments for a 'Regnum Scottorum', a kingdom of the Scots, embracing Gaels, Britons, Picts, Norsemen, Englishmen, and Normans, independent of both Anglo-Norman kings and English archbishops, in a stylish act of self-definition that has few parallels in European history.