BOECE or BOYCE, HECTOR (c. 1465-c. 1536), Scottish historian and humanist, was born at Dundee about 1465. He received his early education at Dundee and studied in the Univer sity of Paris, where he was appointed regent, or professor, of philosophy in the College of Montaigu ; and there he was a con temporary and friend of Erasmus, who in two epistles has spoken of him in the highest terms. He was the chief adviser of William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, in the foundation of the Uni versity of Aberdeen, and its first principal. He was in Aberdeen about 5co when lectures began in the new buildings, and he appears to have been well received by the canons of the cathedral, several of whom he has commemorated as men of learning. It was a part of his duty as principal to read lectures on divinity. He was in receipt (1527-34) of a small pension from the court, was a canon of Aberdeen, vicar of Tullynessle, and then rector of Tyrie.
His first work, Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonen sium per Hectorem Boetium Vitae, was printed at the press of Jodocus Badius (Paris, 1522). The portion of the book in which he speaks of Bishop Elphinstone is of enduring merit; it includes an account of the foundation and constitution of the college, to gether with some notices of its earliest members. But Boece's fame rests on his history of Scotland, published in 1527 under the title Scotorum Historiae a prima gentis origine CUM aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari. This edition contains 17 books. Another edition, containing the i8th book and a frag ment of the i9th, was published by Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of 35 pages (Paris, 1574). Boece's history is no mere chronicle, for he knew and copied Livy. It is a glorification of the Scottish nation, based on legendary sources, and is more inter esting as romance than as history. It was translated into Scots by Bellenden. Holinshed borrowed extensively from it, and the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth is traceable to it, via Holinshed. It had a wide currency abroad through its French translation, by Nicolas d'Arfeville, and undoubtedly coloured French ideas of Scottish history for a long period.
Boece professed to have obtained from the monastery of Icolm kill, through the good offices of the earl of Argyll, and his brother, John Campbell of Lundy, the treasurer, certain original histories of Scotland, and among others that of Veremundus, of whose writ ings not a single vestige is now to be found.
Boece's history of Scotland vvas translated into Scots prose by John Bellenden (ed. Bannatyne Club, Edin., 1821), and into verse by William Stewart. The Lives of the Bishops was reprinted for the Bannatyne Club in 1825, in a limited edition of 6o copies, and edited and translated by J. Moir for the New Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1894). A commonplace verse-rendering of the Life of Bishop Elphin stone, which was written by Alexander Gardyne in 1619, remains in ms.