 This kind of literary patronage started while Jocelin was abbot of Melrose . Archie Duncan has shown that it was probably Jocelin who first commissioned the writing of the Chronicle of Melrose . Duncan argued that Jocelin commissioned the entries dealing with the period between 731 and 1170 , putting the writing in the hands of a monk named Reinald ( who later became Bishop of Ross ) . This chronicle is one of the few extant chronicles from " Scotland " in this period . G. W. S. Barrow , writing before Duncan advanced these arguments , noted that down to the end of King William 's reign " the chronicle of Melrose Abbey ... represents a strongly ' Anglo @-@ Norman ' as opposed to a native Scottish point of view " . It is thus possible that this anti @-@ Scottish world @-@ view reflected that of Jocelin 's , at least before he left the abbey . 
