[1] Later he left to study at the University of Paris where he met Erasmus, with whom he became close friends while they were both students at the austere Collège de Montaigu, to whose reforming Master, Jan Standonck, Boece later became Secretary.

In 1522 he published the Vitae Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium (Lives of the Bishops of Murthlack and Aberdeen) and in 1527 the Historia Gentis Scotorum (History of the Scottish People) to the accession of James III of Scotland.

[2] The Historia is the work for which Boece is remembered, as the second scholarly history of the Scots to be written; its only real predecessor was the compendium of John Mair.

In the early 1530s the scholar Giovanni Ferrerio, engaged by Robert Reid of Kinloss Abbey, wrote a continuation of Boece's history, extending it another 50 years, to the end of the reign of James III.

John Lesley in his De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum, and Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, provided further continuations.

The works of John Fordun (Chronica Gentis Scotorum) and Walter Bower (Scotichronicon) defined the tradition which he attempted to make seamless, filling the gaps in the chronicle, and applying the approach common to humanists of his period.

The works of Tacitus had been rediscovered, in the 14th century, and contained material relevant to British history; and Boece was concerned to integrate it into the tradition.

[3] Boece shared in the credulity of his age; the approach of Mair, who was writing in parallel at the same time, but with a different focus and with a more critical and less sweeping method, did not represent the current fashion.