The
High Middle Ages of Scotland encompass
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in the era between the death of
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
in 900 AD and the death of king
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
in 1286. Alexander's death was an indirect cause of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, northern
Great BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
was increasingly dominated by
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
culture, and by a Gaelic regal lordship known in
GaelicThe Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
as "
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
", in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as either "Albania" or "
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
", and in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as "Scotland". From a base in eastern Scotland north of the
River ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, the kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the south. It had a flourishing culture, comprising part of the larger Gaelic-speaking world.
After the twelfth-century reign of King David I, the
Scottish monarchsThe Scottish Monarchs were a motorcycle speedway team based in Glasgow, Scotland.At the end of the 1995 season, the Glasgow Tigers closed due a lack of finance and the Edinburgh Monarchs lost their home track, Powderhall Stadium, to redevelopment, leading to the Monarchs racing at Shawfield Stadium...
are better described as
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
than Gaelic, preferring French culture to native Scottish culture. They fostered and attached themselves to a kind of Scottish "Norman Conquest". The consequence was the spread of French institutions and social values. Moreover, the first towns, called burghs, appeared in the same era, and as these burghs spread, so did the Middle English language. To a certain degree these developments were offset by the acquisition of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
west, and the
GaelicizationGaelicization or Gaelicisation is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group who are traditionally viewed as having spread from Ireland to Scotland and the Isle of Man."Gaelic" as a linguistic term, refers to the...
of many of the noble families of
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
Anglo-FrenchThe Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
origin. By the end of this period, Scotland experienced a "Gaelic revival" which created an integrated
Scottish national identityScottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....
. Although there remained a great deal of continuity with the past, by 1286 these economic, institutional, cultural, religious and legal developments had brought Scotland closer to its neighbours in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
the ContinentContinental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
. By 1286 the
Kingdom of ScotlandThe Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
had political boundaries that closely resembled those of modern Scotland.
Historiography
Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic with many publications from Scottish medievalists. Based on their main focus, researchers can generally be grouped into two categories: Celticists and Normanists. The former, such as
David DumvilleProfessor David Norman Dumville is a British medievalist and Celtic scholar. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, and received his PhD. at the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1974, he married Sally Lois Hannay, with whom he had one son...
,
Thomas Owen ClancyProfessor Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in the literature of the Celtic Dark Ages, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow,...
and
Dauvit BrounDauvit Broun is a Scottish historian, Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. A specialist in medieval Scottish and Celtic studies, he concentrates primarily on early medieval Scotland, and has written abundantly on the topic of early Scottish king-lists, as well as on...
, are interested in the native cultures of the country, and often have linguistic training in the
Celtic languagesThe Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
. Normanists are concerned with the French and Anglo-French cultures as they were introduced to Scotland after the eleventh century. The most prominent of such scholars is G.W.S. Barrow, who has devoted his life to studying
feudalismFeudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
in Britain and Scotland in the High Middle Ages. The change-continuity debate that derives from this division is currently one of the most active topics of discussion. For much of the twentieth century, scholars tended to stress the cultural change that took place in Scotland in the Norman era. However, many scholars, for instance
Cynthia NevilleCynthia J Neville, FRHistS, FSAScot is a Canadian historian, medievalist and George Munro professor of history at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Neville's primary research interests are the social, political and cultural history of medieval Scotland, 1000-1500, specifically legal...
and
Richard OramProfessor Richard D. Oram F.S.A. is a Scottish historian. He is a Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling and an Honorary Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen. He is also the director of the Centre for Environmental History and Policy at the...
, while not ignoring cultural changes, are arguing that continuity with the Gaelic past was just as, if not more, important.
Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
During the period of occupation by the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, the province of
BritanniaRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
formally ended at
Hadrian's WallHadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
. Between this wall and the
Antonine WallThe Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...
, the Romans fostered a series of buffer states separating the Roman-occupied territory from the territory of the
PictsThe Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
. The development of "Pictland" itself, according to the historical model developed by Peter Heather, was a natural response to Roman imperialism. Around 400 the buffer states became the
BritishThe Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
kingdoms of "The Old North", and by 900 the Kingdom of the Picts had developed into the
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
Kingdom of AlbaThe name Kingdom of Alba pertains to the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900, and of Alexander III in 1286 which then led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence...
.
In the tenth century, the Scottish elite began to develop a conquest myth to explain their Gaelicization, a myth often known as
MacAlpin's TreasonMacAlpin's treason is a medieval legend which explains the replacement of the Pictish language by Gaelic in the 9th and 10th centuries.The legend tells of the murder of the nobles of Pictavia...
, in which
Cináed mac AilpínCináed mac Ailpín , commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror"...
is supposed to have annihilated the Picts in one fell takeover. The earliest versions include the
Life of St Cathróe of Metz and royal
genealogiesGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
tracing their origin to Fergus Mór mac Eirc. In the reign of
Máel Coluim IIIMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the
Duan AlbanachThe Duan Albanach is a Middle Gaelic poem found with the Lebor Bretnach, a Gaelic version of the Historia Brittonum of Nennius, with extensive additional material ....
formalised the myth in Gaelic poetic tradition. In the 13th and 14th centuries, these mythical traditions were incorporated into the documents now in the
Poppleton ManuscriptThe Poppleton Manuscript is the name given to the fourteenth century codex likely compiled by Robert of Poppleton, a Carmelite friar who was the Prior of Hulne, near Alnwick. The manuscript contains numerous works, such as a map of the world , and works by Orosius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald...
, and in the
Declaration of ArbroathThe Declaration of Arbroath is a declaration of Scottish independence, made in 1320. It is in the form of a letter submitted to Pope John XXII, dated 6 April 1320, intended to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defending Scotland's right to use military action when...
. They were believed in the early modern period, and beyond; even King
James VI/IJames VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race".
However, modern historians are now beginning to reject this conceptualization of Scottish origins. No contemporary sources mention this conquest. Moreover, the Gaelicization of Pictland was a long process predating Cináed, and is evidenced by Gaelic-speaking Pictish rulers, Pictish royal patronage of Gaelic poets, Gaelic inscriptions, and Gaelic placenames. The term
king of Alba, although only registered at the start of the tenth century, is possibly just a Gaelic translation of
Pictland. The change of identity can perhaps be explained by the death of the
Pictish languagePictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...
, but also important may be
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church and the trauma caused by
VikingThe term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
invasions, most strenuously felt in the Pictish Kingdom's heartland of
FortriuFortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
.
The
Kingdom of StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
on the valley of the
river ClydeThe River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
remained semi-independent, as did the Gaels of
ArgyllArgyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...
and the islands to the west (formerly
Dál RiataDál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...
). The south-east had been absorbed by the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Kingdom of Bernicia/NorthumbriaBernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
in the seventh century, and other
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
invaders, the
NorseNorsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
, were beginning to incorporate much of the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
, as well as the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
too was under strong
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
influence, but there was no one kingdom in that area.
Gaelic kings: Domnall II to Alexander I
King
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
was the first man to have been called
rí Alban (i.e.
King of Alba) when he died at
DunnottarDunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about two miles south of Stonehaven. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th–16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been an early fortress of the Dark Ages...
in 900 - this meant king of Britain or Scotland. All his predecessors bore the style of either
King of the Picts or
King of Fortriu. Such an apparent innovation in the Gaelic chronicles is occasionally taken to spell the birth of Scotland, but there is nothing special about his reign that might confirm this. Domnall had the nickname
dásachtach. This simply meant a madman, or, in early Irish law, a man not in control of his functions and hence without legal culpability. The following long reign (900–942/3) of Domnall's successor
CausantínConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
is more often regarded as the key to formation of the High Medieval Kingdom of Alba. Despite some setbacks, it was during his half-century reign that the Scots saw off any danger that the Vikings would expand their territory beyond the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
The period between the accession of
Máel Coluim IMáel Coluim mac Domnaill was king of Scots , becoming king when his cousin Causantín mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk...
and
Máel Coluim IIMáel Coluim mac Cináeda , was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death...
was marked by good relations with the
WessexThe Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
rulers of England, intense internal dynastic disunity and, despite this, relatively successful expansionary policies. In 945, king Máel Coluim I received
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
as part of a deal with King
Edmund of EnglandEdmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...
, an event offset somewhat by Máel Coluim's loss of control in Moray. Sometime in the reign of king
IdulbIldulb mac Causantín, anglicised as Indulf, nicknamed An Ionsaighthigh, "the Aggressor" was king of Scots from 954. He was the son of Constantine II ; his mother may have been a daughter of Earl Eadulf I of Bernicia, who was an exile in Scotland.John of Fordun and others supposed that Indulf had...
(954–962), the Scots captured the fortress called
oppidum Eden, i.e.
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. Scottish control of
LothianLothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
was strengthened with Máel Coluim II's victory over the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham (1018). The Scots had probably had some authority in Strathclyde since the later part of the ninth century, but the kingdom kept its own rulers, and it is not clear that the Scots were always strong enough to enforce their authority.
The reign of King
Donnchad IDonnchad mac Crínáin was king of Scotland from 1034 to 1040...
from 1034 was marred by failed military adventures, and he was defeated and killed by the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
,
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
, who became king in 1040. Mac Bethad ruled for seventeen years, so peacefully that he was able to leave to go on
pilgrimageA pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. However, he was overthrown by
Máel ColuimMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the son of Donnchad who eighteen months later defeated Mac Bethad's successor Lulach to become king Máel Coluim III. In subsequent medieval
propagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Donnchad's reign was portrayed positively, while Mac Bethad was vilified.
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
followed this distorted history in describing both men in his play
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
.
It was Máel Coluim III, not his father Donnchad, who did more to create the
dynastyThe so-called House of Dunkeld, in Scottish Gaelic Dùn Chailleann , is a historiographical and genealogical construct to illustrate the clear succession of Scottish kings from 1034 to 1040 and from 1058 to 1290.It is dynastically sort of a continuation to Cenél nGabráin of Dál Riata, "race of...
that ruled Scotland for the following two centuries, successfully compared to some. Part of the resource was the large number of children he had, perhaps as many as a dozen, through marriage to the widow or daughter of
Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of OrkneyThorfinn Sigurdsson , called Thorfinn the Mighty, was an 11th-century Earl of Orkney. One of five brothers , sons of Earl Sigurd Hlodvirsson by his marriage to the daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland...
and afterwards to the Anglo-Hungarian princess
MargaretSaint Margaret of Scotland , also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England...
, granddaughter of
Edmund IronsideEdmund Ironside or Edmund II was king of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. His cognomen "Ironside" is not recorded until 1057, but may have been contemporary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut...
. However, despite having a royal
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
wife, Máel Coluim spent much of his reign conducting
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
raids against the English, adding to the woes of that people in the aftermath of the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
and the
Harrying of the NorthThe Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate Northern England, and is part of the Norman conquest of England...
.
Marianus ScotusMarianus Scotus , was an Irish monk and chronicler , was an Irishman by birth, and called Máel Brigte, or Devotee of St...
narrates that "the Gaels and French devastated the English; and [the English] were dispersed and died of hunger; and were compelled to eat human flesh".
Máel Coluim's raids and attempts to further the claims for his successors to the
English kingdomThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
prompted interference by the Norman rulers of England in the Scottish kingdom. He had married the sister of the native English claimant to the English throne, Edgar Ætheling, and had given most of his children by this marriage Anglo-Saxon royal names. In 1080, King
William the ConquerorWilliam I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
sent his son on an invasion of Scotland, and Máel Coluim submitted to the authority of the king, giving his oldest son Donnchad as a hostage. King Máel Coluim himself died in one of the raids, in 1093.
Tradition would have made his brother
Domnall BánDomnall mac Donnchada , anglicised as Donald III, and nicknamed Domnall Bán, "Donald the Fair" , was King of Scots from 1093–1094 and 1094–1097...
Máel Coluim's successor, but it seems that Edward, his eldest son by Margaret, was his chosen heir. With Máel Coluim and Edward dead in the same battle, and his other sons in Scotland still young, Domnall was made king. However,
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, Máel Coluim's eldest son by his first wife, obtained some support from
William RufusWilliam II , the third son of William I of England, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales...
and took the throne, but according to the
Anglo-Saxon ChronicleThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...
his English and French followers were massacred, and Donnchad II himself was killed later in the same year (1094) by Domnall's ally
Máel Petair of MearnsMáel Petair of Mearns is the only known Mormaer of the Mearns. His name means "tonsured one of Peter".One source tells us that Máel Petair was the son of a Máel Coluim, but tells us nothing about this. If this weren't bad enough, other sources say that his father was a man called "Loren", and in...
. However, in 1097, William Rufus sent another of Máel Coluim's sons,
EdgarEdgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim , nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" , was king of Alba from 1097 to 1107...
, to take the kingship. The ensuing death of Domnall Bán secured the kingship for Edgar, and there followed a period of relative peace. The reigns of both Edgar and his successor
AlexanderAlexander I , also called Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim and nicknamed "The Fierce", was King of the Scots from 1107 to his death.-Life:...
are obscure in comparison with their successors. The former's most notable act was to send a
camelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
(or perhaps an
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) to his fellow Gael
Muircheartach Ua BriainMuircheartach Ua Briain , son of Toirdelbach Ua Briain and great-grandson of Brian Bóruma, was King of Munster and later self declared High King of Ireland.-Background:...
,
High King of IrelandThe High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
. When Edgar died, Alexander took the kingship, while his youngest brother David became Prince of "Cumbria" and ruler of Lothian.
Scoto-Norman kings: David I to Alexander III
The period between the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
and the death of
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
was marked by dependency upon and relatively good relations with the Kings of England. As long as one remembers the continuities, the period can also be regarded as one of great historical transformation, part of a more general phenomenon which has been called the "Europeanisation of Europe". As a related matter, the period witnessed the successful imposition of royal authority across most of the modern country. After David I, and especially in the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, Scotland's Kings became ambivalent about the culture of most of their subjects. As
Walter of CoventryWalter of Coventry , English monk and chronicler, who was apparently connected with a religious house in the province of York, is known to us only through the historical compilation which bears his name, the Memoriale fratris Walteri de Coventria....
tells us, "The modern kings of Scotland count themselves as Frenchmen, in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Gaels to utter servitude."
The ambivalence of the kings was matched to a certain extent by the Scots themselves. In the aftermath of William's capture at
AlnwickAlnwick is a small market town in north Northumberland, England. The town's population was just over 8000 at the time of the 2001 census and Alnwick's district population was 31,029....
in 1174, the Scots turned on the small number of
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speakers and French-speakers among them.
William of NewburghWilliam of Newburgh or Newbury , also known as William Parvus, was a 12th-century English historian and Augustinian canon from Bridlington, Yorkshire.-Biography:...
related that the Scots first attacked the Scoto-English in their own army, and Newburgh reported a repetition of these events in Scotland itself.
Walter BowerWalter Bower , Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian.He was abbot of Inchcolm Abbey from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James I, King of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the embassy to Paris on the business of the...
, writing a few centuries later albeit, wrote about the same events, and confirms that "there took place a most wretched and widespread persecution of the English both in Scotland and Galloway".
The first instance of strong opposition to the Scottish kings was perhaps the revolt of
ÓengusÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
, the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
. Other important resistors to the expansionary Scottish kings were
Somairle mac Gillai BrigteSomerled was a military and political leader of the Scottish Isles in the 12th century who was known in Gaelic as rí Innse Gall . His father was Gillebride...
,
Fergus of GallowayFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
,
Gille Brigte, Lord of GallowayGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and
Harald MaddadssonHarald Maddadsson was Earl of Orkney and Mormaer of Caithness from 1139 until 1206. He was the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and Margaret, daughter of Earl Haakon Paulsson of Orkney...
, along with two kin-groups known today as the
MacHethsThe MacHeths were a Gaelic kindred who raised several rebellions against the Scotto-Norman kings of Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries. Their origins have long been debated.-Origins:...
and the
MacWilliamsMacWilliams and MacWilliam is a surname, originating from Meic Uilleim. Some notable MacWilliams are:*Dave MacWilliams, soccer player*Jessie MacWilliams, mathematician*Keenan MacWilliam, actress*Lyle MacWilliam, Canadian congressman...
. The latter claimed descent from king
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, through his son
William fitz DuncanWilliam fitz Duncan was a Scottish prince, a territorial magnate in northern Scotland and northern England, a general and the legitimate son of king Donnchad II of Scotland by Athelreda of Dunbar.In 1094, his father Donnchad II was killed by Mormaer Máel Petair of...
. The MacWilliams appear to have rebelled for no less a reason than the Scottish throne itself. The threat was so grave that, after the defeat of the MacWilliams in 1230, the Scottish crown ordered the public execution of the infant girl who happened to be the last of the MacWilliam line. This was how the
Lanercost Chronicle related the fate of this last MacWilliam:
Many of these resistors collaborated, and drew support not just in the peripheral Gaelic regions of Galloway, Moray, Ross and Argyll, but also from eastern "Scotland-proper", and elsewhere in the Gaelic world. However, by the end of the twelfth century, the Scottish kings had acquired the authority and ability to draw in native Gaelic lords outside their previous zone of control in order to do their work, the most famous examples being
Lochlann, Lord of GallowayLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
and
Ferchar mac in tSagairtFearchar of Ross or Ferchar mac in tSagairt , was the first Mormaer or Earl of Ross we know of from the thirteenth century, whose career brought Ross into the fold of the Scottish kings for the first time, and who is remembered as the founder of the Earldom of Ross.-Origins:The traditional...
. Cumulatively, by the reign of Alexander III, the Scots were in a strong position to annex the remainder of the western seaboard, which they did in 1265, with the
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
. The conquest of the west, the creation of the Mormaerdom of Carrick in 1186 and the absorption of the
Lordship of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
after the Galwegian revolt of
Gille RuadhGille Ruadh was the Galwegian leader who led the revolt against King Alexander II of Scotland. Also called Gilla Ruadh, Gilleroth, Gilrod, Gilroy, etc....
in 1235 meant that the number and proportion of Gaelic speakers under the rule of the Scottish king actually increased, and perhaps even doubled, in the so-called Norman period. It was the Gaels and Gaelicised warriors of the new west, and the power they offered, that enabled King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
(himself a Gaelicised
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
of
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
) to emerge victorious during the Wars of Independence, which followed soon after the death of Alexander III.
Other kingdoms
The Kingdom of Alba was not the only source of
regalA royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
authority in northern Britain. Until the Norman era, and perhaps even until the reign of Alexander II, the Scottish king controlled only a minority of the people who lived inside the boundary of modern Scotland, in the same way as the French monarchs of the Middle Ages only had control of patches of what is now modern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The
ruler of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
was called not only
king in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but before
Máel SnechtaiMáel Snechtai of Moray was the ruler of Moray, and, as his name suggests, the son of Lulach, King of Scotland.He is called on his death notice in the Annals of Ulster, "Máel Snechtai m...
,
king of Alba/Scotland. After Máel Snechtai, Irish sources call them merely kings of
MorayMoray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.- History :...
. The rulers of Moray took over the entire Scottish kingdom under the famous
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
(1040–1057) and his successor
Lulach mac Gillai ChoemgáinLulach mac Gille Coemgáin was King of Scots between 15 August 1057 and 17 March 1058.He appears to have been a weak king, as his nicknames suggest...
(1057–1058). However, Moray was subjugated by the Scottish kings after 1130, when the last native ruler,
Óengus of MorayÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
was defeated in an attempt to seize the Scottish throne.
Galloway, likewise, was a Lordship with some regality. In a
GalwegianGalwegian Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the independent kings of Galloway in their time, and by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. It was once spoken in Annandale and Strathnith...
charter dated to the reign of
FergusFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
, the Galwegian ruler styled himself
rex Galwitensium, King of Galloway; Irish chroniclers continued to call Fergus' successors
King. Although the Scots obtained greater control after the death of
Gilla BrigteGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and the installation of
Lochlann/RolandLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
in 1185, Galloway was not fully absorbed by Scotland until 1235, after the rebellion of the Galwegians was crushed.
Galloway and Moray were not the only other territories whose rulers had regal status. Both the rulers of
MannThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
& the
IslesThe Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
, and the rulers of Argyll had the status of kings, even if some southern Latin writers called them merely
reguli (i.e. "kinglets"). The Mormaers of Lennox referred to their predecessors as Kings of
BallochBalloch is a small town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, at the foot of Loch Lomond. The name comes from the Gaelic for "the pass".Balloch is at the north end of the Vale of Leven, straddling the River Leven itself. It connects to the larger town of Alexandria and to the smaller village of...
, many of the Mormaerdoms had already been kingdoms at an earlier stage. Another kingdom,
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
(or
Cumbria), had been incorporated into Scotland in a slow process that started in the 9th century and was not fully realised until perhaps the 12th.
Geography
Neither the political nor the theoretical boundaries of Scotland in this period, as both
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
and
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
, corresponded exactly to modern Scotland. The closest approximation came at the end of the period, when the
Treaty of YorkThe Treaty of York was an agreement between Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland, signed at York on 25 September 1237. It detailed the future status of several feudal properties and addressed other issues between the two kings, and indirectly marked the end of Scotland's attempts to...
(1237) and
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
(1266) fixed the boundaries between the Kingdom of the Scots with England and
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
respectively; although in neither case did this border exactly match the modern one,
BerwickBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
and the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
being eventually lost to England, and Orkney and Shetland later being gained from Norway.
Until the thirteenth century, Scotland referred to the land to the north of the
river ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, and for this reason historians sometimes use the term "Scotland-proper". By the middle of the thirteenth century, Scotland could include all the lands ruled by the King of Scots, but the older concept of Scotland remained throughout the period.
For legal and administrative purposes, the Kingdom of the Scots was divided into three, four or five zones: Scotland-proper (north and south of the Grampians), Lothian, Galloway and, earlier, Strathclyde. Like Scotland, neither Lothian nor Galloway had its modern meaning. Lothian could refer to the entire
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speaking south-east, and latterly, included much of Strathclyde. Galloway could refer to the entire Gaelic-speaking south-west. Lothian was divided from Scotland-proper by the river Forth. To quote the early thirteenth century tract,
de Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
,
Here Scottish refers to the language now called the
Middle Irish languageMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
, British to the
Welsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
and Romance to the Old French language, which had borrowed the term
Scottewatre from the Middle English language.
In this period, little of Scotland was governed by the crown. Instead, most Scots lay under the intermediate control of
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
and increasingly after the twelfth century, French-speaking Mormaers/Earls and Lords.
Economy
The Scottish economy of this period was dominated by agriculture and by short-distance, local trade. There was an increasing amount of foreign trade in the period, as well as exchange gained by means of military plunder. By the end of this period, coins were replacing
barter goodsBarter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
, but for most of this period most exchange was done without the use of metal currency.
Most of Scotland's agricultural wealth in this period came from
pastoralismPastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...
, rather than
arable farmingIn geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
. Arable farming grew significantly in the "Norman period", but with geographical differences, low-lying areas being subject to more arable farming than high-lying areas such as the
HighlandsThe Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
,
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
and the
Southern UplandsThe Southern Uplands are the southernmost and least populous of mainland Scotland's three major geographic areas . The term is used both to describe the geographical region and to collectively denote the various ranges of hills within this region...
. Galloway, in the words of G.W.S. Barrow, "already famous for its cattle, was so overwhelmingly pastoral, that there is little evidence in that region of land under any permanent cultivation, save along the Solway coast." The average amount of land used by a husbandman in Scotland might have been around 26 acres. There is a lot of evidence that the native Scots favoured pastoralism, in that Gaelic lords were happier to give away more land to French and Middle English-speaking settlers, whilst holding on tenaciously to more high-lying regions, perhaps contributing to the Highland/Galloway-Lowland division that emerged in Scotland in the later Middle Ages. The main unit of land measurement in Scotland was the
davoch (i.e. "vat"), called the
arachor in
LennoxThe district of Lennox , often known as "the Lennox", is a region of Scotland centred around the village of Lennoxtown in East Dunbartonshire, eight miles north of the centre of Glasgow. At various times in history, the district has had both a dukedom and earldom associated with it.- External...
. This unit is also known as the "Scottish ploughgate." In English-speaking Lothian, it was simply
ploughgateA ploughgate was a Scottish land measurement, used in the south and the east of the country. It was supposed to be the area that eight oxen were said to be able to plough in one year. Because of the variable land quality in Scotland, this could be a number of different actual land areas...
. It may have measured about 104 acre (0.42087344 km²), divided into 4
raths. Cattle, pigs and cheeses were among the most produced foodstuffs, but of course a vast range of foodstuffs were produced, from sheep and fish, rye and barley, to bee wax and honey.
Pre-Davidian Scotland had no known chartered burghs, though most, if not all, of the burghs granted charters by the crown already existed long before the reign of David I but he gave them legal status - a new form of recognition. Scotland, outside Lothian, Lanarkshire, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, Angus, Aberdeenshire and Fife at least, largely was populated by scattered hamlets, and outside that area, lacked the continental style nucleated village. David I established the first chartered burghs in Scotland. David I copied the burgher charters and
Leges Burgorum (rules governing virtually every aspect of life and work in a burgh) almost verbatim from the English customs of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Early burgesses were usually Flemish,
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
,
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
GermanThe Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, rather than Gaelic Scots. The burgh’s vocabulary was composed totally of either Germanic and French terms. The councils which ran individual burghs were individually known as
lie doussane, meaning the dozen.
Demographics
The population of Scotland in this period is unknown, the first reliable information in 1755 shows the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380. Best estimates put the Scottish population for earlier periods in the High Middle Ages between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people, growing from a low point to a high point. Its density was much more evenly spread than today. Between 60 and 80% of people lived north of the Forth river, with the remainder being divided between Galloway, Strathclyde and Lothian. Bishopric and Justiciar distribution suggests a relatively even divide between these three zones.
Linguistically, the vast majority of people within Scotland throughout this period spoke the
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
language, then simply called
Scottish, or in Latin,
lingua Scotica. Other languages spoken throughout this period were Norse and English, with the
Cumbric languageCumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...
disappearing somewhere between 900 and 1100. Pictish may have survived into this period, but there is little evidence for this. After the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
, or perhaps before, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court. From his reign until the end of the period, the Scottish monarchs probably favoured the French language, as evidenced by reports from contemporary chronicles, literature and translations of administrative documents into the French language.
GaelicScottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
displaced Norse in much of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
region, but itself lost ground to
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in much of the region between
Scotland-properScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
and
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
. English, with French and Flemish, became the main language of Scottish towns (burghs), which were created for the first time under David I. However, burghs were, in Barrow's words, “scarcely more than villages … numbered in hundreds rather than thousands”, and Norman knights were a similarly tiny in number when compared with the Gaelic population of Scotland outside of Lothian.
Society
Medieval Scottish society was stratified. The hierarchical structure of
statusIn sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
in early Gaelic society is well-documented, owing primarily to the large body of extant legal texts and tracts from this period. The legal tract known as
Laws of Brets and Scots, lists five grades of man:
King,
mormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
/
earlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
,
toísech/thane,
ócthigern and
serf. In pre-twelfth century Scotland
slave was a social status as well. The standard differentiation in medieval European society between the
bellatores ("those who fight", i.e. aristocrats), the
oratores ("those who pray", i.e. clergy) and the
laboratores ("those who work", i.e. peasants) was useless for understanding Scottish society in the earlier period, but becomes more useful in the post-Davidian period.
Most of the territory subject to the King of Scots
north of the ForthScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
was directly under a lord who in
medieval ScottishMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
was called a
MormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
. The term was translated into Latin as
comes, and is misleadingly translated into modern English as
EarlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
. These secular lords exercised secular power and religious patronage like kings in miniature. They kept their own warbands and followers, issued charters and supervised law and internal order within their provinces. When actually under the power of the Scottish king, they were responsible for rendering to the king
cain, a tribute paid several times a year, usually in cattle and other barter goods. They also had to provide for the king
conveth, a kind of hospitality payment, paid by putting-up the lord on a visit with food and accommodation, or with barter payments in lieu of this. In the Norman era, they provided the
servitum Scoticanum ("Gaelic service", "Scottish service" or simply
forinsec) and led the
exercitus Scoticanus , the Gaelic part of the king's army that made up the vast majority almost any national hosting (
slógad) in the period.
A
toísech ("chieftain") was like a mormaer, providing for his lord the same services that a mormaer provided for the king. The Latin word usually used is
thanus, which is why the office-bearers are often called "thanes" in English. The formalization of this institution was largely confined to eastern Scotland north of the Forth, and only two of the seventy-one known thanages existed south of that river. Behind the offices of
toísech and mormaer were
kinship groupsA clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
. Sometimes these offices were formalised, but mostly they are informal. The head of the kinship group was called
capitalis in Latin and
cenn in
medieval GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
. In the Mormaerdom of Fife, the primary kinship group was known then as
Clann MacDuib ("Children of
MacDuffClan MacDuff is a Scottish armigerous clan, which is registered with Lyon Court, though currently without a chief. Moncreiffe wrote that the Clan MacDuff was the premier clan among the Scottish Gaels. The early chiefs of Clan MacDuff were the Earls of Fife...
"). Others include the
Cennedig (from
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
),
Morggain (from
BuchanBuchan is one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by the council in 1996, when the Aberdeenshire unitary council area was created under the Local Government etc Act 1994...
), and the MacDowalls (from
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
). There were probably hundreds in total, mostly unrecorded.
The highest non-noble rank was, according to the
Laws of Brets and Scots, called the
ócthigern (literally,
little or
young lord), a term the text does not bother to translate into French. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent was perhaps the
sokeman. Other known ranks include the
scoloc, perhaps equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon
gerseman. In the earlier period, the Scots kept slaves, and many of these were foreigners (English or Scandinavian) captured during warfare. Large-scale Scottish slave-raids are particularly well documented in the eleventh century.
Law and government
Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century, reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. Scottish
common lawCommon law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent. In the twelfth century, and certainly in the thirteenth, strong continental legal influences began to have more effect, such as
Canon lawThe canon law of the Catholic Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. It lacks the necessary binding force present in most modern day legal systems. The academic...
and various Anglo-Norman practices. Pre-fourteenth century
lawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
amongst the native Scots is not always well attested. However, our extensive knowledge of
early Gaelic LawEarly Irish law refers to the statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwent a resurgence in the 13th century, and survived into Early Modern Ireland in parallel with English law over the...
gives some basis for reconstructing pre-fourteenth century Scottish law. In the earliest extant Scottish legal manuscript, there is a document called
Leges inter Brettos et Scottos. The document survives in Old French, and is almost certainly a French translation of an earlier Gaelic document. The document retained untranslated a vast number of Gaelic legal terms. Later medieval legal documents, written both in Latin and Middle English, contain more Gaelic legal terms, examples including
slains (Old Irish
slán or
sláinte; exemption) and
cumherba (Old Irish
comarba; ecclesiastic heir).
A
Judex (pl.
judices) represents a post-Norman continuity with the ancient Gaelic orders of lawmen called in English today
Brehons. Bearers of the office almost always have Gaelic names north of the Forth or in the
south-westGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
.
Judices were often royal officials who supervised baronial, abbatial and other lower-ranking "courts". However, the main official of law in the post-Davidian Kingdom of the Scots was the
JusticiarIn medieval England and Ireland the Chief Justiciar was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius In...
. The institution has Anglo-Norman origins, but in Scotland north of the Forth it probably represented some form of continuity with an older office. For instance, Mormaer Causantín of Fife is styled
judex magnus (i.e. great Brehon), and it seems that the Justiciarship of Scotia was just a further Latinisation/Normanisation of that position. The formalised office of the Justiciar held responsibility for supervising the activity and behaviour of royal sheriffs and sergeants, held courts and reported on these things to the king personally. Normally, there were two Justiciarships, organised by linguistic boundaries: the Justiciar of Scotia and the Justiciar of Lothian. Sometimes Galloway had its own Justiciar too.
The office of Justiciar and Judex were just two ways that Scottish society was governed. In the earlier period, the king "delegated" power to hereditary native "officers" such as the Mormaers/Earls and Toísechs/Thanes. It was a
governmentGovernment refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
of gift-giving and bardic lawmen. There were also popular courts, the
comhdhail, testament to which are dozens of placenames throughout eastern Scotland. In the Norman period, sheriffdoms and sheriffs and, to a lesser extent, bishops (see below) became increasingly important. The former enabled the King to effectively administer royal demesne land. During David I's reign, royal sheriffs had been established in the king's core personal territories; namely, in rough chronological order, at
RoxburghRoxburgh , also known as Rosbroch, is a village, civil parish and now-destroyed royal burgh. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland...
,
SconeScone is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. The medieval village of Scone, which grew up around the monastery and royal residence, was abandoned in the early 19th century when the residents were removed and a new palace was built on the site by the Earl of Mansfield...
,
Berwick-upon-TweedBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
,
StirlingStirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
and
PerthPerth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...
. By the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, there may have been about 30 royal sheriffdoms, including ones at
AyrAyr is a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. With a population of around 46,000, Ayr is the largest settlement in Ayrshire, of which it is the county town, and has held royal burgh status since 1205...
and
DumfriesDumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
, key locations on the borders of
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
-
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
. As the distribution and number of sheriffdoms expanded, so did royal control. By the end of the thirteenth century, sheriffdoms had been established in westerly locations as far-flung as
WigtownWigtown is a town and former royal burgh in the Machars of Galloway in the south west of Scotland. It lies south of Newton Stewart and east of Stranraer. It has a population of about 1,000...
,
KintyreKintyre is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The region stretches approximately 30 miles , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south, to East Loch Tarbert in the north...
, Skye and
LorneLorne is an ancient district in the west of Scotland, now part of the Argyll and Bute council area. It is within the region once named Lorna which may have taken its name from Loarn mac Eirc. However the last cartographical reference to Lorna is in 1607 with that same area being referred to as...
. Through these, the thirteenth century Scottish king exercised more control over Scotland than any of his later medieval successors. The king himself was itinerant and had no "capital"; but if there was such a thing, it was Scone. By ritual tradition, all Scottish kings in this period had to be crowned there, and crowned there by the Mormaers of Strathearn and, especially, Fife. Although King David I tried to build up Roxburgh as a capital, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more charters were issued at Scone than any other location. Other popular locations were nearby Perth, Stirling,
DunfermlineDunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...
and
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(especially popular during the reign of
Alexander IIAlexander II was King of Scots from1214 to his death.-Early life:...
), as well as all other royal burghs. In the earliest part of this era,
ForresForres , is a town and former royal burgh situated in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately 30 miles east of Inverness. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions...
and
DunkeldDunkeld is a small town in Strathtay, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is about 15 miles north of Perth on the eastern side of the A9 road into the Scottish Highlands and on the opposite side of the Tay from the Victorian village of Birnam. Dunkeld and Birnam share a railway station, on the...
seem to have been the chief royal residences.
Military
After the "Norman Conquest" of David I, the warriors of Scotland can be classed as of two types. Firstly, the native
exercitus Scoticanus (i.e. "Gaelic army"); and, secondly, the
exercitus militaris (i.e. "feudal army"). The Gaelic army formed the larger part of all pre-Stewart Scottish armies, but in the wider world of European (i.e. French) chivalry the feudal section was the more prestigious. The native Scots, like all early medieval Europeans, practiced organised
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
-raiding. Presumably, they did so with each other. However, our main record of it comes from when they practised it against their Norman and post-Conquest Anglo-Saxon neighbour. John Gillingham argues that this was one of the things which made the Scots (and other Celts) particularly barbarous in the eyes of their "Frankish" neighbours, because the French had largely abandoned this form of warfare.
As with so many changes in this period, the introduction of the feudal army can be traced primarily to the reign of David I, although French and English knights were used in moderation by his older brothers. The tension which these knights produced is well recorded in contemporary sources. At the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
, the Gaels oppose the positioning of the French soldiers in the van of the king's army.
Ailred of RievaulxAelred , also Aelred, Ælred, Æthelred, etc., was an English writer, abbot of Rievaulx , and saint.-Life:...
attributes this opposition to the Galwegians, but it was widespread among the Scottish Gaels in general, as the native spokesman is given as Máel Ísu, then the Mormaer of Strathearn and highest ranking noble in the army.
The advantage French military culture possessed was manifold. French knights used expensive suits of armour, whereas the Scots were "naked" (of armour, rather than dress). They possessed heavy cavalry, and other weapons such as crossbows and siege engines, as well as fortification techniques far more effective and advanced than anything possessed by the native Scots. Moreover, their culture, particularly their feudal ideology, made them reliable vassals, who because they were foreign, were even more dependent on the king. Over time, the Scots themselves became more like the French warriors, and the French warriors adopted many of the Gaelic military practices, so that by the end of the period, a syncretic military culture existed in the kingdom.
Christianity and the Church
By the tenth century all of northern Britain, except the Scandinavian far north and west was Christianized. The most important factors for the conversion of Scotland were the Roman province of
BritanniaBritannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
to the south, and later the so-called Gaelic or Columban church, an interlinked system of monasteries and aristocratic networks which combined to spread both Christianity and the
Gaelic languageOld Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
amongst the Picts.
Saints
Like every other Christian country, one of the main features of Scottish Christianity is the
Cult of SaintsA saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
. Saints were the middle men between the ordinary worshipper and
GodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. In Scotland north of the
ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, local saints were either Pictish or Gaelic. The national saint of the Scottish Gaels was
Colum Cille or
ColumbaSaint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...
(in Latin, lit.
dove), in Strathclyde it was St Kentigern (in Gaelic, lit.
Chief of the Lord), in Lothian, St Cuthbert. Later, owing to learned confusion between the Latin words
Scotia and
ScythiaIn antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
, the Scottish kings adopted St Andrew, a saint who had more appeal to incoming Normans and was attached to the ambitious bishopric that is now known by the saint's name, St Andrews. However, Columba's status was still supreme in the early fourteenth century, when King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
carried the
brecbennoch (or Monymusk reliquary) into battle at
BannockburnThe Battle of Bannockburn was a significant Scottish victory in the Wars of Scottish Independence...
. Around the same period, a cleric on
InchcolmInchcolm is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, it was fortified during both World Wars to defend nearby Edinburgh...
wrote the following Latin poem:
| Latin |
English |
Os mutorum,
lux cecorum,
pes clausorum,
porrige
lapsis manum,
Firma vanum
et insanum
corrige
O Columba spes Scottorum
nos tuorum meritorum
interventu beatorum
fac consortes angelorum
Alleluia |
Mouth of the dumb [people],
light of the blind [people]
foot of the lame [people]
to the fallen [people]
Stretch out thy hand
strengthen the vain [people]
and the insane [people]
Invigorate!
O Columba Hope of the Scots/Gaels
by thy standing
by mediation
make us the companions of the beautiful Angels
Halleluia. |
The poem illustrates both the role of saints, in this case as the representative of the Scottish (or perhaps just Gaelic) people in heaven, and the importance of Columba to the Scottish people.
Monasticism
The typical features of native Scottish Christianity are relaxed ideas of
clerical celibacyClerical celibacy is the discipline by which some or all members of the clergy in certain religions are required to be unmarried. Since these religions consider deliberate sexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of marriage to be sinful, clerical celibacy also requires abstension from these...
, intense secularization of ecclesiastical institutions, and the lack of a
dioscesan structureA diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
. Instead of bishops and archbishops, the most important offices of the native Scottish church were abbots (or
coarbs). Scotland was untouched by continental forms of
monasticismMonasticism is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work...
until the late eleventh century. Instead, monasticism was dominated by monks called
Céli Dé (lit. "vassals of God"), anglicised as culdees. In most cases, these monks were not replaced by new continental monks in the Norman period, but usually survived, even gaining the patronage of Queen Margaret, a figure traditionally seen as hostile to Gaelic culture. At St Andrews, the
Céli Dé establishment endured throughout the period, and even enjoyed rights over the election of its bishop; Gaelic monasticism was vibrant and expansionary for much of the period. For instance, dozens of monasteries, often called Schottenklöster, were founded by Gaelic monks on the continent, and many Scottish monks, such as St Cathróe of Metz, became local saints.
The continental type of monasticism was first introduced to Scotland when King Máel Coluim III persuaded
LanfrancLanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by birth.-Early life:Lanfranc was born in the early years of the 11th century at Pavia, where later tradition held that his father, Hanbald, held a rank broadly equivalent to magistrate...
to provide a few monks from
CanterburyCanterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
for a new
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
abbey at DunfermlineDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
(c. 1070). However, traditional Benedictine monasticism had little future in Scotland. Instead, the monastic establishments which followed were almost universally either
AugustiniansThe term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
or of the Reformed Benedictine type, especially
Cistercians, Tironensians, Premonstratensians and even Valliscaulians.
Ecclesia Scoticana
The
Ecclesia Scoticana (lit.
Scottish church) as a system has no known starting point, although
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church might be taken as one. Before the Norman period, Scotland had little dioscesan structure, being primarily monastic after the fashion of Ireland. After the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
, the Archbishops of both Canterbury and York each claimed superiority over the Scottish church. The church in Scotland attained independent status after the
Papal BullA Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
of Celestine III (
Cum universi, 1192) by which all Scottish bishoprics except Galloway were formally independent of York and Canterbury. However, unlike Ireland which had been granted four Archbishoprics in the same century, Scotland received no Archbishop and the whole
Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics (except Whithorn/Galloway), became the "special daughter of Rome". The following is a table of Bishoprics present in "Scotland-proper" in the thirteenth century:
Outside of Scotland-proper, the bishopric of Glasgow managed to secure its existence in the twelfth century with a vibrant church community who gained the favour of the Scottish kings. The
Bishopric of Whithorn (Galloway)The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, was the eccesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known...
was resurrected by Fergus,
King of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
, and
ThurstanThurstan or Turstin of Bayeux was a medieval Archbishop of York, the son of a priest. He served kings William II and Henry I of England before his election to the see of York in 1114. Once elected, his consecration was delayed for five years while he fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury...
,
Archbishop of YorkThe Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
. The
bishopric of the islesThe Bishop of the Isles or Bishop of Sodor was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Sodor, one of Scotland's thirteen medieval bishoprics. The bishopric, encompasing both the Hebrides and Mann, probably traces its origins as an ecclesiastical unity to the careers of Olaf, King of the Isles,...
, under the nominal jurisdiction of
TrondheimTrondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
(and sometimes York), had its Episcopal seat at
Peel, Isle of Man, later moving to
IonaIona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
. Lothian had no bishop, but was controlled by St Andrews, Dunkeld and Glasgow. Its natural overlord was the Bishopric of Durham, and that bishopric continued to be important in Lothian, especially through the cult of St Cuthbert. There was also a
bishopric of OrkneyThe Bishop of Orkney was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Orkney, one of thirteen medieval bishoprics within the territory of modern Scotland. It included both Orkney and Shetland. It was based for almost all of its history at St...
, based at Kirkwall.
Culture
As a predominantly Gaelic society, most Scottish cultural practices throughout this period mirrored closely those of
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, or at least those of Ireland with some Pictish borrowings. After David I, the French-speaking kings introduced cultural practices popular in Anglo-Norman England, France and elsewhere. As in all pre-modern societies, storytelling was popular. In the words of D.D.R. Owen, a scholar who specialises in the literature of the era, writes that "Professional storytellers would ply their trade from court to court. Some of them would have been native Scots, no doubt offering legends from the ancient Celtic past performed ... in Gaelic when appropriate, but in French for most of the new nobility" Almost all of these stories are lost, or come down only vaguely in Gaelic or
ScotsScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
oral tradition. One form of oral culture extremely well accounted for in this period is
genealogyGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
. There are dozens of Scottish genealogies surviving from this era, covering everyone from the Mormaers of Lennox and
MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
, to the Scottish king himself. Scotland's kings maintained an
ollamh righe, a royal high poet who had a permanent place in all medieval Gaelic lordships, and whose purpose was to recite genealogies when needed, for occasions such as coronations.
Before the reign of David I, the Scots possessed a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin that were frequently transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere. Dauvit Broun has shown that a Gaelic literary elite survived in the eastern Scottish lowlands, in places such as
Loch LevenLoch Leven is a fresh water loch in Perth and Kinross council area, central Scotland.Roughly triangular, the loch is about 6 km at its longest. The burgh of Kinross lies at its western end. Loch Leven Castle lies on an island a short way offshore...
and
BrechinBrechin is a former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Traditionally Brechin is often described as a city because of its cathedral and its status as the seat of a pre-Reformation Roman Catholic diocese , but that status has not been officially recognised in the modern era...
into the thirteenth century, However, surviving records are predominantly written in Latin, and their authors would usually translate vernacular terms into Latin, so that historians are faced with a Gaelic society clothed in Latin terminology. Even names were translated into more common continental forms; for instance,
Gilla Brigte became
Gilbert,
Áed became
Hugh, etc. As far as written literature is concerned, there may be more medieval Scottish Gaelic literature than is often thought. Almost all medieval Gaelic literature has survived because it was allowed to sustain in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, not in Scotland. Thomas Owen Clancy has recently all but proven that the
Lebor Bretnach, the so-called "Irish Nennius," was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy. Yet this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work which has survived include that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem —
Heading for Damietta — on his experiences of the
Fifth CrusadeThe Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
. In the thirteenth century, French flourished as a
literary languageA literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, and produced the
Roman de FergusThe Roman de Fergus is an Arthurian romance written in Old French probably at the very beginning of the 13th century, by a very well educated author who named himself Guillaume li Clers...
, the earliest piece of non-Celtic
vernacularA vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
literature to survive from Scotland. There is no extant literature in the English language in this era. There is some Norse literature from Scandinavian parts, such as the
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the Western Isles. The famous
Orkneyinga SagaThe Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...
however, although it pertains to the
Earldom of OrkneyThe Earldom of Orkney was a Norwegian dignity in Scotland which had its origins in the Viking period. The title of Earl of Orkney was passed down the same family line through to the Middle Ages....
, was written in
IcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
In the Middle Ages, Scotland, was renowned for its musical skill. Gerald of Wales, a medieval clergyman and chronicler, explains the relation between Scottish and Irish music:
Playing the
harpThe harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
(
clarsach) was especially popular with medieval Scots - half a century after Gerald's writing, King Alexander III kept a royal harpist at his court. Of the three medieval harps that survive, two come from Scotland (Perthshire), and one from Ireland. Singers also had a royal function. For instance, when the king of Scotland passed through the territory of Strathearn, it was the custom that he be greeted by seven female singers, who would sing to him. When Edward I approached the borders of Strathearn in the summer of 1296, he was met by these seven women, "who accompanied the King on the road between
GaskGask, gasque, a kind of Swedish student party which starts with a more or less formal dinner. The word is believed to originate from the card game vira, popular in the 19th century....
and
OgilvieOgilvie is a surname with origins in the Barony of Ogilvy in Angus, Scotland. See Clan OgilvyOgilvie may refer to:-People:*Albert Ogilvie , Premier of Tasmania in the 1930s*Alec Ogilvie , pioneer British aviator...
, singing to him, as was the custom in the time of the late Alexander kings of Scots".
Outsiders' view
The Irish thought of Scotland as a provincial place. Others thought of it as an outlandish or barbaric place. To the Holy Roman Emperor
Friedrich IIFrederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
, Scotland was associated with having many lochs; to the Arabs, it was an uninhabited peninsula to the north of England.
"Who would deny that the Scots are barbarians?" was a rhetorical question posed by the author of the
De expugnatione Lyxbonensi (i.e. "
On the Conquest of Lisbon"). A century later St Louis of France was reported to have said to his son “I would prefer that a Scot should come from Scotland and govern the people well and faithfully, than that you, my son, should be seen to govern badly”. To their English-speaking and French-speaking neighbours, the Scots, especially the Galwegians, became the barbarians
par excellence. After David I this ceased to be applied to their rulers, but the term
barbarus was used to describe the Scots, as well as a large number of other European peoples, throughout the High Middle Ages. This characterisation of the Scots was often politically motivated, and many of the most hostile writers were based in areas frequently subjected to Scottish raids. English and French accounts of the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
contain many accounts of Scottish atrocities. For instance,
Henry of HuntingdonHenry of Huntingdon , the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th century English historian, the author of a history of England, Historia anglorum, "the most important Anglo-Norman historian to emerge from the secular clergy". He served as archdeacon of Huntingdon...
notes that the Scots:
A less hostile view was given by
Guibert of NogentGuibert of Nogent was a Benedictine historian, theologian and author of autobiographical memoirs. Guibert was relatively unknown in his own time, going virtually unmentioned by his contemporaries...
in the
First CrusadeThe First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, who encountered Scots and who wrote that:
In many ways, these accounts were based in the contemporary Frankish cultural milieu, where Scots were seen as outsiders. Moreover, the fact that outlandishness did not apply to the new feudal elite meant that by the end of the period, the Scottish aristocrat was seen as little different from his English or French equivalent.
There was a general belief that Scotland-proper was an island, or at least a
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
, known as
Scotia or
Alba(
nia).
Matthew ParisMatthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
, a
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk and cartographer, drew a map in this manner in the mid-thirteenth century and called the "island"
Scotia ultra marina. A later medieval Italian map applies this geographical conceptualization to all of Scotland. The Arab geographer
al-IdrisiAbu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani al-Sabti or simply Al Idrisi was a Moroccan Muslim geographer, cartographer, Egyptologist and traveller who lived in Sicily, at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravid Empire and died in...
, shared this view:
Such an observation encapsulates how Scotland, on the edge of the world as it was, was being imagined in the High Medieval western Eurasian world.
National identity
In this period, the word
Scot was not the word used by vast majority of Scots to describe themselves, except to foreigners, amongst whom it was the most common word. The Scots called themselves
Albanach or simply
Gaidel. As with
Scot, in the latter word, they used an ethnic term which connected them to the majority of the inhabitants of Ireland. As the author of
De Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
notes at the beginning of the thirteenth century:
Likewise, the inhabitants of English and Norse-speaking parts were ethnically linked with other regions of Europe. At
MelroseMelrose is a small town and civil parish in the Scottish Borders, historically in Roxburghshire. It is in the Eildon committee area.-Etymology:...
, people could recite religious literature in the English language. In the later part of the twelfth century, the Lothian writer
Adam of DryburghAdam of Dryburgh was a late 12th and early 13th century Anglo-Scottish theologian, writer and Premonstratensian and Carthusian monk. He entered Dryburgh Abbey as a young man, rising to become abbot , before converting to Carthusianism and moving to Witham...
describes Lothian as “the Land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots”.
Scotland came to possess a unity which transcended Gaelic, French and Germanic ethnic differences and by the end of the period, the Latin, French and English word
Scot could be used for any subject of the Scottish king. Scotland's multilingual
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
monarchs and mixed Gaelic and Scoto-Norman aristocracy all became part of the "Community of the Realm", in which ethnic differences were less divisive than in Ireland and Wales.
Secondary sources
The
High Middle Ages of Scotland encompass
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in the era between the death of
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
in 900 AD and the death of king
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
in 1286. Alexander's death was an indirect cause of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, northern
Great BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
was increasingly dominated by
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
culture, and by a Gaelic regal lordship known in
GaelicThe Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
as "
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
", in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as either "Albania" or "
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
", and in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as "Scotland". From a base in eastern Scotland north of the
River ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, the kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the south. It had a flourishing culture, comprising part of the larger Gaelic-speaking world.
After the twelfth-century reign of King David I, the
Scottish monarchsThe Scottish Monarchs were a motorcycle speedway team based in Glasgow, Scotland.At the end of the 1995 season, the Glasgow Tigers closed due a lack of finance and the Edinburgh Monarchs lost their home track, Powderhall Stadium, to redevelopment, leading to the Monarchs racing at Shawfield Stadium...
are better described as
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
than Gaelic, preferring French culture to native Scottish culture. They fostered and attached themselves to a kind of Scottish "Norman Conquest". The consequence was the spread of French institutions and social values. Moreover, the first towns, called burghs, appeared in the same era, and as these burghs spread, so did the Middle English language. To a certain degree these developments were offset by the acquisition of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
west, and the
GaelicizationGaelicization or Gaelicisation is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group who are traditionally viewed as having spread from Ireland to Scotland and the Isle of Man."Gaelic" as a linguistic term, refers to the...
of many of the noble families of
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
Anglo-FrenchThe Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
origin. By the end of this period, Scotland experienced a "Gaelic revival" which created an integrated
Scottish national identityScottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....
. Although there remained a great deal of continuity with the past, by 1286 these economic, institutional, cultural, religious and legal developments had brought Scotland closer to its neighbours in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
the ContinentContinental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
. By 1286 the
Kingdom of ScotlandThe Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
had political boundaries that closely resembled those of modern Scotland.
Historiography
Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic with many publications from Scottish medievalists. Based on their main focus, researchers can generally be grouped into two categories: Celticists and Normanists. The former, such as
David DumvilleProfessor David Norman Dumville is a British medievalist and Celtic scholar. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, and received his PhD. at the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1974, he married Sally Lois Hannay, with whom he had one son...
,
Thomas Owen ClancyProfessor Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in the literature of the Celtic Dark Ages, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow,...
and
Dauvit BrounDauvit Broun is a Scottish historian, Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. A specialist in medieval Scottish and Celtic studies, he concentrates primarily on early medieval Scotland, and has written abundantly on the topic of early Scottish king-lists, as well as on...
, are interested in the native cultures of the country, and often have linguistic training in the
Celtic languagesThe Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
. Normanists are concerned with the French and Anglo-French cultures as they were introduced to Scotland after the eleventh century. The most prominent of such scholars is G.W.S. Barrow, who has devoted his life to studying
feudalismFeudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
in Britain and Scotland in the High Middle Ages. The change-continuity debate that derives from this division is currently one of the most active topics of discussion. For much of the twentieth century, scholars tended to stress the cultural change that took place in Scotland in the Norman era. However, many scholars, for instance
Cynthia NevilleCynthia J Neville, FRHistS, FSAScot is a Canadian historian, medievalist and George Munro professor of history at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Neville's primary research interests are the social, political and cultural history of medieval Scotland, 1000-1500, specifically legal...
and
Richard OramProfessor Richard D. Oram F.S.A. is a Scottish historian. He is a Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling and an Honorary Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen. He is also the director of the Centre for Environmental History and Policy at the...
, while not ignoring cultural changes, are arguing that continuity with the Gaelic past was just as, if not more, important.
Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
During the period of occupation by the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, the province of
BritanniaRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
formally ended at
Hadrian's WallHadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
. Between this wall and the
Antonine WallThe Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...
, the Romans fostered a series of buffer states separating the Roman-occupied territory from the territory of the
PictsThe Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
. The development of "Pictland" itself, according to the historical model developed by Peter Heather, was a natural response to Roman imperialism. Around 400 the buffer states became the
BritishThe Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
kingdoms of "The Old North", and by 900 the Kingdom of the Picts had developed into the
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
Kingdom of AlbaThe name Kingdom of Alba pertains to the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900, and of Alexander III in 1286 which then led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence...
.
In the tenth century, the Scottish elite began to develop a conquest myth to explain their Gaelicization, a myth often known as
MacAlpin's TreasonMacAlpin's treason is a medieval legend which explains the replacement of the Pictish language by Gaelic in the 9th and 10th centuries.The legend tells of the murder of the nobles of Pictavia...
, in which
Cináed mac AilpínCináed mac Ailpín , commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror"...
is supposed to have annihilated the Picts in one fell takeover. The earliest versions include the
Life of St Cathróe of Metz and royal
genealogiesGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
tracing their origin to Fergus Mór mac Eirc. In the reign of
Máel Coluim IIIMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the
Duan AlbanachThe Duan Albanach is a Middle Gaelic poem found with the Lebor Bretnach, a Gaelic version of the Historia Brittonum of Nennius, with extensive additional material ....
formalised the myth in Gaelic poetic tradition. In the 13th and 14th centuries, these mythical traditions were incorporated into the documents now in the
Poppleton ManuscriptThe Poppleton Manuscript is the name given to the fourteenth century codex likely compiled by Robert of Poppleton, a Carmelite friar who was the Prior of Hulne, near Alnwick. The manuscript contains numerous works, such as a map of the world , and works by Orosius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald...
, and in the
Declaration of ArbroathThe Declaration of Arbroath is a declaration of Scottish independence, made in 1320. It is in the form of a letter submitted to Pope John XXII, dated 6 April 1320, intended to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defending Scotland's right to use military action when...
. They were believed in the early modern period, and beyond; even King
James VI/IJames VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race".
However, modern historians are now beginning to reject this conceptualization of Scottish origins. No contemporary sources mention this conquest. Moreover, the Gaelicization of Pictland was a long process predating Cináed, and is evidenced by Gaelic-speaking Pictish rulers, Pictish royal patronage of Gaelic poets, Gaelic inscriptions, and Gaelic placenames. The term
king of Alba, although only registered at the start of the tenth century, is possibly just a Gaelic translation of
Pictland. The change of identity can perhaps be explained by the death of the
Pictish languagePictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...
, but also important may be
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church and the trauma caused by
VikingThe term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
invasions, most strenuously felt in the Pictish Kingdom's heartland of
FortriuFortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
.
The
Kingdom of StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
on the valley of the
river ClydeThe River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
remained semi-independent, as did the Gaels of
ArgyllArgyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...
and the islands to the west (formerly
Dál RiataDál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...
). The south-east had been absorbed by the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Kingdom of Bernicia/NorthumbriaBernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
in the seventh century, and other
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
invaders, the
NorseNorsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
, were beginning to incorporate much of the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
, as well as the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
too was under strong
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
influence, but there was no one kingdom in that area.
Gaelic kings: Domnall II to Alexander I
King
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
was the first man to have been called
rí Alban (i.e.
King of Alba) when he died at
DunnottarDunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about two miles south of Stonehaven. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th–16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been an early fortress of the Dark Ages...
in 900 - this meant king of Britain or Scotland. All his predecessors bore the style of either
King of the Picts or
King of Fortriu. Such an apparent innovation in the Gaelic chronicles is occasionally taken to spell the birth of Scotland, but there is nothing special about his reign that might confirm this. Domnall had the nickname
dásachtach. This simply meant a madman, or, in early Irish law, a man not in control of his functions and hence without legal culpability. The following long reign (900–942/3) of Domnall's successor
CausantínConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
is more often regarded as the key to formation of the High Medieval Kingdom of Alba. Despite some setbacks, it was during his half-century reign that the Scots saw off any danger that the Vikings would expand their territory beyond the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
The period between the accession of
Máel Coluim IMáel Coluim mac Domnaill was king of Scots , becoming king when his cousin Causantín mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk...
and
Máel Coluim IIMáel Coluim mac Cináeda , was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death...
was marked by good relations with the
WessexThe Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
rulers of England, intense internal dynastic disunity and, despite this, relatively successful expansionary policies. In 945, king Máel Coluim I received
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
as part of a deal with King
Edmund of EnglandEdmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...
, an event offset somewhat by Máel Coluim's loss of control in Moray. Sometime in the reign of king
IdulbIldulb mac Causantín, anglicised as Indulf, nicknamed An Ionsaighthigh, "the Aggressor" was king of Scots from 954. He was the son of Constantine II ; his mother may have been a daughter of Earl Eadulf I of Bernicia, who was an exile in Scotland.John of Fordun and others supposed that Indulf had...
(954–962), the Scots captured the fortress called
oppidum Eden, i.e.
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. Scottish control of
LothianLothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
was strengthened with Máel Coluim II's victory over the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham (1018). The Scots had probably had some authority in Strathclyde since the later part of the ninth century, but the kingdom kept its own rulers, and it is not clear that the Scots were always strong enough to enforce their authority.
The reign of King
Donnchad IDonnchad mac Crínáin was king of Scotland from 1034 to 1040...
from 1034 was marred by failed military adventures, and he was defeated and killed by the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
,
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
, who became king in 1040. Mac Bethad ruled for seventeen years, so peacefully that he was able to leave to go on
pilgrimageA pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. However, he was overthrown by
Máel ColuimMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the son of Donnchad who eighteen months later defeated Mac Bethad's successor Lulach to become king Máel Coluim III. In subsequent medieval
propagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Donnchad's reign was portrayed positively, while Mac Bethad was vilified.
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
followed this distorted history in describing both men in his play
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
.
It was Máel Coluim III, not his father Donnchad, who did more to create the
dynastyThe so-called House of Dunkeld, in Scottish Gaelic Dùn Chailleann , is a historiographical and genealogical construct to illustrate the clear succession of Scottish kings from 1034 to 1040 and from 1058 to 1290.It is dynastically sort of a continuation to Cenél nGabráin of Dál Riata, "race of...
that ruled Scotland for the following two centuries, successfully compared to some. Part of the resource was the large number of children he had, perhaps as many as a dozen, through marriage to the widow or daughter of
Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of OrkneyThorfinn Sigurdsson , called Thorfinn the Mighty, was an 11th-century Earl of Orkney. One of five brothers , sons of Earl Sigurd Hlodvirsson by his marriage to the daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland...
and afterwards to the Anglo-Hungarian princess
MargaretSaint Margaret of Scotland , also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England...
, granddaughter of
Edmund IronsideEdmund Ironside or Edmund II was king of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. His cognomen "Ironside" is not recorded until 1057, but may have been contemporary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut...
. However, despite having a royal
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
wife, Máel Coluim spent much of his reign conducting
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
raids against the English, adding to the woes of that people in the aftermath of the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
and the
Harrying of the NorthThe Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate Northern England, and is part of the Norman conquest of England...
.
Marianus ScotusMarianus Scotus , was an Irish monk and chronicler , was an Irishman by birth, and called Máel Brigte, or Devotee of St...
narrates that "the Gaels and French devastated the English; and [the English] were dispersed and died of hunger; and were compelled to eat human flesh".
Máel Coluim's raids and attempts to further the claims for his successors to the
English kingdomThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
prompted interference by the Norman rulers of England in the Scottish kingdom. He had married the sister of the native English claimant to the English throne, Edgar Ætheling, and had given most of his children by this marriage Anglo-Saxon royal names. In 1080, King
William the ConquerorWilliam I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
sent his son on an invasion of Scotland, and Máel Coluim submitted to the authority of the king, giving his oldest son Donnchad as a hostage. King Máel Coluim himself died in one of the raids, in 1093.
Tradition would have made his brother
Domnall BánDomnall mac Donnchada , anglicised as Donald III, and nicknamed Domnall Bán, "Donald the Fair" , was King of Scots from 1093–1094 and 1094–1097...
Máel Coluim's successor, but it seems that Edward, his eldest son by Margaret, was his chosen heir. With Máel Coluim and Edward dead in the same battle, and his other sons in Scotland still young, Domnall was made king. However,
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, Máel Coluim's eldest son by his first wife, obtained some support from
William RufusWilliam II , the third son of William I of England, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales...
and took the throne, but according to the
Anglo-Saxon ChronicleThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...
his English and French followers were massacred, and Donnchad II himself was killed later in the same year (1094) by Domnall's ally
Máel Petair of MearnsMáel Petair of Mearns is the only known Mormaer of the Mearns. His name means "tonsured one of Peter".One source tells us that Máel Petair was the son of a Máel Coluim, but tells us nothing about this. If this weren't bad enough, other sources say that his father was a man called "Loren", and in...
. However, in 1097, William Rufus sent another of Máel Coluim's sons,
EdgarEdgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim , nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" , was king of Alba from 1097 to 1107...
, to take the kingship. The ensuing death of Domnall Bán secured the kingship for Edgar, and there followed a period of relative peace. The reigns of both Edgar and his successor
AlexanderAlexander I , also called Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim and nicknamed "The Fierce", was King of the Scots from 1107 to his death.-Life:...
are obscure in comparison with their successors. The former's most notable act was to send a
camelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
(or perhaps an
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) to his fellow Gael
Muircheartach Ua BriainMuircheartach Ua Briain , son of Toirdelbach Ua Briain and great-grandson of Brian Bóruma, was King of Munster and later self declared High King of Ireland.-Background:...
,
High King of IrelandThe High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
. When Edgar died, Alexander took the kingship, while his youngest brother David became Prince of "Cumbria" and ruler of Lothian.
Scoto-Norman kings: David I to Alexander III
The period between the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
and the death of
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
was marked by dependency upon and relatively good relations with the Kings of England. As long as one remembers the continuities, the period can also be regarded as one of great historical transformation, part of a more general phenomenon which has been called the "Europeanisation of Europe". As a related matter, the period witnessed the successful imposition of royal authority across most of the modern country. After David I, and especially in the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, Scotland's Kings became ambivalent about the culture of most of their subjects. As
Walter of CoventryWalter of Coventry , English monk and chronicler, who was apparently connected with a religious house in the province of York, is known to us only through the historical compilation which bears his name, the Memoriale fratris Walteri de Coventria....
tells us, "The modern kings of Scotland count themselves as Frenchmen, in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Gaels to utter servitude."
The ambivalence of the kings was matched to a certain extent by the Scots themselves. In the aftermath of William's capture at
AlnwickAlnwick is a small market town in north Northumberland, England. The town's population was just over 8000 at the time of the 2001 census and Alnwick's district population was 31,029....
in 1174, the Scots turned on the small number of
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speakers and French-speakers among them.
William of NewburghWilliam of Newburgh or Newbury , also known as William Parvus, was a 12th-century English historian and Augustinian canon from Bridlington, Yorkshire.-Biography:...
related that the Scots first attacked the Scoto-English in their own army, and Newburgh reported a repetition of these events in Scotland itself.
Walter BowerWalter Bower , Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian.He was abbot of Inchcolm Abbey from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James I, King of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the embassy to Paris on the business of the...
, writing a few centuries later albeit, wrote about the same events, and confirms that "there took place a most wretched and widespread persecution of the English both in Scotland and Galloway".
The first instance of strong opposition to the Scottish kings was perhaps the revolt of
ÓengusÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
, the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
. Other important resistors to the expansionary Scottish kings were
Somairle mac Gillai BrigteSomerled was a military and political leader of the Scottish Isles in the 12th century who was known in Gaelic as rí Innse Gall . His father was Gillebride...
,
Fergus of GallowayFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
,
Gille Brigte, Lord of GallowayGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and
Harald MaddadssonHarald Maddadsson was Earl of Orkney and Mormaer of Caithness from 1139 until 1206. He was the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and Margaret, daughter of Earl Haakon Paulsson of Orkney...
, along with two kin-groups known today as the
MacHethsThe MacHeths were a Gaelic kindred who raised several rebellions against the Scotto-Norman kings of Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries. Their origins have long been debated.-Origins:...
and the
MacWilliamsMacWilliams and MacWilliam is a surname, originating from Meic Uilleim. Some notable MacWilliams are:*Dave MacWilliams, soccer player*Jessie MacWilliams, mathematician*Keenan MacWilliam, actress*Lyle MacWilliam, Canadian congressman...
. The latter claimed descent from king
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, through his son
William fitz DuncanWilliam fitz Duncan was a Scottish prince, a territorial magnate in northern Scotland and northern England, a general and the legitimate son of king Donnchad II of Scotland by Athelreda of Dunbar.In 1094, his father Donnchad II was killed by Mormaer Máel Petair of...
. The MacWilliams appear to have rebelled for no less a reason than the Scottish throne itself. The threat was so grave that, after the defeat of the MacWilliams in 1230, the Scottish crown ordered the public execution of the infant girl who happened to be the last of the MacWilliam line. This was how the
Lanercost Chronicle related the fate of this last MacWilliam:
Many of these resistors collaborated, and drew support not just in the peripheral Gaelic regions of Galloway, Moray, Ross and Argyll, but also from eastern "Scotland-proper", and elsewhere in the Gaelic world. However, by the end of the twelfth century, the Scottish kings had acquired the authority and ability to draw in native Gaelic lords outside their previous zone of control in order to do their work, the most famous examples being
Lochlann, Lord of GallowayLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
and
Ferchar mac in tSagairtFearchar of Ross or Ferchar mac in tSagairt , was the first Mormaer or Earl of Ross we know of from the thirteenth century, whose career brought Ross into the fold of the Scottish kings for the first time, and who is remembered as the founder of the Earldom of Ross.-Origins:The traditional...
. Cumulatively, by the reign of Alexander III, the Scots were in a strong position to annex the remainder of the western seaboard, which they did in 1265, with the
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
. The conquest of the west, the creation of the Mormaerdom of Carrick in 1186 and the absorption of the
Lordship of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
after the Galwegian revolt of
Gille RuadhGille Ruadh was the Galwegian leader who led the revolt against King Alexander II of Scotland. Also called Gilla Ruadh, Gilleroth, Gilrod, Gilroy, etc....
in 1235 meant that the number and proportion of Gaelic speakers under the rule of the Scottish king actually increased, and perhaps even doubled, in the so-called Norman period. It was the Gaels and Gaelicised warriors of the new west, and the power they offered, that enabled King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
(himself a Gaelicised
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
of
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
) to emerge victorious during the Wars of Independence, which followed soon after the death of Alexander III.
Other kingdoms
The Kingdom of Alba was not the only source of
regalA royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
authority in northern Britain. Until the Norman era, and perhaps even until the reign of Alexander II, the Scottish king controlled only a minority of the people who lived inside the boundary of modern Scotland, in the same way as the French monarchs of the Middle Ages only had control of patches of what is now modern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The
ruler of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
was called not only
king in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but before
Máel SnechtaiMáel Snechtai of Moray was the ruler of Moray, and, as his name suggests, the son of Lulach, King of Scotland.He is called on his death notice in the Annals of Ulster, "Máel Snechtai m...
,
king of Alba/Scotland. After Máel Snechtai, Irish sources call them merely kings of
MorayMoray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.- History :...
. The rulers of Moray took over the entire Scottish kingdom under the famous
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
(1040–1057) and his successor
Lulach mac Gillai ChoemgáinLulach mac Gille Coemgáin was King of Scots between 15 August 1057 and 17 March 1058.He appears to have been a weak king, as his nicknames suggest...
(1057–1058). However, Moray was subjugated by the Scottish kings after 1130, when the last native ruler,
Óengus of MorayÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
was defeated in an attempt to seize the Scottish throne.
Galloway, likewise, was a Lordship with some regality. In a
GalwegianGalwegian Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the independent kings of Galloway in their time, and by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. It was once spoken in Annandale and Strathnith...
charter dated to the reign of
FergusFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
, the Galwegian ruler styled himself
rex Galwitensium, King of Galloway; Irish chroniclers continued to call Fergus' successors
King. Although the Scots obtained greater control after the death of
Gilla BrigteGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and the installation of
Lochlann/RolandLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
in 1185, Galloway was not fully absorbed by Scotland until 1235, after the rebellion of the Galwegians was crushed.
Galloway and Moray were not the only other territories whose rulers had regal status. Both the rulers of
MannThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
& the
IslesThe Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
, and the rulers of Argyll had the status of kings, even if some southern Latin writers called them merely
reguli (i.e. "kinglets"). The Mormaers of Lennox referred to their predecessors as Kings of
BallochBalloch is a small town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, at the foot of Loch Lomond. The name comes from the Gaelic for "the pass".Balloch is at the north end of the Vale of Leven, straddling the River Leven itself. It connects to the larger town of Alexandria and to the smaller village of...
, many of the Mormaerdoms had already been kingdoms at an earlier stage. Another kingdom,
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
(or
Cumbria), had been incorporated into Scotland in a slow process that started in the 9th century and was not fully realised until perhaps the 12th.
Geography
Neither the political nor the theoretical boundaries of Scotland in this period, as both
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
and
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
, corresponded exactly to modern Scotland. The closest approximation came at the end of the period, when the
Treaty of YorkThe Treaty of York was an agreement between Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland, signed at York on 25 September 1237. It detailed the future status of several feudal properties and addressed other issues between the two kings, and indirectly marked the end of Scotland's attempts to...
(1237) and
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
(1266) fixed the boundaries between the Kingdom of the Scots with England and
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
respectively; although in neither case did this border exactly match the modern one,
BerwickBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
and the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
being eventually lost to England, and Orkney and Shetland later being gained from Norway.
Until the thirteenth century, Scotland referred to the land to the north of the
river ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, and for this reason historians sometimes use the term "Scotland-proper". By the middle of the thirteenth century, Scotland could include all the lands ruled by the King of Scots, but the older concept of Scotland remained throughout the period.
For legal and administrative purposes, the Kingdom of the Scots was divided into three, four or five zones: Scotland-proper (north and south of the Grampians), Lothian, Galloway and, earlier, Strathclyde. Like Scotland, neither Lothian nor Galloway had its modern meaning. Lothian could refer to the entire
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speaking south-east, and latterly, included much of Strathclyde. Galloway could refer to the entire Gaelic-speaking south-west. Lothian was divided from Scotland-proper by the river Forth. To quote the early thirteenth century tract,
de Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
,
Here Scottish refers to the language now called the
Middle Irish languageMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
, British to the
Welsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
and Romance to the Old French language, which had borrowed the term
Scottewatre from the Middle English language.
In this period, little of Scotland was governed by the crown. Instead, most Scots lay under the intermediate control of
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
and increasingly after the twelfth century, French-speaking Mormaers/Earls and Lords.
Economy
The Scottish economy of this period was dominated by agriculture and by short-distance, local trade. There was an increasing amount of foreign trade in the period, as well as exchange gained by means of military plunder. By the end of this period, coins were replacing
barter goodsBarter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
, but for most of this period most exchange was done without the use of metal currency.
Most of Scotland's agricultural wealth in this period came from
pastoralismPastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...
, rather than
arable farmingIn geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
. Arable farming grew significantly in the "Norman period", but with geographical differences, low-lying areas being subject to more arable farming than high-lying areas such as the
HighlandsThe Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
,
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
and the
Southern UplandsThe Southern Uplands are the southernmost and least populous of mainland Scotland's three major geographic areas . The term is used both to describe the geographical region and to collectively denote the various ranges of hills within this region...
. Galloway, in the words of G.W.S. Barrow, "already famous for its cattle, was so overwhelmingly pastoral, that there is little evidence in that region of land under any permanent cultivation, save along the Solway coast." The average amount of land used by a husbandman in Scotland might have been around 26 acres. There is a lot of evidence that the native Scots favoured pastoralism, in that Gaelic lords were happier to give away more land to French and Middle English-speaking settlers, whilst holding on tenaciously to more high-lying regions, perhaps contributing to the Highland/Galloway-Lowland division that emerged in Scotland in the later Middle Ages. The main unit of land measurement in Scotland was the
davoch (i.e. "vat"), called the
arachor in
LennoxThe district of Lennox , often known as "the Lennox", is a region of Scotland centred around the village of Lennoxtown in East Dunbartonshire, eight miles north of the centre of Glasgow. At various times in history, the district has had both a dukedom and earldom associated with it.- External...
. This unit is also known as the "Scottish ploughgate." In English-speaking Lothian, it was simply
ploughgateA ploughgate was a Scottish land measurement, used in the south and the east of the country. It was supposed to be the area that eight oxen were said to be able to plough in one year. Because of the variable land quality in Scotland, this could be a number of different actual land areas...
. It may have measured about 104 acre (0.42087344 km²), divided into 4
raths. Cattle, pigs and cheeses were among the most produced foodstuffs, but of course a vast range of foodstuffs were produced, from sheep and fish, rye and barley, to bee wax and honey.
Pre-Davidian Scotland had no known chartered burghs, though most, if not all, of the burghs granted charters by the crown already existed long before the reign of David I but he gave them legal status - a new form of recognition. Scotland, outside Lothian, Lanarkshire, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, Angus, Aberdeenshire and Fife at least, largely was populated by scattered hamlets, and outside that area, lacked the continental style nucleated village. David I established the first chartered burghs in Scotland. David I copied the burgher charters and
Leges Burgorum (rules governing virtually every aspect of life and work in a burgh) almost verbatim from the English customs of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Early burgesses were usually Flemish,
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
,
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
GermanThe Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, rather than Gaelic Scots. The burgh’s vocabulary was composed totally of either Germanic and French terms. The councils which ran individual burghs were individually known as
lie doussane, meaning the dozen.
Demographics
The population of Scotland in this period is unknown, the first reliable information in 1755 shows the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380. Best estimates put the Scottish population for earlier periods in the High Middle Ages between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people, growing from a low point to a high point. Its density was much more evenly spread than today. Between 60 and 80% of people lived north of the Forth river, with the remainder being divided between Galloway, Strathclyde and Lothian. Bishopric and Justiciar distribution suggests a relatively even divide between these three zones.
Linguistically, the vast majority of people within Scotland throughout this period spoke the
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
language, then simply called
Scottish, or in Latin,
lingua Scotica. Other languages spoken throughout this period were Norse and English, with the
Cumbric languageCumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...
disappearing somewhere between 900 and 1100. Pictish may have survived into this period, but there is little evidence for this. After the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
, or perhaps before, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court. From his reign until the end of the period, the Scottish monarchs probably favoured the French language, as evidenced by reports from contemporary chronicles, literature and translations of administrative documents into the French language.
GaelicScottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
displaced Norse in much of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
region, but itself lost ground to
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in much of the region between
Scotland-properScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
and
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
. English, with French and Flemish, became the main language of Scottish towns (burghs), which were created for the first time under David I. However, burghs were, in Barrow's words, “scarcely more than villages … numbered in hundreds rather than thousands”, and Norman knights were a similarly tiny in number when compared with the Gaelic population of Scotland outside of Lothian.
Society
Medieval Scottish society was stratified. The hierarchical structure of
statusIn sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
in early Gaelic society is well-documented, owing primarily to the large body of extant legal texts and tracts from this period. The legal tract known as
Laws of Brets and Scots, lists five grades of man:
King,
mormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
/
earlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
,
toísech/thane,
ócthigern and
serf. In pre-twelfth century Scotland
slave was a social status as well. The standard differentiation in medieval European society between the
bellatores ("those who fight", i.e. aristocrats), the
oratores ("those who pray", i.e. clergy) and the
laboratores ("those who work", i.e. peasants) was useless for understanding Scottish society in the earlier period, but becomes more useful in the post-Davidian period.
Most of the territory subject to the King of Scots
north of the ForthScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
was directly under a lord who in
medieval ScottishMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
was called a
MormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
. The term was translated into Latin as
comes, and is misleadingly translated into modern English as
EarlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
. These secular lords exercised secular power and religious patronage like kings in miniature. They kept their own warbands and followers, issued charters and supervised law and internal order within their provinces. When actually under the power of the Scottish king, they were responsible for rendering to the king
cain, a tribute paid several times a year, usually in cattle and other barter goods. They also had to provide for the king
conveth, a kind of hospitality payment, paid by putting-up the lord on a visit with food and accommodation, or with barter payments in lieu of this. In the Norman era, they provided the
servitum Scoticanum ("Gaelic service", "Scottish service" or simply
forinsec) and led the
exercitus Scoticanus , the Gaelic part of the king's army that made up the vast majority almost any national hosting (
slógad) in the period.
A
toísech ("chieftain") was like a mormaer, providing for his lord the same services that a mormaer provided for the king. The Latin word usually used is
thanus, which is why the office-bearers are often called "thanes" in English. The formalization of this institution was largely confined to eastern Scotland north of the Forth, and only two of the seventy-one known thanages existed south of that river. Behind the offices of
toísech and mormaer were
kinship groupsA clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
. Sometimes these offices were formalised, but mostly they are informal. The head of the kinship group was called
capitalis in Latin and
cenn in
medieval GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
. In the Mormaerdom of Fife, the primary kinship group was known then as
Clann MacDuib ("Children of
MacDuffClan MacDuff is a Scottish armigerous clan, which is registered with Lyon Court, though currently without a chief. Moncreiffe wrote that the Clan MacDuff was the premier clan among the Scottish Gaels. The early chiefs of Clan MacDuff were the Earls of Fife...
"). Others include the
Cennedig (from
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
),
Morggain (from
BuchanBuchan is one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by the council in 1996, when the Aberdeenshire unitary council area was created under the Local Government etc Act 1994...
), and the MacDowalls (from
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
). There were probably hundreds in total, mostly unrecorded.
The highest non-noble rank was, according to the
Laws of Brets and Scots, called the
ócthigern (literally,
little or
young lord), a term the text does not bother to translate into French. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent was perhaps the
sokeman. Other known ranks include the
scoloc, perhaps equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon
gerseman. In the earlier period, the Scots kept slaves, and many of these were foreigners (English or Scandinavian) captured during warfare. Large-scale Scottish slave-raids are particularly well documented in the eleventh century.
Law and government
Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century, reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. Scottish
common lawCommon law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent. In the twelfth century, and certainly in the thirteenth, strong continental legal influences began to have more effect, such as
Canon lawThe canon law of the Catholic Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. It lacks the necessary binding force present in most modern day legal systems. The academic...
and various Anglo-Norman practices. Pre-fourteenth century
lawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
amongst the native Scots is not always well attested. However, our extensive knowledge of
early Gaelic LawEarly Irish law refers to the statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwent a resurgence in the 13th century, and survived into Early Modern Ireland in parallel with English law over the...
gives some basis for reconstructing pre-fourteenth century Scottish law. In the earliest extant Scottish legal manuscript, there is a document called
Leges inter Brettos et Scottos. The document survives in Old French, and is almost certainly a French translation of an earlier Gaelic document. The document retained untranslated a vast number of Gaelic legal terms. Later medieval legal documents, written both in Latin and Middle English, contain more Gaelic legal terms, examples including
slains (Old Irish
slán or
sláinte; exemption) and
cumherba (Old Irish
comarba; ecclesiastic heir).
A
Judex (pl.
judices) represents a post-Norman continuity with the ancient Gaelic orders of lawmen called in English today
Brehons. Bearers of the office almost always have Gaelic names north of the Forth or in the
south-westGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
.
Judices were often royal officials who supervised baronial, abbatial and other lower-ranking "courts". However, the main official of law in the post-Davidian Kingdom of the Scots was the
JusticiarIn medieval England and Ireland the Chief Justiciar was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius In...
. The institution has Anglo-Norman origins, but in Scotland north of the Forth it probably represented some form of continuity with an older office. For instance, Mormaer Causantín of Fife is styled
judex magnus (i.e. great Brehon), and it seems that the Justiciarship of Scotia was just a further Latinisation/Normanisation of that position. The formalised office of the Justiciar held responsibility for supervising the activity and behaviour of royal sheriffs and sergeants, held courts and reported on these things to the king personally. Normally, there were two Justiciarships, organised by linguistic boundaries: the Justiciar of Scotia and the Justiciar of Lothian. Sometimes Galloway had its own Justiciar too.
The office of Justiciar and Judex were just two ways that Scottish society was governed. In the earlier period, the king "delegated" power to hereditary native "officers" such as the Mormaers/Earls and Toísechs/Thanes. It was a
governmentGovernment refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
of gift-giving and bardic lawmen. There were also popular courts, the
comhdhail, testament to which are dozens of placenames throughout eastern Scotland. In the Norman period, sheriffdoms and sheriffs and, to a lesser extent, bishops (see below) became increasingly important. The former enabled the King to effectively administer royal demesne land. During David I's reign, royal sheriffs had been established in the king's core personal territories; namely, in rough chronological order, at
RoxburghRoxburgh , also known as Rosbroch, is a village, civil parish and now-destroyed royal burgh. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland...
,
SconeScone is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. The medieval village of Scone, which grew up around the monastery and royal residence, was abandoned in the early 19th century when the residents were removed and a new palace was built on the site by the Earl of Mansfield...
,
Berwick-upon-TweedBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
,
StirlingStirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
and
PerthPerth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...
. By the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, there may have been about 30 royal sheriffdoms, including ones at
AyrAyr is a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. With a population of around 46,000, Ayr is the largest settlement in Ayrshire, of which it is the county town, and has held royal burgh status since 1205...
and
DumfriesDumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
, key locations on the borders of
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
-
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
. As the distribution and number of sheriffdoms expanded, so did royal control. By the end of the thirteenth century, sheriffdoms had been established in westerly locations as far-flung as
WigtownWigtown is a town and former royal burgh in the Machars of Galloway in the south west of Scotland. It lies south of Newton Stewart and east of Stranraer. It has a population of about 1,000...
,
KintyreKintyre is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The region stretches approximately 30 miles , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south, to East Loch Tarbert in the north...
, Skye and
LorneLorne is an ancient district in the west of Scotland, now part of the Argyll and Bute council area. It is within the region once named Lorna which may have taken its name from Loarn mac Eirc. However the last cartographical reference to Lorna is in 1607 with that same area being referred to as...
. Through these, the thirteenth century Scottish king exercised more control over Scotland than any of his later medieval successors. The king himself was itinerant and had no "capital"; but if there was such a thing, it was Scone. By ritual tradition, all Scottish kings in this period had to be crowned there, and crowned there by the Mormaers of Strathearn and, especially, Fife. Although King David I tried to build up Roxburgh as a capital, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more charters were issued at Scone than any other location. Other popular locations were nearby Perth, Stirling,
DunfermlineDunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...
and
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(especially popular during the reign of
Alexander IIAlexander II was King of Scots from1214 to his death.-Early life:...
), as well as all other royal burghs. In the earliest part of this era,
ForresForres , is a town and former royal burgh situated in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately 30 miles east of Inverness. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions...
and
DunkeldDunkeld is a small town in Strathtay, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is about 15 miles north of Perth on the eastern side of the A9 road into the Scottish Highlands and on the opposite side of the Tay from the Victorian village of Birnam. Dunkeld and Birnam share a railway station, on the...
seem to have been the chief royal residences.
Military
After the "Norman Conquest" of David I, the warriors of Scotland can be classed as of two types. Firstly, the native
exercitus Scoticanus (i.e. "Gaelic army"); and, secondly, the
exercitus militaris (i.e. "feudal army"). The Gaelic army formed the larger part of all pre-Stewart Scottish armies, but in the wider world of European (i.e. French) chivalry the feudal section was the more prestigious. The native Scots, like all early medieval Europeans, practiced organised
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
-raiding. Presumably, they did so with each other. However, our main record of it comes from when they practised it against their Norman and post-Conquest Anglo-Saxon neighbour. John Gillingham argues that this was one of the things which made the Scots (and other Celts) particularly barbarous in the eyes of their "Frankish" neighbours, because the French had largely abandoned this form of warfare.
As with so many changes in this period, the introduction of the feudal army can be traced primarily to the reign of David I, although French and English knights were used in moderation by his older brothers. The tension which these knights produced is well recorded in contemporary sources. At the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
, the Gaels oppose the positioning of the French soldiers in the van of the king's army.
Ailred of RievaulxAelred , also Aelred, Ælred, Æthelred, etc., was an English writer, abbot of Rievaulx , and saint.-Life:...
attributes this opposition to the Galwegians, but it was widespread among the Scottish Gaels in general, as the native spokesman is given as Máel Ísu, then the Mormaer of Strathearn and highest ranking noble in the army.
The advantage French military culture possessed was manifold. French knights used expensive suits of armour, whereas the Scots were "naked" (of armour, rather than dress). They possessed heavy cavalry, and other weapons such as crossbows and siege engines, as well as fortification techniques far more effective and advanced than anything possessed by the native Scots. Moreover, their culture, particularly their feudal ideology, made them reliable vassals, who because they were foreign, were even more dependent on the king. Over time, the Scots themselves became more like the French warriors, and the French warriors adopted many of the Gaelic military practices, so that by the end of the period, a syncretic military culture existed in the kingdom.
Christianity and the Church
By the tenth century all of northern Britain, except the Scandinavian far north and west was Christianized. The most important factors for the conversion of Scotland were the Roman province of
BritanniaBritannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
to the south, and later the so-called Gaelic or Columban church, an interlinked system of monasteries and aristocratic networks which combined to spread both Christianity and the
Gaelic languageOld Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
amongst the Picts.
Saints
Like every other Christian country, one of the main features of Scottish Christianity is the
Cult of SaintsA saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
. Saints were the middle men between the ordinary worshipper and
GodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. In Scotland north of the
ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, local saints were either Pictish or Gaelic. The national saint of the Scottish Gaels was
Colum Cille or
ColumbaSaint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...
(in Latin, lit.
dove), in Strathclyde it was St Kentigern (in Gaelic, lit.
Chief of the Lord), in Lothian, St Cuthbert. Later, owing to learned confusion between the Latin words
Scotia and
ScythiaIn antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
, the Scottish kings adopted St Andrew, a saint who had more appeal to incoming Normans and was attached to the ambitious bishopric that is now known by the saint's name, St Andrews. However, Columba's status was still supreme in the early fourteenth century, when King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
carried the
brecbennoch (or Monymusk reliquary) into battle at
BannockburnThe Battle of Bannockburn was a significant Scottish victory in the Wars of Scottish Independence...
. Around the same period, a cleric on
InchcolmInchcolm is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, it was fortified during both World Wars to defend nearby Edinburgh...
wrote the following Latin poem:
| Latin |
English |
Os mutorum,
lux cecorum,
pes clausorum,
porrige
lapsis manum,
Firma vanum
et insanum
corrige
O Columba spes Scottorum
nos tuorum meritorum
interventu beatorum
fac consortes angelorum
Alleluia |
Mouth of the dumb [people],
light of the blind [people]
foot of the lame [people]
to the fallen [people]
Stretch out thy hand
strengthen the vain [people]
and the insane [people]
Invigorate!
O Columba Hope of the Scots/Gaels
by thy standing
by mediation
make us the companions of the beautiful Angels
Halleluia. |
The poem illustrates both the role of saints, in this case as the representative of the Scottish (or perhaps just Gaelic) people in heaven, and the importance of Columba to the Scottish people.
Monasticism
The typical features of native Scottish Christianity are relaxed ideas of
clerical celibacyClerical celibacy is the discipline by which some or all members of the clergy in certain religions are required to be unmarried. Since these religions consider deliberate sexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of marriage to be sinful, clerical celibacy also requires abstension from these...
, intense secularization of ecclesiastical institutions, and the lack of a
dioscesan structureA diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
. Instead of bishops and archbishops, the most important offices of the native Scottish church were abbots (or
coarbs). Scotland was untouched by continental forms of
monasticismMonasticism is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work...
until the late eleventh century. Instead, monasticism was dominated by monks called
Céli Dé (lit. "vassals of God"), anglicised as culdees. In most cases, these monks were not replaced by new continental monks in the Norman period, but usually survived, even gaining the patronage of Queen Margaret, a figure traditionally seen as hostile to Gaelic culture. At St Andrews, the
Céli Dé establishment endured throughout the period, and even enjoyed rights over the election of its bishop; Gaelic monasticism was vibrant and expansionary for much of the period. For instance, dozens of monasteries, often called Schottenklöster, were founded by Gaelic monks on the continent, and many Scottish monks, such as St Cathróe of Metz, became local saints.
The continental type of monasticism was first introduced to Scotland when King Máel Coluim III persuaded
LanfrancLanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by birth.-Early life:Lanfranc was born in the early years of the 11th century at Pavia, where later tradition held that his father, Hanbald, held a rank broadly equivalent to magistrate...
to provide a few monks from
CanterburyCanterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
for a new
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
abbey at DunfermlineDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
(c. 1070). However, traditional Benedictine monasticism had little future in Scotland. Instead, the monastic establishments which followed were almost universally either
AugustiniansThe term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
or of the Reformed Benedictine type, especially
Cistercians, Tironensians, Premonstratensians and even Valliscaulians.
Ecclesia Scoticana
The
Ecclesia Scoticana (lit.
Scottish church) as a system has no known starting point, although
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church might be taken as one. Before the Norman period, Scotland had little dioscesan structure, being primarily monastic after the fashion of Ireland. After the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
, the Archbishops of both Canterbury and York each claimed superiority over the Scottish church. The church in Scotland attained independent status after the
Papal BullA Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
of Celestine III (
Cum universi, 1192) by which all Scottish bishoprics except Galloway were formally independent of York and Canterbury. However, unlike Ireland which had been granted four Archbishoprics in the same century, Scotland received no Archbishop and the whole
Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics (except Whithorn/Galloway), became the "special daughter of Rome". The following is a table of Bishoprics present in "Scotland-proper" in the thirteenth century:
- Bishop of Dunkeld
The Bishop of Dunkeld is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunkeld, one of the largest and more important of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th century cleric named Cormac...
- Bishop of St Andrews, then called Kilrymont.
- Bishop of Brechin
The Bishop of Brechin is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Brechin or Angus, based at Brechin Cathedral, Brechin. The diocese had a long-established Gaelic monastic community which survived into the 13th century. The clerical establishment may very well have traced their earlier origins...
- Bishop of Dunblane
The Bishop of Dunblane or Bishop of Strathearn was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunblane/Strathearn, one of medieval Scotland's thirteen bishoprics. It was based at Dunblane Cathedral, now a parish church of the Church of Scotland. The bishopric itself certainly derives from an older...
(often called Bishop of Strathearn)
- Bishop of Mortlach-Aberdeen
The Bishop of Aberdeen was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Aberdeen, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th century cleric named Nechtan...
- Bishop of Ross
The Bishop of Ross was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Ross, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first recorded bishop appears in the late 7th century as a witness to Adomnán of Iona's Cáin Adomnáin. The bishopric was based at the settlement of Rosemarkie until the mid-13th...
(often called Bishop of RosemarkieRosemarkie is a village on the south coast of the Black Isle peninsula in northern Scotland.-Geography:Rosemarkie lies a quarter of a mile east of the town of Fortrose...
then FortroseFortrose is a burgh in the Scottish Highlands, located on the Moray Firth, approximately ten kilometres north east of Inverness. The town is known for its ruined 13th century cathedral, and as the home of the Brahan Seer. In the Middle Ages it was the seat of the bishopric of Ross...
)
- Bishop of Moray
The Bishop of Moray or Bishop of Elgin was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Moray in northern Scotland, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics...
(often called Bishop of ElginElgin is a former cathedral city and Royal Burgh in Moray, Scotland. It is the administrative and commercial centre for Moray. The town originated to the south of the River Lossie on the higher ground above the flood plain. Elgin is first documented in the Cartulary of Moray in 1190...
)
- Bishop of Caithness
The Bishop of Caithness was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Caithness, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first referenced bishop of Caithness was Aindréas, a Gael who appears in sources between 1146 and 1151 as bishop. Aindréas spent much if not all of his career outside his...
(often called Bishop of DornochDornoch is a town and seaside resort, and former Royal burgh in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Dornoch Firth, near to where it opens into the Moray Firth to the east...
)
- Bishop of Argyll
The Bishop of Argyll or Bishop of Lismore was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Argyll, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. It was created in 1200, when the western half of the territory of the Bishopric of Dunkeld was formed into the new diocese. The bishops were based at Lismore...
(often called Bishop of LismoreLismore is a partially Gaelic speaking island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. This fertile, low-lying island was once a major centre of Celtic Christianity, with a monastery founded by Saint Moluag and the seat of the Bishop of Argyll.-Geography:...
)
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Outside of Scotland-proper, the bishopric of Glasgow managed to secure its existence in the twelfth century with a vibrant church community who gained the favour of the Scottish kings. The
Bishopric of Whithorn (Galloway)The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, was the eccesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known...
was resurrected by Fergus,
King of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
, and
ThurstanThurstan or Turstin of Bayeux was a medieval Archbishop of York, the son of a priest. He served kings William II and Henry I of England before his election to the see of York in 1114. Once elected, his consecration was delayed for five years while he fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury...
,
Archbishop of YorkThe Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
. The
bishopric of the islesThe Bishop of the Isles or Bishop of Sodor was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Sodor, one of Scotland's thirteen medieval bishoprics. The bishopric, encompasing both the Hebrides and Mann, probably traces its origins as an ecclesiastical unity to the careers of Olaf, King of the Isles,...
, under the nominal jurisdiction of
TrondheimTrondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
(and sometimes York), had its Episcopal seat at
Peel, Isle of Man, later moving to
IonaIona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
. Lothian had no bishop, but was controlled by St Andrews, Dunkeld and Glasgow. Its natural overlord was the Bishopric of Durham, and that bishopric continued to be important in Lothian, especially through the cult of St Cuthbert. There was also a
bishopric of OrkneyThe Bishop of Orkney was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Orkney, one of thirteen medieval bishoprics within the territory of modern Scotland. It included both Orkney and Shetland. It was based for almost all of its history at St...
, based at Kirkwall.
Culture
As a predominantly Gaelic society, most Scottish cultural practices throughout this period mirrored closely those of
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, or at least those of Ireland with some Pictish borrowings. After David I, the French-speaking kings introduced cultural practices popular in Anglo-Norman England, France and elsewhere. As in all pre-modern societies, storytelling was popular. In the words of D.D.R. Owen, a scholar who specialises in the literature of the era, writes that "Professional storytellers would ply their trade from court to court. Some of them would have been native Scots, no doubt offering legends from the ancient Celtic past performed ... in Gaelic when appropriate, but in French for most of the new nobility" Almost all of these stories are lost, or come down only vaguely in Gaelic or
ScotsScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
oral tradition. One form of oral culture extremely well accounted for in this period is
genealogyGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
. There are dozens of Scottish genealogies surviving from this era, covering everyone from the Mormaers of Lennox and
MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
, to the Scottish king himself. Scotland's kings maintained an
ollamh righe, a royal high poet who had a permanent place in all medieval Gaelic lordships, and whose purpose was to recite genealogies when needed, for occasions such as coronations.
Before the reign of David I, the Scots possessed a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin that were frequently transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere. Dauvit Broun has shown that a Gaelic literary elite survived in the eastern Scottish lowlands, in places such as
Loch LevenLoch Leven is a fresh water loch in Perth and Kinross council area, central Scotland.Roughly triangular, the loch is about 6 km at its longest. The burgh of Kinross lies at its western end. Loch Leven Castle lies on an island a short way offshore...
and
BrechinBrechin is a former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Traditionally Brechin is often described as a city because of its cathedral and its status as the seat of a pre-Reformation Roman Catholic diocese , but that status has not been officially recognised in the modern era...
into the thirteenth century, However, surviving records are predominantly written in Latin, and their authors would usually translate vernacular terms into Latin, so that historians are faced with a Gaelic society clothed in Latin terminology. Even names were translated into more common continental forms; for instance,
Gilla Brigte became
Gilbert,
Áed became
Hugh, etc. As far as written literature is concerned, there may be more medieval Scottish Gaelic literature than is often thought. Almost all medieval Gaelic literature has survived because it was allowed to sustain in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, not in Scotland. Thomas Owen Clancy has recently all but proven that the
Lebor Bretnach, the so-called "Irish Nennius," was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy. Yet this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work which has survived include that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem —
Heading for Damietta — on his experiences of the
Fifth CrusadeThe Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
. In the thirteenth century, French flourished as a
literary languageA literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, and produced the
Roman de FergusThe Roman de Fergus is an Arthurian romance written in Old French probably at the very beginning of the 13th century, by a very well educated author who named himself Guillaume li Clers...
, the earliest piece of non-Celtic
vernacularA vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
literature to survive from Scotland. There is no extant literature in the English language in this era. There is some Norse literature from Scandinavian parts, such as the
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the Western Isles. The famous
Orkneyinga SagaThe Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...
however, although it pertains to the
Earldom of OrkneyThe Earldom of Orkney was a Norwegian dignity in Scotland which had its origins in the Viking period. The title of Earl of Orkney was passed down the same family line through to the Middle Ages....
, was written in
IcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
In the Middle Ages, Scotland, was renowned for its musical skill. Gerald of Wales, a medieval clergyman and chronicler, explains the relation between Scottish and Irish music:
"Scotland, because of her affinity and intercourse [with Ireland], tries to imitate Ireland in music and strives in emulation. Ireland uses and delights in two instruments only, the harp namely, and the tympanum. Scotland uses three, the harp, the tympanum and the crowd. In the opinion, however, of many, Scotland has by now not only caught up on Ireland, her instructor, but already far outdistances her and excels her in musical skill. Therefore, [Irish] people now look to that country as the fountain of the art."
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Playing the
harpThe harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
(
clarsach) was especially popular with medieval Scots - half a century after Gerald's writing, King Alexander III kept a royal harpist at his court. Of the three medieval harps that survive, two come from Scotland (Perthshire), and one from Ireland. Singers also had a royal function. For instance, when the king of Scotland passed through the territory of Strathearn, it was the custom that he be greeted by seven female singers, who would sing to him. When Edward I approached the borders of Strathearn in the summer of 1296, he was met by these seven women, "who accompanied the King on the road between
GaskGask, gasque, a kind of Swedish student party which starts with a more or less formal dinner. The word is believed to originate from the card game vira, popular in the 19th century....
and
OgilvieOgilvie is a surname with origins in the Barony of Ogilvy in Angus, Scotland. See Clan OgilvyOgilvie may refer to:-People:*Albert Ogilvie , Premier of Tasmania in the 1930s*Alec Ogilvie , pioneer British aviator...
, singing to him, as was the custom in the time of the late Alexander kings of Scots".
Outsiders' view
The Irish thought of Scotland as a provincial place. Others thought of it as an outlandish or barbaric place. To the Holy Roman Emperor
Friedrich IIFrederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
, Scotland was associated with having many lochs; to the Arabs, it was an uninhabited peninsula to the north of England.
"Who would deny that the Scots are barbarians?" was a rhetorical question posed by the author of the
De expugnatione Lyxbonensi (i.e. "
On the Conquest of Lisbon"). A century later St Louis of France was reported to have said to his son “I would prefer that a Scot should come from Scotland and govern the people well and faithfully, than that you, my son, should be seen to govern badly”. To their English-speaking and French-speaking neighbours, the Scots, especially the Galwegians, became the barbarians
par excellence. After David I this ceased to be applied to their rulers, but the term
barbarus was used to describe the Scots, as well as a large number of other European peoples, throughout the High Middle Ages. This characterisation of the Scots was often politically motivated, and many of the most hostile writers were based in areas frequently subjected to Scottish raids. English and French accounts of the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
contain many accounts of Scottish atrocities. For instance,
Henry of HuntingdonHenry of Huntingdon , the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th century English historian, the author of a history of England, Historia anglorum, "the most important Anglo-Norman historian to emerge from the secular clergy". He served as archdeacon of Huntingdon...
notes that the Scots:
A less hostile view was given by
Guibert of NogentGuibert of Nogent was a Benedictine historian, theologian and author of autobiographical memoirs. Guibert was relatively unknown in his own time, going virtually unmentioned by his contemporaries...
in the
First CrusadeThe First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, who encountered Scots and who wrote that:
In many ways, these accounts were based in the contemporary Frankish cultural milieu, where Scots were seen as outsiders. Moreover, the fact that outlandishness did not apply to the new feudal elite meant that by the end of the period, the Scottish aristocrat was seen as little different from his English or French equivalent.
There was a general belief that Scotland-proper was an island, or at least a
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
, known as
Scotia or
Alba(
nia).
Matthew ParisMatthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
, a
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk and cartographer, drew a map in this manner in the mid-thirteenth century and called the "island"
Scotia ultra marina. A later medieval Italian map applies this geographical conceptualization to all of Scotland. The Arab geographer
al-IdrisiAbu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani al-Sabti or simply Al Idrisi was a Moroccan Muslim geographer, cartographer, Egyptologist and traveller who lived in Sicily, at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravid Empire and died in...
, shared this view:
Such an observation encapsulates how Scotland, on the edge of the world as it was, was being imagined in the High Medieval western Eurasian world.
National identity
In this period, the word
Scot was not the word used by vast majority of Scots to describe themselves, except to foreigners, amongst whom it was the most common word. The Scots called themselves
Albanach or simply
Gaidel. As with
Scot, in the latter word, they used an ethnic term which connected them to the majority of the inhabitants of Ireland. As the author of
De Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
notes at the beginning of the thirteenth century:
"The name Arregathel [=Argyll] means margin of the Scots or Irish, because all Scots and Irish are generally called "Gattheli""
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Likewise, the inhabitants of English and Norse-speaking parts were ethnically linked with other regions of Europe. At
MelroseMelrose is a small town and civil parish in the Scottish Borders, historically in Roxburghshire. It is in the Eildon committee area.-Etymology:...
, people could recite religious literature in the English language. In the later part of the twelfth century, the Lothian writer
Adam of DryburghAdam of Dryburgh was a late 12th and early 13th century Anglo-Scottish theologian, writer and Premonstratensian and Carthusian monk. He entered Dryburgh Abbey as a young man, rising to become abbot , before converting to Carthusianism and moving to Witham...
describes Lothian as “the Land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots”.
Scotland came to possess a unity which transcended Gaelic, French and Germanic ethnic differences and by the end of the period, the Latin, French and English word
Scot could be used for any subject of the Scottish king. Scotland's multilingual
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
monarchs and mixed Gaelic and Scoto-Norman aristocracy all became part of the "Community of the Realm", in which ethnic differences were less divisive than in Ireland and Wales.
Primary sources
- Anderson, Alan Orr
Alan Orr Anderson was a Scottish historian and compiler. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh. The son of Rev. John Anderson and Ann Masson, he was born in 1879...
, Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500–1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922).
- Anderson, Alan Orr, Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers: AD 500–1286, (London, 1908), republished, Marjorie Anderson (ed.) (Stamford, 1991).
- Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, tr. John O’ Meary, (London, 1982).
- Guillaume le Clerc, Fergus of Galloway, tr. D.D.R. Owen, (London, 1991).
- Skene, William F.
William Forbes Skene , Scottish historian and antiquary, was the second son of Sir Walter Scott's friend, James Skene , of Rubislaw, near Aberdeen....
(ed.), Chronicles of the Picts and Scots: And Other Memorials of Scottish History, (Edinburgh, 1867).
Secondary sources
The
High Middle Ages of Scotland encompass
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in the era between the death of
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
in 900 AD and the death of king
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
in 1286. Alexander's death was an indirect cause of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, northern
Great BritainGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
was increasingly dominated by
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
culture, and by a Gaelic regal lordship known in
GaelicThe Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
as "
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
", in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as either "Albania" or "
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
", and in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as "Scotland". From a base in eastern Scotland north of the
River ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, the kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the south. It had a flourishing culture, comprising part of the larger Gaelic-speaking world.
After the twelfth-century reign of King David I, the
Scottish monarchsThe Scottish Monarchs were a motorcycle speedway team based in Glasgow, Scotland.At the end of the 1995 season, the Glasgow Tigers closed due a lack of finance and the Edinburgh Monarchs lost their home track, Powderhall Stadium, to redevelopment, leading to the Monarchs racing at Shawfield Stadium...
are better described as
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
than Gaelic, preferring French culture to native Scottish culture. They fostered and attached themselves to a kind of Scottish "Norman Conquest". The consequence was the spread of French institutions and social values. Moreover, the first towns, called burghs, appeared in the same era, and as these burghs spread, so did the Middle English language. To a certain degree these developments were offset by the acquisition of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
west, and the
GaelicizationGaelicization or Gaelicisation is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group who are traditionally viewed as having spread from Ireland to Scotland and the Isle of Man."Gaelic" as a linguistic term, refers to the...
of many of the noble families of
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
Anglo-FrenchThe Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
origin. By the end of this period, Scotland experienced a "Gaelic revival" which created an integrated
Scottish national identityScottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....
. Although there remained a great deal of continuity with the past, by 1286 these economic, institutional, cultural, religious and legal developments had brought Scotland closer to its neighbours in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
the ContinentContinental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
. By 1286 the
Kingdom of ScotlandThe Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
had political boundaries that closely resembled those of modern Scotland.
Historiography
Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic with many publications from Scottish medievalists. Based on their main focus, researchers can generally be grouped into two categories: Celticists and Normanists. The former, such as
David DumvilleProfessor David Norman Dumville is a British medievalist and Celtic scholar. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, and received his PhD. at the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1974, he married Sally Lois Hannay, with whom he had one son...
,
Thomas Owen ClancyProfessor Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in the literature of the Celtic Dark Ages, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow,...
and
Dauvit BrounDauvit Broun is a Scottish historian, Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. A specialist in medieval Scottish and Celtic studies, he concentrates primarily on early medieval Scotland, and has written abundantly on the topic of early Scottish king-lists, as well as on...
, are interested in the native cultures of the country, and often have linguistic training in the
Celtic languagesThe Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
. Normanists are concerned with the French and Anglo-French cultures as they were introduced to Scotland after the eleventh century. The most prominent of such scholars is G.W.S. Barrow, who has devoted his life to studying
feudalismFeudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
in Britain and Scotland in the High Middle Ages. The change-continuity debate that derives from this division is currently one of the most active topics of discussion. For much of the twentieth century, scholars tended to stress the cultural change that took place in Scotland in the Norman era. However, many scholars, for instance
Cynthia NevilleCynthia J Neville, FRHistS, FSAScot is a Canadian historian, medievalist and George Munro professor of history at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Neville's primary research interests are the social, political and cultural history of medieval Scotland, 1000-1500, specifically legal...
and
Richard OramProfessor Richard D. Oram F.S.A. is a Scottish historian. He is a Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling and an Honorary Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen. He is also the director of the Centre for Environmental History and Policy at the...
, while not ignoring cultural changes, are arguing that continuity with the Gaelic past was just as, if not more, important.
Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
During the period of occupation by the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, the province of
BritanniaRoman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
formally ended at
Hadrian's WallHadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
. Between this wall and the
Antonine WallThe Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...
, the Romans fostered a series of buffer states separating the Roman-occupied territory from the territory of the
PictsThe Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
. The development of "Pictland" itself, according to the historical model developed by Peter Heather, was a natural response to Roman imperialism. Around 400 the buffer states became the
BritishThe Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
kingdoms of "The Old North", and by 900 the Kingdom of the Picts had developed into the
GaelicThe Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
Kingdom of AlbaThe name Kingdom of Alba pertains to the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900, and of Alexander III in 1286 which then led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence...
.
In the tenth century, the Scottish elite began to develop a conquest myth to explain their Gaelicization, a myth often known as
MacAlpin's TreasonMacAlpin's treason is a medieval legend which explains the replacement of the Pictish language by Gaelic in the 9th and 10th centuries.The legend tells of the murder of the nobles of Pictavia...
, in which
Cináed mac AilpínCináed mac Ailpín , commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror"...
is supposed to have annihilated the Picts in one fell takeover. The earliest versions include the
Life of St Cathróe of Metz and royal
genealogiesGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
tracing their origin to Fergus Mór mac Eirc. In the reign of
Máel Coluim IIIMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the
Duan AlbanachThe Duan Albanach is a Middle Gaelic poem found with the Lebor Bretnach, a Gaelic version of the Historia Brittonum of Nennius, with extensive additional material ....
formalised the myth in Gaelic poetic tradition. In the 13th and 14th centuries, these mythical traditions were incorporated into the documents now in the
Poppleton ManuscriptThe Poppleton Manuscript is the name given to the fourteenth century codex likely compiled by Robert of Poppleton, a Carmelite friar who was the Prior of Hulne, near Alnwick. The manuscript contains numerous works, such as a map of the world , and works by Orosius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald...
, and in the
Declaration of ArbroathThe Declaration of Arbroath is a declaration of Scottish independence, made in 1320. It is in the form of a letter submitted to Pope John XXII, dated 6 April 1320, intended to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defending Scotland's right to use military action when...
. They were believed in the early modern period, and beyond; even King
James VI/IJames VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race".
However, modern historians are now beginning to reject this conceptualization of Scottish origins. No contemporary sources mention this conquest. Moreover, the Gaelicization of Pictland was a long process predating Cináed, and is evidenced by Gaelic-speaking Pictish rulers, Pictish royal patronage of Gaelic poets, Gaelic inscriptions, and Gaelic placenames. The term
king of Alba, although only registered at the start of the tenth century, is possibly just a Gaelic translation of
Pictland. The change of identity can perhaps be explained by the death of the
Pictish languagePictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...
, but also important may be
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church and the trauma caused by
VikingThe term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
invasions, most strenuously felt in the Pictish Kingdom's heartland of
FortriuFortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
.
The
Kingdom of StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
on the valley of the
river ClydeThe River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
remained semi-independent, as did the Gaels of
ArgyllArgyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...
and the islands to the west (formerly
Dál RiataDál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...
). The south-east had been absorbed by the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Kingdom of Bernicia/NorthumbriaBernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
in the seventh century, and other
GermanicThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
invaders, the
NorseNorsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
, were beginning to incorporate much of the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
, as well as the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
too was under strong
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
influence, but there was no one kingdom in that area.
Gaelic kings: Domnall II to Alexander I
King
Domnall IIDomnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
was the first man to have been called
rí Alban (i.e.
King of Alba) when he died at
DunnottarDunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about two miles south of Stonehaven. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th–16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been an early fortress of the Dark Ages...
in 900 - this meant king of Britain or Scotland. All his predecessors bore the style of either
King of the Picts or
King of Fortriu. Such an apparent innovation in the Gaelic chronicles is occasionally taken to spell the birth of Scotland, but there is nothing special about his reign that might confirm this. Domnall had the nickname
dásachtach. This simply meant a madman, or, in early Irish law, a man not in control of his functions and hence without legal culpability. The following long reign (900–942/3) of Domnall's successor
CausantínConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
is more often regarded as the key to formation of the High Medieval Kingdom of Alba. Despite some setbacks, it was during his half-century reign that the Scots saw off any danger that the Vikings would expand their territory beyond the
WesternThe Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
and
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the
CaithnessCaithness is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic local government area of Scotland. The name was used also for the earldom of Caithness and the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area is...
area.
The period between the accession of
Máel Coluim IMáel Coluim mac Domnaill was king of Scots , becoming king when his cousin Causantín mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk...
and
Máel Coluim IIMáel Coluim mac Cináeda , was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death...
was marked by good relations with the
WessexThe Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
rulers of England, intense internal dynastic disunity and, despite this, relatively successful expansionary policies. In 945, king Máel Coluim I received
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
as part of a deal with King
Edmund of EnglandEdmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...
, an event offset somewhat by Máel Coluim's loss of control in Moray. Sometime in the reign of king
IdulbIldulb mac Causantín, anglicised as Indulf, nicknamed An Ionsaighthigh, "the Aggressor" was king of Scots from 954. He was the son of Constantine II ; his mother may have been a daughter of Earl Eadulf I of Bernicia, who was an exile in Scotland.John of Fordun and others supposed that Indulf had...
(954–962), the Scots captured the fortress called
oppidum Eden, i.e.
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. Scottish control of
LothianLothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
was strengthened with Máel Coluim II's victory over the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham (1018). The Scots had probably had some authority in Strathclyde since the later part of the ninth century, but the kingdom kept its own rulers, and it is not clear that the Scots were always strong enough to enforce their authority.
The reign of King
Donnchad IDonnchad mac Crínáin was king of Scotland from 1034 to 1040...
from 1034 was marred by failed military adventures, and he was defeated and killed by the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
,
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
, who became king in 1040. Mac Bethad ruled for seventeen years, so peacefully that he was able to leave to go on
pilgrimageA pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. However, he was overthrown by
Máel ColuimMáel Coluim mac Donnchada , was King of Scots...
, the son of Donnchad who eighteen months later defeated Mac Bethad's successor Lulach to become king Máel Coluim III. In subsequent medieval
propagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
Donnchad's reign was portrayed positively, while Mac Bethad was vilified.
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
followed this distorted history in describing both men in his play
MacbethThe Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
.
It was Máel Coluim III, not his father Donnchad, who did more to create the
dynastyThe so-called House of Dunkeld, in Scottish Gaelic Dùn Chailleann , is a historiographical and genealogical construct to illustrate the clear succession of Scottish kings from 1034 to 1040 and from 1058 to 1290.It is dynastically sort of a continuation to Cenél nGabráin of Dál Riata, "race of...
that ruled Scotland for the following two centuries, successfully compared to some. Part of the resource was the large number of children he had, perhaps as many as a dozen, through marriage to the widow or daughter of
Thorfinn Sigurdsson, Earl of OrkneyThorfinn Sigurdsson , called Thorfinn the Mighty, was an 11th-century Earl of Orkney. One of five brothers , sons of Earl Sigurd Hlodvirsson by his marriage to the daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland...
and afterwards to the Anglo-Hungarian princess
MargaretSaint Margaret of Scotland , also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England...
, granddaughter of
Edmund IronsideEdmund Ironside or Edmund II was king of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. His cognomen "Ironside" is not recorded until 1057, but may have been contemporary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut...
. However, despite having a royal
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
wife, Máel Coluim spent much of his reign conducting
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
raids against the English, adding to the woes of that people in the aftermath of the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
and the
Harrying of the NorthThe Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate Northern England, and is part of the Norman conquest of England...
.
Marianus ScotusMarianus Scotus , was an Irish monk and chronicler , was an Irishman by birth, and called Máel Brigte, or Devotee of St...
narrates that "the Gaels and French devastated the English; and [the English] were dispersed and died of hunger; and were compelled to eat human flesh".
Máel Coluim's raids and attempts to further the claims for his successors to the
English kingdomThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
prompted interference by the Norman rulers of England in the Scottish kingdom. He had married the sister of the native English claimant to the English throne, Edgar Ætheling, and had given most of his children by this marriage Anglo-Saxon royal names. In 1080, King
William the ConquerorWilliam I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
sent his son on an invasion of Scotland, and Máel Coluim submitted to the authority of the king, giving his oldest son Donnchad as a hostage. King Máel Coluim himself died in one of the raids, in 1093.
Tradition would have made his brother
Domnall BánDomnall mac Donnchada , anglicised as Donald III, and nicknamed Domnall Bán, "Donald the Fair" , was King of Scots from 1093–1094 and 1094–1097...
Máel Coluim's successor, but it seems that Edward, his eldest son by Margaret, was his chosen heir. With Máel Coluim and Edward dead in the same battle, and his other sons in Scotland still young, Domnall was made king. However,
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, Máel Coluim's eldest son by his first wife, obtained some support from
William RufusWilliam II , the third son of William I of England, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales...
and took the throne, but according to the
Anglo-Saxon ChronicleThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...
his English and French followers were massacred, and Donnchad II himself was killed later in the same year (1094) by Domnall's ally
Máel Petair of MearnsMáel Petair of Mearns is the only known Mormaer of the Mearns. His name means "tonsured one of Peter".One source tells us that Máel Petair was the son of a Máel Coluim, but tells us nothing about this. If this weren't bad enough, other sources say that his father was a man called "Loren", and in...
. However, in 1097, William Rufus sent another of Máel Coluim's sons,
EdgarEdgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim , nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" , was king of Alba from 1097 to 1107...
, to take the kingship. The ensuing death of Domnall Bán secured the kingship for Edgar, and there followed a period of relative peace. The reigns of both Edgar and his successor
AlexanderAlexander I , also called Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim and nicknamed "The Fierce", was King of the Scots from 1107 to his death.-Life:...
are obscure in comparison with their successors. The former's most notable act was to send a
camelA camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
(or perhaps an
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) to his fellow Gael
Muircheartach Ua BriainMuircheartach Ua Briain , son of Toirdelbach Ua Briain and great-grandson of Brian Bóruma, was King of Munster and later self declared High King of Ireland.-Background:...
,
High King of IrelandThe High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
. When Edgar died, Alexander took the kingship, while his youngest brother David became Prince of "Cumbria" and ruler of Lothian.
Scoto-Norman kings: David I to Alexander III
The period between the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
and the death of
Alexander IIIAlexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
was marked by dependency upon and relatively good relations with the Kings of England. As long as one remembers the continuities, the period can also be regarded as one of great historical transformation, part of a more general phenomenon which has been called the "Europeanisation of Europe". As a related matter, the period witnessed the successful imposition of royal authority across most of the modern country. After David I, and especially in the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, Scotland's Kings became ambivalent about the culture of most of their subjects. As
Walter of CoventryWalter of Coventry , English monk and chronicler, who was apparently connected with a religious house in the province of York, is known to us only through the historical compilation which bears his name, the Memoriale fratris Walteri de Coventria....
tells us, "The modern kings of Scotland count themselves as Frenchmen, in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Gaels to utter servitude."
The ambivalence of the kings was matched to a certain extent by the Scots themselves. In the aftermath of William's capture at
AlnwickAlnwick is a small market town in north Northumberland, England. The town's population was just over 8000 at the time of the 2001 census and Alnwick's district population was 31,029....
in 1174, the Scots turned on the small number of
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speakers and French-speakers among them.
William of NewburghWilliam of Newburgh or Newbury , also known as William Parvus, was a 12th-century English historian and Augustinian canon from Bridlington, Yorkshire.-Biography:...
related that the Scots first attacked the Scoto-English in their own army, and Newburgh reported a repetition of these events in Scotland itself.
Walter BowerWalter Bower , Scottish chronicler, was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian.He was abbot of Inchcolm Abbey from 1418, was one of the commissioners for the collection of the ransom of James I, King of Scots, in 1423 and 1424, and in 1433 one of the embassy to Paris on the business of the...
, writing a few centuries later albeit, wrote about the same events, and confirms that "there took place a most wretched and widespread persecution of the English both in Scotland and Galloway".
The first instance of strong opposition to the Scottish kings was perhaps the revolt of
ÓengusÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
, the
Mormaer of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
. Other important resistors to the expansionary Scottish kings were
Somairle mac Gillai BrigteSomerled was a military and political leader of the Scottish Isles in the 12th century who was known in Gaelic as rí Innse Gall . His father was Gillebride...
,
Fergus of GallowayFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
,
Gille Brigte, Lord of GallowayGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and
Harald MaddadssonHarald Maddadsson was Earl of Orkney and Mormaer of Caithness from 1139 until 1206. He was the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and Margaret, daughter of Earl Haakon Paulsson of Orkney...
, along with two kin-groups known today as the
MacHethsThe MacHeths were a Gaelic kindred who raised several rebellions against the Scotto-Norman kings of Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries. Their origins have long been debated.-Origins:...
and the
MacWilliamsMacWilliams and MacWilliam is a surname, originating from Meic Uilleim. Some notable MacWilliams are:*Dave MacWilliams, soccer player*Jessie MacWilliams, mathematician*Keenan MacWilliam, actress*Lyle MacWilliam, Canadian congressman...
. The latter claimed descent from king
Donnchad IIDonnchad mac Maíl Coluim was king of Scots...
, through his son
William fitz DuncanWilliam fitz Duncan was a Scottish prince, a territorial magnate in northern Scotland and northern England, a general and the legitimate son of king Donnchad II of Scotland by Athelreda of Dunbar.In 1094, his father Donnchad II was killed by Mormaer Máel Petair of...
. The MacWilliams appear to have rebelled for no less a reason than the Scottish throne itself. The threat was so grave that, after the defeat of the MacWilliams in 1230, the Scottish crown ordered the public execution of the infant girl who happened to be the last of the MacWilliam line. This was how the
Lanercost Chronicle related the fate of this last MacWilliam:
Many of these resistors collaborated, and drew support not just in the peripheral Gaelic regions of Galloway, Moray, Ross and Argyll, but also from eastern "Scotland-proper", and elsewhere in the Gaelic world. However, by the end of the twelfth century, the Scottish kings had acquired the authority and ability to draw in native Gaelic lords outside their previous zone of control in order to do their work, the most famous examples being
Lochlann, Lord of GallowayLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
and
Ferchar mac in tSagairtFearchar of Ross or Ferchar mac in tSagairt , was the first Mormaer or Earl of Ross we know of from the thirteenth century, whose career brought Ross into the fold of the Scottish kings for the first time, and who is remembered as the founder of the Earldom of Ross.-Origins:The traditional...
. Cumulatively, by the reign of Alexander III, the Scots were in a strong position to annex the remainder of the western seaboard, which they did in 1265, with the
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
. The conquest of the west, the creation of the Mormaerdom of Carrick in 1186 and the absorption of the
Lordship of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
after the Galwegian revolt of
Gille RuadhGille Ruadh was the Galwegian leader who led the revolt against King Alexander II of Scotland. Also called Gilla Ruadh, Gilleroth, Gilrod, Gilroy, etc....
in 1235 meant that the number and proportion of Gaelic speakers under the rule of the Scottish king actually increased, and perhaps even doubled, in the so-called Norman period. It was the Gaels and Gaelicised warriors of the new west, and the power they offered, that enabled King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
(himself a Gaelicised
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
of
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
) to emerge victorious during the Wars of Independence, which followed soon after the death of Alexander III.
Other kingdoms
The Kingdom of Alba was not the only source of
regalA royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...
authority in northern Britain. Until the Norman era, and perhaps even until the reign of Alexander II, the Scottish king controlled only a minority of the people who lived inside the boundary of modern Scotland, in the same way as the French monarchs of the Middle Ages only had control of patches of what is now modern
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The
ruler of MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
was called not only
king in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but before
Máel SnechtaiMáel Snechtai of Moray was the ruler of Moray, and, as his name suggests, the son of Lulach, King of Scotland.He is called on his death notice in the Annals of Ulster, "Máel Snechtai m...
,
king of Alba/Scotland. After Máel Snechtai, Irish sources call them merely kings of
MorayMoray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.- History :...
. The rulers of Moray took over the entire Scottish kingdom under the famous
Mac Bethad mac FindláichMac Bethad mac Findlaích was King of the Scots from 1040 until his death...
(1040–1057) and his successor
Lulach mac Gillai ChoemgáinLulach mac Gille Coemgáin was King of Scots between 15 August 1057 and 17 March 1058.He appears to have been a weak king, as his nicknames suggest...
(1057–1058). However, Moray was subjugated by the Scottish kings after 1130, when the last native ruler,
Óengus of MorayÓengus of Moray was the last King of Moray of the native line, ruling Moray in what is now northeastern Scotland from some unknown date until his death in 1130....
was defeated in an attempt to seize the Scottish throne.
Galloway, likewise, was a Lordship with some regality. In a
GalwegianGalwegian Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the independent kings of Galloway in their time, and by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. It was once spoken in Annandale and Strathnith...
charter dated to the reign of
FergusFergus of Galloway was King, or Lord, of Galloway from an unknown date , until his death in 1161. He was the founder of that "sub-kingdom," the resurrector of the Bishopric of Whithorn, the patron of new abbeys , and much else besides...
, the Galwegian ruler styled himself
rex Galwitensium, King of Galloway; Irish chroniclers continued to call Fergus' successors
King. Although the Scots obtained greater control after the death of
Gilla BrigteGille Brigte or Gilla Brigte mac Fergusa of Galloway , also known as Gillebrigte, Gille Brighde, Gilbridge, Gilbride, etc., and most famously known in French sources as Gilbert, was Lord of Galloway of Scotland...
and the installation of
Lochlann/RolandLochlann , also known by his French name Roland, was the son and successor of Uchtred, Lord of Galloway as the "Lord" or "sub-king" of eastern Galloway....
in 1185, Galloway was not fully absorbed by Scotland until 1235, after the rebellion of the Galwegians was crushed.
Galloway and Moray were not the only other territories whose rulers had regal status. Both the rulers of
MannThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
& the
IslesThe Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
, and the rulers of Argyll had the status of kings, even if some southern Latin writers called them merely
reguli (i.e. "kinglets"). The Mormaers of Lennox referred to their predecessors as Kings of
BallochBalloch is a small town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, at the foot of Loch Lomond. The name comes from the Gaelic for "the pass".Balloch is at the north end of the Vale of Leven, straddling the River Leven itself. It connects to the larger town of Alexandria and to the smaller village of...
, many of the Mormaerdoms had already been kingdoms at an earlier stage. Another kingdom,
StrathclydeStrathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
(or
Cumbria), had been incorporated into Scotland in a slow process that started in the 9th century and was not fully realised until perhaps the 12th.
Geography
Neither the political nor the theoretical boundaries of Scotland in this period, as both
AlbaAlba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
and
ScotiaScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
, corresponded exactly to modern Scotland. The closest approximation came at the end of the period, when the
Treaty of YorkThe Treaty of York was an agreement between Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland, signed at York on 25 September 1237. It detailed the future status of several feudal properties and addressed other issues between the two kings, and indirectly marked the end of Scotland's attempts to...
(1237) and
Treaty of PerthThe Treaty of Perth, 1266, ended military conflict between Norway, under King Magnus VI of Norway, and Scotland, under King Alexander III, over the sovereignty of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man....
(1266) fixed the boundaries between the Kingdom of the Scots with England and
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
respectively; although in neither case did this border exactly match the modern one,
BerwickBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
and the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
being eventually lost to England, and Orkney and Shetland later being gained from Norway.
Until the thirteenth century, Scotland referred to the land to the north of the
river ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, and for this reason historians sometimes use the term "Scotland-proper". By the middle of the thirteenth century, Scotland could include all the lands ruled by the King of Scots, but the older concept of Scotland remained throughout the period.
For legal and administrative purposes, the Kingdom of the Scots was divided into three, four or five zones: Scotland-proper (north and south of the Grampians), Lothian, Galloway and, earlier, Strathclyde. Like Scotland, neither Lothian nor Galloway had its modern meaning. Lothian could refer to the entire
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
-speaking south-east, and latterly, included much of Strathclyde. Galloway could refer to the entire Gaelic-speaking south-west. Lothian was divided from Scotland-proper by the river Forth. To quote the early thirteenth century tract,
de Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
,
Here Scottish refers to the language now called the
Middle Irish languageMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
, British to the
Welsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
and Romance to the Old French language, which had borrowed the term
Scottewatre from the Middle English language.
In this period, little of Scotland was governed by the crown. Instead, most Scots lay under the intermediate control of
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
and increasingly after the twelfth century, French-speaking Mormaers/Earls and Lords.
Economy
The Scottish economy of this period was dominated by agriculture and by short-distance, local trade. There was an increasing amount of foreign trade in the period, as well as exchange gained by means of military plunder. By the end of this period, coins were replacing
barter goodsBarter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
, but for most of this period most exchange was done without the use of metal currency.
Most of Scotland's agricultural wealth in this period came from
pastoralismPastoralism or pastoral farming is the branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. It may have a mobile aspect, moving the herds in search of fresh pasture and...
, rather than
arable farmingIn geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
. Arable farming grew significantly in the "Norman period", but with geographical differences, low-lying areas being subject to more arable farming than high-lying areas such as the
HighlandsThe Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
,
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
and the
Southern UplandsThe Southern Uplands are the southernmost and least populous of mainland Scotland's three major geographic areas . The term is used both to describe the geographical region and to collectively denote the various ranges of hills within this region...
. Galloway, in the words of G.W.S. Barrow, "already famous for its cattle, was so overwhelmingly pastoral, that there is little evidence in that region of land under any permanent cultivation, save along the Solway coast." The average amount of land used by a husbandman in Scotland might have been around 26 acres. There is a lot of evidence that the native Scots favoured pastoralism, in that Gaelic lords were happier to give away more land to French and Middle English-speaking settlers, whilst holding on tenaciously to more high-lying regions, perhaps contributing to the Highland/Galloway-Lowland division that emerged in Scotland in the later Middle Ages. The main unit of land measurement in Scotland was the
davoch (i.e. "vat"), called the
arachor in
LennoxThe district of Lennox , often known as "the Lennox", is a region of Scotland centred around the village of Lennoxtown in East Dunbartonshire, eight miles north of the centre of Glasgow. At various times in history, the district has had both a dukedom and earldom associated with it.- External...
. This unit is also known as the "Scottish ploughgate." In English-speaking Lothian, it was simply
ploughgateA ploughgate was a Scottish land measurement, used in the south and the east of the country. It was supposed to be the area that eight oxen were said to be able to plough in one year. Because of the variable land quality in Scotland, this could be a number of different actual land areas...
. It may have measured about 104 acre (0.42087344 km²), divided into 4
raths. Cattle, pigs and cheeses were among the most produced foodstuffs, but of course a vast range of foodstuffs were produced, from sheep and fish, rye and barley, to bee wax and honey.
Pre-Davidian Scotland had no known chartered burghs, though most, if not all, of the burghs granted charters by the crown already existed long before the reign of David I but he gave them legal status - a new form of recognition. Scotland, outside Lothian, Lanarkshire, Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, Angus, Aberdeenshire and Fife at least, largely was populated by scattered hamlets, and outside that area, lacked the continental style nucleated village. David I established the first chartered burghs in Scotland. David I copied the burgher charters and
Leges Burgorum (rules governing virtually every aspect of life and work in a burgh) almost verbatim from the English customs of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Early burgesses were usually Flemish,
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
,
FrenchThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and
GermanThe Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, rather than Gaelic Scots. The burgh’s vocabulary was composed totally of either Germanic and French terms. The councils which ran individual burghs were individually known as
lie doussane, meaning the dozen.
Demographics
The population of Scotland in this period is unknown, the first reliable information in 1755 shows the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380. Best estimates put the Scottish population for earlier periods in the High Middle Ages between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people, growing from a low point to a high point. Its density was much more evenly spread than today. Between 60 and 80% of people lived north of the Forth river, with the remainder being divided between Galloway, Strathclyde and Lothian. Bishopric and Justiciar distribution suggests a relatively even divide between these three zones.
Linguistically, the vast majority of people within Scotland throughout this period spoke the
GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
language, then simply called
Scottish, or in Latin,
lingua Scotica. Other languages spoken throughout this period were Norse and English, with the
Cumbric languageCumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North", or what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages...
disappearing somewhere between 900 and 1100. Pictish may have survived into this period, but there is little evidence for this. After the accession of
David IDavid I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...
, or perhaps before, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court. From his reign until the end of the period, the Scottish monarchs probably favoured the French language, as evidenced by reports from contemporary chronicles, literature and translations of administrative documents into the French language.
GaelicScottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
displaced Norse in much of the
Norse-GaelicThe Norse–Gaels were a people who dominated much of the Irish Sea region, including the Isle of Man, and western Scotland for a part of the Middle Ages; they were of Gaelic and Scandinavian origin and as a whole exhibited a great deal of Gaelic and Norse cultural syncretism...
region, but itself lost ground to
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in much of the region between
Scotland-properScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
and
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
. English, with French and Flemish, became the main language of Scottish towns (burghs), which were created for the first time under David I. However, burghs were, in Barrow's words, “scarcely more than villages … numbered in hundreds rather than thousands”, and Norman knights were a similarly tiny in number when compared with the Gaelic population of Scotland outside of Lothian.
Society
Medieval Scottish society was stratified. The hierarchical structure of
statusIn sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
in early Gaelic society is well-documented, owing primarily to the large body of extant legal texts and tracts from this period. The legal tract known as
Laws of Brets and Scots, lists five grades of man:
King,
mormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
/
earlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
,
toísech/thane,
ócthigern and
serf. In pre-twelfth century Scotland
slave was a social status as well. The standard differentiation in medieval European society between the
bellatores ("those who fight", i.e. aristocrats), the
oratores ("those who pray", i.e. clergy) and the
laboratores ("those who work", i.e. peasants) was useless for understanding Scottish society in the earlier period, but becomes more useful in the post-Davidian period.
Most of the territory subject to the King of Scots
north of the ForthScotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
was directly under a lord who in
medieval ScottishMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
was called a
MormaerThe title of Mormaer designates a regional or provincial ruler in the medieval Kingdom of the Scots. In theory, although not always in practice, a Mormaer was second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a toisech.-Origin:...
. The term was translated into Latin as
comes, and is misleadingly translated into modern English as
EarlAn earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
. These secular lords exercised secular power and religious patronage like kings in miniature. They kept their own warbands and followers, issued charters and supervised law and internal order within their provinces. When actually under the power of the Scottish king, they were responsible for rendering to the king
cain, a tribute paid several times a year, usually in cattle and other barter goods. They also had to provide for the king
conveth, a kind of hospitality payment, paid by putting-up the lord on a visit with food and accommodation, or with barter payments in lieu of this. In the Norman era, they provided the
servitum Scoticanum ("Gaelic service", "Scottish service" or simply
forinsec) and led the
exercitus Scoticanus , the Gaelic part of the king's army that made up the vast majority almost any national hosting (
slógad) in the period.
A
toísech ("chieftain") was like a mormaer, providing for his lord the same services that a mormaer provided for the king. The Latin word usually used is
thanus, which is why the office-bearers are often called "thanes" in English. The formalization of this institution was largely confined to eastern Scotland north of the Forth, and only two of the seventy-one known thanages existed south of that river. Behind the offices of
toísech and mormaer were
kinship groupsA clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
. Sometimes these offices were formalised, but mostly they are informal. The head of the kinship group was called
capitalis in Latin and
cenn in
medieval GaelicMiddle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
. In the Mormaerdom of Fife, the primary kinship group was known then as
Clann MacDuib ("Children of
MacDuffClan MacDuff is a Scottish armigerous clan, which is registered with Lyon Court, though currently without a chief. Moncreiffe wrote that the Clan MacDuff was the premier clan among the Scottish Gaels. The early chiefs of Clan MacDuff were the Earls of Fife...
"). Others include the
Cennedig (from
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
),
Morggain (from
BuchanBuchan is one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by the council in 1996, when the Aberdeenshire unitary council area was created under the Local Government etc Act 1994...
), and the MacDowalls (from
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
). There were probably hundreds in total, mostly unrecorded.
The highest non-noble rank was, according to the
Laws of Brets and Scots, called the
ócthigern (literally,
little or
young lord), a term the text does not bother to translate into French. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent was perhaps the
sokeman. Other known ranks include the
scoloc, perhaps equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon
gerseman. In the earlier period, the Scots kept slaves, and many of these were foreigners (English or Scandinavian) captured during warfare. Large-scale Scottish slave-raids are particularly well documented in the eleventh century.
Law and government
Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century, reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. Scottish
common lawCommon law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent. In the twelfth century, and certainly in the thirteenth, strong continental legal influences began to have more effect, such as
Canon lawThe canon law of the Catholic Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. It lacks the necessary binding force present in most modern day legal systems. The academic...
and various Anglo-Norman practices. Pre-fourteenth century
lawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
amongst the native Scots is not always well attested. However, our extensive knowledge of
early Gaelic LawEarly Irish law refers to the statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwent a resurgence in the 13th century, and survived into Early Modern Ireland in parallel with English law over the...
gives some basis for reconstructing pre-fourteenth century Scottish law. In the earliest extant Scottish legal manuscript, there is a document called
Leges inter Brettos et Scottos. The document survives in Old French, and is almost certainly a French translation of an earlier Gaelic document. The document retained untranslated a vast number of Gaelic legal terms. Later medieval legal documents, written both in Latin and Middle English, contain more Gaelic legal terms, examples including
slains (Old Irish
slán or
sláinte; exemption) and
cumherba (Old Irish
comarba; ecclesiastic heir).
A
Judex (pl.
judices) represents a post-Norman continuity with the ancient Gaelic orders of lawmen called in English today
Brehons. Bearers of the office almost always have Gaelic names north of the Forth or in the
south-westGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
.
Judices were often royal officials who supervised baronial, abbatial and other lower-ranking "courts". However, the main official of law in the post-Davidian Kingdom of the Scots was the
JusticiarIn medieval England and Ireland the Chief Justiciar was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister as the monarch's chief minister. Similar positions existed on the Continent, particularly in Norman Italy. The term is the English form of the medieval Latin justiciarius or justitiarius In...
. The institution has Anglo-Norman origins, but in Scotland north of the Forth it probably represented some form of continuity with an older office. For instance, Mormaer Causantín of Fife is styled
judex magnus (i.e. great Brehon), and it seems that the Justiciarship of Scotia was just a further Latinisation/Normanisation of that position. The formalised office of the Justiciar held responsibility for supervising the activity and behaviour of royal sheriffs and sergeants, held courts and reported on these things to the king personally. Normally, there were two Justiciarships, organised by linguistic boundaries: the Justiciar of Scotia and the Justiciar of Lothian. Sometimes Galloway had its own Justiciar too.
The office of Justiciar and Judex were just two ways that Scottish society was governed. In the earlier period, the king "delegated" power to hereditary native "officers" such as the Mormaers/Earls and Toísechs/Thanes. It was a
governmentGovernment refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
of gift-giving and bardic lawmen. There were also popular courts, the
comhdhail, testament to which are dozens of placenames throughout eastern Scotland. In the Norman period, sheriffdoms and sheriffs and, to a lesser extent, bishops (see below) became increasingly important. The former enabled the King to effectively administer royal demesne land. During David I's reign, royal sheriffs had been established in the king's core personal territories; namely, in rough chronological order, at
RoxburghRoxburgh , also known as Rosbroch, is a village, civil parish and now-destroyed royal burgh. It was an important trading burgh in High Medieval to early modern Scotland...
,
SconeScone is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. The medieval village of Scone, which grew up around the monastery and royal residence, was abandoned in the early 19th century when the residents were removed and a new palace was built on the site by the Earl of Mansfield...
,
Berwick-upon-TweedBerwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
,
StirlingStirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
and
PerthPerth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...
. By the reign of
William IWilliam the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
, there may have been about 30 royal sheriffdoms, including ones at
AyrAyr is a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. With a population of around 46,000, Ayr is the largest settlement in Ayrshire, of which it is the county town, and has held royal burgh status since 1205...
and
DumfriesDumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
, key locations on the borders of
GallowayGalloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
-
CarrickCarrick is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.-History:The word Carrick comes from the Gaelic word Carraig, meaning rock or rocky place. Maybole was the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually combined into Ayrshire which was divided...
. As the distribution and number of sheriffdoms expanded, so did royal control. By the end of the thirteenth century, sheriffdoms had been established in westerly locations as far-flung as
WigtownWigtown is a town and former royal burgh in the Machars of Galloway in the south west of Scotland. It lies south of Newton Stewart and east of Stranraer. It has a population of about 1,000...
,
KintyreKintyre is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The region stretches approximately 30 miles , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south, to East Loch Tarbert in the north...
, Skye and
LorneLorne is an ancient district in the west of Scotland, now part of the Argyll and Bute council area. It is within the region once named Lorna which may have taken its name from Loarn mac Eirc. However the last cartographical reference to Lorna is in 1607 with that same area being referred to as...
. Through these, the thirteenth century Scottish king exercised more control over Scotland than any of his later medieval successors. The king himself was itinerant and had no "capital"; but if there was such a thing, it was Scone. By ritual tradition, all Scottish kings in this period had to be crowned there, and crowned there by the Mormaers of Strathearn and, especially, Fife. Although King David I tried to build up Roxburgh as a capital, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more charters were issued at Scone than any other location. Other popular locations were nearby Perth, Stirling,
DunfermlineDunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...
and
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(especially popular during the reign of
Alexander IIAlexander II was King of Scots from1214 to his death.-Early life:...
), as well as all other royal burghs. In the earliest part of this era,
ForresForres , is a town and former royal burgh situated in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately 30 miles east of Inverness. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions...
and
DunkeldDunkeld is a small town in Strathtay, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is about 15 miles north of Perth on the eastern side of the A9 road into the Scottish Highlands and on the opposite side of the Tay from the Victorian village of Birnam. Dunkeld and Birnam share a railway station, on the...
seem to have been the chief royal residences.
Military
After the "Norman Conquest" of David I, the warriors of Scotland can be classed as of two types. Firstly, the native
exercitus Scoticanus (i.e. "Gaelic army"); and, secondly, the
exercitus militaris (i.e. "feudal army"). The Gaelic army formed the larger part of all pre-Stewart Scottish armies, but in the wider world of European (i.e. French) chivalry the feudal section was the more prestigious. The native Scots, like all early medieval Europeans, practiced organised
slaveSlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
-raiding. Presumably, they did so with each other. However, our main record of it comes from when they practised it against their Norman and post-Conquest Anglo-Saxon neighbour. John Gillingham argues that this was one of the things which made the Scots (and other Celts) particularly barbarous in the eyes of their "Frankish" neighbours, because the French had largely abandoned this form of warfare.
As with so many changes in this period, the introduction of the feudal army can be traced primarily to the reign of David I, although French and English knights were used in moderation by his older brothers. The tension which these knights produced is well recorded in contemporary sources. At the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
, the Gaels oppose the positioning of the French soldiers in the van of the king's army.
Ailred of RievaulxAelred , also Aelred, Ælred, Æthelred, etc., was an English writer, abbot of Rievaulx , and saint.-Life:...
attributes this opposition to the Galwegians, but it was widespread among the Scottish Gaels in general, as the native spokesman is given as Máel Ísu, then the Mormaer of Strathearn and highest ranking noble in the army.
The advantage French military culture possessed was manifold. French knights used expensive suits of armour, whereas the Scots were "naked" (of armour, rather than dress). They possessed heavy cavalry, and other weapons such as crossbows and siege engines, as well as fortification techniques far more effective and advanced than anything possessed by the native Scots. Moreover, their culture, particularly their feudal ideology, made them reliable vassals, who because they were foreign, were even more dependent on the king. Over time, the Scots themselves became more like the French warriors, and the French warriors adopted many of the Gaelic military practices, so that by the end of the period, a syncretic military culture existed in the kingdom.
Christianity and the Church
By the tenth century all of northern Britain, except the Scandinavian far north and west was Christianized. The most important factors for the conversion of Scotland were the Roman province of
BritanniaBritannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
to the south, and later the so-called Gaelic or Columban church, an interlinked system of monasteries and aristocratic networks which combined to spread both Christianity and the
Gaelic languageOld Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
amongst the Picts.
Saints
Like every other Christian country, one of the main features of Scottish Christianity is the
Cult of SaintsA saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
. Saints were the middle men between the ordinary worshipper and
GodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. In Scotland north of the
ForthThe River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
, local saints were either Pictish or Gaelic. The national saint of the Scottish Gaels was
Colum Cille or
ColumbaSaint Columba —also known as Colum Cille , Colm Cille , Calum Cille and Kolban or Kolbjørn —was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period...
(in Latin, lit.
dove), in Strathclyde it was St Kentigern (in Gaelic, lit.
Chief of the Lord), in Lothian, St Cuthbert. Later, owing to learned confusion between the Latin words
Scotia and
ScythiaIn antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
, the Scottish kings adopted St Andrew, a saint who had more appeal to incoming Normans and was attached to the ambitious bishopric that is now known by the saint's name, St Andrews. However, Columba's status was still supreme in the early fourteenth century, when King
Robert IRobert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...
carried the
brecbennoch (or Monymusk reliquary) into battle at
BannockburnThe Battle of Bannockburn was a significant Scottish victory in the Wars of Scottish Independence...
. Around the same period, a cleric on
InchcolmInchcolm is an island in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Repeatedly attacked by English raiders during the Wars of Scottish Independence, it was fortified during both World Wars to defend nearby Edinburgh...
wrote the following Latin poem:
| Latin |
English |
Os mutorum,
lux cecorum,
pes clausorum,
porrige
lapsis manum,
Firma vanum
et insanum
corrige
O Columba spes Scottorum
nos tuorum meritorum
interventu beatorum
fac consortes angelorum
Alleluia |
Mouth of the dumb [people],
light of the blind [people]
foot of the lame [people]
to the fallen [people]
Stretch out thy hand
strengthen the vain [people]
and the insane [people]
Invigorate!
O Columba Hope of the Scots/Gaels
by thy standing
by mediation
make us the companions of the beautiful Angels
Halleluia. |
The poem illustrates both the role of saints, in this case as the representative of the Scottish (or perhaps just Gaelic) people in heaven, and the importance of Columba to the Scottish people.
Monasticism
The typical features of native Scottish Christianity are relaxed ideas of
clerical celibacyClerical celibacy is the discipline by which some or all members of the clergy in certain religions are required to be unmarried. Since these religions consider deliberate sexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior outside of marriage to be sinful, clerical celibacy also requires abstension from these...
, intense secularization of ecclesiastical institutions, and the lack of a
dioscesan structureA diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
. Instead of bishops and archbishops, the most important offices of the native Scottish church were abbots (or
coarbs). Scotland was untouched by continental forms of
monasticismMonasticism is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work...
until the late eleventh century. Instead, monasticism was dominated by monks called
Céli Dé (lit. "vassals of God"), anglicised as culdees. In most cases, these monks were not replaced by new continental monks in the Norman period, but usually survived, even gaining the patronage of Queen Margaret, a figure traditionally seen as hostile to Gaelic culture. At St Andrews, the
Céli Dé establishment endured throughout the period, and even enjoyed rights over the election of its bishop; Gaelic monasticism was vibrant and expansionary for much of the period. For instance, dozens of monasteries, often called Schottenklöster, were founded by Gaelic monks on the continent, and many Scottish monks, such as St Cathróe of Metz, became local saints.
The continental type of monasticism was first introduced to Scotland when King Máel Coluim III persuaded
LanfrancLanfranc was Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Lombard by birth.-Early life:Lanfranc was born in the early years of the 11th century at Pavia, where later tradition held that his father, Hanbald, held a rank broadly equivalent to magistrate...
to provide a few monks from
CanterburyCanterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
for a new
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
abbey at DunfermlineDunfermline Abbey is as a Church of Scotland Parish Church located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. In 2002 the congregation had 806 members. The minister is the Reverend Alastair Jessamine...
(c. 1070). However, traditional Benedictine monasticism had little future in Scotland. Instead, the monastic establishments which followed were almost universally either
AugustiniansThe term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...
or of the Reformed Benedictine type, especially
Cistercians, Tironensians, Premonstratensians and even Valliscaulians.
Ecclesia Scoticana
The
Ecclesia Scoticana (lit.
Scottish church) as a system has no known starting point, although
Causantín IIConstantine, son of Áed was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was in northern Great Britain...
's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church might be taken as one. Before the Norman period, Scotland had little dioscesan structure, being primarily monastic after the fashion of Ireland. After the
Norman Conquest of EnglandThe Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
, the Archbishops of both Canterbury and York each claimed superiority over the Scottish church. The church in Scotland attained independent status after the
Papal BullA Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
of Celestine III (
Cum universi, 1192) by which all Scottish bishoprics except Galloway were formally independent of York and Canterbury. However, unlike Ireland which had been granted four Archbishoprics in the same century, Scotland received no Archbishop and the whole
Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics (except Whithorn/Galloway), became the "special daughter of Rome". The following is a table of Bishoprics present in "Scotland-proper" in the thirteenth century:
- Bishop of Dunkeld
The Bishop of Dunkeld is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunkeld, one of the largest and more important of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th century cleric named Cormac...
- Bishop of St Andrews, then called Kilrymont.
- Bishop of Brechin
The Bishop of Brechin is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Brechin or Angus, based at Brechin Cathedral, Brechin. The diocese had a long-established Gaelic monastic community which survived into the 13th century. The clerical establishment may very well have traced their earlier origins...
- Bishop of Dunblane
The Bishop of Dunblane or Bishop of Strathearn was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunblane/Strathearn, one of medieval Scotland's thirteen bishoprics. It was based at Dunblane Cathedral, now a parish church of the Church of Scotland. The bishopric itself certainly derives from an older...
(often called Bishop of Strathearn)
- Bishop of Mortlach-Aberdeen
The Bishop of Aberdeen was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Aberdeen, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th century cleric named Nechtan...
- Bishop of Ross
The Bishop of Ross was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Ross, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first recorded bishop appears in the late 7th century as a witness to Adomnán of Iona's Cáin Adomnáin. The bishopric was based at the settlement of Rosemarkie until the mid-13th...
(often called Bishop of RosemarkieRosemarkie is a village on the south coast of the Black Isle peninsula in northern Scotland.-Geography:Rosemarkie lies a quarter of a mile east of the town of Fortrose...
then FortroseFortrose is a burgh in the Scottish Highlands, located on the Moray Firth, approximately ten kilometres north east of Inverness. The town is known for its ruined 13th century cathedral, and as the home of the Brahan Seer. In the Middle Ages it was the seat of the bishopric of Ross...
)
- Bishop of Moray
The Bishop of Moray or Bishop of Elgin was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Moray in northern Scotland, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics...
(often called Bishop of ElginElgin is a former cathedral city and Royal Burgh in Moray, Scotland. It is the administrative and commercial centre for Moray. The town originated to the south of the River Lossie on the higher ground above the flood plain. Elgin is first documented in the Cartulary of Moray in 1190...
)
- Bishop of Caithness
The Bishop of Caithness was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Caithness, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first referenced bishop of Caithness was Aindréas, a Gael who appears in sources between 1146 and 1151 as bishop. Aindréas spent much if not all of his career outside his...
(often called Bishop of DornochDornoch is a town and seaside resort, and former Royal burgh in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Dornoch Firth, near to where it opens into the Moray Firth to the east...
)
- Bishop of Argyll
The Bishop of Argyll or Bishop of Lismore was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Argyll, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. It was created in 1200, when the western half of the territory of the Bishopric of Dunkeld was formed into the new diocese. The bishops were based at Lismore...
(often called Bishop of LismoreLismore is a partially Gaelic speaking island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. This fertile, low-lying island was once a major centre of Celtic Christianity, with a monastery founded by Saint Moluag and the seat of the Bishop of Argyll.-Geography:...
)
|
Outside of Scotland-proper, the bishopric of Glasgow managed to secure its existence in the twelfth century with a vibrant church community who gained the favour of the Scottish kings. The
Bishopric of Whithorn (Galloway)The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, was the eccesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known...
was resurrected by Fergus,
King of GallowayThe Lords, or Kings of Galloway ruled over Galloway, in south west Scotland, for a large part of the High Middle Ages.Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as...
, and
ThurstanThurstan or Turstin of Bayeux was a medieval Archbishop of York, the son of a priest. He served kings William II and Henry I of England before his election to the see of York in 1114. Once elected, his consecration was delayed for five years while he fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury...
,
Archbishop of YorkThe Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
. The
bishopric of the islesThe Bishop of the Isles or Bishop of Sodor was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Sodor, one of Scotland's thirteen medieval bishoprics. The bishopric, encompasing both the Hebrides and Mann, probably traces its origins as an ecclesiastical unity to the careers of Olaf, King of the Isles,...
, under the nominal jurisdiction of
TrondheimTrondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
(and sometimes York), had its Episcopal seat at
Peel, Isle of Man, later moving to
IonaIona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
. Lothian had no bishop, but was controlled by St Andrews, Dunkeld and Glasgow. Its natural overlord was the Bishopric of Durham, and that bishopric continued to be important in Lothian, especially through the cult of St Cuthbert. There was also a
bishopric of OrkneyThe Bishop of Orkney was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Orkney, one of thirteen medieval bishoprics within the territory of modern Scotland. It included both Orkney and Shetland. It was based for almost all of its history at St...
, based at Kirkwall.
Culture
As a predominantly Gaelic society, most Scottish cultural practices throughout this period mirrored closely those of
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, or at least those of Ireland with some Pictish borrowings. After David I, the French-speaking kings introduced cultural practices popular in Anglo-Norman England, France and elsewhere. As in all pre-modern societies, storytelling was popular. In the words of D.D.R. Owen, a scholar who specialises in the literature of the era, writes that "Professional storytellers would ply their trade from court to court. Some of them would have been native Scots, no doubt offering legends from the ancient Celtic past performed ... in Gaelic when appropriate, but in French for most of the new nobility" Almost all of these stories are lost, or come down only vaguely in Gaelic or
ScotsScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
oral tradition. One form of oral culture extremely well accounted for in this period is
genealogyGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
. There are dozens of Scottish genealogies surviving from this era, covering everyone from the Mormaers of Lennox and
MorayThe Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130. It did not have the same territory as the modern local government council area of Moray, which is a much smaller area, around Elgin...
, to the Scottish king himself. Scotland's kings maintained an
ollamh righe, a royal high poet who had a permanent place in all medieval Gaelic lordships, and whose purpose was to recite genealogies when needed, for occasions such as coronations.
Before the reign of David I, the Scots possessed a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin that were frequently transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere. Dauvit Broun has shown that a Gaelic literary elite survived in the eastern Scottish lowlands, in places such as
Loch LevenLoch Leven is a fresh water loch in Perth and Kinross council area, central Scotland.Roughly triangular, the loch is about 6 km at its longest. The burgh of Kinross lies at its western end. Loch Leven Castle lies on an island a short way offshore...
and
BrechinBrechin is a former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Traditionally Brechin is often described as a city because of its cathedral and its status as the seat of a pre-Reformation Roman Catholic diocese , but that status has not been officially recognised in the modern era...
into the thirteenth century, However, surviving records are predominantly written in Latin, and their authors would usually translate vernacular terms into Latin, so that historians are faced with a Gaelic society clothed in Latin terminology. Even names were translated into more common continental forms; for instance,
Gilla Brigte became
Gilbert,
Áed became
Hugh, etc. As far as written literature is concerned, there may be more medieval Scottish Gaelic literature than is often thought. Almost all medieval Gaelic literature has survived because it was allowed to sustain in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, not in Scotland. Thomas Owen Clancy has recently all but proven that the
Lebor Bretnach, the so-called "Irish Nennius," was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy. Yet this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work which has survived include that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem —
Heading for Damietta — on his experiences of the
Fifth CrusadeThe Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
. In the thirteenth century, French flourished as a
literary languageA literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, and produced the
Roman de FergusThe Roman de Fergus is an Arthurian romance written in Old French probably at the very beginning of the 13th century, by a very well educated author who named himself Guillaume li Clers...
, the earliest piece of non-Celtic
vernacularA vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
literature to survive from Scotland. There is no extant literature in the English language in this era. There is some Norse literature from Scandinavian parts, such as the
Northern IslesThe Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
and the Western Isles. The famous
Orkneyinga SagaThe Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...
however, although it pertains to the
Earldom of OrkneyThe Earldom of Orkney was a Norwegian dignity in Scotland which had its origins in the Viking period. The title of Earl of Orkney was passed down the same family line through to the Middle Ages....
, was written in
IcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
In the Middle Ages, Scotland, was renowned for its musical skill. Gerald of Wales, a medieval clergyman and chronicler, explains the relation between Scottish and Irish music:
"Scotland, because of her affinity and intercourse [with Ireland], tries to imitate Ireland in music and strives in emulation. Ireland uses and delights in two instruments only, the harp namely, and the tympanum. Scotland uses three, the harp, the tympanum and the crowd. In the opinion, however, of many, Scotland has by now not only caught up on Ireland, her instructor, but already far outdistances her and excels her in musical skill. Therefore, [Irish] people now look to that country as the fountain of the art."
|
Playing the
harpThe harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
(
clarsach) was especially popular with medieval Scots - half a century after Gerald's writing, King Alexander III kept a royal harpist at his court. Of the three medieval harps that survive, two come from Scotland (Perthshire), and one from Ireland. Singers also had a royal function. For instance, when the king of Scotland passed through the territory of Strathearn, it was the custom that he be greeted by seven female singers, who would sing to him. When Edward I approached the borders of Strathearn in the summer of 1296, he was met by these seven women, "who accompanied the King on the road between
GaskGask, gasque, a kind of Swedish student party which starts with a more or less formal dinner. The word is believed to originate from the card game vira, popular in the 19th century....
and
OgilvieOgilvie is a surname with origins in the Barony of Ogilvy in Angus, Scotland. See Clan OgilvyOgilvie may refer to:-People:*Albert Ogilvie , Premier of Tasmania in the 1930s*Alec Ogilvie , pioneer British aviator...
, singing to him, as was the custom in the time of the late Alexander kings of Scots".
Outsiders' view
The Irish thought of Scotland as a provincial place. Others thought of it as an outlandish or barbaric place. To the Holy Roman Emperor
Friedrich IIFrederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
, Scotland was associated with having many lochs; to the Arabs, it was an uninhabited peninsula to the north of England.
"Who would deny that the Scots are barbarians?" was a rhetorical question posed by the author of the
De expugnatione Lyxbonensi (i.e. "
On the Conquest of Lisbon"). A century later St Louis of France was reported to have said to his son “I would prefer that a Scot should come from Scotland and govern the people well and faithfully, than that you, my son, should be seen to govern badly”. To their English-speaking and French-speaking neighbours, the Scots, especially the Galwegians, became the barbarians
par excellence. After David I this ceased to be applied to their rulers, but the term
barbarus was used to describe the Scots, as well as a large number of other European peoples, throughout the High Middle Ages. This characterisation of the Scots was often politically motivated, and many of the most hostile writers were based in areas frequently subjected to Scottish raids. English and French accounts of the
Battle of the StandardThe Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, in which English forces repelled a Scottish army, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. The Scottish forces were led by King David I of Scotland...
contain many accounts of Scottish atrocities. For instance,
Henry of HuntingdonHenry of Huntingdon , the son of a canon in the diocese of Lincoln, was a 12th century English historian, the author of a history of England, Historia anglorum, "the most important Anglo-Norman historian to emerge from the secular clergy". He served as archdeacon of Huntingdon...
notes that the Scots:
A less hostile view was given by
Guibert of NogentGuibert of Nogent was a Benedictine historian, theologian and author of autobiographical memoirs. Guibert was relatively unknown in his own time, going virtually unmentioned by his contemporaries...
in the
First CrusadeThe First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, who encountered Scots and who wrote that:
In many ways, these accounts were based in the contemporary Frankish cultural milieu, where Scots were seen as outsiders. Moreover, the fact that outlandishness did not apply to the new feudal elite meant that by the end of the period, the Scottish aristocrat was seen as little different from his English or French equivalent.
There was a general belief that Scotland-proper was an island, or at least a
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
, known as
Scotia or
Alba(
nia).
Matthew ParisMatthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
, a
BenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monk and cartographer, drew a map in this manner in the mid-thirteenth century and called the "island"
Scotia ultra marina. A later medieval Italian map applies this geographical conceptualization to all of Scotland. The Arab geographer
al-IdrisiAbu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani al-Sabti or simply Al Idrisi was a Moroccan Muslim geographer, cartographer, Egyptologist and traveller who lived in Sicily, at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravid Empire and died in...
, shared this view:
Such an observation encapsulates how Scotland, on the edge of the world as it was, was being imagined in the High Medieval western Eurasian world.
National identity
In this period, the word
Scot was not the word used by vast majority of Scots to describe themselves, except to foreigners, amongst whom it was the most common word. The Scots called themselves
Albanach or simply
Gaidel. As with
Scot, in the latter word, they used an ethnic term which connected them to the majority of the inhabitants of Ireland. As the author of
De Situ AlbanieDe Situ Albanie is the name given to the first of seven Scottish documents found in the so-called Poppleton Manuscript, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
notes at the beginning of the thirteenth century:
"The name Arregathel [=Argyll] means margin of the Scots or Irish, because all Scots and Irish are generally called "Gattheli""
|
Likewise, the inhabitants of English and Norse-speaking parts were ethnically linked with other regions of Europe. At
MelroseMelrose is a small town and civil parish in the Scottish Borders, historically in Roxburghshire. It is in the Eildon committee area.-Etymology:...
, people could recite religious literature in the English language. In the later part of the twelfth century, the Lothian writer
Adam of DryburghAdam of Dryburgh was a late 12th and early 13th century Anglo-Scottish theologian, writer and Premonstratensian and Carthusian monk. He entered Dryburgh Abbey as a young man, rising to become abbot , before converting to Carthusianism and moving to Witham...
describes Lothian as “the Land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots”.
Scotland came to possess a unity which transcended Gaelic, French and Germanic ethnic differences and by the end of the period, the Latin, French and English word
Scot could be used for any subject of the Scottish king. Scotland's multilingual
Scoto-NormanThe term Scoto-Norman is used to described people, families, institutions and archaeological artifacts that are partly Scottish and partly Norman...
monarchs and mixed Gaelic and Scoto-Norman aristocracy all became part of the "Community of the Realm", in which ethnic differences were less divisive than in Ireland and Wales.
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Alan Orr Anderson was a Scottish historian and compiler. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh. The son of Rev. John Anderson and Ann Masson, he was born in 1879...
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William Forbes Skene , Scottish historian and antiquary, was the second son of Sir Walter Scott's friend, James Skene , of Rubislaw, near Aberdeen....
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Robert Bartlett FRHistS, FBA, FRSE, FSA is a historian and medievalist. Bartlett is English, though his academic interests cover the whole of Europe....
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Professor Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in the literature of the Celtic Dark Ages, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow,...
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Sir Robert Rees Davies CBE , was a noted Welsh historian.He was born in Merionethshire, and educated at Bala grammar school. He was bilingual in Welsh and English. He received a First in his degree from University College, London, where he later returned as a lecturer...
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Professor David Norman Dumville is a British medievalist and Celtic scholar. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, and received his PhD. at the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1974, he married Sally Lois Hannay, with whom he had one son...
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Peter Heather is a historian of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He has held appointments at University College London and Yale University and was Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford until...
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Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson was an English linguist and a translator who specialised in the Celtic languages. He demonstrated how the text of the Ulster Cycle of tales, written circa AD 1100, preserves an oral tradition originating some six centuries earlier and reflects Celtic Irish society of the...
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Cynthia J Neville, FRHistS, FSAScot is a Canadian historian, medievalist and George Munro professor of history at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Neville's primary research interests are the social, political and cultural history of medieval Scotland, 1000-1500, specifically legal...
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Professor Richard D. Oram F.S.A. is a Scottish historian. He is a Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling and an Honorary Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen. He is also the director of the Centre for Environmental History and Policy at the...
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Professor William J. Watson was a toponymist, one of the greatest Scottish scholars of the 20th century, and was the first scholar to place the study of Scottish place names on a firm linguistic basis....
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Alex Woolf is a medieval historian based at the University of St Andrews. He specialises in the history of the British Isles and Scandinavia in the Early Middle Ages, especially in relation to the peoples of Wales and Scotland. He is author of volume two in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland,...
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