Scottish society in the Middle Ages

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A French illustration of representatives of the three estates, a cleric, a knight and a worker, which were adopted in the fourteenth century to describe the membership of the Parliament of Scotland.

Scottish society in the Middle Ages is the organisation of society between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century and the establishment of the Renaissance in the early fifteenth century. Social structure is obscure in the early part of the period, for which there are few documentary sources. Kinship probably provided the primary unit of organisation and society was probably divided between a small aristocracy, whose rationale was based around warfare, a wider group of freemen, who had the right to bear arms and were represented in law codes, above a relatively large body of slaves, who may have lived beside and become clients of their owners.

From the thirteenth century there are sources that allow us to see greater stratification in society, with layers including the king and a small elite of mormaers above lesser ranks of freemen and what was probably a large group of serfs, particularly in central Scotland. In this period the feudalism introduced under David I meant that baronial lordships began to overlay this system, the English terms earl and thane became widespread. Below the noble ranks were husbandmen with small farms and growing numbers of cottars and gresemen with more modest landholdings. The combination of agnatic kinship and feudal obligations has been seen as creating the system of clans in the Highlands in this era. Scottish society adopted theories of the three estates to describe its society and English terminology to differentiate ranks. Serfdom disappeared from the records in the fourteenth century and new social groups of labourers, craftsmen and merchants, became important in the developing burghs. This led to increasing social tensions in urban society, but, in contrast to England and France, there was a lack of major unrest in Scottish rural society, where there was relatively little economic change.

Contents

Early Middle Ages [edit]

See also: Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
Detail of the Class II Hilton of Cadboll Stone, showing mounted members of the aristocracy.

The primary unit of social organisation in Germanic and Celtic Europe of the early Middle Ages was the kin group and this was probably the case in early Medieval Scotland.[1] The mention of descent through the female line in the ruling families of the Picts in later sources and the recurrence of leaders clearly from outside of Pictish society, has led to the conclusion that their system of descent was matrilineal. However, this has been challenged by a number of historians who argue that the clear evidence of awareness of descent through the male line suggests that this more likely to indicate an agnatic system of descent, typical of Celtic societies and common throughout North Britain.[2][3]

Scattered evidence, including the records in Irish annals and the visual images like the warriors depicted on the Pictish stone slabs at Aberlemno, Forfarshire and Hilton of Cadboll, in Easter Ross, suggest that in Northern Britain, as in Anglo-Saxon England, the upper ranks of society formed a military aristocracy, whose status was largely dependent on their ability and willingness to fight.[1] Below the level of the aristocracy it is assumed that there were non-noble freemen, working their own small farms or holding them as free tenants.[4] There are no surviving law codes from Scotland in this period,[5] but such codes in Ireland and Wales indicate that freemen had the right to bear arms, represent themselves in law and to receive compensation for murdered kinsmen.[6]

Indications are that society in North Britain contained relatively large numbers of slaves, often taken in war and raids, or bought, as St. Patrick indicated the Picts were doing from the Britons in Southern Scotland.[7] Slave owning probably reached relatively far down in society, with most rural households containing some slaves. Because they were taken relatively young and were usually racially indistinguishable from their masters, many slaves would have been more integrated into their societies of capture than their societies of origin, in terms of both culture and language. Living and working beside their owners in practice they may have become members of a household without the inconvenience of the partible inheritance rights that divided estates. Where there is better evidence from England and elsewhere, it was common for slaves who survived to middle age to gain their freedom, with such freedmen often remaining clients of the families of their former masters.[8]

High Middle Ages [edit]

Main article: Society of Scotland in the High Middle Ages
See also: Scotland in the High Middle Ages
Map of mormaer and other Lordships in Medieval Scotland, c. 1230.

The legal tract known as Laws of the Brets and Scots, probably compiled in the reign of David I (1124–53), underlines the importance of the kin group as entitled to compensation for the killing of individual members. It also lists five grades of man: King, mormaer, toísech, ócthigern and neyfs.[9] The highest rank below the king, the mormaer ("great officer"), was probably composed of about a dozen provincial rulers. Below them the toísech (leader), appear to have managed areas of the royal demesne, or that of a mormaer or abbot, within which they would have held substantial estates, sometimes described as shires.[10] The lowest free rank mentioned by the Laws of the Brets and Scots, the ócthigern (literally, little or young lord), is a term the text does not translate into French.[9] There were probably relatively large numbers of free peasant farmers, called husbandmen in the south and north of the country, but fewer in the lands between the Forth and Sutherland. This changed from the twelfth century, when landlords began to encourage the formation of such a class through paying better wages and deliberate immigration.[10] Below the husbandmen a class of free farmers with smaller parcels of land developed, with cottars and grasing tenants (gresemen).[11] The non-free bondmen, naviti, neyfs or serfs existed in various forms of service, under terms with their origins in Irish practice, including cumelache, cumherba and scoloc who were tied to a lord's estate and unable to leave it without permission, but who records indicate often absconded for better wages or work in other regions, or in the developing burghs.[10]

The feudalism introduced under David I, particularly in the east and south where the crown's authority was greatest, saw the placement of lordships, often based on castles, and the creation of administrative sheriffdoms, which overlay the pattern of administration by local thanes.[12] Land was now held from the king, or a superior lord, in exchange for loyalty and forms of service that were usually military.[13] It also saw the English earl and Latin comes begin to replace the mormaers in the records.[12] However, the imposition of feudalism continued to sit beside existing system of landholding and tenure and it is not clear how this change impacted on the lives of the ordinary free and unfree workers. In places, feudalism may have tied workers more closely to the land, but the predominately pastoral nature of Scottish agriculture may have made the imposition of a manorial system, based on the English model, impracticable.[13] Obligations appear to have been limited to occasional labour service, seasonal renders of food, hospitality and money rents.[11]

Late Middle Ages [edit]

See also: Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
Map showing Highland clans and lowland surnames

Kinship and clans [edit]

Main articles: Scottish surnames and Scottish clans

The agnatic kinship and descent of late Medieval Scottish society, with members of a group sharing a (sometimes fictional) common ancestor, was often reflected in a common surname in the south. Unlike in England, where kinship was predominately cognatic (derived through both males and females), women retained their original surname at marriage and marriages were intended to create friendship between kin groups, rather than a new bond of kinship.[14] As a result, a shared surname has been seen as a "test of kinship", providing large bodies of kin who could call on each other’s support. This could help intensify the idea of the feud, which was usually carried out as a form of revenge for the death or injury of a kinsman. Large bodies of kin could be counted on to support rival sides, although conflict between members of kin groups also occurred.[15]

The combination of agnatic kinship and a feudal system of obligation, has been seen as creating the Highland clan system, evident in records from the thirteenth century.[16] Surnames were rare in the Highlands until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the Middle Ages all members of a clan did not share a name and most ordinary members were usually not related to its head.[17] At the beginning of the era, the head of a clan was often the strongest male in the main sept or branch of the clan, but later, as primogeniture began to dominate, it was usually the eldest son of the last chief.[18] The leading families of a clan formed the fine, often seen as equivalent in status to Lowland gentlemen, providing council to the chief in peace and leadership in war.[19] Below them were the daoine usisle (in Gaelic) or tacksmen (in Scots), who managed the clan lands and collected the rents.[20] In the Isles and along the adjacent western seaboard, there were also buannachann, who acted as a military elite, defending the clan lands from raids and taking part in attacks on clan enemies. Most of the followers of the clan were tenants, who supplied labour to the clan heads and sometimes act as soldiers. In the early modern era they would take the clan name as their surname, turning the clan into a massive, if often fictive, kin group.[18]

Social structure [edit]

From 1357 onwards parliaments began to be referred to as the Three Estates,[21] adopting the language of social organisation that had developed in France in the eleventh century.[22] It was composed of the clergy, nobles and burgesses,[23] (those that pray, those that fight and those that work). This marked the adoption of a commonplace view of Medieval society as composed of distinct orders.[24] Within these estates there were ranks for which the terminology was increasingly dominated by the Scots language and as a result began to parallel that used in England. This consciousness over status was reflected in military and (from 1430) sumptuary legislation, which set out the types of weapons and armour that should be maintained, and clothes that could be worn, by various ranks.[14]

A table of ranks in late Medieval Scottish society.

Below the king were a small number of dukes (usually descended from very close relatives of the king) and earls, who formed the senior nobility. Below them were the barons, who held baronial manors from the crown. From the 1440s, fulfilling a similar role were the lords of Parliament, the lowest level of the nobility with the rank-given right to attend the Estates. There were perhaps 40 to 60 of these in Scotland throughout the period.[25] Members of these noble ranks, perhaps particularly those that had performed military or administrative service to the crown, might also be eligible for the status of knighthood.[26] Below these were the lairds, roughly equivalent to the English gentlemen.[25] Most were in some sense in the service of the major nobility, either in terms of landholding or military obligations,[25] roughly half sharing with them their name and a distant and often uncertain form of kinship.[27] Below the lords and lairds were a variety of groups, often ill-defined. These included yeomen, later called by Walter Scott "bonnet lairds", often owning substantial land. Below them were the husbandmen, lesser landholders and free tenants that made up the majority of the working population.[28] Serfdom died out in Scotland in the fourteenth century, although through the system of courts baron landlords still exerted considerable control over their tenants.[27] Society in the burghs was headed by wealthier merchants, who often held local office as a burgess, alderman, bailies or as a member of the council. A small number of these successful merchants were dubbed knights for their service by the king by the end of the era, although this seems to have been an exceptional form of civic knighthood that did not put them on a par with landed knights.[29] Below them were craftsmen and workers that made up the majority of the urban population.[30]

Social conflict [edit]

Historians have noted considerable political conflict in the burghs between the great merchants and craftsmen throughout the period. Merchants attempted to prevent lower crafts and guilds from infringing on their trade, monopolies and political power. Craftsmen attempted to emphasise their importance and to break into disputed areas of economic activity, setting prices and standards of workmanship. In the fifteenth century a series of statutes cemented the political position of the merchants, with limitations on the ability of residents to influence the composition of burgh councils and many of the functions of regulation taken on by the bailies.[30] In rural society historians have noted a lack of evidence of widespread unrest of the nature of that evidenced the Jacquerie of 1358 in France and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 in England. This was possibly because in Scotland there was relatively little of the type of change in agriculture, like the enclosure of common land, that could create widespread resentment before the modern era. Instead a major factor was the willingness of tenants to support their betters in any conflict in which they were involved, for which landlords reciprocated with charity and support.[31] Both Highland and border society acquired reputations for lawless activity, particularly the feud. However, more recent interpretations have pointed to the feud as a means of preventing and speedily resolving disputes by forcing arbitration, compensation and resolution.[32]

Women [edit]

St Margaret of Scotland, the first king's wife to be recorded as "queen", from a later genealogy

Medieval Scotland was a patriarchal society, where authority was invested in men and women had a very limited legal status.[33] How exactly patriarchy worked in practice is difficult to discern.[34] Women could marry from the age of 12 (while for boys it was from 14) and, while many girls from the social elite married in their teens, by the end of the period most in the Lowlands only married after a period of life-cycle service, in their twenties.[35] The extensive marriage bars for kinship meant that most noble marriages necessitated a papal dispensation, which could later be used as grounds for annulment if the marriage proved politically or personally inconvenient, although there was no divorce as such.[36] Separation from bed and board was allowed in exceptional circumstances, usually adultery.[33] In the burghs there were probably high proportions of poor households headed by widows, who survived on casual earnings and the profits from selling foodstuffs or ale.[37] Spinning was an expected part of the daily work of Medieval townswomen of all social classes.[38] In crafts, women could sometimes be apprentices, but they could not join guilds in their own right. Some women worked and traded independently, hiring and training employees, which may have made them attractive as marriage partners.[39] Scotland was relatively poorly supplied with nunneries, with 30 identified for the period to 1300, compared with 150 for England, and very few in the Highlands.[40][41] By the end of the fifteenth century, Edinburgh had schools for girls, sometimes described as "sewing schools", which were probably taught by lay women or nuns.[42][43] There was also the development of private tuition in the families of lords and wealthy burghers, which may have extended to women.[42]

A large proportion of the women for who biographical details survive for the Middle Ages, were members of the royal houses of Scotland, either as princesses or queen consorts. Some of these became important figures in the history of Scotland or gained a significant posthumous reputation. There was only one reigning Scottish Queen in this period, the uncrowned and short-lived Margaret, Maid of Norway (r. 1286–90).[44] The first wife called "queen" in Scottish sources is Margaret, the wife of Malcolm III, which may have been a title and status negotiated by her relatives. She was a major political and religious figure within the kingdom, but her status was not automatically passed on to her successors, most of whom did not have the same prominence.[45] Ermengarde de Beaumont, the wife of William I acted as a mediator, judge in her husband's absence and is the first Scottish Queen known to have had her own seal.[46] The Virgin Mary, as the epitome of a wife and mother was probably an important model for women.[47] There is evidence from late Medieval burghs like Perth, of women, usually wives, acting through relatives and husbands as benefactors and property owners connected with local altars and cults of devotion.[39]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ a b C. Haigh, The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), ISBN 0521395526, pp. 82-4.
  2. ^ A. P. Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), ISBN 0748601007, pp. 57-8.
  3. ^ J. T. Koch, Celtic Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006), ISBN 1851094407, p. 1447.
  4. ^ J. T. Koch, Celtic Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006), ISBN 1851094407, p. 369.
  5. ^ D. E. Thornton, "Communities and kinship", in P. Stafford, ed., A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland, c.500-c.1100 (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), ISBN 140510628X, pp. 98.
  6. ^ J. P. Rodriguez, The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, Volume 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1997), ISBN 0874368855, p. 136.
  7. ^ L. R. Laing, The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland, c. AD 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), ISBN 0521547407, pp. 21-2.
  8. ^ A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba: 789 - 1070 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0748612343, pp. 17-20.
  9. ^ a b A. Grant, "Thanes and Thanages, from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries" in A. Grant and K. Stringer, eds., Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, Essays Presented to G. W. S. Barrow (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1993), ISBN 074861110X, p. 42.
  10. ^ a b c G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000-1306 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), ISBN 074860104X, pp. 15-18.
  11. ^ a b G. W. S. Barrow, "Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the twelfth century", in D. E. Luscombe and J. Riley-Smith, eds, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV. 1024-c. 1198, part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), ISBN 0521414113, p. 586.
  12. ^ a b A. Grant, "Scotland in the Central Middle Ages", in A. MacKay and D. Ditchburn, (eds), Atlas of Medieval Europe (Routledge: London, 1997), ISBN 0415122317, p. 97.
  13. ^ a b A. D. M. Barrell, Medieval Scotland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ISBN 052158602X, pp. 16-19.
  14. ^ a b J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0748602763, pp. 29-35.
  15. ^ J. W. Armstrong, "The 'fyre of ire Kyndild' in the fifteenth-century Scottish Marches", in S. A. Throop and P. R. Hyams, eds, Vengeance in the Middle Ages: Emotion, Religion and Feud (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), ISBN 075466421X, p. 71.
  16. ^ G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce (Berkeley CA.: University of California Press, 1965), p. 7.
  17. ^ J. P. Campbell, Popular Culture in the Middle Ages (Madison, WI: Popular Press, 1986), ISBN 0879723394, p. 98, n.
  18. ^ a b J. L. Roberts, Clan, King, and Covenant: History of the Highland Clans from the Civil War to the Glencoe Massacre (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), ISBN 0748613935, p. 13.
  19. ^ M. J. Green, The Celtic World (London: Routledge, 1996), ISBN 0415146275, pp. 667.
  20. ^ D. Moody, Scottish Family History (Baltimore, MA: Genealogical Publishing Com, 1994), ISBN 0806312688, pp. 99-104.
  21. ^ D. E. R. Wyatt, "The provincial council of the Scottish church", in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), ISBN 074861110X, p. 152.
  22. ^ W. W. Kibler, ed., Medieval France: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 1995), ISBN 0824044444, p. 324.
  23. ^ P. J. Bawcutt and J. H. Williams, A Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2006), ISBN 1843840960, pp. 22.
  24. ^ J. Goodare, The Government of Scotland, 1560-1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), ISBN 0199243549, p. 42.
  25. ^ a b c A. Grant, "Service and tenure in late medieval Scotland 1324-1475" in A. Curry and E. Matthew, eds, Concepts and Patterns of Service in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000), ISBN 0851158145, pp. 145-65.
  26. ^ K. Stevenson, Chivalry and Knighthood in Scotland, 1424-1513 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), ISBN 1843831929, pp. 13-15.
  27. ^ a b J. Goodacre, State and Society in Early Modern Scotland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ISBN 019820762X, pp. 57-60.
  28. ^ A. Grant, "Late medieval foundations", in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, eds, Uniting the Kingdom?: the Making of British History (London: Routledge, 1995), ISBN 0415130417, p. 99.
  29. ^ K. Stevenson, "Thai war callit knynchtis and bere the name and the honour of that hye ordre: Scottish knighthood in the fifteenth century", in L. Clark, ed., Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), ISBN 1843832704, p. 38.
  30. ^ a b J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0748602763, pp. 48-9.
  31. ^ J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0748602763, pp. 50-1.
  32. ^ J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0748602763, pp. 28 and 35-9.
  33. ^ a b E. Ewen, "The early modern family" in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN 0199563691, p. 273.
  34. ^ E. Ewen, "The early modern family" in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN 0199563691, p. 274.
  35. ^ E. Ewen, "The early modern family" in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN 0199563691, p. 271.
  36. ^ J. E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488-1587 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0748614559, pp. 62-3.
  37. ^ E. Ewen, "An Urban Community: The Crafts in Thirteenth Century Aberdeen" in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community: Essays Presented to G.W.S Barrow (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), p. 164.
  38. ^ E. Ewen, "An Urban Community: The Crafts in Thirteenth Century Aberdeen" in A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community: Essays Presented to G.W.S Barrow (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), p. 171.
  39. ^ a b M. A. Hall, "Women only? Women in Medieval Perth", in S. Boardman and E. Williamson, The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (London: Boydell & Brewer, 2010), ISBN 1843835622, p. 110.
  40. ^ J. E. Burton, Monastic and religious orders in Britain: 1000-1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), ISBN 0521377978, p. 86.
  41. ^ G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000-1306 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), ISBN 074860104X, p. 80.
  42. ^ a b P. J. Bawcutt and J. H. Williams, A Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2006), ISBN 1-84384-096-0, pp. 29-30.
  43. ^ M. Lynch, Scotland: A New History (Random House, 2011), ISBN 1-4464-7 563-8, pp. 104-7.
  44. ^ R. M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (London: Taylor & Francis, 2012), ISBN 0415291828, p. 9.
  45. ^ J. Nelson, "Scottish Queenship in the Thirteenth century", in B. K. U. Weiler, J. Burton and P. R. Schofield, eds, Thirteenth-Century England (London: Boydell Press, 2007), ISBN 1843832852, pp. 63-4.
  46. ^ J. Nelson, "Scottish Queenship in the Thirteenth century", in B. K. U. Weiler, J. Burton and P. R. Schofield, eds, Thirteenth-Century England (London: Boydell Press, 2007), ISBN 1843832852, pp. 66-7.
  47. ^ M. A. Hall, "Women only? Women in Medieval Perth", in S. Boardman and E. Williamson, The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (London: Boydell & Brewer, 2010), ISBN 1843835622, p. 109.
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