Matthew Paris Map of Scotland British Library

Misty Scotland

When did Scotland merge from the mists of pre-history? How did the people North of the Firth of Forth begin to think of themselves as Scots?

When was the idea of Scotland forged? And how did people living north of the Forth begin to think about themselves as Scotsmen? These questions have for a long time occupied Scottish historians. Recent research by Davuit Bruen tells part of the story anew.

In the minds of Scottish historians the very early history is wrought by the fact that so little written evidence exists. No more than a handful of 28 charters record transactions of land in then 10th and 11th century. To this should be added a short list of 34 contemporary records and regal lists in chronicles from the same period.

Before that time the land, with which we identify Scotland today, was populated by a mixture of regional lords competing for power over the future regnum. That may be so! However here the Scottish historians seem to be enthralled by the luxury of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours, who have at their hands a nearly unbelievable amount of written texts and archaeologically excavated abundance of evidence. What they sometimes forget is that widespread literacy is not a necessary precondition for

Exercising authority over a widespread territory. (As was the case in nearby Scandinavia where Viking Kings in the same period built vigorous and powerful polities without the need for any kind of chanceries or written administration).

Not so Davuit Broun, professor of history from Glasgow University, who has made it his particular task to explore what is commonly called early Scottish State-formation and the development of a “Scottish Identity”.

In his work he has focused on what happened in the region commonly known as Scotia or Albania, which reached from the Firth of Forth to the North Coast of Aberdeenshire and towards Drumalban in the West; in short the region between Moray, Argyll and the Forth. Originally Picts inhabited the area, but by the 10th century it was Gaelic-speaking. It was from here that kings extended their sphere of influence though the gathering of local chiefs (mormaers) who headed the different kindred groups (clans) associated with specific tracts of land. At the centre of these were the Maneria, official residences or central places occupied by the resident chief (and not universally identical with his ancestral land). This indicates that the mormairs exercised authority not only as chiefs of their respective clans but also as royal administrators of some sort. But also that they as functioned as heads of the predominant kindred in their province, writes Broun (State-Formation, p.8). Thus the primary role of the mormair was to levy and administrate those obligations, which were shared across “his” region (by kindreds and religious institutions) “in response to threats to security and peace”. (State-Formation, p.8p.11) Mormairs had “pivotal public functions” but were also private chiefs (State-Formation, p.8 -12).

The picture that emerges is of a polity, where kindreds were invested with distinct powers. To organise a kindred and to galvanize the men in times of war was key facets of being a provincial leader (a mormair). In this perspective the leading kindred aka “the Royal Line” was no more than a primus inter pares, as evidenced in the genealogical lists, the central stuff of the very earliest written sources.

Whether or not to call this societal organisation a proper state and how old it was, are questions for Scottish Medieval Historians. What is obvious, though, is that this very early Scottish polity was a powerful embryo of what came later: The Scottish Kingdom proper, thought of as a country, a “Scotland”, inhabited by a people, the “Scots”, with a common Scottish Identity.

One source of this “idea of a nation”, which grew up in the 13th century, was the distinct development of the organisations of the land south of the border, England. Here the jurisdictional powers became steadily more wielded by the king and the royal administration. This meant that the king’s court became available to all but the poorest freemen. In practice this undermined the exercise of baronial authority in England. Such was not the case in Scotland, where the local and regional jurisdiction continued to be vested in the kindreds or clans. Thus – nearly be default – Scotland was set apart by the intensification of royal administration in England.

The question, however, is not only why this idea emerged, but also and more specifically how it evolved: The key factor here seems to be the idea that if chiefs or kings were invested with a sovereignty involving not only people (kindreds) but also by default the land, in which they lived, any expansion of the royal authority into neighbouring “countries” would by default constitute an expansion of the sense of adherence to this land amongst his “people” (kindred). It is demonstrated by Broun, that such expansion must have been experienced by 13th century people of Scotland proper through the explosion of exchange of both coins, trade and royal jurisdiction, which characterised the reigns of William I, Alexander II and Alexander III (1165 – 1286)

This was certainly not a unique idea for 13th century people living north of the Firth of Forth; by all accounts it may be detected albeit under different disguises all over Europe in this period. But it was probably specifically reinforced in Scotland by the confluence of thinking about people and land, which continued to be orchestrated inside the different kindred(s). This sense of being rooted in a specific geographically delineated place was a distinct part of the Gaelic way of thinking, which pars pro toto helped to expand the distinct idea of a Scotland covering everything north of the Forth.

Wish to read more about Scotland the Brand and its medieval icons? Please follow the links below

A Scottish identity?

Early Medieval Scotland

Misty Scotland

The Battle of Bannockburn

Braveheart

Glencoe

Scottish Clans

Names, Sprigs, Feathers, Tartans and Kilts

SOURCES:

State-Formation in Scotland before the twelfth century
By Dauvit Broun
The O’Donnell Lectures, University of Oxford. 10th of May 2013.

Rethinking Scottish Origins. Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow, 12th of November 2013.
By Dauvit Broun
(Unpublished lecture. A fully referenced version of the lecture is due to appear in a volume of papers on John Barbour’s Bruce, edited by Steve Boardman and to be published by Boydell & Brewer.

READ MORE:

Cover - Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain from the Picts to Alexander IIIThe Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
By Davuit Broun
Boydell and Brewer 1999

Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain from the Picts to Alexander III
By Davuit Broun
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2007
ISBN 9780748623600

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