Scottish society in the Middle Ages
From the twelfth century there are sources that allow the stratification in society to be seen in detail, 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.
[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.
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.
Early local churches were widespread, but since they were largely made of wood,[9] like that excavated at Whithorn,[10] the only evidence that survives for most is in place names that contain words for 'church', including cill, both, eccles, and annat, but others are indicated by stone crosses and Christian burials.
Fuller sources for Ireland of the same period suggest that there may have been filidh, who acted as poets, musicians and historians, often attached to the court of a lord or king, and passed on their knowledge in Gaelic to the next generation.
They often trained in bardic schools, of which a few, like the one run by the MacMhuirich dynasty, who were bards to the Lord of the Isles,[14] existed in Scotland and a larger number in Ireland, until they were suppressed from the seventeenth century.
[15] 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.
[17] 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.
[18] 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.
[19] 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 predominantly pastoral nature of Scottish agriculture may have made the imposition of a manorial system, based on the English model, impracticable.
[18] 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.
[22] 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.
[24] Subsequent foundations under Margaret's sons, Edgar (r. 1097–1107), Alexander (r. 1107–24) and particularly David I (r. 1124–53), tended to be of the reformed type that followed the lead set by Cluny Abbey in the Loire from the late tenth century.
[28] Columba remained a major figure into the fourteenth century and a new foundation was endowed by William I (r. 1165–1214) at Arbroath Abbey and his relics, contained in the Monymusk Reliquary, were handed over to the Abbot's care.
[33] One of the most important cults in Scotland, that of St Andrew, was established on the east coast at Kilrymont by the Pictish kings as early as the eighth century.
[35] The site was renewed as a focus for devotion with the patronage of Queen Margaret,[29] who also became important after her canonisation in 1250 and after the ceremonial transfer of her remains to Dunfermline Abbey, as one of the most revered national saints.
[42] 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.
[49] Most were in some sense in the service of the major nobility, either in terms of landholding or military obligations,[49] roughly half sharing with them their name and a distant and often uncertain form of kinship.
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.
[54] 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.
[56] Traditional Protestant historiography tended to stress the corruption and unpopularity of the late Medieval Scottish church, but more recent research has indicated the ways in which it met the spiritual needs of different social groups.
[57][58] Historians have discerned a decline of monastic life in this period, with many religious houses keeping smaller numbers of monks, and those remaining often abandoning communal living for a more individual and secular lifestyle.
However, the number of poor clerical livings and a general shortage of clergy in Scotland, particularly after the Black Death, meant that in the fifteenth century the problem intensified.
[64] There were also further attempts to differentiate Scottish liturgical practice from that in England, with a printing press established under royal patent in 1507 to replace the English Sarum Use for services.
Those wanting to study for second degrees still needed to go elsewhere and Scottish scholars continued to visit the continent and English universities, which reopened to Scots in the late fifteenth century.
[67] 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.
[76] There is evidence from late medieval burghs like Perth, of women, usually wives, acting through relatives and husbands as benefactors or property owners connected with local altars and cults of devotion.
[82] In Lowland rural society, as in England, many young people, both male and female, probably left home to become domestic and agricultural servants, as they can be seen doing in large numbers from the sixteenth century.
