Abstract
During1 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries many influences combined to bring England and Scotland close together in spite of the periodic discord that marred political relations between the realms. Numerous families, mainly from northern France but already settled in English estates, added fiefs in Scotland to their existing Anglo-French concerns and transformed Scottish society to such an extent that at least in the lowlands it came to resemble very closely that of contemporary England.2 Furthermore, the royal house of Scotland enjoyed rights and claims to English lands and titles for most of this period;3 and in catering for their spiritual welfare as in other matters, these families, royal and non-royal, naturally did not regard the Tweed-Solway frontier as a boundary of much practical significance. Monasteries in England (and in France) were specifically encouraged to found daughter-houses in Scotland.4 At another level, abbeys and priories on one side of the Border were endowed on the other with property that was intended for them to exploit for their own direct support, though as a rule these gains were at once on a modest scale and sited at considerable distances from the centres of their respective patrimonies.5
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