Indebted Abbots: The Impact of Lordly Demand on the Late Medieval Rural Economy in Northeast Scotland

While Scotland's role in the British Empire is an increasingly well understood phenomenon, the regional dimensions of such involvement have yet to be fully understood. This article considers the North East of Scotland as a distinctive region or 'cultural province' and surveys some of the key means by which the area participated in pre-1815 British imperialism. It argues for a greater awareness of the range of 'staple' primary and manufactured products from this part of Scotland contributing to the colonial economy as well as the often highly localised nature of interactions with the Empire. Likewise, it emphasises the North Sea and London-aligned nature of much of these empire connections. The article concludes that the region is best understood as a 'staple producing province' of metropolitan Britain, but one with similar structural characteristics to the 'resource and service zones' identified for other provincial areas of continental Europe.  

Reviewed by: Scripting the Nation: Court Poetry and the Authority of History in Late Medieval Scotland by Katherine H. Terrell Joanna M. Martin katherine h. terrell, Scripting the Nation: Court Poetry and the Authority of History in Late Medieval Scotland. Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2021. Pp. viii, 232. isbn: 978–0–8142– 1462–6. $99.95/£94.95. Katherine Terrell’s Scripting the Nation is a detailed, engaging, and authoritative account of the relationship between late medieval Scottish historiography and courtly poetry. This book takes a fresh approach to the well-established subject of Anglo-Scottish literary relations by considering how these two apparently distinct strands of Scotland’s literary culture interweave with one another and with analogous English traditions to define a sense of Scottish nationhood. Terrell observes that ‘the very nature of a border implies a relationship between sides; borders are points of interaction as well as separation’ (p. 49), and the monograph skilfully maps the appropriation and repudiation of English sources in the development of the two Scottish genres. Her detailed account covers chronicle literature composed in the aftermath of the ‘Wars of Independence’ (1279–1328, 1332–1357), in which Scotland’s political integrity was constantly under threat from English aggression, and the vernacular verse of the early sixteenth century, composed before the defeat of James IV by the English at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The first three chapters of this book focus on the development of Scottish historiography and its methods of shaping, and indeed ‘actively promoting,’ national identity and ‘Scotland’s political destiny’ (p. 10). Chapter One considers the patronage of historiography as England and Scotland embarked on an ideological battle to define their borders. This chapter shows how English and Scottish records of the past were ‘interdependent’ (p. 14): Scotland’s chroniclers set about refuting the narratives of their English forebears by also co-opting their rhetorical strategies in an act of ‘writing back’ (p. 4). Terrell also argues for the prominence of the ‘genealogical mode . . . in Scottish historical writing, which, like much medieval history writing is often more concerned with the present-day uses of the past than with establishing an accurate record of past events’ (p. 35), and later in the study she identifies these same genealogical tropes in Older Scots courtly poetry. Chapter Two explores the influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s narratives of national origin in his Historia Regum Brittanie on Scottish historians, including Baldred Bisset and John of Fordun. Terrell shows how Fordun, in his Chronica Gentis Scotorum, negotiates the contradictions of his English sources and challenges their authority, much in the way that Robert Henryson, an important link between the scholastic tradition of the chroniclers and Older Scots verse, does in his critical evaluation of Chaucer’s authority in Testament of Cresseid. Chapter Three is an exploration of Walter Bower’s influential Scotichronicon, an expansion of Fordun’s text, which Terrell characterises as ‘a compendium of Scottishness that will facilitate nationalist sentiment’ amongst his readers (p. 80). After this comprehensive guide to the development of nationalist sentiment in Scottish history writing, Chapter Four turns to Older Scots vernacular literature and the often-paradoxical relationship to English texts it shares with Scotland’s Latin chronicle tradition. She explores the increasingly ‘grandiose’ (p. 94) nationalistic [End Page 106] claims made by the authors of vernacular offshoots from Bower’s Scotichronicon, such as the Scottis Originale, and the dynamics created by their co-existence in manuscript anthologies such as the Asloan Manuscript with texts of English origin or those which express enthusiasm for the Chaucerian tradition: ‘the result is a curious dichotomy, in which English culture is both denounced and venerated’ (p. 101). Chapters Five to Seven turn to the most technically brilliant of the Scottish poets, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. Identifying the shared concerns of poets and chroniclers with ‘ancestral’ narratives (p. 128), Terrell offers detailed and perceptive close readings of many of Dunbar’s poems. She suggests convincingly that Dunbar’s poetry mirrors the tensions at the heart of James IV’s reign as the Anglophile impulses of his court were tempered by deteriorating relations with Henry VIII...

Flavours of Pictish life: using starch grains and phytoliths to trace late Roman and early medieval culinary traditions

Studies of the polities of the British Isles in the later middle ages have tended to deal with the individual lands or to place the English kingdom at the centre of discussions. However, in terms of their size and internal character there are good reasons for considering the Scottish kingdom and the lordship of Ireland as models of political society. Beneath the significant differences of status, law and external relationships, around 1400 the two lands can be regarded as sharing common experiences of government and internal warfare. These are most apparent from a regional perspective. Both Ireland and Scotland operated as regionalised polities in which the interests of major aristocratic houses predominated. The importance of such houses was recognised both internally and by the royal government. By looking at parallel regions, Munster and north-east Scotland, it is possible to identify comparable features and long-term differences between these societies.

An inter-regional SAM-based model is used to analyse the nature of interdependencies within and between rural and urban areas in Grampian, North East Scotland. Through multiplier decomposition, the relative importance of inter- and intra-regional linkages is investigated. The results suggest that the magnitude of inter-regional feedback effects between the rural and urban areas is small, with both areas 'leaking' benefits from increased industrial activity to the rest of the world. However, attention is drawn to the reliance of urban industries an rural households for the provision of factor services as well as a source of final demand. The results suggest the need to broaden analysis of rural economies beyond production-related linkages. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Increased participation in resource management decisions by a wide range of stakeholders has been widely advocated, and has recently been formally incorporated into the European Water Framework Directive. However, achieving such participation has generally proved to be problematical. In response to locally perceived needs, a project was set up in the Ythan catchment in northeast Scotland, to undertake catchment management actions with increased public involvement. This paper outlines the methods used to increase public participation in such actions, and some preliminary assessments of the effectiveness of these. The experience of the project and the lessons learnt, including some of the difficulties of ensuring fully representative stakeholder involvement, are discussed in relation to published criteria for public participation in resource management.

Our knowledge of the use of livestock in early medieval Scotland is fragmentary and relies on a handful of well-studied faunal assemblages, with few from Pictland (north-east Scotland), an important and enigmatic group and latterly kingdom in Northern Britain that existed between the 3rd and 9th centuries AD. The assemblages that have been recovered and studied mainly occur at the limits of this territory, beyond the heartland of the Picts in the northern and eastern mainland. Recent archaeological excavations at three high-status sites in eastern Scotland have unexpectedly yielded well-preserved faunal remains providing a unique and long-awaited opportunity to explore further human-animal relationships and the use of animals in Pictish society. This paper presents new data from the initial study of these assemblages. It discusses the implications in terms of animal economy in Pictland, the potential of these sites to yield larger faunal assemblages and the directions of future research. Results show that cattle were a pivotal element of the economy, playing a multi-faceted role (beef and secondary products), pigs ranked second in frequency which likely reflects the high status of these sites and sheep appear as a marginal resource and were primarily raised for consumption. Results also suggest that these sites may have operated within an integrated network rather than functioning solely as self-sufficient entities.

The evolution of the Royal Treasury during the reign of Isabella I (1474–1504) is an increasingly well-known field of study, as a result of the historiography dedicated to the state-building process in the Crown of Castile during the transition from medieval times to the early modern period. This is also in line with the progress made in the study of treasury and tax structures in Western Europe between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. Thanks to work carried out since the 1960s, we have extensive knowledge about the sources of ordinary and extraordinary income that fed the Castilian royal exchequer in the late fifteenth century, how income developed, the mechanisms used for its administration, and the main items of expenditure. Progress has also been made in studying aspects of the political culture and how taxes were legitimised related to the negotiation of taxation and the search for consensus with the powers of the kingdom in a chronology that allows lines of continuity to be drawn between the systems observed in the late medieval period and those of modern times. Finally, in recent years, the development of tax and finance structures has been looked at in more depth from a regional perspective, in an attempt to move away from the “national” vision and focus instead on the links established between royal power, the treasury and society in areas forming part of the Crown of Castile such as Galicia, the Cantabrian region, Biscay, New Castile, Lower Andalusia and Granada, to name just a few examples analysed in recent comprehensive studies. All of this has improved our understanding of the differences and similarities in the system of taxation and the royal treasury in the different areas that made up the Crown of Castile in its almost definitive territorial formation in the thirteenth century, as well as the contribution to the kingdom as a whole by each separate fiscal area. It has also served to expand the analysis, offering complementary perspectives that allow for the integration of elements such as business, tax legitimacy and how power was exercised in its many manifestations. Based on these general parameters, this chapter aims to present a comprehensive review of the advances in research made in recent years (until 2020) in relation to the income and expenditure management structures implemented during the reign of Isabella I. This is vitally important if we are to understand the transition from the late medieval tax and finance system to more complex systems, whose development enabled the Castilian monarchy to achieve its political objectives and position itself at the beginning of the sixteenth century as one of the most powerful states, in terms of tax and finance, in Western Europe.

Late medieval England's rural economy and society remain the focus of energetic and creative study by historians. Punctuated by demographic catastrophes such as the Great Famine and the Black Death, England's late Middle Ages serves as a virtual laboratory for analysis of historical change as scholars trace the unraveling of the manorial socioeconomic arrangements and the emergence of a brand of agrarian capitalism. To make sense of a wealth of royal and local sources, scholars employ a range of theoretical approaches drawn from economics, namely a population‐and‐resources model, a neo‐Marxist thesis, and a commercialization hypothesis, among others. Sociological approaches are also found in the late medievalist's analytical toolbox. Current research particularly focuses on the excavation of lord–peasant relations, the nature of the peasantry's agriculture, and the relative affluence and poverty of the late medieval peasant.

The arrival of the Black Death in England, which killed around a half of the national population, marks the beginning of one of the most fascinating, controversial and important periods of English social and economic history. This collection of essays on English society and economy in the later Middle Ages provides a worthy tribute to the pioneering work of John Hatcher in this field. With contributions from many of the most eminent historians of the English economy in the later Middle Ages, the volume includes discussions of population, agriculture, the manor, village society, trade, and industry. The book’s chapters offer original reassessments of key topics such as the impact of the Black Death on population and its effects on agricultural productivity and estate management. A number of its studies open up new areas of research, including the demography of coastal communities and the role of fairs in the late medieval economy, whilst others explore the problems of evidence for mortality rates or for change within the village community. Bringing together broad surveys of change and local case studies based on detailed archival research, the chapters offer an assessment of previous work in the field and suggest a number of new directions for scholarship in this area.

Reviewed by: Scale and Scale Change in the Early Middle Ages: Exploring Landscape, Local Society, and the World Beyond by Julio Escalona and Andrew Reynolds Shane McLeod Escalona, Julio and Andrew Reynolds, Scale and Scale Change in the Early Middle Ages: Exploring Landscape, Local Society, and the World Beyond (The Medieval Countryside, 6), Turnhout, Brepols, 2011; hardback; pp. xi, 316; 33 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €80.00; ISBN 9782503532394. Despite the excellence of much of this volume, its title is somewhat misleading. It fails to alert the would-be purchaser that the work deals exclusively with post-Roman Europe, often with reference to the changes in scale that occurred with the end of the Empire. This of course results in the large parts of Europe that were not incorporated into the Roman Empire being excluded. Furthermore, after a theoretical chapter, six of the nine chapters focus on the Iberian Peninsula. The volume is the result of a research project during which each chapter of the book was presented to the other participants as a seminar paper, resulting in a level of uniformity not always found in edited collections. For example, many of the papers deal with the social construction of scale. Following an Introduction, the useful theoretical chapter by Julio Escalona establishes different approaches to investigating scale and scale change, and the accompanying theoretical issues. Perhaps the most important of these is that issues of scale are often fundamental to scholarship on the Middle Ages but they are usually taken for granted. 'Part I: Territories, Landscape, and Settlement' commences with a chapter on 'Early Medieval Rural Societies in North-Western Spain' by Alfonso Vigil-Escalera and Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo in which they establish that, contrary to previous scholarship, early churches in the region were built in existing villages rather than villages later forming around churches. Andrew Reynolds then presents four case studies relating to scale change in the English landscape in the Roman and medieval periods. He argues that archaeologists working on the Roman period are often looking at different things from those working on the early medieval period, who in turn are not looking for the same things as those working on the following period, which makes drawing comparisons between these periods very difficult. A long chapter by Margarita Fernández Mier returns to early medieval North-Western Spain to examine changing scales of local power, arguing that different economic, social, and administrative mechanisms co-existed and functioned at different scales. Her willingness to use a retrospective reading of later documents may be considered problematic by some scholars. Alexandra Chavarría Arnau's chapter opens 'Part II: Local Society and the World Beyond'. She compares changes in scale in the late Roman and early medieval period in the Italian countryside and argues that the late antique [End Page 237] aristocracy remained but became militarized, and that local churches were not randomly sited but instead the ecclesiastical network was planned. In 'On Suretyship in Tenth-Century Northern Iberia', Wendy Davies draws on her earlier work on Brittany for comparisons. She examines personal sureties and argues that they operated on two scales: a small local scale where people would travel short distances (up to six or seven kilometres in Eastern Brittany) to act as a surety in agreements between two other parties, and on a much wider scale amongst the aristocracy where the distance travelled could reach one hundred kilometres. Part II concludes with a chapter by Escalona and Francisco Reyes on changes in scale that occurred when the County of Castile expanded in the ninth and tenth centuries. The authors demonstrate that the changes operated on three different scales, and they identify a bottom-up process by which local elites became part of the countywide aristocracy. 'Part III: Large-Scale Systems in Local and Regional Perspective' commences with Santiago Castellanos's chapter on the adaptation of the late Roman tax system by Visigoth kings. He argues that both systems operated on two levels, state and local. Taxation in Visigoth Iberia is also the focus of the chapter by Iñaki Martín Viso. He examines gold coinage in the Duero plateau in the sixth and seventh...

Eleanor Searle. Lordship and Community: Battle Abbey and its Banlieu, 1066–1538. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office. Vol. XVI: 7–15 Richard II.J. A. Raftis. Assart Data and Land Values. Two Studies in the East Midlands.A. G. Chibnall (Ed.). The Certificates of Musters for Buckinghamshire in 1522.A. Hassell Smith. County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603.Margaret Spufford. Contrasting Communities.Clive Holmes. The Eastern Association in the English Civil War.M. I. Thomis. The Town Labourer and the Industrial Revolution.P. L. Cottrell and B. L. Anderson (Eds.). Money and Banking in England. The Development of the Banking System, 1694–1914.C. W. Chalklin. The Provincial Towns of Georgian England. A Study of the Building Process, 1740–1820.T. C. Barker and C. I. Savage. An Economic History of Transport in Britain.John R. Hume. The Industrial Archaeology of Glasgow.H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (Eds.). The Victorian City: Images and Realities.John Stevenson and Roland Quinault (Eds.). Popular Protest and Public Order. Six Studies in British History, 1790–1920.Eric Ashby and Mary Anderson. Portrait of Haldane at Work on Education.J. M. Winter. Socialism and the Challenge of War: Ideas and Politics in Britain, 1912–18.Ross Terrill. R. H. Tawney and his Times; Socialism as Fellowship.Chimen Abramsky (Ed.). Essays in Honour of E. H. Can.Robert V. Eagley. The Structure of Classical Economic Theory.P. Iradiel Murugarren. Evolución de la industria textil castellana en los siglos XIII‐XVI. Factores de desarrollo, organization y castes de la producdón manufacture en Cuenca.Raymond De Roover. Buiness, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modem Europe. Ed. J. Kirshner.Carlo M. Gipolla (Ed.). The Fontana Economic History of Europe. Vol. 2: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth CenturiesOlwen H. Hufton. The Poor of Eighteenth‐Century France, 1750–1789.C. Duncan Rice. The Rise and Fall of Black Slavery.Duncan J. Macleod. Slavery, Race and the American Revolution.Frederick Pedler, with a chapter by A. Burns. The Lion and the Unicorn in Africa: The United Africa Company, 177–1931.Roberto Corteas Conde. The First Stages of Modernization in Spanish America, translated from the Spanish by Toby TalbotM. Williams. The Making of the South Australia Landscape.N. A. Cox‐George. Studies in Finance and Development: The Gold Coast (Ghana) Experience.Allen G. Kelley And Jeffrey G. Williamson. Lessons from Japanese Development: An Analytical Economic History.Tom G. Kessinger. Vilyatpur, 1848–1968: Social and Economic Change in an Indian Village.J. N. Westwood. Railways of India.Kenneth A. Lockridge. Literacy in Colonial New England: An Enquiry into the Social Context of Literacy in the Early Modern West.Joseph Albert Ernst. Money and Politics in America, 1755–1775.Elinor Miller and Eugene Genovese (Eds.). Plantation, Town, and County: Essays on the Local History of American Slave Society.Allan R. Pred. Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities 1790–1840.Roger W. Lotchin. San Francisco, 1846–1856: From Hamlet to City. Urban Life in America Series.Louis S. Gerteis. From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861–1865.Burton I. Kaufman. Efficiency and Expansion. Foreign Trade Organization in the Wilson Administration, 1913–1921.Mira Wilkins. The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970.

Noblemen in the Late Medieval County of Zeeland. An Analysis of their Political and Socio-Economic Position around the Year 1475The late medieval period is often portrayed as a period of crisis or transition for the nobility. This contribution represents a first step towards testing this assumption empirically. The political power and feudal property of the noblemen in the county of Zeeland around the year 1475 are mapped for this purpose. The analysis shows that the noblemen had a strong grip on the county through their offices and the Estates of Zeeland and that their income came primarily from their feudal rights. The growing power of the prince and the towns did not affect the position of the noblemen fundamentally. The long-term development of the composition and power of the noble population can be established by constructing a number of such snapshots. A regional perspective on the history of the nobility also counterbalances the emphasis placed by some historians on the importance of state service for noblemen. This article is part of the special issue 'The history of the nobility in the Netherlands and Belgium'.

This is a review of a collection of essays on late medieval and early modern Scottish literature

12. Beyond the Declaration of Arbroath: Kingship, Counsel and Consent in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scotland