The Impact of the Anglo-Scottish Wars (1286–1347) upon Institutional Memories in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Monastic Chronicles and Cartularies of Furness and Byland

Abstract

The Anglo-Scottish Wars (1286–1347) had a significant impact on lay and monastic communities across the North of England physically and psychologically, as the pressures of war between England and Scotland divided people along increasingly hostile and “national” lines. Monastic chronicles, such as that of Lanercost, have often been used to make sense of the material effect of Scottish raids, and how identities came to possess an increasingly “national” sense. However, less attention has been paid to how the cartularies of Northern English monasteries contributed to how monastic communities affected by the Anglo-Scottish Wars came to make sense of them. This article will analyse and compare the Furness Chronicle and Anonimalle Chronicle, produced in the fourteenth century, with the early-fifteenth century cartularies produced by Furness Abbey and Byland Abbey. It will contribute towards recent scholarly assessments of how these sources, and the events they recounted, were selectively edited to inform how the monastic communities who engaged with them remembered the impact of the Anglo-Scottish Wars upon them. Chronicles and cartularies were used together to reinforce an institutional memory, or a collective sense of connection with the history of an institution that Furness and Byland were creating in the early fourteenth century.