Chapter XXXIV: Book XIV: , Chapter I. 1855

Thus, though the clergy were a support to the Crown, their functions and duties as the teachers of morality and the national instructors of the people, were only very imperfectly performed. Still, any learning and education which existed in the kingdom was in their hands, for the chancellor of each diocese was entrusted with the general supervision of all the schools within the bounds of the bishopric. The rector or master of schools appears in record in the twelfth century in connection with the schools of Abernethy; and in that and the succeeding century many notices of the schools and schoolmasters of St. Andrews, Roxburgh, Berwick, Ayr, Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen, and of other places, occur in several records. Touching the character of the education imparted in these schools no details have been preserved; but probably the greater part of it consisted of the studies associated with the qualifications then necessary for admission to the offices and functions of the Church. There were also schools for teaching singing in the cathedral cities in the thirteenth century. It was enacted in the constitution of the Cathedral of Aberdeen, in 1279, that the master of the schools should see to the attendance of four singing boys at matins and high mass, and at all the great festivals: two to carry tapers and two to bear incense. Indeed, the services of the Church were accompanied with all the harmonic sound and ceremonial display which the resources of the kingdom could command.¹

¹ _Register of the Priory of St. Andrews_; _Register of
Dunfermline_; _Register of Paisley_; _Old Spalding Club
Miscellany_, Volume V.

Anything in the form of literature composed in Scotland during this period was usually written in Latin; Norman-French was not used either for literary purposes or official acts and State documents. Although, when Edward I. entered on his scheme of conquest, many writs and papers emanated from him in Norman-French relating to the affairs of Scotland.

In the Introduction reference was made to the writings in Latin, fragments of chronicles, and Gaelic memoranda and rhymes; and the following paragraphs present all the information of the writings of the period under review, which I could obtain. Robert, Bishop of St. Andrews, who died about the year 1159, was reported to have written _Statuta Ecclesiastica_, but it is not known to be extant. Gualterus, a prior of Kelso, who lived in the twelfth century, composed a tract entitled _Pro Ecclesiæ Scoticæ Immunitate Contra Rogerum Eboracensem_; and one under the title of _Appellatio ad Curiam Romanam_; and also letters _Epistolæ Diversos_. I have seen none of these writings, and am not aware that any of them have been preserved. Adam, an abbot of Melrose, afterwards elected Bishop of Caithness in 1213, and slain by the inhabitants in 1222, wrote a _History of Scotland_, in three books; also _Epistolæ ad regem contra comitem de Caithness_; _Epistolæ ad Alexandrum Papam_, in one book; _Insularum Descriptiones_, in one book; and _Excerpta Bibliæ_: but none of these works are known to be extant.

William Kilconcath was rector of the Friar preachers of Perth, and afterwards became Bishop of Brechin; he died at Rome in the year 1274. He wrote a tract, entitled _Contra Ottobonum Papam_, and another on _De Scoticæ Ecclesiæ Dignitate_. Robert Kildelith was a monk of Newbottle, then Abbot of Dunfermline, afterwards Abbot of Melrose, and at last he attained the position of High Chancellor of Scotland. He produced _De Successione Abbatum de Melrose_. William Fraser was for seven years Chancellor of Scotland, and was elected Bishop of St. Andrews in 1279. After the death of Alexander III. he was elected one of the regents of the kingdom, and for a time he played an active and rather questionable part in the affairs of Scotland. Fraser wrote _De Jure Successionis Regni Scotiæ_; and a work entitled _Concordantia in Evangelia_. He died in France in 1297.

Another class of writings of the period have more of the historic character, such as the _Chronicle of Melrose_, which begins with the year 735 and comes down to 1270. The early part of this chronicle seems to have been written about the end of the eleventh century, and it was afterwards continued by several scribes till it assumed its present form, probably about the close of the thirteenth century; and for the later part of the twelfth and the greater part of the thirteenth centuries it is of considerable historic value. The _Chronicle of St. Crucis_ is in its early part chiefly drawn from _Bede’s History_; it then leaps to the year 1065, and follows _Simon of Durham_, with some slight variations and additions to 1129; from that year it is mainly filled with notices relating to Scotland, ending abruptly in the year 1153. Throughout the manuscript the handwriting is nearly similar. A few other short and slight chronicles of the period are still extant, but they contain little more than the names and succession of the kings, besides a few fragments of lost chronicles, the whole of which have been carefully edited and published by the authority of the Record Commissioners.

A few of the Chartularies of the monasteries, and parts of the Registers of the dioceses of Glasgow, Aberdeen, and others, were written in the thirteenth century; and, although these cannot be called literature, yet such records contain invaluable historical materials. Long lists exist of the Records of Scotland which were removed from Edinburgh by Edward I. pending the settlement of the disputed succession, and which were restored to John Baliol, King of Scotland, in December 1292; but of their subsequent fate nothing is known. All that now remains is the titles and headings of the numerous rolls given in the Indenture, which testifies that the whole of them were returned to King John. From the lists in this document we obtain an idea of the great historical loss which the nation has sustained from the disappearance of the records. These were of the most varied character, and many hundreds of rolls contained the very matter which would have enabled us to explain clearly the difficult problem connected with the lands of the kingdom in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.¹

¹ _National Manuscripts of Scotland_, Part I., Number 74. The
document containing the lists of these lost Records was also
printed in the first Volume of the _Acts of Parliament of
Scotland_.

In preceding pages the defensive structures which the people erected for their self-preservation and security in the earlier periods, such as the hill-forts, crannogs, and brochs, were described. During the period under consideration a new form of defensive work was gradually introduced, usually called the Norman type of castle. The earliest remains of castles of this style in Scotland belong to the thirteenth century, and the best examples of them were the castles of Hermitage, Lochindorb, Bothwell, Kildrummy, Caerlaverock, and Dirleton. These appear to have been built in the later half of the thirteenth century. Massive walls of enormous strength were the chief features of these structures; but they presented little distinctive art characteristics, as strength and defence was the original idea and end contemplated by their owners.

At the time of Haco’s invasion the royal castles on the coasts were inspected, and their stores and defensive appliances increased. On the eve of the outbreak of the War of Independence, the castles held by the Crown numbered about thirty. In the southern quarter of the kingdom there were the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, and Edinburgh; inward and westward the castles of Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Dumfries, Dumbarton, Ayr, Tarbet, and the important fortress of Stirling; northwards the castles of Dundee, Forfar, Kincardine, Aboyne, Cluny, Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Nairn, Forres, Dingwall, Cromarty, and Inverness; in the island of Bute the royal castle of Rothesay, which was erected early in the thirteenth century, and several others. There were also a number of castles in commanding positions in the hands of the nobles; and besides these there were a considerable number of partially fortified dwelling-houses.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.; _Historical
Documents of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 241, 263, _et seq._

The greater part of the houses in the burghs and the villages were built of wood, or other materials which could easily be procured. Being built of such combustible materials, they were very liable to catch fire, and, as might be expected, great fires frequently occurred; in the year 1244 several of the burghs were almost entirely consumed by the flames.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.; _Ancient
Laws of the Burghs of Scotland_, pages 14, 24, 40.

Reference was made in the Introduction to the early types of churches. These primitive structures were succeeded by the regular church architecture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The chief characteristic of the churches of the twelfth century was massive masonry, short round pillars, semi-circular arches in windows and doors, which sometimes inclined to the horse-shoe form; at first the style was simple and comparatively plain, but it became excessively ornamented. A number of specimens and fragments of this style remain, such as the nave of the Abbey of Dunfermline, which was dedicated in 1150; the Cathedral of Kirkwall founded in 1138, which was many years in process of building, and the structure of which exhibits the characteristics of the earlier and later styles. A part of the abbey church of Jedburgh, and the church of Leuchars, in Fifeshire, belong to the early style; the monastery of Kelso, some portions of a few rural churches in the district of the Merse, and parts of the monasteries of Holyrood, Arbroath, and the small chapel of St. Margaret in the Castle of Edinburgh.¹

¹ Muir’s _Characteristics_; Walcott’s _Ancient Church of
Scotland_, 1874.

In the thirteenth century the prevailing style of church architecture in Scotland was that which has usually been termed the early English or the first pointed period. This was the great church building era in Scotland; it was then that the fine old churches were erected, the very ruins of which attest the skill and the excellent workmanship of their builders. To this period the cathedrals of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Brechin, Dunblane, Whithorn, Dornoch, and a portion of the cathedral of Elgin, belong; the abbey churches of Paisley, Arbroath, Coldingham, Kilwinning, Restennot, Dundrennan, Ferne, Cambuskenneth, Inchmahome, Sweetheart, and Pluscardine, were either erected or begun to be built in the thirteenth century, for it must be observed that these fine structures were not rapidly built, as some of them were fifty years, and even much longer, in building from the date of their foundation till their completion.

The distinctive characteristics of the style of these churches were the pointed arch, tall pillars clustered round a circular pier, often divided by one or more bands, and with capitals, sometimes plain or usually worked in profuse variety; long and narrow lancet-headed windows, bold buttresses――in some examples unbroken, and in others divided into stages; the roofs were high pitched, and, when of stone, groined, and the crossings richly ornamented with bosses, but wooden roofs were common; in the later specimens of the style high steeples appeared. But a clear and just conception of the architectural features, the symmetry, and the beauty, of these buildings can only be obtained by actual observation of the structures themselves. For instance, the Cathedral of Glasgow externally is not a very striking building, but if a person enters and looks through its interior he will see one of the finest sights even yet to be seen in that great city. The massive ruins of the monastic buildings in Arbroath, and in other places mentioned above, the parts of the walls of the Cathedral of Elgin, still standing; and the Abbey Church of Paisley, with its sounding aisle, amply attest the architectural skill and taste, and the excellence of the workmanship of the period; and withal, they remain as the visible emblems of the veneration and devotion of many generations of our ancestors, and recall the memory of the departed worth and greatness of the mighty dead.

As yet the internal means of communication were extremely defective. In most parts of the country the roads were little better than mere tracks for cattle, and pack-horses and packmen were employed to carry goods through the kingdom. The bridges were mostly all built of wood. There was a bridge over the Forth at Stirling, frequently mentioned in the laws of the period; one over the Tay at Perth, one over the South Esk at Brechin, and another over the North Esk. There were three bridges over the Dee, one near Aberdeen and two farther up the river, and one over the rapid Spey in 1224.

A considerable part of the land was under tillage, but the system of agriculture was primitive and rude. Large herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and swine, were reared, and some attention seems to have been given to the breeding of horses. Dairy produce became a staple article of domestic economy, and upon the Crown lands large quantities of cheese were annually produced. David I. granted to the monks of Kelso the tenth of the cheese which the Crown drew from Tweeddale, and to the monks of Scone he gave the tenth of the can of his cheese from the Crown lands of Gowrie, Scone, Cupar, and Forgrund, and similar grants were made to other religious houses. It appears from the records of the monasteries that poultry formed a branch of the farm economy of the period. In the reign of Malcolm IV., on the feast of All-Saints the monks of Scone received ten hens from each ploughland within their territories, and the abbot of Kelso one hen from every house on the lands of the monastery, for which he paid a halfpenny.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.; Registers of Scone,
Kelso, and the Priory of St. Andrews.

The principal grain crop was oats, though barley and wheat, pease and beans, were also grown. Wheat was chiefly raised in the southern counties and the lowlands of Morayshire. Large quantities of oats were ground into meal. Mills were numerous, and driven both by water and wind, although the hand mill was still used. The royal burgh communities placed restrictions on hand-mill grinding, and they enacted that no one should presume to grind wheat, mixed grain, or rye, with hand-mills, unless compelled by a storm or a scarcity of mills; and if any one dared to contravene this he was deprived of his hand-mills for ever, “and shall grind his malt at mills paying the 24th measure.” The mill was one of the oldest rights of a barony, and it was amplified by the addition of the multure dues and the sucken. Subsequently the people were thirled to the mill, which meant that all the inhabitants of the barony must send their corn to be ground at the barony mills. The people of the barony often fought with each other as to their round and order of service. One part of the service connected with the sucken was the bringing home of the mill-stones. “Considering that there were few or no roads, the simplest arrangement was to thrust a beam through the hole, and then for the whole multitude to wheel it along upon its edge――an operation of some difficulty and danger in a rough district.” The barons’ mills, with their multure and dues, became one of the most grievous forms of feudal oppression.¹

¹ _Ancient Laws of the Burghs of Scotland_, pages 74, 85;
Innes’ _Legal Antiquities_, pages 47, 48.

A large quantity of grain was malted to make ale. The brew-houses were numerous, and have continued to be so. Every barony and every monastery had their brew-houses attached to them, and malt-ale held a primary place in the domestic economy of the community. The burghs were extremely jealous of the rights of brewing, and sometimes attempted to restrict the number of brew-houses. They enacted “that no one without the burghs shall have a brew-house unless he have a pit and gallows, and then one brew-house only.”

In the reign of Alexander III. the crown lands were extensive and valuable, especially in the north-eastern district of the kingdom. Of these lands a portion was forest, another portion was domain directly in the king’s hands, and cultivated by his bondmen, who seem to have been yearly tenants. These bondmen, according to my interpretation, were the descendants of the real owners of these lands, who were dispossessed in the reigns of David I. and his two grandsons by the feudal processes and expedients indicated in preceding pages. The free tenants held the land on lease for a stipulated number of years or as life renters at a fixed annual rent. A large portion of the Crown lands was held under thanage; the thane of the thirteenth century in Scotland was a Crown vassal, and held his land under a tenure called feu-farm.¹ At a later period thanages were converted into feudal holdings for knight or military service. The bondmen were the actual tillers of the soil, and the class above them――the free farmers on the Crown lands――probably lived in easy and comfortable circumstances.

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 8, 10, 11,
_et seq._

The organisation in feudal earldoms and baronies has been already explained. So far as ascertained, it appears that there was no class of free tenants or farmers holding land by a lease for a term of years at a fixed annual rent on the territories of the real feudal barons. Under them as on the Crown lands, the actual cultivators of the soil were bondmen or serfs――the descendants of the real owners and occupiers of the land, who were dispossessed by the feudal processes and expedients resorted to in the reigns of David I. and his two grandsons. Some of the class of bondmen may have held land from year to year under the feudal barons, but then they were merely tenants at the will of their masters. There seems to have been at least two grades of bondmen: one being attached to the land and transferred along with it when the ownership of the land was changed: the other grade were actual slaves, inasmuch as they could be bought and sold individually apart from the land, like any other article of merchandise; and instances of such sales of slaves frequently appear in the records. If they escaped and ran away, then there were minute legal processes for retaking and reclaiming them in any quarter of the kingdom, and replacing them in the hands of their owners.¹

¹ _National Manuscripts_, Part I., Numbers 30, 37, 54, 58, 59;
_Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I. _Charters
of Holyrood Abbey_; _Register of Dunfermline_. I entirely
dissent from Dr. Skene’s unwarranted inference to the effect
that these feudal bondmen and serfs were merely similar in
position and characteristics to the servile class in Celtic
times in Scotland. One would wish to see some evidence
adduced that such bondmen and serfs existed in Scotland
before the twelfth century. These serfs and bondmen were
created by the processes of feudalism in connection with the
land and in no other way; thus the land of Scotland belonged
to the Celtic people at the close of the eleventh century,
but ere the end of the succeeding century the Celtic people
were dispossessed of the greater and best part of the land,
which was given to Norman nobles, to the Church, and retained
in the hands of the kings. What else could have resulted
but the reduction of the original owners to serfdom? _Celtic
Scotland_, Volume III., pages 220‒223.

The fullest account of the agriculture of the period occurs in connection with the church lands, where perhaps the most favourable side of the rural people appear. According to a rent roll of the lands belonging to the monastery of Kelso, about the year 1290, the monks had extensive territories which were mostly held in their own hands and cultivated from their granges. Their arable land was measured in ploughgates, husbandlands, and oxgates; and pasture was measured by the number of sheep which it sustained. An oxgate was thirteen acres; and the husbandman who kept two oxen for the common plough, had thus twenty-six acres, which was called a husbandland; four of these neighbours joined in working their common plough, and their whole land made a ploughgate, which meant the extent of land tilled by eight oxen, or one hundred and four acres. A davoch of land in the eastern counties was four hundred and sixteen acres, or four ploughgates. On the western coast of the Highlands and in the islands, the lands were designated as mark lands, half-mark lands, and penny lands; a mark land contained thirty acres and two-thirds of an acre, and so in descending ratio to half-mark, and penny lands.

At the grange or farmstead of the abbey, the chief home on each estate, the cattle, the implements, the stores, and all the requisites for the cultivation of the land were housed, the bondmen and the serfs who tilled it, and their families. The serfs were the lowest class of the community of the grange, and they were transferable like the land which they laboured, and could be caught when they attempted to escape like runaway sheep or oxen. The cottars were the next class above the serfs; and each cottar had from one to nine acres of land along with his house, for which he paid a small sum in money, and services in seedtime and in harvest; some of the cottars had no land, but this seems to have been an exception to the general system. Beyond the cottar’s huts stood the establishments of the husbandmen, each of whom lived in his own separate farmstead. The husbandmen held a definite portion of land for which they paid a fixed rent, and specified services, which consisted of work in harvest and sheep-shearing times, and carrying the wool and the peats of the monastery. Another and higher class of tenant held his lands by charter, and could not be ejected; his holding was usually small, for fifty-two acres of land he paid eight shillings of annual rent, and specified services in ploughing and in harvest work. As already mentioned, the next and highest class of church feudal vassals were almost equal in rank and wealth to the lesser barons and freeholders of the Crown.¹

¹ _Register of Kelso_, pages 460‒463; Innes’ _Legal
Antiquities_, page 243. In Northumberland the farming of the
monastery was similar to that of Tweeddale. The monks of
Hexham had numerous and large estates mostly in Tindale-ward.
Among the benefactors of this monastery we find King David
of Scotland, his son, prince Henry, and his grandson William
the Lion, granting lands to it in Northumberland. At Hexham
as at Kelso, the monks farmed a portion of their lands
themselves; under them there were the husbandmen, who held
a varying extent of land; the cottars who held a portion
of land, usually under five acres, some had only one, others
two or three. The annual rent of these lands belonging
to the priory in Northumberland, ran from a sixpence to
a shilling per acre. The annual rent of a cottage was
from eighteenpence to two shillings; but in addition to
this there were services which the tenants had to perform,
such as a few days’ work at the mill or at hedging, in no
case, however, were the services burdensome. _Black Book of
Hexham_, Preface, pages 15‒20, 86.

In the thirteenth century the monks of Kelso had very large flocks of sheep, more than 6,600, and considerable numbers of oxen, cows, and swine. The monks of Melrose also had pretty large herds of cattle, sheep, and swine, and it may be reasonably inferred that the other great monasteries were equally rich and powerful in relation to the desirable things of this world.¹

¹ _Register of Kelso._

In concluding this chapter let us recapitulate. The government, the introduction of charters, the powers and privileges granted to the Norman nobles in connection with the land and the people, and the organisation of feudalism, have been explained. The customary law of the country appeared to be passing into crude written forms. The prevailing forms of trial, the modes of punishment, and the privileges associated with sanctuaries, have been treated; and it was pointed out that the conception of justice was not as yet distinctly discriminated from the feeling of revenge. The incorporation of the burghs, their internal organisation and characteristics, have been explained, and burghs of regality and church burghs were noticed. The coinage and the commerce of the kingdom, the progress of industry and of art have been indicated. The re-organisation of the Church, the introduction of regular orders of monks into the monasteries, the literature and schools of the period, and the castles and church architecture have been briefly treated. Finally, the state of agriculture, and the social condition of the occupiers and tillers of the soil came under review, different ranks of holders and occupiers of land were indicated, and it appeared that in the processes associated with the introduction of feudalism a great number of the people had been reduced to an abject state of bondage and serfdom. Although material wealth, commerce, and internal organisation, had progressed considerably during this period, still the condition of society was unsatisfactory; the people were vigorous, and if external oppression had not been so severe, civilisation would have advanced at a more rapid pace.