Architecture of Scotland in the Middle Ages

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Linlithgow Palace, the first building to bear that title in Scotland, was extensively rebuilt along Renaissance principles from the fifteenth century.

The architecture of Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all building within the modern borders of

hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans led to the abandonment of many of these forts. After the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, there is evidence of the building of a series of smaller "nucleated" constructions sometimes utilizing major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dumbarton
. In the following centuries new forms of construction emerged throughout Scotland that would come to define the landscape.

Medieval

motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. In the late Middle Ages, new castles were built, some on a grander scale, and others, particularly in the borders, as simpler tower houses. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment. There was a phase of Renaissance palace building from the late fifteenth century, beginning at Linlithgow
.

Background

The

hill forts from the Iron Age.[4] After the arrival of the Romans from about 71 AD, they appear to have been largely abandoned.[5] The Romans build military forts like that at Trimontium,[6] and a continuous fortification between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde known as the Antonine Wall, built in the second century AD.[7][8] Beyond Roman influence, there is evidence of wheelhouses[9] and underground souterrains.[10] After the departure of the Romans in the third century, there is evidence of the reoccupation of Iron Age forts and of the building of a series of smaller "nucleated" constructions,[11] sometimes utilising major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dumbarton.[12]

Vernacular buildings

Main article: Housing in Scotland
blackhouse
built in the nineteenth century in the traditional manner with a cruck frame.

Medieval

broom, heather, straw, turfs or reeds for roofing.[14]

From the twelfth century,

Perth there is evidence of nearly forty buildings dating from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, with walls of planks or wattles.[17]

Churches

Main article: Church architecture in Scotland

The introduction of Christianity into Scotland from Ireland from the sixth century led to the construction of basic masonry-built churches, beginning on the west coast and islands.

Highlands they were often even simpler, many built of rubble masonry and sometimes indistinguishable from the outside from houses or farm buildings.[19] However, from the eighth century, more sophisticated buildings emerged. Early Romanesque ashlar masonry produced block-built stone buildings, like the eleventh century round tower at Brechin Cathedral and the square towers of Dunblane Cathedral and The Church of St Rule.[18]

The Gothic front of Glasgow Cathedral

After the eleventh century, as masonry techniques advanced, ashlar blocks became more rectangular, resulting in structurally more stable walls that could incorporate more refined architectural moulding and detailing that can be seen in corbelling, buttressing, lintels and arching. At the same time there were increasing influences from English and continental European designs. These can be seen in the Romanesque chevron pattern on the piers in the nave of Dunfermline Abbey (1130–40), which were modelled on details from Durham Cathedral.[18] St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney, begun in 1137, may have employed masons that had worked at Durham.[20] The arrival of the new monastic orders in Scotland from the twelfth century led to a boom in ecclesiastical building using English and continental forms, including abbeys at Kelso, Holyrood, Jedburgh and St Andrews.[20]

In the thirteenth century, the east end of Elgin Cathedral incorporated typical European Gothic mouldings and tracery.[18] In the fifteenth century continental builders are known to have been working in Scotland. French master-mason John Morrow was employed at the building of Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilding of Melrose Abbey, both considered fine examples of Gothic architecture.[21] The interiors of churches were often elaborate before the Reformation, with highly decorated sacrament houses, like the ones surviving at Deskford and Kinkell.[19] The carvings at Rosslyn Chapel, created in the mid-fifteenth century, elaborately depicting the progression of the seven deadly sins, are considered some of the finest in the Gothic style.[22] Late Medieval Scottish churches also often contained elaborate burial monuments, like the Douglas tombs in the town of Douglas.[19]

The impact of the

St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.[25]

Castles

See also: Castles in Scotland
Dunstaffnage Castle is one of the oldest surviving "castles of enceinte", mostly dating from the thirteenth century.

Scotland is known for its dramatically placed castles, many of which date from the late medieval era. Castles, in the sense of a fortified residence of a lord or noble, arrived in Scotland as part of

harled for weatherproofing and a uniform appearance.[31] In addition to the baronial castles there were royal castles, often larger and providing defence, lodging for the itinerant Scottish court and a local administrative centre. By 1200 these included fortifications at Ayr and Berwick.[32]

In the

livery and maintenance" castles, to house retained troops, like Tantallon, Lothian and Doune near Stirling, rebuilt for Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany in the fourteenth century.[29] Gunpowder weaponry fundamentally altered the nature of castle architecture, with existing castles being adapted to allow the use of gunpowder weapons by the incorporation of "keyhole" gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls being adapted to resist bombardment. Ravenscraig, Kirkcaldy, begun about 1460, is probably the first castle in the British Isles to be built as an artillery fort, incorporating "D-shape" bastions that would better resist cannon fire and on which artillery could be mounted.[35]

Tower houses

Main article:
Tower houses
Smailholm Tower near Kelso in the Scottish Borders

The largest number of late medieval fortifications in Scotland built by nobles, about 800,[36] were of the tower house design.[37][38] Smaller versions of tower houses in southern Scotland were known as peel towers, or pele houses.[39] The defences of tower houses were primarily aimed to provide protection against smaller raiding parties and were not intended to put up significant opposition to an organised military assault, leading historian Stuart Reid to characterise them as "defensible rather than defensive".[40] They were typically a tall, square, stone-built, crenelated building; often also surrounded by a barmkin or bawn, a walled courtyard designed to hold valuable animals securely, but not necessarily intended for serious defence.[41][42] They were built extensively on both sides of the border with England, and James IV's forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles in 1494 led to an immediate burst of tower building across the region.[43][44]

Palaces

See also: Renaissance in Scotland

The extensive building and rebuilding of royal palaces in the Renaissance style probably began under James III and accelerated under James IV. These works have been seen as directly reflecting the influence of Renaissance styles. Linlithgow was first constructed under James I, under the direction of master of work John de Waltoun, and was referred to as a palace, apparently the first use of this term in the country, from 1429. This was extended under James III and began to correspond to a fashionable quadrangular, corner-towered Italian signorial palace of a palatium ad modem castri (a castle-style palace), combining classical symmetry with neo-chivalric imagery. There is evidence of Italian masons working for James IV, in whose reign Linlithgow was completed, and other palaces were rebuilt with Italianate proportions.[45]

Legacy

Scotland is known for its dramatically placed castles and towers, which have become an accepted part of a romantic landscape.

Gothic revival churches were built in considerable numbers for all the major denominations.[49]

See also

Notes

  1. ISBN 1-904320-02-3
    , p. 19.
  2. ISBN 978-0-00-712693-4
    , pp. 98–104 and 246–250.
  3. ISBN 0-7524-3151-X
    .
  4. ISBN 0-521-08741-4
    , pp. 124–5.
  5. ISBN 1-84603-686-0
    , p. 12.
  6. ISBN 0-500-28795-3
    , p. 245.
  7. ^ "History", antoninewall.org, retrieved 25 July 2008.
  8. ISBN 0-85976-655-1
    , p. 167.
  9. ISBN 0-7134-8000-9
    , p. 81.
  10. ISBN 0-7524-2517-X
    , pp. 77–110.
  11. OCLC 560286204
  12. ISBN 0-521-54740-7
    , p. 34.
  13. ISBN 0575071222
    , pp. 235–40.
  14. ISBN 0-7486-1965-8
    , pp. 55–6.
  15. ISBN 0-7509-2977-4
    , pp. 136–40.
  16. ISBN 1780570066
    .
  17. ISBN 0521801559
    , p. 386.
  18. ^
    ISBN 1-904320-02-3
    , pp. 22–3.
  19. ^
    ISBN 0-415-02992-9
    , p. 117.
  20. ^
    ISBN 0-85263-748-9
    , pp. 12–14.
  21. ISBN 0-7486-0276-3
    , pp. 57–9.
  22. ISBN 0-631-21785-1
    , p. 532.
  23. ISBN 0-7486-0849-4
    , pp. 3–4.
  24. ISBN 0-19-162433-0
    , p. 190.
  25. ISBN 0-19-162433-0
    , p. 188.
  26. ISBN 978-0-85115-904-1
    , p. 225.
  27. ISBN 978-0-7134-8943-9
    , p. 11.
  28. ISBN 978-0-275-98414-4
    , p. xxiv.
  29. ^
    ISBN 0-85263-748-9
    , p. 21.
  30. ISBN 978-0-7134-8943-9
    , p. 16.
  31. ISBN 1-904320-02-3
    , p. 24.
  32. ISBN 978-0-7134-8943-9
    , p. 12.
  33. ISBN 1-4411-5712-3
    , p. 116.
  34. ISBN 0-300-14568-3
    , p. 124.
  35. ISBN 0-85263-748-9
    , p. 27.
  36. ISBN 978-0-521-49723-7
    , p. 26.
  37. ISBN 978-2-902685-09-7
    , p. 278.
  38. ISBN 1-84176-962-2
    , p. 12.
  39. ISBN 978-0-486-24898-1
    , p. 225.
  40. ISBN 1-84176-962-2
    , pp. 12 and 46.
  41. ISBN 1-84176-962-2
    , p. 33.
  42. ISBN 978-0-486-24898-1
    , p. 224.
  43. ISBN 978-0-415-02992-6
    , p. 76.
  44. ISBN 978-0-7486-0849-2
    , p. 6.
  45. ISBN 0-7486-0849-4
    , p. 9.
  46. ISBN 1782004386
    , p. 4.
  47. ISBN 0-300-05886-1
    , pp. 502–11.
  48. ^ Royal Institute of British Architects, Kirks throughout the ages, architecture.com, archived from the original on 14 October 2007, retrieved 13 January 2010
  49. ISBN 0748621784
    , p. 11.
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