Childhood in Scotland in the Middle Ages

Childhood in Medieval Scotland includes all aspects of childhood within the geographical area that became the Kingdom of Scotland, from the end of Roman power in Great Britain, until the Renaissance and Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Childhood mortality was high in Medieval Scotland as it was in all of Medieval Europe. The archaeology of burial sites suggests that childhood illness were common. Many individuals in Scottish urban society were affected by childhood disease and accidents that significantly affected their life chances.

In Gaelic society there were schools for bards and after the introduction of Christianity schools developed as part of monasteries and other religious institutions. There were also petty schools, more common in rural areas and providing an elementary education. By the end of the fifteenth century, Edinburgh also had "sewing schools" for girls. The growing emphasis on education culminated with the passing of the Education Act 1496. Boys wanting to attend universities had to go abroad until the founding of three Scottish universities in the fifteenth century. The majority of children did not attend school. In the families of craftsmen they might become apprentices or journeymen. In Lowland rural society many probably left home to become domestic and agricultural servants. By the late Medieval era, Lowland society was probably part of the north-west European marriage model, of life-cycle service and late marriage.

Birth and infancy

Childhood mortality was high in Medieval Scotland.^[1] Children were often baptised rapidly, by laymen and occasionally by midwives, because of the belief that children that died unbaptised would be dammed.^[2] It was more normally undertaken in a church and was a means of creating wider spiritual kinship with godparents.^[3]

Cemeteries may not represent a cross section of Medieval society, but in one Aberdeen burial site 53 per cent of those buried were under the age of six and in one

In Lowland noble and wealthy society by the fifteenth century the practice of wet-nursing had become common.^[2] In Highland society there was a system of fosterage among clan leaders, where boys and girls would leave their parents' house to be brought up in that of other chiefs, creating a fictive bond of kinship that helped cement alliances and mutual bonds of obligation.^[5] "Rait's Raving", a poem by a fifteenth-century gentleman, describes young children up to the age of three as only concerned with food, drink and sleep.^[6]

Play

"Rait's Raving" indicates how from the age of three to seven children began to play.

In the Early Middle Ages, Scotland was overwhelmingly an oral society and education was verbal rather than literary. After the "de-gallicisation" of the Scottish court from the twelfth century, an order of bards took over the functions of poets, musicians and historians, often attached to the court of a lord or king, and passing on their knowledge in Gaelic to the next generation. They would continue to act in a similar role in the Highlands and Islands into the eighteenth century. They often trained in bardic schools, of which a few, like the one run by the MacMhuirich dynasty, who were bards to the Lord of the Isles,^[12] existed in Scotland and a larger number in Ireland, until they were suppressed from the seventeenth century.^[13]

The establishment of Christianity brought Latin to Scotland as a scholarly and written language. Monasteries served as major repositories of knowledge and education, often running schools and providing a small educated elite, who were essential to create and read documents in a largely illiterate society.

In the Middle Ages, boys entering university did so younger than now, at about the age of 15 or 16.^[18] Until the fifteenth century, those who wished to attend university had to travel to England or the continent, and just over a 1,000 have been identified as doing so between the twelfth century and 1410.^[19] After the outbreak of the Wars of Independence, with occasional exceptions under safe conduct, English universities were closed to Scots and continental universities became more significant.^[19] Some Scottish scholars became teachers in continental universities.^[19] This situation was transformed by the founding of the University of St Andrews in 1413, the University of Glasgow in 1451 and the University of Aberdeen in 1495.^[15] Initially these institutions were designed for the training of clerics, but they would increasingly be used by laymen who would begin to challenge the clerical monopoly of administrative posts in the government and law. Those wanting to study for second degrees still needed to go elsewhere and Scottish scholars continued to visit the continent and English universities, which reopened to Scots in the late fifteenth century.^[19]

Youth

The majority of children, even in urban centres where opportunities for formal education were greatest, did not attend school.^[1] In the families of craftsmen children probably carried out simpler tasks. They might later become apprentices or journeymen.^[20] In Lowland rural society, as in England, many young people, both male and female, probably left home to become domestic and agricultural servants, as they can be seen doing in large numbers from the sixteenth century.^[21] By the late Medieval era, Lowland society was probably part of the north-west European marriage model, of life-cycle service and late marriage, usually in the mid-20s, delayed by the need to acquire the resources needed to be able to form a household.^[22]

See also

• Childhood in early modern Scotland
• Childhood in medieval England
• Childhood in the Viking Age

Notes