Government in medieval Scotland
Government in medieval Scotland, includes all forms of politics and administration of the minor kingdoms that emerged after the departure of the Romans from central and southern Britain in the fifth century, through the development and growth of the combined Scottish and Pictish kingdom of Alba into the kingdom of Scotland, until the adoption of the reforms of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century.
Kingship was the major form of political organisation in the
In the early period, the kings of the Scots depended on the great lords of the
Kingship
In the early medieval period, with its many competing kingdoms within the modern boundaries of Scotland, kingship was not inherited in a direct line from the previous king. A candidate for kingship usually needed to be a member of a particular dynasty and to claim descent from a particular ancestor.
The primary role of a king was to act as a war leader, reflected in the very small number of minorities or female reigning monarchs in the period. Kings organised the defence of their people's lands, property and persons and negotiated with other kings to secure these things. If they failed to do so, the settlements might be raided, destroyed or annexed and the populations killed or taken into slavery. Kings also engaged in the low-level warfare of raiding and the more ambitious full-scale warfare that led to conflicts of large armies and alliances and which could be undertaken over relatively large distances, like the expedition to Orkney by Dál Riata in 581 or the Northumbrian attack on Ireland in 684.[2]
Kingship had its ritual aspects. The Scottish kings of Dál Riata were inaugurated by putting their foot in a footprint in stone, signifying that they would follow in the footsteps of their predecessors.
For most of the medieval era, the king was itinerant and had no "capital" as such.
Like most western European monarchies, the Scottish crown in the fifteenth century adopted the example of the
Court
Little is known about the structure of the Scottish royal court in the period before the reign of David I, but by the late thirteenth century, it had taken on a distinctly feudal character. The major offices were the
The other major secular posts also had a tendency to become hereditary, with the chamberlain responsible for royal finances and the constable for organising the crown's military forces, while the marishchal had a leadership role in battle. The chancellor, who was usually a clergyman, had charge of the king's chapel, which was also the major administrative centre of the crown, and had control of the letters, legal writs and seals. Under him were various posts, usually filled by clerics, including the custodian of the great seal. There were also lesser posts, some of which were Gaelic in origin, including senior clerks of the Provend and the Liverence, in charge of the distribution of food, and the Hostarius (later Usher or "Doorward"), who was in charge of the royal bodyguard.[12]
King's council
After the crown, the most important government institution in the late Middle Ages was the king's council, composed of the king's closest advisers. Unlike its counterpart in England, the king's council in Scotland retained legislative and judicial powers. It was relatively small, with normally less than 10 members in a meeting, some of whom were nominated by parliament, particularly during the many minorities of the era, as a means of limiting the power of a regent.[13]
The council was a virtually full-time institution by the late fifteenth century, and surviving records from the period indicate it was critical in the working of royal justice. Nominally members of the council were some of the great magnates of the realm, but they rarely attended meetings. Most of the active members of the council for most of the late Medieval Period were career administrators and lawyers, almost exclusively university-educated clergy. The most successful of these moved on to occupy the major ecclesiastical positions in the realm as bishops and, towards the end of the period, archbishops. By the end of the fifteenth century, this group was being joined by increasing numbers of literate laymen, often secular lawyers, of which the most successful gained preferment in the judicial system and grants of lands and lordships. From the reign of James III onwards, the clerically dominated post of Lord Chancellor was increasingly taken by leading laymen.[13]
Parliament
After the council, the next most important body in the process of government at the end of the era was parliament, which had evolved by the late thirteenth century from the King's Council of Bishops and Earls into a 'colloquium' with a political and judicial role.
From the early 1450s, a great deal of the legislative business of the Scottish parliament was usually carried out by a parliamentary committee known as the 'Lords of the Articles', chosen by the three estates to draft legislation that was then presented to the full assembly to be confirmed.
Law
Present-day knowledge of the nature of Scots law before the eleventh century is largely speculative, with no surviving law codes from Scotland in this period,
The introduction of feudalism in the reign of
During the period of English control over Scotland, there is some evidence to suggest that King
The
From the reign of King James I, the beginnings of a legal profession began to develop and the administration of criminal and civil justice was centralised.[43] The growing activity of the parliament and the centralisation of administration in Scotland called for the better dissemination of Acts of the parliament to the courts and other enforcers of the law.[44] Throughout the late fifteenth century, unsuccessful attempts were made to form commissions of experts to codify, update or define Scots law.[45] The legal uncertainty that this situation created prompted increased reliance on the common law found in Canon law, and there are a number of examples of statutes from this period that clearly drew from Roman law.[46] The general practice during this period, as evidenced from records of cases, seems to have been to defer to specific Scottish laws on a matter when available and to fill in any gaps with provisions from the common law embodied in Civil and Canon law, which had the advantage of being written.[47]
The study of law was popular in Scotland, and many students travelled to Continental Europe to study canon law and civil law.[48] Scotland advanced markedly in educational terms during the fifteenth century with the founding of the University of St Andrews in 1413, the University of Glasgow in 1450 and the University of Aberdeen in 1495, and with the passing of the Education Act 1496, which required those who administered justice in Scotland to learn Latin and study law for at least three years at school.[49]
Local government
The relative poverty of the kingdom, difficult terrain and the lack of a system of regular taxation, helped to limit the scale of central administration and government by the Scottish crown.
Until the fifteenth century, the ancient pattern of major lordships survived largely intact, with the addition of two new "scattered earldoms" of
See also
Notes
- ISBN 0-7486-1234-3, p. 27.
- ^ ISBN 1-4051-0628-X, pp. 76–90.
- ISBN 0-582-50578-X, p. 125.
- ^ ISBN 0-333-56761-7, pp. 45–7.
- ^ a b J. Bannerman, "MacDuff of Fife," in A. Grant & K. Stringer, eds., Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, Essays Presented to G. W. S. Barrow (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), pp. 22–3.
- ^ P. G. B. McNeill and Hector L. MacQueen, eds, Atlas of Scottish History to 1707 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 159–63.
- ^ ISBN 0-7486-0276-3, pp. 14–15.
- ISBN 0-7486-1110-X, p. 221.
- ^ a b Wormald (1991), p. 18.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-162433-0, p. 188.
- ISBN 0-14-013649-5.
- ^ a b G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce (Berkeley CA.: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 11–12.
- ^ ISBN 0-7486-0276-3, pp. 22–3.
- ISBN 0-7486-1485-0, pp. 1–28.
- ISBN 0-7546-5328-5, p. 14.
- ^ Brown and Tanner (2004), p. 50.
- ^ a b R. J. Tanner, 'The Lords of the Articles before 1540', in Scottish Historical Review, 79, (2000), pp. 189–212.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-829941-9, p. 38.
- ^ Legislation – Records of the Parliaments of Scotland, 1399/1/13. translation.
- ISBN 1-86232-174-4.
- ISBN 0-7486-0276-3, p. 21.
- ISBN 1-4051-0628-X, pp. 98.
- ^ Scottish Legal History: A Research Guide, Georgetown Law Library, retrieved 22 October 2011.
- ISBN 0-7486-1110-X, p. 42.
- ^ a b c McNeill and MacQueen (1996), pp. 191–4.
- ISBN 978-0-9512573-7-1, pp. 104, 109 and 124.
- ^ "Laws and legal procedures", hurstwic.org, retrieved 15 August 2010.
- ISBN 0-7486-0641-6, p. 33.
- ^ "Thing" Shetlopedia, retrieved 3 August 2010.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 20.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 23.
- ^ Stair, vol. 22, para. 509 (Online), Retrieved 26 October 2011.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 24.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 30.
- ^ a b G. W. S. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003). pp. 69–82.
- ISBN 0-19-969305-6, pp. 381–82.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 36.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 40.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 41.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), pp. 42 and 46.
- ^ a b Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 50.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 56.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 52.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 65.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 66.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 67.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 73.
- ^ Reid and Zimmerman (2000), p. 68.
- ISBN 1-84384-096-0, pp. 29–30.
- ^ a b McNeill and MacQueen (1996), p. 179.
Bibliography
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- Bawcutt P. J. and Williams, J. H., A Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry (DS Brewer, 2006), ISBN 1-84384-096-0.
- Brown, K. M., and Tanner, R. J., The History of the Scottish Parliament volume 1: Parliament and Politics, 1235–1560 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-7486-1485-0.
- Graham-Campbell, J. and Batey, C. E., Vikings in Scotland: An Archaeological Survey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-7486-0641-6.
- MacDonald, A. R., The Burghs and Parliament in Scotland, c. 1550–1651 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), ISBN 0-7546-5328-5.
- Mackie, J. D., Lenman, B., and Parker, G., A History of Scotland (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0-14-013649-5.
- MacKay. A., and Ditchburn, D., eds, Atlas of Medieval Europe (London: Routledge, 1997), ISBN 0-415-12231-7.
- Lynch, M., ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), ISBN 0-19-969305-6.
- Reid, K., and Zimmerman, R., A History of Private Law in Scotland: I. Introduction and Property (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), ISBN 0-19-829941-9.
- Sharples, N. and Smith, R., "Norse settlement in the Western Isles" in A. Woolf, ed., Scandinavian Scotland – Twenty Years After (St Andrews: St Andrews University Press), ISBN 978-0-9512573-7-1.
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- Tanner, R. J., The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament: Politics and the Three Estates, 1424–1488 (Edinburgh: Tuckwell, 2001), ISBN 1-86232-174-4.
- Woolf, A., From Pictland to Alba: 789 – 1070 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0-7486-1234-3.