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Although toil was unremitting and work backbreaking, there was also ample room to enjoy some recreation. The harvest celebration was an a
Wrestling and other sports, like golf and football, were popular but ba
There was theatre of sorts with travelling bands of players performing plays – surprisingly, plays featuring Robin Hood were among the most popular north of the border. Perhaps the peasants were sending an indirect message to their superiors – after all, Robin took from the rich and gave to the poor!
There were only two things the peasantry shared with their noble superiors: bawdy ballads and prostitution. Ballads were part of a long-established oral tradition, and while they originally reflected aristocratic values, as time wore on they increasingly focused on the lower orders. It is difficult to know how widespread prostitution was and who participated in it, but later James IV paid for the services of ‘Janet bair ars’ and the Edinburgh town council in 1556 issued an edict preventing prostitutes from dressing as ‘honest men’s wives’. We can only assume that such practices existed in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The urban elite
The ruling urban elite was formed of the burgesses, drawn mainly from the ranks of merchants and, to a lesser extent, craftsmen. Of Dunfermline’s 1,000 inhabitants in the early 16th century, only about 140 were burgesses. They were organised in clubs or
guilds
; admission to these guilds involved the payment of 40 shillings plus a donation of wine and spices. The guild members elected the town’s officers. But there was conflict when craftsmen agitated successfully for greater representation on town councils and the right to establish their own guilds.
The wealthiest townsmen were socially ambitious and coveted a place in rural aristocratic circles. Not all doors were closed to them and some did succeed in breaching the barriers of blood and kin. For example, in the late 14th century, Sir John Forrester of Corstorphine was a burgess of Edinburgh, a
bailie
(magistrate) and a rural landowner.
The Highlands and the clans
Before the 14th century, no one in Scotland drew a distinction between Highland and Lowland Scotland. But from there, it was common to describe the Highlands as lawless, feud-ridden and barbaric.
Distinctions were now being made regarding culture, dress and language, as a contemporary source makes clear:
The ma
The source of this anarchy was put down to clan rivalry. However, there are a great many misconceptions regarding clan society. The word
clan
is derived from the Gaelic word
cla
meaning ‘children’ and was used by chroniclers in the late 14th century. But not all clan members were related through blood or by common ancestry. The most common membership of a clan was through bonds of
manrent.
In return for the protection of a chief, the entrant would offer his allegiance as a ‘native man’.
The idea that clan members were direct descendants of a common ancestor is farfetched. One example will suffice to explode that myth: Clan Donald encompassed vassal kindreds such as the MacLeods and MacLeans bound together through marriage as much by genealogy. Indeed, the MacLeods were of Norse descent; the MacDougalls and MacDonalds were a mix of Gaelic and Scandinavian; while the Frasers and Sinclairs and some branches of the Stewarts were of Anglo-Norman stock. So, there was no such thing as the typical clan, nor was there a clan ‘system’.
Saints and si
The clergy in medieval Scotland were highly distinctive: they were
tonsured
(shaved head) and clean shaven. There were about 4,000 of them – some were lay or secular clergy, and others were monks, friars and canons-regular. There were 15 nu
Some of the clerics were highly educated; by the late 14th century, around 20 per cent had attended university. The higher the position, the more educated the cleric was. Between 1350 and 1425, it was estimated that 80 per cent of bishops were university graduates. They didn’t study solely in Scotland – they were cosmopolitan. Scottish students could be found attending Oxbridge until the 13th century, in addition to studying in Paris, Orleans and Bologna. In later years, Cologne and Leuven were the favoured destinations; this trend continued despite the existence of the universities of St Andrews and Glasgow.
Those at the top of the Church mainly came from privileged and landed families and tended to share the nobility’s lax attitude to morality. In 1426, the abbot of Iona complained that his predecessor had kept noble women as concubines, fathering offspring and using the monastery’s wealth to provide dowries for his bastard children.
Clerics were also good businessmen with an eye for a profit. The monasteries and abbeys controlled the wool trade in Scotland. Melrose Abbey had a flock of sheep in the 1370s that numbered close to 15,000; the Cistercian monasteries had a combined flock of 40,000 sheep. Clerics also had extensive properties in seaports to export the raw wool, although they ran into difficulties in the 15th century (see the next section).
Trading networks
Trade was highly important in the medieval economy. Scotland exported basic stuffs such as fish, wool, leather and animal skins, and imported sophisticated luxury imports such as wine, wheat, clothing, furniture, artistic goods and timber – mainly for the nobility. Its main trading partner at this time was not England but Flanders – the most densely urbanised region of northern Europe. Bruges was the main port for Europe and the destination for Scottish exports. However, trade links were forged with other parts of Britain; wheat was sought in England and Ireland.
But as the 15th century wore on, internal difficulties and a recasting of the Flanders economy saw links weaken and wool exports from Scotland fall dramatically, later to be followed by a decline in hides and skins. Wool exports in the 1480s were only a quarter of what they had been in the 1320s. As a result, demand for imports fell, which was compounded by a decline in the money supply and the manipulation of the currency by the crown that led to a fall in the value of the Scottish pound by a third compared to the Flemish pound. Put another way, in 1400, the Scottish pound had less than three-tenths of the silver it had in 1296; by 1470, less than three-twentieths.
Some towns in Scotland suffered as a result of the disruption of trade. Urban decline was evident: Roxburgh was a thriving town in the 13th century, but by the 15th century it was largely abandoned.