Detail of a historiated initial 'E' of children playing with toys and catching butterflies
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. Wet-nursing had become common by the fifteenth century. Fosterage was common among Highland clan leaders. From the age of three children took part in imaginative play and more formal games such as football, golf, archery, and various bowling games. The rich may have taken part in hunting and hawking and there is evidence from the sixteenth century of bear-baiting, cock-fighting and dogfighting.
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.
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 Linlithgow cemetery it was 58 per cent.[1] The diseases that are easiest to spot in the archaeological record are those that caused a "metabolic insult" evident in surviving bones and teeth. These were common in children up until about the age of four. These may have been due to increased risk from disease once the protective antibodies in a mother's milk ended after weaning. There was also greater exposure to hard and soft tissue trauma, and subsequent infection, as children became more mobile by crawling and toddling.[4] Iron deficiency anaemia was common among children, probably caused by long-term breastfeeding by mothers that were themselves deficient in minerals. Common childhood diseases included measles, diphtheria and whooping-cough, while parasites were also common.[1] The most badly affected individuals rarely made it beyond the age of 25, thus many individuals in Scottish urban society were affected by childhood disease and accidents that significantly affected their life chances.[4]
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.[6] Surviving artifacts include small millstones from the later Iron Age or early Middle Ages, found in Shetland and the mainland, that may be children's toys. There are also games counters and model swords.[7] "Rait's Raving", attempts to persuade the author's son that tables, cards and dice were only fit for children, suggesting that these were played by the young.[8] It also describes children gathering flowers, building houses with sticks, using sticks and reeds as swords and spears, "making a white horse of a wand",[9] creating what would later be known as a hobby horse, and imaginative play in which pieces of bread were sailing ships, while girls could make dolls from scraps and flowers.[10] Sports known to be played in late medieval Scotland included football, golf, archery, and various bowling games, known as "laing bowlis", "pennystanes", and "kyles" or skittles. "Caich", a form of tennis, was played by two individuals or teams, bouncing a ball against a smooth wall, often a church. The rich may have taken part in hunting and hawking and there is evidence from the sixteenth century of bear-baiting, cock-fighting and dog fighting.[11]
The ruins of Kinloss Abbey, one of the ecclessiastical institutions which opened their doors to a wider range of students in the late Middle Ages
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.[14] In the High Middle Ages new sources of education arose, with song and grammar schools. These were usually attached to cathedrals or a collegiate church and were most common in the developing burghs. By the end of the Middle Ages grammar schools could be found in all the main burghs and some small towns. Early examples including the High School of Glasgow in 1124 and the High School of Dundee in 1239.[15] There were also petty schools, more common in rural areas and providing an elementary education.[16] Some monasteries, like the Cistercian abbey at Kinloss, opened their doors to a wider range of students.[16] The number and size of these schools seems to have expanded rapidly from the 1380s. They were almost exclusively aimed at boys, but by the end of the fifteenth century, Edinburgh also had schools for girls, sometimes described as "sewing schools", and probably taught by lay women or nuns.[15][16] There was also the development of private tuition in the families of lords and wealthy burghers.[15] The growing emphasis on education culminated with the passing of the Education Act 1496, which decreed that all sons of barons and freeholders of substance should attend grammar schools to learn "perfyct Latyne". All this resulted in an increase in literacy, but which was largely concentrated among a male and wealthy elite,[15] with perhaps 60 per cent of the nobility being literate by the end of the period.[17]
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]
1 2 3 4 E. Ewen, "'Hamperit in ane holy came': sights, smells and sounds in the Medieval town", in E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, eds, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland: 1000 to 1600 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), ISBN0748621571, p. 126.
1 2 E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, "Introduction: everyday life in Scotland", in E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, eds, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland: 1000 to 1600 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), ISBN0748621571, p. 6.
↑ E. Ewen, "The early modern family" in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN0199563691, p. 278.
1 2 R. D. Oran, "Disease, death and the hereafter in medieval Scotland", in E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, eds, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland: 1000 to 1600 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), ISBN0748621571, pp. 198–200.
↑ A. Cathcart, Kinship and Clientage: Highland Clanship, 1451–1609 (Brill, 2006), ISBN9004150455, pp. 81–2.
1 2 N. Orme, Medieval Children (Yale University Press, 2003), ISBN0300097549, pp. 175–6.
↑ M. A. Hall, "'Only players'?: playtime, material culture and medieval childhood" in D. M. Hadley, K. A. Hemer, eds, Medieval Childhood: Archaeological Approaches (Oxbow Books, 2014), ISBN1782977015, p. 44.
↑ M. A. Hall, "'Only players'?: playtime, material culture and medieval childhood" in D. M. Hadley, K. A. Hemer, eds, Medieval Childhood: Archaeological Approaches (Oxbow Books, 2014), ISBN1782977015, p. 51.
↑ N. Orme, Medieval Children (Yale University Press, 2003), ISBN0300097549, p. 174.
↑ Paul B. Newman, Growing Up in the Middle Ages (McFarland, 2007), ISBN147660519X, p. 83.
↑ E. Ewen, "Sights, sounds and smells in the medieval town", in E. J. Cowan and L. Henderson, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland (Osford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ISBN0748629505, pp. 124–5.
↑ K. M. Brown, Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from the Reformation to the Revolutions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), ISBN0-7486-1299-8, p. 220.
↑ R. A. Houston, Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), ISBN0-521-89088-8, p. 76.
↑ A. Macquarrie, Medieval Scotland: Kinship and Nation (Thrupp: Sutton, 2004), ISBN0-7509-2977-4, p. 128.
1 2 3 4 5 P. J. Bawcutt and J. H. Williams, A Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry (Woodbridge: Brewer, 2006), ISBN1-84384-096-0, pp. 29–30.
↑ J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN0-7486-0276-3, pp. 68–72.
↑ D. R. Leader, A History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 1, The University to 1546 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 36.
1 2 3 4 B. Webster, Medieval Scotland: the Making of an Identity (St. Martin's Press, 1997), ISBN0-333-56761-7, pp. 124–5.
↑ E. Ewen, "An urban community: the crafts in thirteenth-century Aberdeen", in A. Grant and K. K. J. Stringer, eds, Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), ISBN074861110X, p. 157.
↑ I. D. Whyte, "Population mobility in early modern Scotland", in R. A. Houston and I. D. Whyte, Scottish Society, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), ISBN0521891671, p. 52.
↑ E. Ewen, "The early modern family" in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN0199563691, p. 277.
Scotland in the Middle Ages concerns the history of Scotland from the departure of the Romans to the adoption of major aspects of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century.
Christianity in Medieval Scotland includes all aspects of Christianity in the modern borders of Scotland in the Middle Ages. Christianity was probably introduced to what is now Lowland Scotland by Roman soldiers stationed in the north of the province of Britannia. After the collapse of Roman authority in the fifth century, Christianity is presumed to have survived among the British enclaves in the south of what is now Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced. Scotland was largely converted by Irish missions associated with figures such as St Columba, from the fifth to the seventh centuries. These missions founded monastic institutions and collegiate churches that served large areas. Scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more relaxed and there were significant differences in practice with Roman Christianity, particularly the form of tonsure and the method of calculating Easter, although most of these issues had been resolved by the mid-seventh century. After the reconversion of Scandinavian Scotland in the tenth century, Christianity under papal authority was the dominant religion of the kingdom.
The history of education in Scotland in its modern sense of organised and institutional learning, began in the Middle Ages, when Church choir schools and grammar schools began educating boys. By the end of the 15th century schools were also being organised for girls and universities were founded at St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Education was encouraged by the Education Act 1496, which made it compulsory for the sons of barons and freeholders of substance to attend the grammar schools, which in turn helped increase literacy among the upper classes.
Scottish society in the Middle Ages is the social organisation of what is now Scotland between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century and the establishment of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. Social structure is obscure in the early part of the period, for which there are few documentary sources. Kinship groups probably provided the primary system of organisation and society was probably divided between a small aristocracy, whose rationale was based around warfare, a wider group of freemen, who had the right to bear arms and were represented in law codes, above a relatively large body of slaves, who may have lived beside and become clients of their owners.
The economy of Scotland in the Middle Ages covers all forms of economic activity in the modern boundaries of Scotland, between the End of Roman rule in Britain in the early fifth century, until the advent of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, including agriculture, crafts and trade. Having between a fifth or sixth (15-20 %) of the arable or good pastoral land and roughly the same amount of coastline as England and Wales, marginal pastoral agriculture and fishing were two of the most important aspects of the Medieval Scottish economy. With poor communications, in the early Middle Ages most settlements needed to achieve a degree of self-sufficiency in agriculture. Most farms were operated by a family unit and used an infield and outfield system.
The geography of Scotland in the Middle Ages covers all aspects of the land that is now Scotland, including physical and human, between the departure of the Romans in the early fifth century from what are now the southern borders of the country, to the adoption of the major aspects of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. Scotland was defined by its physical geography, with its long coastline of inlets, islands and inland lochs, high proportion of land over 60 metres above sea level and heavy rainfall. It is divided between the Highlands and Islands and Lowland regions, which were subdivided by geological features including fault lines, mountains, hills, bogs and marshes. This made communications by land problematic and raised difficulties for political unification, but also for invading armies.
The Renaissance in Scotland was a cultural, intellectual and artistic movement in Scotland, from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late fourteenth century and reaching northern Europe as a Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century. It involved an attempt to revive the principles of the classical era, including humanism, a spirit of scholarly enquiry, scepticism, and concepts of balance and proportion. Since the twentieth century, the uniqueness and unity of the Renaissance has been challenged by historians, but significant changes in Scotland can be seen to have taken place in education, intellectual life, literature, art, architecture, music, science and politics.
Scottish society in the early modern era encompasses the social structure and relations that existed in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. It roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
Women in early modern Scotland, between the Renaissance of the early sixteenth century and the beginnings of industrialisation in the mid-eighteenth century, were part of a patriarchal society, though the enforcement of this social order was not absolute in all aspects. Women retained their family surnames at marriage and did not join their husband's kin groups. In higher social ranks, marriages were often political in nature and the subject of complex negotiations in which women as matchmakers or mothers could play a major part. Women were a major part of the workforce, with many unmarried women acting as farm servants and married women playing a part in all the major agricultural tasks, particularly during harvest. Widows could be found keeping schools, brewing ale and trading, but many at the bottom of society lived a marginal existence.
The family in early modern Scotland includes all aspects of kinship and family life, between the Renaissance and the Reformation of the sixteenth century and the beginnings of industrialisation and the end of the Jacobite risings in the mid-eighteenth century in Scotland.
Education in early modern Scotland includes all forms of education within the modern borders of Scotland, between the end of the Middle Ages in the late fifteenth century and the beginnings of the Enlightenment in the mid-eighteenth century. By the sixteenth century such formal educational institutions as grammar schools, petty schools and sewing schools for girls were established in Scotland, while children of the nobility often studied under private tutors. Scotland had three universities, but the curriculum was limited and Scottish scholars had to go abroad to gain second degrees. These contacts were one of the most important ways in which the new ideas of Humanism were brought into Scottish intellectual life. Humanist concern with education and Latin culminated in the Education Act 1496.
The geography of Scotland in the early modern era covers all aspects of the land in Scotland, including physical and human, between the sixteenth century and the beginnings of the Agricultural Revolution and industrialisation in the eighteenth century. The defining factor in the geography of Scotland is the distinction between the Highlands and Islands in the north and west and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands were subdivided by the Great Glen and the Lowlands into the fertile Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands. The Uplands and Highlands had a relatively short growing season, exacerbated by the Little Ice Age, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century.
Agriculture in Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century and the establishment of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. Scotland has between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good pastoral land of England and Wales, mostly located in the south and east. Heavy rainfall encouraged the spread of acidic blanket peat bog, which with wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and agriculture difficult. Most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration resulting in more land becoming unproductive. Farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family and cattle were the most important domesticated animal.
Education in Medieval Scotland includes all forms of education within the modern borders of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century, until the establishment of the Renaissance late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. Few sources on Scottish education survived the Medieval era. In the early Middle Ages, Scotland was an oral society, with verbal rather than literary education. Though there are indications of a Gaelic education system similar to that of Ireland, few details are known. The establishment of Christianity from the sixth century brought Latin to Scotland as a scholarly and written language. Monasteries served as major repositories of knowledge and education, often running schools.
Scottish literature in the Middle Ages is literature written in Scotland, or by Scottish writers, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century, until the establishment of the Renaissance in the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. It includes literature written in Brythonic, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French and Latin.
Women in Medieval Scotland includes all aspects of the lives and status of women between the departure of the Romans from North Britain in the fifth century to the introduction of the Renaissance and Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Medieval Scotland was a patriarchal society, but how exactly patriarchy worked in practice is difficult to discern. A large proportion of the women for whom biographical details survive were members of the royal houses of Scotland. Some of these became important figures. There was only one reigning Scottish Queen in this period, the uncrowned and short-lived Margaret, Maid of Norway.
The information about Scotland's domestic and foreign trade during the Middle Ages is limited. In the early Middle Ages the rise of Christianity meant that wine and precious metals were imported for use in religious rites. Imported goods found in archaeological sites of the period include ceramics and glass, while many sites indicate iron and precious metal working. The slave trade was also important and in the Irish Sea it may have been stimulated by the arrival of the Vikings from the late eighth century.
Music in Medieval Scotland includes all forms of musical production in what is now Scotland between the fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. The sources for Scottish Medieval music are extremely limited. There are no major musical manuscripts for Scotland from before the twelfth century. There are occasional indications that there was a flourishing musical culture. Instruments included the cithara, tympanum, and chorus. Visual representations and written sources demonstrate the existence of harps in the Early Middle Ages and bagpipes and pipe organs in the Late Middle Ages. As in Ireland, there were probably filidh in Scotland, who acted as poets, musicians and historians. After this "de-gallicisation" of the Scottish court in the twelfth century, a less highly regarded order of bards took over the functions of the filidh and they would continue to act in a similar role in the Scottish Highlands and Islands into the eighteenth century.
Childhood in early modern Scotland includes all aspects of the lives of children, from birth to adulthood, between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. This period corresponds to the early modern period in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the beginning of industrialisation and the Enlightenment in the mid-eighteenth century.
The history of schools in Scotland includes the development of all schools as institutions and buildings in Scotland, from the early Middle Ages to the present day. From the early Middle Ages there were bardic schools, that trained individuals in the poetic and musical arts. Monasteries served as major repositories of knowledge and education, often running schools. In the High Middle Ages, new sources of education arose including choir and grammar schools designed to train priests. Benedictine and Augustinian foundations probably had charitable almonry schools to educate young boys, who might enter the priesthood. Some abbeys opened their doors to teach the sons of gentlemen. By the end of the Middle Ages, grammar schools could be found in all the main burghs and some small towns. In rural areas there were petty or reading schools that provided an elementary education. Private tuition in the families of lords and wealthy burghers sometimes developed into "household schools". Girls of noble families were taught in nunneries and by the end of the fifteenth century Edinburgh also had schools for girls, sometimes described as "sewing schools". There is documentary evidence for about 100 schools of these different kinds before the Reformation. The growing humanist-inspired emphasis on education cumulated with the passing of the Education Act 1496.
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