The paradox of medieval Scotland: social relationships and identities before the wars of independence
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: History
Abstract
Rees Davies observed of Scotland that 'paradoxically, the most extensively English-settled and Anglicised part of the British Isles was the country which retained its political independence' (The First English Empire, 170). The kingdom was becoming more self-consciously Scottish, yet its history has been seen in terms of native distinctiveness being eroded by English immigration and the Europeanisation or Anglicisation of social institutions and culture. The transformation of the Scottish kingdom into a single country and people was obviously not based on the spread of a distinctive language and culture. How then did the social identities and interrelationships of individuals in Scottish society change in the period 1093/1286? How should we conceive of this transformation, particularly as relating to the issues of ethnicity, social and institutional development, the adoption of charters, changes in law, custom and culture?
The Prosopography of Medieval Scotland (PoMS), a database incorporating all available evidence on all individuals in the Scottish kingdom between 1093 and 1286, will enable the researchers to shed unprecedented light on this paradox. Areas to be explored as part of the project include Scotland as a unique test case in the processes of Europeanization, how we should understand lordship and landholding in the wake of Susan Reynold's critique of feudalism, a re-examination of ethnicity in medieval Scotland, and the treatment of Gaelic personal names in new documentary contexts. Particular methodological issues will be tackled (i) in an online book offering critical assessment of charters, covering topics such as the archival dimension, the adoption of charters by laity, the earliest charters for Scotland north of the Forth, episcopal charters before 1250, and the diplomatic of private charters; and (ii) a book/pamphlet providing a critical appraisal of the treatment of Gaelic names, using the unrivalled corpus of names in the royal genealogy in Ralph of Diss's Ymagines Historiarum in its two earliest manuscripts as a control.
Symposia will be held at Glasgow and London, in addition to a dedicated panel at IMC Leeds 2010 and a conference to be held in Glasgow. The research results will be disseminated through an edited volume based on the symposia and conference, illustrating how the database informs our understanding of the key issues, as well as through a book for students, The Founding of Scotland, 1100/1295, contextualising the main themes of the paradox of medieval Scotland within a general history (contracted by Dr Broun to be published by Blackwell's).
The PoMS database will be based on a corpus of circa 4500 contemporary charter texts, made in the names of kings, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, knights, burgesses and others, and will include a searchable calendar of these documents. This exhaustive resource will be augmented with the extant chronicles, exchequer rolls and English material on Scottish society. This will enable access to details on all individuals known to have lived in Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries, and will facilitate instantaneous data on family and household connections, landholding, links to the royal court, naming patterns, status, name-forms and other vital information. This database will have a transformative effect on academic research on medieval Scotland, as well as providing a unique case study on broader issues of concern to medievalists of all disciplines, including ethnicity, feudalism, Anglicisation and Europeanization. Beyond academia, the database will be useful for key stakeholders, such as libraries, archives, museums and schools, and the needs of all of these users are being incorporated into the design. Not only scholars in the UK and beyond, but also students, teachers, family historians, librarians will all have unprecedented access to Scotland's earliest documentary corpus and a window on the people and the paradox of medieval Scotland.
The Prosopography of Medieval Scotland (PoMS), a database incorporating all available evidence on all individuals in the Scottish kingdom between 1093 and 1286, will enable the researchers to shed unprecedented light on this paradox. Areas to be explored as part of the project include Scotland as a unique test case in the processes of Europeanization, how we should understand lordship and landholding in the wake of Susan Reynold's critique of feudalism, a re-examination of ethnicity in medieval Scotland, and the treatment of Gaelic personal names in new documentary contexts. Particular methodological issues will be tackled (i) in an online book offering critical assessment of charters, covering topics such as the archival dimension, the adoption of charters by laity, the earliest charters for Scotland north of the Forth, episcopal charters before 1250, and the diplomatic of private charters; and (ii) a book/pamphlet providing a critical appraisal of the treatment of Gaelic names, using the unrivalled corpus of names in the royal genealogy in Ralph of Diss's Ymagines Historiarum in its two earliest manuscripts as a control.
Symposia will be held at Glasgow and London, in addition to a dedicated panel at IMC Leeds 2010 and a conference to be held in Glasgow. The research results will be disseminated through an edited volume based on the symposia and conference, illustrating how the database informs our understanding of the key issues, as well as through a book for students, The Founding of Scotland, 1100/1295, contextualising the main themes of the paradox of medieval Scotland within a general history (contracted by Dr Broun to be published by Blackwell's).
The PoMS database will be based on a corpus of circa 4500 contemporary charter texts, made in the names of kings, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, knights, burgesses and others, and will include a searchable calendar of these documents. This exhaustive resource will be augmented with the extant chronicles, exchequer rolls and English material on Scottish society. This will enable access to details on all individuals known to have lived in Scotland in the 12th and 13th centuries, and will facilitate instantaneous data on family and household connections, landholding, links to the royal court, naming patterns, status, name-forms and other vital information. This database will have a transformative effect on academic research on medieval Scotland, as well as providing a unique case study on broader issues of concern to medievalists of all disciplines, including ethnicity, feudalism, Anglicisation and Europeanization. Beyond academia, the database will be useful for key stakeholders, such as libraries, archives, museums and schools, and the needs of all of these users are being incorporated into the design. Not only scholars in the UK and beyond, but also students, teachers, family historians, librarians will all have unprecedented access to Scotland's earliest documentary corpus and a window on the people and the paradox of medieval Scotland.
Publications
Hammond, M H
(2014)
The adoption and routinization of Scottish royal charter production for lay beneficiaries, 1124 - 1195
in Anglo-Norman Studies, 36
Broun, Dauvit
(2015)
The Most Important Textual Representation of Royal Authority on Parchment 1100-1250?
Hammond, Matthew
(2016)
Use of Social Network Analysis to Explore the People of Medieval Scotland
Dauvit Broun (Author)
Women and the adoption of charters north of the Forth c.1100-1286
Dauvit Broun (Author)
History and the Creation of Scotland
Dauvit Broun (Author)
The Paradox of Medieval Scotland, 1093-1286 and Local History'
Description | The findings have been used particularly by Higher and Advanced Higher History students in Scottish schools, leading to further collaborations with teachers in subsequent projects. the extended People of Medieval Scotland database, now covering the period to 1314. The launch on 5 September 2012 received the greatest degree of media publicity (TV, radio and print). There have since then (as of 18 February 2016) been 69,378 users worldwide and 115,231 sessions, users in every country in Europe (except Macedonia); Australasia; the Middle East; North, Central and South America (except Paraguay); Asia (except Burma, North Korea, Mongolia, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan); plus 17 countries in Africa and 3 countries in the Caribbean: 26.4% in Scotland, 24% in USA, 23.2% in England,6.1 % in Canada, 5.2 % in Australia). The use of the database can now be updated: According to Google Analytics, there were 74,516 users between 5 September 2012 and 21 August 2017: 26% were from Scotland, 24% from the USA and 23% from England. Edinburgh, Glasgow and London account for 23% of users. There have been users in every country in Europe, Australasia, the Middle East, and North, Central and South America (except Paraguay), in nearly every country in Asia (apart from North Korea and some former Soviet republics), and in 22 countries in Africa and three in the Caribbean. There is no way of telling in any detail how the database has been used by all these people across the world: overall, there have been nearly twice as many sessions (123,098) as users in this period, and nearly ten times as many page views (727,208). This could suggest that, in most cases, the database has been dipped into only once or twice, with few if any users availing themselves of its range of functions. Within this overall figure, however, there are some 'hot spots' of relatively intense activity: the 'hottest' is Szczecin in Poland, whose 19 users have had 1,117 sessions, an impressive average of 58.8 sessions per user. |
Sector | Education,Other |
Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
Description | Major Research Grant |
Amount | £240,327 (GBP) |
Funding ID | RPG-2012-805 The Transformation of Gaelic Scotland in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries |
Organisation | The Leverhulme Trust |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2013 |
End | 04/2016 |
Title | Dauvit Broun, Amanda Beam and John Reuben Davies gave a demonstration of the database. Launch of project web resource, Informatics Building, University of Edinburgh. |
Description | Dauvit Broun, Amanda Beam and John Reuben Davies gave a demonstration of the database. Launch of project web resource, Informatics Building, University of Edinburgh. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Dauvit Broun, Amanda Beam and John Reuben Davies gave a demonstration of the database. Launch of project web resource, Informatics Building, University of Edinburgh. |
Title | Multi-faceted prosopographical database of everyone mentioned in the 6016 documents that survived from Scotland 1093-1286 |
Description | Multi-faceted prosopographical database of everyone mentioned in the 6016 documents that survived from Scotland 1093-1286 |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Multi-faceted prosopographical database of everyone mentioned in the 6016 documents that survived from Scotland 1093-1286 |
Description | The Breaking of Britain: cross-border society and Scottish independence, AHRC-funded project 2010-13, Glasgow with Edinburgh, KLC and Lancaster. |
Organisation | KLC School of Design |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Information taken from Final Report |
Description | The Breaking of Britain: cross-border society and Scottish independence, AHRC-funded project 2010-13, Glasgow with Edinburgh, KLC and Lancaster. |
Organisation | Lancaster University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Information taken from Final Report |
Description | The Breaking of Britain: cross-border society and Scottish independence, AHRC-funded project 2010-13, Glasgow with Edinburgh, KLC and Lancaster. |
Organisation | University of Edinburgh |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Information taken from Final Report |
Description | The Breaking of Britain: cross-border society and Scottish independence, AHRC-funded project 2010-13, Glasgow with Edinburgh, KLC and Lancaster. |
Organisation | University of Glasgow |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Information taken from Final Report |
Description | Launch of new web resource |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Launch of web resource Schools visits, and positive feedback from Cabinet Secetary |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | Paper by Dauvit Broun, ''Representing Gaelic names in a non-Gaelic contexts: the example of the genealogy of the king of Scots', Forum for Research on Languages of Scotland and Ulster 12th Conference 23 August 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Paper at international conference. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Paper by Matthew Hammond , 'An introduction to prosopographical databases', University of Catania at Ragusa, Sicily, Strutture didattica speciale di lingue et letterature straniere, seminar series, 25 Oct. 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Invited seminar paper |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Paper by Matthew Hammond , 'McFamilies: surnames and identity in medieval Scotland', Conference of Scottish Medievalists, A. A. M. Duncan Memorial Lecture, Cumbernauld, 6 Jan. 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Invited lecture at conference |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Paper by Matthew Hammond , 'The Scottish Queens of Norway, evidence and contexts', Royal Women in Scandinavia, 1250-1350 conference, University of Catania at Ragusa, Sicily, 25 Oct. 2018 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Invited paper at international conference |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Paper by Matthew Hammond Paper by Matthew Hammond , 'Beyond the mutation familiale: a synthesis', University of York, Department of History research seminars, 20 Feb. 2019. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Invited seminar paper |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Participation in HMIe event for schools |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presentation sparked interest and questions Enthusiastic response |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | People of Medieval Scotland facebook |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/The-People-of-Medieval-Scotland-1093-1314-196897367023413/ for community of users of the People of Medieval Scotland database to interact with each other about the database. There 2421 users. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015,2016 |
URL | https://www.facebook.com/The-People-of-Medieval-Scotland-1093-1314-196897367023413/ |
Description | Scottish Learning Fair presentation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presentation at SLF Enthusiastic response |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Use of www.poms.ac.uk website |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Between 5 Sept 2012 and 3 March 2016 there have been 69,555 users of the www.poms.ac.uk website (115,337 sessions). There are users in every country in Europe (except Macedonia); Australasia; the Middle East; North, Central and South America (except Paraguay); Asia (except Burma, North Korea, Mongolia, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan); plus 17 countries in Africa and 3 countries in the Caribbean. By country In top 10 of sessions, but ordered by number of users Users Sessions Scotland: 18,305 (26.4%) 18,305 USA: 16,870 (24%) 22,773 England: 16,100 (23.2%) 16,100 Canada: 4,248 (6.1%) 6,103 Australia: 3,598 (5.2%) 5,338 New Zealand: 1,019 (1.5%) 1,356 Germany: 876 (1.3%) 1,082 France: 729 (1.1%) 1,244 Rep. of Ireland: 443 (0.6%) 717 Japan: 206 (0.3%) 765 Poland: 154 (0.2%) 1,338 By city (all those with 1% or above users or sessions) Ordered by number of users Users: Sessions: Glasgow 6,246 (9%) 13,877 (12%) London 4,861 (7%) 8,953 (7.8%) Edinburgh 4,816 (7%) 9,805 (8.5%) Aberdeen 1,231 (1.8%) 2,286 (2%) Sydney 952 (1.4%) 1,358 (1.2%) Melbourne 939 (1.4%) 1,450 (1.3%) Dundee 748 (1.1%) 1,610 (1.4%) Brisbane 711 (1%) 1,277 (1.1%) Inverness 604 (0.9%) 1,343 (1.2%) York 217 (0.3%) 3,077 (2.7%) Szczecin 18 (0.03%) 1,116 (1%) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013,2014,2015,2016 |
URL | https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/?authuser=1#report/visitors-overview/a24308089w47462059p4... |
Description | Visits to schools in Paisley, Larbert and East Renfrewshire (Williamwood) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Interest in application of database for Higher and Advanced Higher History Enthusiastic response |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011,2012,2013 |