The paradox of medieval Scotland: social relationships and identities before the wars of independence

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.