The Lion, the Lily, and the Leopard: The Crown and Nobility of Scotland, France, and England and the Struggle for Power (1100-1204) 9782503540405

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The Lion, the Lily, and the Leopard

Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces Editorial Board under the auspices of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Hull Adrian P. Tudor, University of Hull Anu Mänd, Tallinna Ülikool (Tallinn University) Lesley A. Coote, University of Hull Ildar H. Garipzanov, Universitetet i Oslo Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet, Université de Toulouse-II-Le Mirail Catherine Emerson, National University of Ireland, Galway

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Volume 4

The Lion, the Lily, and the Leopard The Crown and Nobility of Scotland, France, and England, and the Struggle for Power (1100-1204)

by

Melissa Pollock

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2015, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2015/0095/85 ISBN: 978-2-503-54040-5 Printed on acid-free paper

Contents

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Sources and Context

1

Chapter 1: Image and Identity

33

Chapter 2: The Scottish Marriage Market and the Continent

55

Chapter 3: The Scots and the War of Succession, 1135–53

111

Chapter 4: Identity Challenged: Restructuring and Change in the Three Kingdoms, 1154–73

149

Chapter 5: William the Lion and the Great War of 1173

199

Chapter 6: William, Henry, and the End of the Great War

287

Chapter 7: King William and King Richard

337

Chapter 8: The Loss of Normandy and the Three Kingdoms

383

Conclusion 414 Appendix 421 Bibliography 425 Index 493

List of Illustrations

Figures Figure 1, p. 77. Cahaignes family tree. Figure 2, p. 78. Watteville family tree. Figure 3, p. 140. Clare family tree. Figure 4, p. 163. Malherbe family tree. Figure 5, p. 202. Aubigny/Moubray family tree. Figure 6, p. 212. Stuteville family tree. Figure 7, p. 217. Bisset family tree. Figure 8, p. 225. Twelfth-century Scoto-Breton marriages. Figure 9, p. 247. Branches of the Vaux family tree. Figure 10, p. 254. Lindsay family tree. Figure 11, p. 257. Ridel/Basset family tree. Figure 12, p. 260. Hai family trees. Figure 13, p. 264. Hommet family tree. Figure 14, p. 278. Branches of the Mortemer family tree. Figure 15, p. 299. Branches of the Vieuxpont family tree. Figure 16, p. 338. Family tree of the Viscounts de Beaumont-sur-Sarthe.

viii

List of Illustrations

Figure 17, p. 343. Mauvoisin family tree. Figure 18, p. 421. Scottish succession. Figure 19, p. 422. Tosny family tree. Figure 20, p. 423. Counts of Holland.

Maps Map 1, p. 95. Landholdings and/or location in Somerset of Matilda de Chandos, the Coloummiers, the Louvels, Robert de Berkeley, counts of Boulogne and Edmund of Scotland. Map 2, p. 129. Landholdings of the Breton Families of FitzAlain, Montfort/ Beaumont of Leicester, FitzBaderon lords of Monmouth, Saint-Jean, Aubigny Belvoir. Map 3, p. 207. Landholdings of the Ornois Families of Moubray, Briouze, William de la Hai, Vieuxpont. Map 4, p. 355. Landholdings of the Evrecin and Yvelines Families of Mauvoisin, William de Soules, Beaumont of Leicester, Tosny, Neauphlé, Watteville, Cahaignes, earls of Devon.

Acknowledgements

T

his book has only come into fruition because of the encouragement and guidance of several colleagues, friends and family. My doctoral supervisor, Michael Brown, and Norman Macdougall were invaluable in the early stages of this work. Michael Brown heartily endorsed the project and enabled me to obtain funding for research in the French archives. Alex Woolf and William Aird guided me towards the furtherance of the Breton dimension of Franco-Scottish affairs, where I also found the invaluable support of Judith Everard. Judith and Daniel Power have both advised on political dimensions of particular families and put me into contact with others working in a similar vein. I am also indebted to Professor Edward James who laboriously read through my manuscript and proffered suggestions for improving aspects of my work that would make the material more accessible to readers outside the subject area. I hope I have done justice to all of the suggestions made by those listed above and by the anonymous readers. There are two people who deserve special recognition — my father, Anthony Pollock MD, who funded my PhD and made this monograph possible, and my husband, Sandy Wilkinson. Sandy has been a considerable source of support. He has been a consistent reminder that dry genealogical information makes a boring read. His contribution to this work is immeasurable and I will always be indebted to him for believing in me and in this study. I must also thank my dearest Olivia. You have deepened my respect for family and history.

Introduction: Sources and Context

Methodology — Dynastic Contemplation The ‘Auld Alliance’ has been historically defined as a military alliance between the French and Scottish thrones that was formed in response to English aggression in 1295. The problem is that this interpretation of the alliance oversimplifies a very complex historical development between the three kingdoms and undermines the true nature of relations beginning with the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The conquest of England ushered in a new socio-political structure that unified England and Normandy under one royal authority — that of William of Normandy, who claimed the throne of England based on familial and political ties dating back to the reign of his great aunt, Emma of Normandy, the consort of King Aethelred ‘the Unready’.1 William’s succession was not sealed by a bond of blood with the ruling House of Wessex but relied primarily on a promise made by King Edward the Confessor, who allegedly named William his heir in 1052.2 Without military support and victory on the battlefield, William stood little chance of taking and successfully holding the kingdom of England as a foreign ruler. For this reason, he turned to families who held land of him in Normandy and who recognized the potential for advancement in England under the aegis of a new Norman king. These families were, for the most part, loyal to him 1 

William of Poitiers, Gesta, ed. by Davis and Chibnall, pp. 2–3, 150–51. William of Poitiers, Gesta, ed. by Davis and Chibnall, pp.  68–69, 114–15, 118–19, 120–21, 150–51; Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. by Van Houts, ii, 158–61; Barlow, Edward the Confessor, pp. 214–27, 240–55. 2 

2

Introduction

and they protected his interests against a native population. More importantly, without the support of these families, William the Conqueror would never have been able to amass a large enough force to cross the Channel and to confront his rivals or to establish a new aristocracy that owed fealty to him and to his heirs on both sides of the Channel. However, despite the undeniable success of King William I and of his heirs in creating a new Norman Empire, the political structure spanning the Channel became increasingly problematic. The kings of France pressed their claims to overlordship in the Continental territories held by the Norman kings and supported rivalry within the AngloFrench royal family that consistently undermined and threatened the stability of the Norman Empire. In response, the Norman rulers endeavoured to maintain amicable relations with rivals at the periphery of their kingdom both on the Continent and in the British Isles. Kings William II ‘Rufus’ and Henry I, the sons of William I, sought to improve relations with the kings of Scotland in particular whose territory posed a threat to their lorship in the north of England. Between 1094 and 1135, Rufus and Henry successfully formed bonds of protection strengthened by a series of marriages between the two royal houses that brought the kingdoms closer together. More specifically, by the 1120s, men and women from Continental families, who had settled in England, began to emigrate to Scotland because of the close relationship between the kings of Scotland and King Henry I of England, William I’s son. The marriage of King Henry I to King Alexander of Scotland’s sister, Maud, or Edith, and Alexander’s marriage to Henry’s natural daughter, Sibilla, united the families. 3 Maud’s marriage to Henry proved particularly important to interrelations between England, Scotland, and western France, because the Queen’s youngest brother, David, followed her to England and became an integral part of the Anglo-French court. Subsequently, when David succeeded to the throne of Scotland in 1124, he brought a number of landless younger sons from cross-Channel families with him. He also imported many of the administrative and judicial structures from Henry’s Anglo-Norman court.4 The immigration of new Anglo-French families into Scotland reshaped not only the aristocratic structure on both sides of the Channel but especially the Scottish crown’s relationship with other European powers. David’s interest in promoting this Anglo-French, cross-Channel elite within his borders introduced the kingdom of Scotland to a new world — a world that was more inti3  Alexander’s sister’s name was Edith but she changed it to Maud, an English name, when she married Henry. 4  Charters of King David I, ed. by Barrow, pp. 25–37.

Sources and Context

3

mately bound to the papacy and to new ideas flooding into the west through contact with the Arab world. Although Scotland would remain conservative in its response to these new influences, the king and his subjects became far more politically involved with France particularly as the kings of England began to pose more of a threat. The crown and nobility of Scotland and France found that they had a common interest in containing the king of England’s cross-Channel domination. Scotland became especially important by the middle of the twelfth century as the former ties that had bound Britain and France together under one aristocratic structure weakened in response to the Capetian drive to reunify France. Kings Louis VII and Philip II challenged the Norman power-bloc in the west winning in the case of Philip the sobriquet ‘Augustus’, and their success was largely due to their ability to undermine King Henry II of England’s authority on both sides of the Channel.5 Henry II’s power reached from Britain (including at times Scotland, Wales, and Ireland) to Normandy, and included Anjou and Maine by inheritance from his father, and Poitou, Aquitaine, and the Touraine by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, but he proved unable to appease and control some of his most powerful cross-Channel lords and even his own sons. The alliances made against him exposed weaknesses in the land-lord relationships that crossed the Channel and demonstrated that the Angevin empire had ultimately never been centralized under one rule.6 Kings Louis and Philip capitalized on the increasing disenchantment with Henry II’s style of rule by drawing military support from men and their families who held fees and owed service on both sides of the Channel, which, due to the nature of this cross-Channel system, also involved men with land and titles in Scotland. The fabric of the lord-vassal relationship was seriously strained within this political structure as men and their families from all three kingdoms were forced to choose between royal overlords from whom they held their lands and titles. It is clear that the idea that aid was based on support from men who only held fees in Scotland or France is not applicable here. The ‘Auld Alliance’ as it was understood in 1295 had no place in the political scope of the twelfth century. Some work has been undertaken on the relationship between Scotland, France and England in the twelfth century, but Scotland has only been treated as a foot5  Rigord, Gesta Philii Augusti, ed. by Delaborde, i, 6–7. He was called ‘Augustus’ as opposed to his former nickname of ‘Dieudonne’ or ‘God-given’. 6  R. V. Turner, ‘The Problems of Survival’.

Introduction

4

note to the ‘greater’ war between England and France.7 Moreover, the ethnic and social identity that the Scottish court shared with the English and French has been understated. There is some justification for this in that Scotland was a smaller kingdom, with far fewer resources, and located in an isolated geographical position, but she did play a pivotal role in the conflict between the crowns of France and England. For France, Scotland was increasingly viewed as an excellent ally who could, by virtue of her physical position, divert England’s military resources as happened in 1173 and 1174, and even more importantly Anglo-French Scottish families had lands and allies in England and in France, which undermined the financial and military reserves of the Plantagenet rulers. What will be seen throughout this work is just how significant networks surrounding individual lords could be to relations between the crowns. The kings of all three kingdoms were vulnerable to alliances formed between particular families whose members spanned the Channel. As such, this work relies heavily on a genealogical and prosopographical methodology that is well-founded in historical studies, but it is accompanied by its own strengths and weaknesses.8 Familial relationships are the foundation of the social and political environment of the medieval period in Scotland as elsewhere. As Karl Ferdinand Werner has noted, ‘Genealogy is, at least in its origins, primarily at the service of dynastic self-contemplation.’9 Forming bonds of service and fealty with an 7 

G. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era. Professor Barrow in a more recent book gave a little more attention to the strength of Scotland’s relationship with France. G. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots, pp. 279–95; Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom, pp. 230, 255, 262–64; Oram, Domination and Lordship, pp. 133–339, 145, 342–43. 8  Searle, Predatory Kinship, pp. 88–132, 159–249; Jessee, Robert the Burgundian, pp. 175–79; Crouch, The Beaumont Twins; Green, ‘Kinship, Marriage, and Family’; Keats-Rohan, Family Trees and the Roots of Politics; Bates, ‘The Prosopographical Study of Anglo-French Royal Charters’. The latter work by Bates, though valuable in questioning the authority of some charters, tends to overemphasize the significance of absent witnesses and has caused a general distrust by historians. Cf. Schmid, ‘Geschlechtbewusstsein’ for the German historiographical approach to family. Karl Schmid relies on naming patterns and its development from the ninth century. He suggests that there may have not been a great change or break among ruling patterns of the upper nobility until the twelfth century. For French approaches to prosopographical studies see Angot, Généalogies féodales Mayennaises; Barthélemy, ‘Noblesse, chevalerie et lignage’; Bisson, ‘Nobility and Family in Medieval France’. 9  Werner, ‘Important Noble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne’, p. 150. Although the structure of the family and its methods of self-assessment had changed between 800 and 1100, the basis of medieval society was still driven by marital alliances and bonds of loyalty. Werner was one of the first scholars to question that the feudal bond superceded family networks: Werner, ‘Royaume et regna’, pp. 25–26.

Sources and Context

5

overlord or protector was particularly significant to regional politics. The loyalty of men to a lord could prevent a hostile takeover by newly appointed men of the king or of a rival so could in essence save a family from disseisment since it was the lord’s duty to protect them.10 For this reason, many families made gifts to their lord’s foundations to strengthen these commitments. Alliances among the nobility were formed both to elevate the dignity and patronage network of a family as well as to protect it against external threats either from the crown, from within their own family lines, or from other kin groups working against them.11 Periods of heightened animosities illustrate that patterns of alliance were used as a protective measure against these threats and that marriage was the most common and often most effective form of bond between allies.12 However, the problem with any bond based on marriage was that it could easily break down because of problems in successions, which in turn caused rifts within a kin group as each line fought over the disputed inheritance.13 In the context of this work it is important to understand how important the kin group was throughout the medieval world. Literary works reflect the central importance marriage in particular played in resolving or causing disputes between families. For example, the Norse redaction of Thomas’ Tristan provides a contemporary commentary on the positive effect of a marital bond when King Mark’s men suggest that he marry the daughter of the king of Ireland to end the protracted animosities between Ireland and England:14 10  Crouch, ‘Strategies of Lordship in Angevin England’. David Crouch examines the strength of ties between lords and vassals of the baronial class. 11  The significance of marriage as a political tool is found throughout contemporary litera­­ ture: Cf. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility, pp. 99–155; Keats-Rohan, ‘The Bretons and Normans of England’; Genicot, ‘Recent Research on the Medieval Nobility’, pp. 18–22; Bouchard, ‘Family Structure and Family Consciousness’; Mooers, ‘Familial Clout and Financial Gain’; Holt, The Northerners. 12  Barton, Lordship in the County of Maine, pp. 37–100. 13  See Hajdu, ‘Family and Feudal Ties in Poitou’ for an example of an approach to the significance of family networks but for Poitou alone. Hajdu examines both types of familial reactions. He relies on the frequency of members of the family witnessing the charters of their elder siblings as a gauge for positive family loyalties. There are some problems with this approach. Younger siblings throughout the French principalities did not witness for the eldest because they were absent on crusades, managing their own fees, or fighting on campaigns with the king. For example, the case of William, Ivo, and Robert de Vieuxpont witnessing together is a rare example of obvious family solidarity and even so they do not witness together that often. The charters can usually be clumped together over a few days when they were obviously travelling together. See Chapter 6 on the Vieuxponts. 14  Norse Romance 1: The Tristan Legend, ed. by Kalinke, p. 91.

Introduction

6

Lord, it often happens that kings in various countries have been at war, bringing grief and manifold sorrows and loss of life. Afterward their wrath and hatred subside, and their conflict turns into peace, and hatred into love for the sake of their daughters and sisters, and into the most honourable friendship for the sake of the offspring of their families.15

Although it is rare today for marital contracts to be politically motivated or to bear the exigencies of statecraft, in the Middle Ages marriage bonds carried an entire host of preconceived judgements tied to blood and lineage.16 For example, the late twelfth-century De ortu Waluuensii stressed that the hero, Gawain, was destined for great things by virtue of his kinship with King Arthur: ‘From the proof I will give you, you will learn he is the nephew of Arthur, King of Britannia, the man whose fame for great prowess flies everywhere; I do not doubt that this boy, outstanding in nobility, will maintain this quality without dishonour.’17 Indeed, the medieval cosmological belief in the relationship between blood and body, based on the Christian model of perfection and transubstantiation, was tied to images of healing or disease representing a state of salvation, sin and suffering.18 This was one reason why perfidy associated with the rebellion of sons against their father was particularly shocking — it represented a sin against the same body. The trauma of such treachery against one’s own familial body comes through one of the accounts on the death-scene of King Henry II of England in 1189 for: ‘Quo audito, pater, infirmitate correptus, prae ira et dolore (ut dicitur) mortuus est.’19 The body reflected a physical and a spiritual state of being bound indissolubly to one’s lineage and, as such, it was believed that Henry’s wars against his sons affected the entire political community. Richard of Devizes, writing during the reign of Richard  I, said of the Plantagenets that they were ‘Oedipodae confusa domus’, or the ‘confused house of Oedipus’.20 Gerald of Wales used the imagery of an eagle attacked by its 15 

Norse Romance 1: The Tristan Legend, ed. by Kalinke, p. 93. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility, pp. 99–155. 17  Rise of Gawain, ed. and trans. by Leake Day, pp. 16–17. 16 

18 

Pouchelle, ‘Le sang et ses pouvoirs au Moyen Âge’. The medieval mind was inundated with the imagery of blood particularly since the liturgy and sacral representation of Christ’s blood was not merely a symbol. It was believed that the wine in communion was converted into the true blood of Christ. 19  Radulphus Niger, Chronica, ed. by Anstruther, p. 95: ‘When the father heard [his son, John, was colluding with his son, Richard, against him] infirmity took a hold over him because of anger and sadness (it is said) and he died.’ 20  Richard de Devizes, Chronicon, ed. by Stevenson, p. 3; Aurell, L’Empire des Plantagenêt,

Sources and Context

7

eaglets,21 while Walter Map, Gerald’s friend, probably writing his account in the early 1180s, compared Henry the Young King to the lynx who, ‘[…] penetrans omnia exicio proprie gentis imminebit […]’, and to the biblical Absalom who plotted against his father, King David.22 Thus there was much more mentally and psychologically than meets the eye to the listing of one’s parents. This also comes through in the Roman de Fergus, or more poignantly in Perceval when the hero Perceval failed to ask the question of the Fisher king that would have revealed his blood lineage and his destiny as the Grail protector.23 The troubadour poet, Marcabru, says it another way in his Dirai vos en mon lati: Often a rich man feeds a bad neighbour on bread and wine; and if he got him from a bad lineage, he’s certain of a bad awakening — if the peasant isn’t lying from whom the proverb came. The Miller passes judgement at the mill: ‘He who binds well unbinds well,’ and the villein says, behind the plough: ‘Good fruit comes from a good garden, and a worthless son from a worthless mother, and from a worthless stallion comes a nag.’24

Men and women were formed psychologically by both their mother and father. Jean-Guy Gouttebroze suggests that the death of the father and attachment to the mother was part of a significant process of finding oneself and conquering pp. 45–51. 21  Gerald of Wales, De principis instructione liber, ed. by Brewer and others, viii, 295–96: ‘[…] ubi postmodum aquilam depingi jussit et quatuor aquilae pullos ei insidentes, duos alis duabus et tertium renibus, parentem unguibus et rostris perfodientes […]’ (‘[…] where presently he described an eagle, the parent, and four grey eaglets preparing to attack him, the other two against two opposing and a third, piercing through with talons and beaks […]’). 22  Walter Map, De nugis curialium, ed. by Brooke and Mynors, pp. xxv, 279–83: ‘strikes out, penetrating all things, he will threaten the destruction of his own people’. Aurell, L’Empire des Plantagenêt, pp. 46–58. Walter gave a very favourable portrayal of the King in most cases. 23  This concept was coined as roman biographique by Gaston Paris in the late nineteenth century. Cf. Guillaume le Clerc, The Romance of Fergus, ed. by Frescoln, pp. 40–41, ll. 303–44. Fergus was the son of Somerled, a rustic of Galloway, and of a noblewoman. The issue of blood legitimacy and nobility between his parents provoked his father to insult both mother and son. The name-calling of Fergus may also have been a play on the legend of Saint Mungo: Guillaume le Clerc, The Romance of Fergus, ed. by Frescoln, pp. 45–46, ll. 480–512; p. 51, l. 667. Other literary works of the Arthurian sagas carry the same interest in blood and lineage. This motif stresses the strength of one’s ancestral past as outweighing any other claim on identity. Noble blood alone, however, did not make a knight: Bruckner, ‘Rewriting Chrétien’s Conte du Graal’; Whitman, ‘The Body and the Struggle’; E. Kennedy, ‘The Quest for Identity’; Chrétien de Troyes, Perceval, trans. by Bryant, pp. 5–6. 24  Léglu, ‘Moral and Satirical Poetry’, p. 50.

Introduction

8

one’s identity, an identity that was intimately tied to personal character carried through each generation according to ‘the psychic complexion of individuals’.25 For Gouttebroze and others, this maturation process was to a late twelfth-century audience indelibly informed by a second Oedipal stage in which a man could only progress by denying his mother’s influence then only later to return and to embrace his maternal heritage.26 In the Grail Cycle, the heroic figure of Gawain usually represented the mature culmination of these various life stages as compared to the heroic figure of Perceval whose maturation was stunted and unfulfilled by his failure to accept his paternal and maternal heritage. King Richard I of England represented a prime example of the Oedipal/ Percevalian conflict because he was intimately bound to his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, both by the nature of their close relationship and by his inheritance of Aquitaine, which his mother had ceded to him; however, by turning against his father throughout the 1180s, he turned away from his father’s lineage as his father rebuked his sons one after the other by playing them against each other in the succession arrangements for the Angevin empire. It was only after Henry’s death that Richard was able to embrace his maternal and paternal lineage. At this seminal moment, son and mother were freed from Henry, and Eleanor could publicly play a significant role in her son’s political career by arranging his marriage to Berengaria of Navarre and by becoming regent of England while he was abroad on the Third Crusade. Another interesting medieval development concerning familial identity was the adoption of particular personal names within a kin group. Personal names not only recalled the structure and memory of the lineage but also revealed the identity and destiny expected of the individual. An example of the burden of such expectations can be seen in the case of the historical Arthur of Brittany, son of Geoffrey Plantagenet. Arthur of Brittany was believed to be a reincarnated King Arthur and the promised heir and saviour of the Bretons.27 He was given the name Arthur as a direct affront to Henry II, who had demanded that his grandson be named after him. Other examples of the import of naming are in the romance, Perceval and in the ‘Fair Unknown’ cycle linked to Gawain. Perceval became known as Perlesvaus, or ‘Perd les vaux’, because he initially failed to understand his destiny, and Gawain was known as ‘puer sine nomine’,

25 

Gouttebroze, Qui perd gagne, p. 5. Gouttebroze, Qui perd gagne, pp. 3–35, 84–128. 27  Pollock, ‘Duchesses and Devils’, pp. 166–69. 26 

Sources and Context

9

or ‘boy with no name’ until he was recognized as the son of Anna and Loth, and as the nephew of King Arthur.28 The issue of familial contemplation and blood lineage is exceedingly important to understanding the psychological framework of medieval society. Parents served not only as the basis for one’s claim to titles but also contributed to the character of each person. The contemporary Touraingeau Benoît de SaintMaure captured the essence of this belief when he said, ‘Autresi sunt cum mireors | les estoires des anceisors | maintes choses i ot l’om dire | u l’om mult cler se veit e mire.’29 Ancestors were believed to be part of the whole being, and the soul, in successive generations,30 and it often fell to the wives of these men to preserve this dignity for their heirs.31 It was for this reason that wives, and also mothers and daughters, often protected the lineage and image of the family. Aside from bonds formed directly through marital and political alliances, relationships between families were also strengthened by fosterage, adoption, god-parenthood, or by the creation of fictive kin-networks or constructed broth­­ erhoods.32 Bonds were often fabricated outside a blood relationship through these different methods in order to protect families experiencing a common threat and to enhance their image. This was a process taking place in all western societies including that of the native people of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales and it was extremely important to enhancing a family’s prestige.33 28 

Lacy, ‘Naming and the Construction of Identity’; Rise of Gawain, ed. and trans. by Leake Day, pp. 16–17. 29  Benoît de Saint-Maure, Chronique, ed. by Michel, i, 592, ll. 14837–40: ‘The histories of ancestors are just like mirrors; many things are said by means of it when a man sees and observes himself more clearly.’ 30  This notion is seen in romance scenes, as in the Lai of Doon, where the son does not recognize his father after several years of separation and yet the father recognizes the son as a mirror-image of himself. 31  Ingledew, ‘The Book of Troy’; Nelson, ‘Gender and Genre’; Van Houts, Memory and Gender; Van Houts, History and Family Traditions; Van Houts, Medieval Memories; Pollock, ‘Duchesses and Devils’; Nelson, ‘Gender, Memory, and Social Power’. 32  Searle, Predatory Kinship, especially pp. 1–11, 96–104, 230–45; L. B. Smith, ‘Fosterage, Adoption, and God-Parenthood’; R. Nicholson, Scotland in the Later Middle Ages, p. 73; Goody, The Development of the Family, pp. 68–75; Richter, ‘The European Dimension of Irish History’, pp. 334–35. Richter points out how adoption crossed ethnic boundaries into Ireland. For the latter type of bond prevalent especially in rural communities see Genicot, Rural Communities in the Medieval West, p. 57. 33  G. Barrow, ‘Scotland, Wales, and Ireland’, p. 583. The significance of agnatic lineage and fosterage can be seen throughout Western Europe but the reliance on ‘the honour price’

10

Introduction

For example, the Anglo-French Vaux family were able form a close bond with the Scottish royal house when Robert de Vaux spent his early childhood in fosterage at the court of Earl Henry of Huntingdon. Even more significant to this study, David of Scotland’s fosterage at Henry I’s court in England drastically changed the political structure of Scotland for over a century.34 David’s early career in England reinvented the Scottish kingdom as a European power when he became King of Scotland in 1124. All of these different types of bonds were significant to the social fabric of medieval society and complemented political realities. Although conflict was not always the basis for agreement between kin groups, the fear of threat from a king or another lord was a significant motivating factor. Most alliances were formed for political survival even when peace was predominant at the time the agreement was made. Such political alignments could be likened to recent modelling on the structure and survival of viruses in the human body: Viruses can be envisaged as communities with diverse talents like humans or ants […] the community must defeat numerous host defences simultaneously in order to move through the body, replicate and jump to a new host […] this vision of a cooperative viral attack (could be weakened) […] when drugs that produce extra mutations can push viruses with high mutation rates over the edge […] (which in turn) makes the virus less aggressive.35

In this model, cooperative alliances, mutation and division of cell labour that assign tasks according to the specialized skills of each virus create a finely balanced overall virulence. The strength of this model is seen in the different types of partnerships that the aristocracy formed to great effect during the fratricidal contest between the sons of William the Conqueror, during the civil wars between Empress Matilda and King Stephen, and during the reign of Henry II, who struggled continuously against his sons and the kings of France and Scotland.36 (wergild) was particular at this time to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and parts of Eastern Europe. 34  See Chapter 5 on the Vaux relationship with the Scottish crown. 35  Mackenzie, ‘Slow Copies Make Deadlier Viruses’. The ‘slow copy’ or gene is referring to a weak mutation, which actually make a far stronger virus because it represents a new strain. In political terms this could be represented by new and unforeseen alliances that catch the king offguard like the change of alliance of Guillaume des Roches and Robert d’Alençon in early 1203. The ‘less aggressive’ factor would come into play when the king was able to coalesce enough counter force via his own army and allies against his rivals who in turn have to submit or face political extinction. One of the most well-recognized recent genetic studies in the ‘family’ dynamics of ‘selfish’ gene activity can be found in Burt and Trivers, Genes in Conflict, pp. 1–18, 420–75. 36  Bachrach, ‘Henry II and the Angevin Tradition of Family Hostility’; R. V. Turner, ‘The

Sources and Context

11

Various families were able to survive and augment their positions during such crises because of the adaptability and division of resources offered by an extended kin-structure. In this way, kin groups acted as federations serving local interests and protecting members from external threats. However, this balance could be destabilized by the introduction of crown interference (or, if you will, in the viral model, drug therapy) and by encouragement of other external threats (rival families). Bond-formations and alliances were ultimately at the whim of shifting political tides. Converting an enemy into a friend had a ripple effect on the allies on each side, who had to quickly respond to changing loyalties.37 Matrimonial alliance was by far the most common type of agreement because it could be much stronger than a simple bond of friendship and it could end long-standing disputes. However, these familial affiliations could also be very dangerous to political stability. Even longstanding alliances between families could quickly become irrelevant and even more importantly affect families further down the social scale, who were bound to one or the other of the men near the top. Worse still, since alliances were often formed within a geographical or affinal proximity, these families could also find themselves confronted and pressured on a local level by others who had been forced to the opposing side. For this reason, part of this study has involved an examination of the locality and proximity of fees held by kin groups and by affinities. Examining territorial positions of families is extremely important particularly when taking into account the cross-Channel structure. Geographical proximity and land interests, often based on inheritance derived from matrimonial alliances, can indicate why specific families divided or united in their support towards one overlord or the other.38 Likewise, on a very basic level, men and women in the same areas often witnessed together, prayed together and fought together. When hostilities erupted, they knew the strengths and weaknesses of their neighbours and they would react accordingly.39 Problems of Survival’. 37  Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, pp. 112–15. 38  Holt, ‘Politics and Property in Early Medieval England’. Holt’s work focuses particularly on the development of inheritance laws and the effects that inheritance could have on political affinities within a kin group. Daniel Power uses this approach to great effect in his recent works: Power, The Norman Frontier; Power, ‘The End of Angevin Normandy’. 39  Ohler, The Medieval Traveller, p. 97. In order to provide a frame of reference for travel speed, it must be noted that a medieval traveller on horseback could cover about thirty-five miles a day, depending on weather conditions and the terrain. It can be useful to understand the proximity of some of these families and their fees because matrimonial alliances often occurred between neighbours.

Introduction

12

Witness lists and registers are our first indicators about whether particular men with lands or familial relations in Scotland were also witnessing and administering lands and offices in France. Chronicles are also useful to understanding social responses and the reasons for particular conflicts between the crowns and between families while general prosopographical research provides a basic foundation for understanding familial networks. These latter works are not always reliable but I have tried to corroborate information that is circumspect by examining other sources like charters and chronicles. This type of approach is not without its weaknesses. Various relationships have been offered which cannot always be traced directly across the Channel, but they are conceivable based on surviving records. These suggestions are not meant to be final but are intended to invigorate historical debate and to incite more research about familial networks in the three kingdoms.

‘Auld Alliance’ Revisited Since the bond between the three kingdoms was so close based on familial networks one can see why to speak of the ‘Auld Alliance’ in the context of this work is misleading. The ‘Auld Alliance’ was representative of a period when the crowns of Scotland and France no longer shared an aristocratic structure and needed a legally binding document to spell out the nature of their relationship. By contrast, this work focuses on a period when relations between the kingdoms were intimate. Men and women held land and intermarried on both sides of the Channel and held fees of all three kings. Official, or diplomatic, alliances between the kingdoms are in many ways irrelevant because the intention here is to examine the role that the Anglo-French nobility played in interaction between the three kingdoms and not to focus primarily on the crowns. Nonetheless, the notion of the ‘Auld Alliance’ is important in that it seems to have come into being shortly after Anglo-French emigration into Scotland and it quickly became the stuff of legend. This was the case as early as the date of its first mention in 1295 when it was assumed to have existed for at least three centuries as a ‘confederation of the old friendship between the French and Scots’.40 Subsequent historiography about Franco-Scottish interaction has been dominated by this depiction of the alliance, and yet, a question remains as to whether the ‘old friendship’ was actually based on the tradition of an ancient union between these kingdoms still active in the thirteenth century or whether 40 

Paris, Arch. Nat., Franco-Écossais Traités, MS J 677, fol. 1.

Sources and Context

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it was a phrase created in 1295 as propaganda to glorify and to authorize a new alliance forged during the Wars of Independence. One of the problems faced with tracing the historical relationship between France and Scotland is that prior to the tenth century most descriptions of the ‘Scoti’ were referring to the Irish, which has caused some confusion, particularly compounded by a twelfth-century fascination with the belief in an ancient affinity between the French and Scots. Within the historical context it is reasonable to suggest that there was an alliance of the Irish and Scottish inhabitants with the French in the ninth and tenth centuries considering that the Norse attacks in Brittany and France going as far as Tours and Chartres were also occurring in England, Scotland and, Ireland and these people would have naturally been pulled together into protective networks.41 However, contemporary evidence is sparse. On the basis of Einhard and Alcuin of York’s ninth-century accounts of Charlemagne’s embassy to the Scots, the English historian, William of Malmesbury, claimed in c. 1120 that emissaries had been sent from ‘Scotia’, which he interpreted as Scotland.42 Accustomed to interaction between the Scots and French in his own day, Malmesbury believed in an ancient FrancoScottish alliance despite that he failed to recognize that his early source was actually referring to the Irish ‘Scoti’.43 His interpretation of Alcuin and Einhard’s accounts established the notion of a Franco-Scottish alliance dating to the late eighth century that continued to dominate and misconstrue perceptions of the Scottish and French relationship for centuries to come.44 However, although Emperor Charlemagne’s biographer, Einhard, was certainly referring to the Irish ‘Scoti’,45 neither the Chronicum Scotorum nor other

41 

A. Smyth, ‘The Effect of Scandinavian Raiders on the English and Irish Churches’. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. by Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, i, 107; Allott, Alcuin of York, pp. 53–54; Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. by Waitz, p. 19; Einhard, Vie de Charlemagne, ed. and trans. by Halphen, pp. 46–47. 43  J. Barrow, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Use of Charters’. Julia Barrow has pointed out that Malmesbury also fabricated or embellished material and can be found ‘pulling the reader’s leg’, but there is no reason to believe he intentionally fabricated contact between Charlemagne and the Scoti. 44  Gerald of Wales, De principis instructione liber, ed. by Brewer and others, viii, 74. In the late twelfth century, Gerald of Wales also mentioned that the King of Scots did homage to Charlemagne. 45  Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, ed. by Waitz, p. 19; Einhard, Vie de Charlemagne, ed. and trans. by Halphen, pp. 46–47. Later chroniclers in France relying on Einhard remained con42 

14

Introduction

Irish sources mentioned a Franco-Irish alliance.46 Some of the Irish ‘Scoti’ had settled in Argyll and the Western Isles and remained part of the same political community extending to Ireland so the confusion is understandable. Further inconsistency also arises because the Scots were also cohabiting on the northern mainland with the Picts by the early ninth-century so in reality the difference between Scot and Pict was less clear by the time of Charlemagne’s reign.47 Following these loose references to ‘Scoti’ contact with the French, the four­­teenth-century writer, John of Fordun, was the first Scottish chronicler to directly mention any relationship between a specified King of the Scots, Achaius, and Charlemagne, and he was probably relying on an earlier tradition written in about 1247.48 This earlier tradition developed at a time when the Scottish and French courts were in direct contact because of the King of Scots’ marriage to Marie de Coucy, the daughter of one of the most powerful families in France. Even more importantly, Marie may have been responsible for the fabrication of Achaius and the revival of the belief in early Franco-Scottish contact so that she could promote the image of her own union with the Scottish royal

fused between the Irish and Scots: Les grandes chroniques de France, ed. by Viard, iii, 133: The monks of St Denis related that in 812 a sailor called Normant (possibly alluding to a random ‘northman’) arrived on an isle of the sea that was not an island, probably Argyll (certainly not Ireland which is an island), and ‘he journeyed to Scotland and combated the people of that region, but the Danes were defeated and held back from further mischief ’. 46  Chronicum Scotorum, ed. and trans. by Hennessey; Annals of Ulster, ed. by Hennessy and MacCarthy, i; Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, ed. and trans. by O’Donovan, i. 47  Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain, pp. 72–79; Broun, ‘Pictish Kings 761–839’. 48  John of Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum, ed. by Skene, i, 127–28; Bonner, ‘Scotland’s “Auld Alliance” with France’. In the sixteenth century, Hector Boece and George Buchanan immortalized and encouraged the proliferation of the myth, which was not called into question until the eighteenth century by Father Thomas Innes. Elizabeth Bonner sees some merit in the origin myth of the alliance between King Achaius and Charlemagne based on an 1120 charter of the abbey of Absie regarding the ‘land of a Scot’. She introduces the possibility that the charter was confirming a grant having been made roughly during the period of Charlemagne’s reign. Bernard Mathieu and Noelle Gand de Vernon in 1956 also claimed in the France-Écosse exposition that the story is also found in the Chronicle of Nicholas Trivet written about 1305 for Edward I’s daughter Marie but I have been unable to locate such a reference in the Paris manuscript and this chronicle is too late to support a date any earlier than the twelfth century. Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS Fr. 9687 [Dicoviencent les cronicles Frère Nichol Trivet escrit a ma dame Marie la fille mounseignour le roi d’Engleterre Edward le Filtz Henri]; Cf. Dean, ‘The Manuscripts of Nicholas Trevet’s Anglo-French Chronicles’.

Sources and Context

15

house. It was for this reason that she may have hired a Champenois immigrant at her court, called Richard Vairemont, to write a history for her.49 The most significant point to be made about the tracing of the early alliance is that possibly by 1120, whether legend or not, there was a belief in the prior existence of a Franco-Scottish alliance despite that this legend was being encouraged at a time when the Scots were only just beginning to be directly involved with the Ile-de-France. These claims were mainly coming from sources in England and Scotland but the French were also becoming more interested in the Anglo-French who had settled in Scotland namely because some of the settlers were related to them. By the late twelfth century, Scottish places and heroes were appearing in the trendy romances of the day not only because Scotland was the birth-place of some of the Arthurian materials but also because kin groups extended from France to Scotland. Early discussions about the alliance were, in fact, representative of the extent of Anglo-French migration into Scotland and remark upon how intimate communication was between men and women on both sides of the Channel following the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Written Sources and Scotland This work relies on documents and correspondences from all three kingdoms — Scotland, England, and France — in order to recreate the Anglo-French experience in the late twelfth century. Understanding the ties that bound this society together may elucidate why the loss of Normandy in 1204 made such a profound impact on subsequent developments between the three kingdoms. However, the number of surviving sources for the crown of England far outweigh surviving sources for the crowns of Scotland and France in the twelfth century, which has often in current historiography created a very Anglo-centred interpretation of events.50 In the case of France, this problem was caused primarily by a lack of centralization in the royal administration and the disparateness of the French kingdom prior to the reign of Philip Augustus. King Philip increased royal authority and possessions in France over the course of his reign by asserting his direct overlordship in territories that had been alienated and/or allowed autonomy under 49  Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain, pp. 260–61. Vairmont is probably referring to Dommartin-Varimont which was in the midst of Coucy networks with the Dampierre family. 50  Vincent, ‘Les Normands de l’entourage d’Henri II Plantagenêt’, p. 79.

16

Introduction

his predecessors. Unfortunately, the early years of Philip’s reign were lost to posterity when Philip suffered the humiliating loss of his baggage train to King Richard in 1194.51 From the surviving records, it is clear, however, that as Philip began to expand the royal demesne, he experimented with administrative techniques, sometimes borrowing from structures already in use in Normandy (like registers depicting knight service and fees under royal control), while in other cases he devised new and innovative methods to meet the needs of an ever-expanding kingdom.52 Furthermore, although crown records may not be as forthcoming as desired prior to 1194, there are remarkable collections of charters housed within the ecclesiastical establishments that elucidate bonds formed on a more localized level in areas like the Vendôme, Maine, Champagne, Brittany, and, of course, Normandy and Anjou.53 The kingdom of Scotland has a number of surviving royal charters for the reigns of King David, Malcolm, and William but specifics about royal centralization like assizes, knights’ fees, and feudal dues were rarely committed to writing or have not survived.54 Ecclesiastical records are also virtually non-existent before 1124. The royal records were seriously damaged and much was lost dur-

51  William le Breton, Philippidos, ed. by Delaborde, ii, 118–21; Hollister and Baldwin, ‘The Rise of Administrative Kingship’. 52  Baldwin, ‘Qu’est-ce que les Capétiens ont appris des Plantegenêt?’; Baldwin, The Gov­ ernment of Philip Augustus, pp. 37–58, 137–75, 220–303; Hollister and Baldwin, ‘The Rise of Administrative Kingship’, pp. 894–905. The latter study also reflects the function of this crossChannel elite in the King’s administration of England and Normandy as men appeared as witnesses and administrators on both sides of the Channel. 53  Chartes et documents de l’abbaye de Saint-Magloire, ed. by Teroine and Fossier, pp. 53–71; Cartulaire de Saint-Victeur au Mans, ed. by de Broussillon; Cartulaire de l’abbaye du Ronceray, ed. by de Broussillon, pp. 35, 68, 85, 90, 95–96, 105, 109, 137, 167, 174, 190, 201, 218, 257–58, 264–68, 278, 279–80, 282, 283, 288–89, 294–384. The Angevin charters at Ronçeray reflect a sophisticated understanding of accounting for the abbey. Morelle, ‘The Metamorphosis of Three Monastic Charter Collections’; Recueil des pancartes de l’abbaye de La Ferté-sur-Grosne, ed. by Duby; Guillot, ‘A propos de la qualite litteraire’, pp. 25–39 and Martin, ‘Note sur la “litterature” coutumiere Angevine’, pp. 40–49. 54  See Broun, The Charters of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland for a comparison between Irish, Welsh and Scottish administrative documents. Because Scotland was more unified by the twelfth century, the Scottish royal chancery quickly overtook Irish charter production, but the Irish did have an older tradition in other forms of writing. See Alice Taylor, ‘Leges Scocie and the Law Codes’ about the early assizes that have survived in writing. It is clear that legal procedures existed well before these reigns but relied heavily on traditons and customs handled within

Sources and Context

17

ing the Wars of Independence when Edward I removed a number of the official records to England; however, there also did not appear to be as much interest in the written instrument in Scotland.55 Out of the eight hundred rolls lost at the end of the thirteenth century only a handful were from before the end of the reign of Alexander III in 1286 and, as will be shortly discussed, political treatises, philosophical/theological discourses, letters, poetry, and epic or romance literature were few and far between.56 The Scottish administration was not as bureaucratically focused prior to 1124 but it did not necessarily need to be considering her population density and geographical size. It may be argued that a decrease in notarial production under the eleventh and early twelfth-century Capetian rulers occurred for a similar reason. Territorial contraction led to a weakening of the reliance on written documents because there were fewer relationships to define. The Capetian kings only held nominal sway over outlying regions. However, unlike the response to decentralization in Scotland, the lack of royal centralization in France was met with administrative procedures handled increasingly by the local courts of the counts, dukes and bishops.57 For this reason, the French historian has a wealth of materials — charters, agreements and deeds — emitted from each county, duchy and bishopric outside the Ile-de-France.

smaller communities. This is why the comparison is made with France in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Without royal centralization, local communities enforced moral/legal, judicial and ‘feudal’ codes to keep the peace. Taylor has demonstrated that there are more assizes that can be assigned to the reigns of William and Alexander II than previously thought. It also seems the king’s court was detailing feudal service and even the royal prerogative to handle cases involving murder and blood feuds that had previously been handled within communities. These issues were being regularized from the late twelfth century onward. 55  Hughes, ‘Where are the Writings of Early Scotland?’; The Triumph Tree, ed. by Clancy and others, pp. 144–45, 158–63, 178–86, 188–89, 236–84; Broun, Scottish Independence and the Idea of Britain, pp. 54–61, 233–68. A handful of Gaelic poems have survived prior to the twelfth-century Renaissance but even these seem to have been mainly generated from Ireland. There are also a few Latin verses from the end of the eleventh century and a reworking of the Historia Brittonum in Gaelic. 56  B. Webster, Scotland from the Eleventh Century to 1603, pp. 121–24; M. Livingstone, A Guide to the Public Records of Scotland, p. 33; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. by Stuart and Burnett, i, 1–51; Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, ed. by Innes and Thomson, i, 113–18; Regesta Regum Scottorum, ed. by Neville and Simpson, iv. 1, passim. 57  The church was in decline in Scotland prior to the reign of Malcolm III’s sons which probably had a lot to do with the lack of local records.

Introduction

18

Overall, even compared to her affiliates in Wales, Ireland, and Brittany,58 Scotland did not appear to be as interested in written records.59 For example, the only surviving contemporary chronicle source originating from Scotland, covering the period before the reign of David I, is the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, which has survived in a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century copy, and it was based on an early eleventh-century Irish account.60 A few other texts have survived which may have been generated from Strathclyde or Edinburgh (Briton settlements),61 and at Iona in the Hebrides,62 but significantly, records about Iona and the kings of the Picts are mainly due to ‘Scottic’ Irish, Welsh 58 

Sims-Williams, ‘Celtomania and Celtoscepticism’. Although the concept of ‘Celtic’ should be limited in its usage, it does capture the basic premise of some shared cultural traditions. 59  Pryce, ‘Lawbooks and Literacy’; Koch, ‘Why Was Welsh Literature First Written Down?’; J. Smith, ‘Oral and Written’; W. Davies, ‘Celtic Kingships in the Early Middle Ages’, p. 105. Wendy Davies points out that Cornish and Scottish sources were consistently poor compared to their ‘Celtic’ neighbours of Ireland, Wales, and Brittany. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries, the ongoing written communication and literary exchange between Wales and Brittany is well-documented by the surviving Vitae of Saint Guénolé (Winwaloe), Saint Pol Aurelian, Saint Samson, Saint Corentin, Saint Brieuc and Saint Tudual in Brittany: Flobert, ‘Le témoignage du rédacteur de la Vie Ancienne de Saint Samson; Merdrignac, ‘Henoc, les Philosophi et Pental’; Simon, ‘Les hagiographes de Landevennec’; Piriou, ‘Quelques remarques à propos de l’ancien mystère de Saint-Gwénolé’; le Moing, ‘Saint Winniau et Saint-Uniac’. 60  See Broun, ‘Pictish Kings 761–839’, p. 72: Some materials may have originated from Alecross and Iona in the eighth century but nothing after. Cf. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, pp. 177–350, 357–59 and Early Sources of Scottish History, ed. and trans. by Anderson, i, xxii–ci for the sources and the period. Alex Woolf points out that our most reliable primary sources for the period are English, Norse and Irish in origin. Our main source for the period before the reign of Kenneth II is the early eleventh-century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba: Chronicle of the Picts and Scots, ed. by Skene, pp. xvii–lxxiv, 130–41, 144–45, 148–52 (De Situ, a Legend of St Andrew, and genealogy of King William date to the late twelfth century). There may be a few surviving translations of other works in additions to the Historia Brittonum dated 1072 and in the Chronicle of Marianus Scotus. 61 

Gododdin, ed. and trans. by Jackson, pp. 4–8, 11–13, 63–67, 76–78, 137, 140, 147; Evans, The Heroic Poetry of Dark-Age Britain, pp. 31–34, 65–75, 86–87; Padel, ‘A New Study of the Gododdin’; Wmffre, ‘Mynydawc – Ruler of Edinburgh?’. Wmffre suggests Mynydawc was not the ruler of Edinburgh but does not deny that Edinburgh held a prominent place in the poem and in the sixth-century wars against the Saxons. The earliest surviving manuscript copy of Y Gododdin was from the thirteenth century but was probably based on a written tradition dating back to the sixth century. The problem is that the dating of the poem is inconclusive. The weight of scholarly opinion currently argues in favour of a date no earlier than the tenth century: Isaac, ‘Gweith Gwen Ystrat’; Dumville, ‘Early Welsh Poetry’. 62  Bannerman, ‘Notes on the Scottish Entries in the Early Irish Annals’.

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19

and Bernician accounts found in Bede’s History of the English People, in the Annals of Ulster and in the Annals of Tigernach.63 The majority of information to be gathered issued not from Scotland but from Ireland, England, Wales, and Scandinavia, which is problematic. Scotland did not have a long tradition of written communication though recent archaeological work on stone slabs and stone carvings has shown that early Scottish society was not entirely illiterate.64 This is corroborated by the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon historian, Bede, who referred to a revival in learning during the reign of King Nechtan of the Picts.65 He ascribed Nechtan with ‘frequent meditation of ecclesiastical writing’; however, it may be that Nechtan could not read or write Latin or even his native tongues, Gaelic and Pictish. He may have had members of his court read and discuss scripture with him.66 This would explain why in Bede’s account of Nechtan, Abbot Ceolfrith’s letter was read aloud and then translated into Nechtan’s native tongue. More­over, there is also no indication that the King’s Pictish or Gaelic clerics could necessarily read or write. Bede relates that King Nechtan decreed that the Roman dating of Easter be ‘sent publicly’ and then ‘transcribed, learned and observed’, which suggests that many clerics could not read and that they relied upon a verbal explanation.67 The transcription of such decrees may have been carried out by Anglo-Saxon immigrants at Nechtan’s court and not by native clerics just as Anglo-French clerics brought from England or the Continent seem to have handled much of the charter production in Scotland in the twelfth century. In both historical cases, the reformation of ‘Scottish’ society was for the express purpose of aligning Alba with the rest of Europe and it may have been initiated and carried out by non-native immigrants. A failure to rely upon written records does not mean that Scotland was without leadership nor that local potentates (in Strathclyde, Moray, or Cumbria)

63 

Woolf, ‘AU 729.2 and the Last Years of Nechtan mac Der-Ilei’. See Forsyth, ‘Literacy in Pictland’ for the most updated assessment of the role of the Pictish language and the church prior to 900 ad. 65  Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. by Colgrave and Mynors, V. 21, pp. 532–33. Bede said it was through that the reform of the Pictish Church was initiated. 66  Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. by Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 534–36, 552–53; Clancy, ‘Philosopher-King’. Clancy has convincingly shown that Nechtan was born of a Cenél-Comgaill father and a Pictish mother from the kingdom of Fortriu, which as Alex Woolf argues, was located on the Moray Firth in Badenoch: Woolf, ‘AU 729.2 and the Last Years of Nechtan mac Der-Ilei’. 67  Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ed. by Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 552–53. 64 

Introduction

20

did not recognize the Scottish king’s overlordship;68 nor does it mean that oral literacy did not hold intrinsic value as a form of political influence,69 but it may be argued that a kingdom without such instruments could not expand and compete against those who had become more complex because of the freedom afforded by the adoption of written authority. This authority was important. The writing of a claim proposed to its audience a value-judgement that could vilify or condemn an oral account. For example, Robert Wace condemned the Breton oral tradition about the fountain of Barenton in Brocéliande: ‘I went there in search of marvels; I saw the forest and the land and looked for marvels, but found none. I came back as a fool and went as a fool […].’70 By writing about his experience, Wace created a sense of uncertainty about the supposed powers that the fountain was said to have possessed. Similarly, the granting of fees by a king did not necessarily mean that the recipient or the king held power over the lands particularly in territories that the king did not control. Actual possession — seizing and conquering the land and its inhabitants — was necessary for such authority to be recognized but the grant in a written form represented an initial step towards establishing real control of the land for both parties.71 The failure of the kings of Scots to centralize their authority through charter production and to interact with legal discourse at an earlier stage, as had been occurring in other European kingdoms, may have been why the Scots were initially slower to adopt written forms of social and political intercourse and why they did not become as fully involved in the twelfth-century Renaissance movement.72 It is difficult not to recognize this fundamental difference between attitudes towards the centralising effects of administration via the written word as a form of political preservation and historical memory in England and France in com68 

See Grant, ‘Lordship and Society’ for an excellent and recent study on a regional structure of power in Scotland that was ‘Normanized’ by as much as sixty-eight per cent. 69  Chinca and Young, ‘Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages’. The insinuation that letters and official documents may have been read aloud is evidenced through literature as well: Brandsma, ‘The Presentation of Direct Discourse in Arthurian Romances’. Although Brandsma was addressing the oral recitation of romances, that Lancelot’s letter was read aloud to the court at the order of the king in order to avoid any misunderstandings suggests that it was politically prudent to adopt this practice when the political situation was volatile. 70  Robert Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden, ii, 121–22, ll. 6389–98. 71  Foot, ‘Reading Anglo-Saxon Charters’. 72  Political treatises, letters, poetry and romance writing, hallmarks of the twelfth-century Renaissance, appear few and far between in Scotland.

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21

parison to the lack of such in Scotland. France in particular had a long tradition going back to Merovingian and Carolingian times in which authority and rule were augmented and asserted through a royal bureaucracy reliant upon the written word, which meant that even during a period of royal decentralization, local agents like the counts and bishops recognized the merit of the written word and filled the gap. By comparison, the lay attitude in Scotland towards the written word trickled very slowly down into the earldoms and baronies where few charters were generated for and by the nobility before the reign of King William I ‘the Lion’,73 grandson of David I, nearly half a century after the royal court of King David I had introduced charters as a means of depicting land-ownership.74 Nor were the nobiles homines patronising great literary works to elevate the dignity of their forebears amongst the European elite; a tradition appearing as early as the eleventh century under the patronage of the illustrious Angevin and Norman houses.75

73 

John of Fordun, Chronica gentis Scotorum, ed. by Skene, i, 259; ii, 254–55. The fourteenth-century chronicler, John of Fordun, was the first to dub William the ‘lion of justice’. He was not called ‘the Lion’ in any contemporary twelfth-century account unlike similar sobriquets associated with King Henry I of England who was called the ‘lion of justice’ by Geoffrey of Monmouth or Richard I who was described as ‘that most foul lion’ when he responded to the rising up of the Greeks in Sicily against him during the Third Crusade: Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. by Thorpe, p. 174; Richard of Devizes, De Rebus Gestis Ricardi Primi, ed. by Howlett, iii, 397: ‘[…] leo ille teterrimus’. 74  The scarcity of charters generated for and by the nobility before about 1200 can be easily viewed online through the AHRC-funded Charter project at Glasgow University supervised by Dauvit Broun. Cf. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 103–13, 294–99 for registers; Andrew Taylor, ‘Manual to Miscellany’. The most notable collections that capture pre-1200 non-royal activity are in the south at Kelso Abbey, Dryburgh Abbey, and Melrose Abbey. There was a boom in charter production during William’s reign. 75  Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. by Van Houts; William of Poitiers, Gesta, ed. by Davis and Chibnall; Dudo of St Quentin, History of the Normans, ed. and trans. by Chistiansen; Guillot, Le Comté d’Anjou; Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, ed. by Halphen and Poupardin; Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, ed. by Marchegay and Salmon; Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. and trans. by Campbell, pp. xxii–xxix, lxvi–lxxx; Blacker, The Faces of Time, pp. 15–16, 32, 49, 59, 106–08, 113–14, 183–90; Damien-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renais­­sance, pp. 19–20, 43, 60–01, 110–12, 204, 214–16. Although not intended to be a panegyric of the Norman house, Queen Emma of England, who had commissioned Encomium Emmae Reginae, was Norman, which inadvertently served the purpose of elevating the dignity of the Norman dynasty and, furthermore, she provided the blood relationship within the house for William, her nephew, to claim the English throne in 1066.

Introduction

22

Even King David I, whose sister, Queen Maud, had commissioned a panegyric about their mother, Margaret, did not employ a writer to elevate his own royal roots in a Saxon or Scottish tradition,76 nor was he influenced by his sister and niec