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ANCIENT STATE OF SCOTLAND. 233
SECTION I.
GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.
We must be careful not to permit the ideas which are derived from the condition of Scotland in the present day to influence our conclusions as to its appearance in those rude and early ages of which we have been writing. No two pictures could be more dis similar than Scotland in the thirteenth and fourteenth, and Scotland in the nineteenth century. The mountains, indeed, and the rivers are stern and indomitable features of nature, upon which the hand of man can work but feeble alterations; yet, with this ex ception, every thing was different. The face of the country was covered by immense forests, chiefly of oak, in the midst of which, upon the precipitous banks of rivers, or on rocks which formed a natural fortification, and were deemed impregnable to the mili tary art of that period, were placed the castles of the feudal barons. One principal source of the wealth of the proprietors of these extensive forests consisted in the timber which they contained, and the deer and other animals of the chase with which they abounded. When Edward I. subdued and overran the country, we find him in the practice of repaying the services of those who submitted to his autho rity, by presents of so many stags and oaks from the forests which he found in possession of the crown. Thus, on the 18th of August 1291, the king directed the keeper of the forest of Selkirk to deliver thirty stags to the Archbishop of St Andrews; twenty stags and sixty oaks to the Bishop of Glasgow ; ten to the High Steward; and six to Brother Bryan, Preceptor
of the Order of Knights Templars in Scotland.2
To mark the names, or define the exact limits of these huge woods, is now impossible; yet, from the public records, and the incidental notices of authentic historians, a few scattered facts may be collected.
In the north, we find the forest of Spey,2 extending along the banks of that majestic river; the forests of Alnete, and of Tarnaway, of Awne, Kilblene, Langmorgan, and of Elgin, Forres, Lochendorb, and Inverness.3 The extensive county of Aberdeen appears to have been covered with wood. We meet there with the forests of Kintore, of Cardenache, Drum or Drome, Stocket, Killanell, Sanquhar, Tulloch, Gasgow, Darrus, Collyn, and what is called the New Forest of Innerpeffer.4 In Banff was the forest of Boyne; in Kincardine and Forfar the forests of Alyth, Drymie, and Plater;5 in Fife, those of Cardenie and Uweth; 6 in Ayrshire, the forest of Senecastre;7 in the Lowlands, those of Drumselch,8 near Edinburgh; of Jedburgh and Selkirk, Cottenshope, Maldesley,9 Ettrick, and Peebles; of Dolar, Traquhair, and Melrose.10
The counties of Stirling and Clack mannan contained extensive royal forests, in which, by a grant from
1 Rotuli Scotić, vol. i. pp. 4, 5. 18th Aug. 1291.
2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 5. Anno 1291, m. 11.
3 Ibid. p. 9. Robertson’s Index to the Charters, pp. 32, 35, 42. Rolls of Parliament, ii. 469, quoted in Caledonia, vol. i. p. 792. Fordun a Hearne, p. 1027.
4 Robertson, pp. 23, 33, 38, 58, 71, 72 ; also Rotuli Scotić, in anno 1292, p. 10. Chamber lains’ Accounts. Compot. Vicecomitatis Aber- dein, p. 298.
5 Robertson’s Index, pp. 39, 55, 67 ; and Rotuli Scotić, p. 8.
6 Robertson, p. 47. Cartulary Dunferm. f. 12 and 20.
7 Cartulary of Paisley, p. 46, in Caledonia, vol. i. p. 793.
8 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 793.
9 Chamberlains’ Accounts. Rotuli Comp. Temp. Custod. Regni, p. 62.
10 Rotuli Scotić, in anno 1296, vol. i. p. 33. Ibid. pp. 5, 278, 380. Ibid. p. 748. Cartu lary of Dunferm. p. 10. Rotuli Scotić, p. 7 ; and Fordun, p. 1048. Robertson, p. 81. Chron. Melrose, ad anno 1184, quoted in Dalzel’s Fragments, p. 32. Cartulary of Kelso. p. 323. Caledonia, p. 798.
234 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
David I., the monks of Holyrood had the right of cutting wood for building and other purposes, and of pasture for their swine.1 In the reign of the same king, a forest covered the dis trict between the Leader and the Gala; and in Perthshire, occupied the lands between Scone and Cargil.2 Tracts which, in the present day, are stretched out into an interminable extent of desolate moor, or occupied by endless miles of barren peat-hags, were, in those early ages, covered by forests of oak, ash, beech, and other hard timber. Huge knotted trunks of black oak, the remains of these primitive woods, have been, and are still, discovered in almost every moor in Scotland. Such, indeed, was, at an early period, the extent and impervious nature of these woods, that the English, in their inva sions, endeavoured to clear the coun try by fire and by the hatchet; and Knighton relates that in an expedition of the Duke of Lancaster into this country, in the reign of Richard the Second, this prince, having recourse to these methods, employed in the work of destruction so immense a multitude, that the stroke of eighty thousand hatchets might be heard resounding through the forests, whilst the fire was blazing and consuming them at the same moment.3 So erro neous is the opinion of a conjectural historian, who pronounces that there is little reason to think that in any age, of which an accurate remem brance is preserved, this kingdom was ever more woody than it is now.4 In the times of which we write, however, many districts in the midst of these forests had been cleared of the wood, and brought under cultiva tion. Thus, in the forest of Plater, in the county of Forfar, David the Second, in 1366, made a grant of four oxgangs of arable land for a redden do
1 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 792.
2 Cart. Melrose, p. 104. Cart, of Scone, p. 16. Where I quote manuscript Cartularies, the reader will find the originals in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, un less some other collection is mentioned.
3 Knighton apud Twysden, vol. ii. p. 2674. Barbour’s Bruce, p. 323.
4 Wallace on the Nature and Descent of Peerages, p. 35.
of a pair of white gloves, or two silver pennies, to Murdoch del Rhynd.5 In the same forest, the monks of Rest- ennet, at the death of Alexander the Third, enjoyed the tenth of the hay made in its meadows,6 and in 1362, the king permitted John Hay of Tully- boll to bring into cultivation, and ap propriate, the whole district lying between the river Spey and the burn of Tynot, in the forest of Awne.7 From these facts it may be inferred that the same process of clearing away the wood, and reducing large districts of the forests into fields and meadow lands, had been generally pursued throughout the country.8 It was a work, in some measure, both of peril and necessity; for savage animals abounded as much in Scotland as in the other uncleared and wooded re gions of northern Europe; and the bear, the wolf, the wild boar, and the bison, to the husbandmen and culti vators of those rude ages, must have been enemies of a destructive and for midable nature.9
Another striking feature in the as pect of the country during those early ages was formed by the marshes or fens. Where the mountains sunk down into the plain, and the country stretched itself into a level, mossy fens of great extent occupied those fertile and beautiful districts which are now drained and brought under cultiva tion.10 Within the inaccessible wind ings of these morasses, which were in tersected by roads known only to the inhabitants, Wallace and Bruce, during the long war of liberty, frequently defended themselves, and defied the heavy-armed English cavalry ; and it Is said that from lying out amidst these damp and unhealthy exhalations Bruce caught the disease of which he died.11
5 Robertson’s Index, p. 81. 6 MS. Monast. Scotić, p. 31, quoted in Caledonia, vol. i. p. 798.
7 Robertson’s Index, p. 71.
8 Chamberlains’ Accounts. Rotuli Compot. Temp. Cust. Regni, p. 63.
9 Dalyel’s Desultory Reflections on the State of Ancient Scotland, pp. 32, 33.
10 Triveti Annales, p. 316.
11 Palgrave’s Parliamentary Writs, Chrono logical Abstract, p. 76. Walsingham, p 78, Barbour, pp. 110, 151. Trivet, 346.
ANCIENT STATE OF SCOTLAND. 235
The royal castles must have pre sented an additional and imposing feature in the external appearance of the country at this period. Built chiefly for strength and resistance during a time of war, these fortresses were the great garrisons of the coun try, and reared their immense walls and formidable towers and buttresses in those situations which nature had herself fortified, and where little was to be done by man but to avail him self of the power alre’ady placed in his hand. In the year 1292, when Ed ward, after his judgment in favour of Baliol, gave directions to his English captains to deliver the royal castles into the hands of the new king, we find these to have been twenty-three in number. On the borders were the castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick ; those of Dumfries, Kirkcud bright, Wigtown, Ayr, Tarbet,1 Dum barton, and Stirling, formed a semi circle of fortresses which commanded the important districts of Annandale, Galloway, Carrick, Kyle, Lanark, and the country round Stirling, containing the passes into the Highlands. Be tween Stirling, Perth, and the Tay there was no royal castle, till we reach Dundee, where Brian Fitz-Alan com manded ; after which the castles of Forfar, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, pro tected and kept under the counties of Perth, Angus, Kincardine, and Aber deen ; and travelling still further north, we find the castles of Cromarty or Crumbarthyn, Dingwall, Inverness, Nairn, Forres, Elgin, and Banff, which, when well garrisoned, were deemed sufficient to maintain the royal autho rity in those remote and unsettled districts.2
Such were the royal castles of Scot land previous to the war of liberty; but it was the policy of Bruce, as we have seen, to raze the fortresses of the kingdom, wherever they fell under his power; whilst, on the other hand, Edward, in his various campaigns, found it necessary to follow the same plan which had been so successful in Wales, and either to construct addi-
1 Chamberlains’ Accounts, p. 9. 2 Rotuli Scotić, vol. i. pp. 11, 12.
tional fortresses, for the purpose of overawing the country, or to strengthen by new fortifications such baronial castles as he imagined best situated for his design. In this manner the architecture of the strong Norman castles, which had already been par tially introduced by the Scoto-Norman barons, was more effectually taught by their formidable enemy to the Scots, who profited by the lesson, and turned it against himself. It not uh- frequently happened that the siege of a baronial castle detained the whole English army for weeks, and even months, before it; and although feebly garrisoned, the single strength of its walls sometimes resisted and defied the efforts of Edward’s strongest ma chines and most skilful engineers. To enumerate or to point out the situation of the baronial castles which at this early period formed the resi dences of the feudal nobility and their vassals would be almost impossible. They raised their formidable towers in every part of the kingdom, on its coasts and in its islands, on its penin sulas and in its lakes, upon the banks of its rivers, and on the crests of its mountains ; and many of those inha bited by the higher nobility rivalled, and in their strength and extent some times surpassed, the fortresses belong ing to the king.3
In the year 1309, when the military talents of Bruce had wrested from England nearly the whole of the royal castles, we find Edward the Second writing earnestly to his principal officers in Scotland, directing them to maintain their ground to the last ex tremity against the enemy; and it is singular that, with the exception of Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumfries, and Jedburgh, the posts which they held, and which are enumerated in his order, are all of them private baronial castles, whose proprietors had either been compelled by superior force, or in duced by selfish considerations, to
3 Fordun, in speaking of the death of Ed ward the First, asserts that within six years of that event Bruce had taken and cast down a hundred and thirty-seven castles, fortalices, and towers. Fordun a Goodal. vol. ii. p. 240,
236 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
embrace the English interest. In his letters are mentioned the castle of Kirkintilloch, between Dumbarton and Stirling; Dalswinton in Galloway, a principal seat of the Comyns; Caer- laverock, belonging to the Maxwells; Thrieve castle, also in Galloway; Loch- mabenin Annandale, the seat of the Bruces; Butel, the property of the Steward; Dunbar, a castle of great strength and extent, one of the keys of the kingdom, by which the Earls of March commanded so much influence in an age of war and invasion; Dirle- ton, also of great extent, and possessed by the Norman race of the De Vaux; Selkirk, at that time in the hands of Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke ; and Both well, a castle at various times the property of the Olifards, Morays, and Douglases.1 Innumerable other castles and smaller strengths, from the seats of the highest earls, whose power was almost kingly, down to the single towers of the retainer or vassal, with their low iron-ribbed door, and loop- holed windows, were scattered over every district in Scotland; and even in the present day the traveller can not explore the most unfrequented scenes, and the remotest glens of the country, without meeting some gray relic of other days, reminding him that the chain of feudal despotism had there planted one of its thousand links, and around which there often linger those fine traditions, where fic tion has lent her romantic colours to history.
In the vicinity of these strongholds, in which the Scottish barons of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries held their residence, there was cleared from wood as much ground as was necessary for the support of that nu merous train of vassals and retainers which formed what was termed the “ following “ of their lord, and who were supported in a style of rude and abundant hospitality. The produce of his fields and forests, his huge herds of swine, his flocks and cattle, his gra naries and breweries, his mills and malting-houses, his dovecots, gardens,
1 Rotuli Scotić, vol. i. p. 80. Olifard, the same name, I conjecture, as Oliphant.
orchards, and “infield and outfield” wealth, all lent their riches to main tain those formidable bands of warlike knights and vassals, who were ready on every summons to surround the banner of their lord. Around these castles, also, were placed the rude ha bitations and cottages belonging to the servants and inferior dependants of the baron, to his armourers, tailors, wrights, masons, falconers, forest- keepers, and many others, who minis tered to his necessities, his comforts, or his pleasures. It happened, too, not unfrequently, that, ambitious of the security which the vicinity of a feudal castle insured, the free farmers or opulent tradesmen of those remote times requested permission to build their habitations and booths near its walls, which, for payment of a small rent, was willingly allowed; and we shall afterwards have occasion to re mark that to this practice we perhaps owe the origin of our towns and royal burghs in Scotland. It appears, also, from the authentic evidence of the Cartularies, that at this period, upon the large feudal estates belonging to the nobles or to the Church, were to be found small villages, or collections of hamlets and cottages, termed Villś in the charters of the times, annexed to which was a district of land called a Territorium.2 This was cultivated in various proportions by the higher ranks of the husbandmen, who pos sessed it, either in part or in whole, as their own property, which they held by lease, and for which they paid a rent,3 or by the villeyns and cottars, who were themselves, in frequent in stances, as we shall immediately see, the property of the lord of the soil. Thus, by a similar process, which we find took place in England under the Normans, and which is clearly to be traced in Domesday Book, the greater feudal barons were possessed not only of immense estates, embracing with in them field and forest, river, lake, and mountain, but of numerous and
2 MS. Cartulary of Melrose, pp. 21, 22. Cartulary of Kelso, pp. 254, 255.
3 Cartulary of Kelso, p. 257, in 1258. Ibid, pp. 312, 317.
ANCIENT STATE OF SCOTLAND. 237
flourishing villages,1 for which they received a regular rent, and of whose wealth and gains they always held a share, because they were frequently the masters of the persons and pro perty of the tradesmen and villeyns, by whom such early communities were inhabited. In these villages the larger divisions, under the names of carucates, bovates, or oxgates, were cultivated by the husbandmen and the cottars under them; while, for their own mainte nance, each of these poor labourers was the master of a cottage with a small piece of ground, for which he paid a trifling rent to the lord of the soil.2
It happened not unfrequently that the high ecclesiastics, or the convents and religious houses, were the pro prietors of villages, from whose popu lation there was not exacted the same strict routine of military service which was due by the vassals of the temporal barons; and the consequences of this exemption were seen in the happier and more improved condition of their husbandmen and villeyns, and in the richer cultivation of their ample terri tories. A great portion of the district attached to these villages was divided into pasture-land and woodland, in which a right of pasturage, for a cer tain number of animals, belonged to each of the villagers or husbandmen in common. It is from the informa tion conveyed in the Cartularies that the condition of these early villages is principally to be discovered.3
Thus, for example, in the village of Bolden, in Roxburghshire, which be longed to the monks of Kelso, in the latter part of the reign of Alexander
1 Henshall’s Specimens and Parts of a His tory of South Britain, p. 64. In the small part of this valuable work which has been published, and which it is much to be regret ted was discontinued by the author from want of encouragement, a clear and authentic view is given of the state of England under the Normans, founded on an accurate examina tion of the original record of Domesday Book.
2 Cartulary of Kelso, p. 477. In the same MS. there is a Donation, in 1307, by Nicholas dictus Moyses de Bondington, “ Cotagii cum orto quod Tyock Uxor Andree quondam tene- rit de me in villa de Bondington.”
3 Rotulus Reddituum Monasterii de Kul- chow. Cartulary of Kelso, p. 475.
the Third, there were twenty-eight husbandmen, who possessed each a husbandland, with common pasture; for which he paid a rent of half a mark, or six shillings and eightpence, besides various services which were due to the landlord. There were, in the same village, thirty-six cottagers, each of whom held nearly half an acre of arable land, with a right of common pasture. The united rent paid by the whole cottagers amounted to fifty-five shillings; in addition to which, they were bound to perform certain services in labour. To the village there was attached a mill, which gave a rent of eight marks; and four brew houses, each of them let for ten shillings, with an obligation to sell their ale to the abbot at the rate of a lagen and a half for a penny.4 These villages, of course, varied much in extent, in the number of their mansions, and the fertility of their lands ; whilst the greater secu rity, resulting from the increasing numbers and the wealth of the inhabi tants, became an inducement for many new settlers from different parts to join the community, and plant them selves under the protection of the lord of the soil. This emigration, however, of the cottars or villeyns from one part of the country or from one village to another, could not be legally effected without the express consent of the master to whom they belonged. A fact of which we shall be convinced when we come to consider the condi tion of the great body of the people in those early ages.
To one casting his eye over Scotland as it existed during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the numerous religious establishments, the cathe drals, convents, monasteries, and epis copal palaces, must have formed an other striking feature in the external aspect of the country. Situated always in the richest, and not unfrequently in the most picturesque spots, and built in that imposing style of architecture which is one of the greatest triumphs of the Middle Ages, these structures reared their holy spires and towers in
4 Cartulary ’of Kelso, pp. 478, 479. See Illustrations, letters 00.
238 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
almost every district through which you travelled; and your approach to them could commonly be traced by the high agricultural improvements which they spread around them. The woods, enclosed and protected, were of loftier growth; the meadows and corn- fields richer and better cultivated; the population inhabiting the church-lands more active, thriving, and industrious than in the lands belonging to the crown or to the feudal nobility.
To give any correct idea of the num ber or the opulence of the various episcopal and conventual establish ments which were to be found in Scot land at this remote era, would require a more lengthened discussion than our present limits will allow. Besides the bishoprics, with their cathedral churches, their episcopal palaces, and the residences of the minor clergy which were attached to them, our early monarchs and higher nobility, in the devotional spirit of the age, en couraged those various orders of regu lar and secular churchmen which then existed in Europe. The Canons Regu lar of St Augustine, who were invited into Scotland by Alexander the First, and highly favoured by David, had not less than twenty-eight monas teries ; the Cistertians or Bernardine Monks, who were also warmly patron ised by David, possessed thirteen; and the Dominican or Black Friars, fifteen monasteries, in various parts of the country. Although these orders were the most frequent, yet numerous other divisions of canons, monks, and friars obtained an early settlement in Scotland, and erected for themselves in many places those noble abbacies, priories, or convents, whose ruins at the present day are so full of pictur esque beauty and interesting associa tions. The Red Friars, an order originally instituted by St John of Matha and Felix de Valois for the redemption of Christian slaves from the Infidels, possessed nine monas teries ; the Prćmonstratensian Monks, who boasted that the rule which they followed was delivered to them in a vision by St Augustine, and written in golden letters, were highly favoured
by David the First, Alexander the Second, and Fergus, lord of Galloway. The Tyronensian and Clunacensian Monks, the Templars, the Franciscans, and the Carmelites had all of them establishments in Scotland; whilst the Augustinian, the Benedictine, and the Cistertian Nuns were possessed of numerous rich and noble convents; which, along with the hospitals, erected by the widespread charity of the Catholic Church, for the entertain ment of pilgrims and strangers, and the cure and support of the sick and infirm, complete the catalogue of the religious establishments of Scotland during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.1
Although covered in many places with vast and impenetrable woods and marshes, the country around the mon asteries and religious houses adjoining to the castles of the nobles, and to the great towns, royal burghs, and villages, appears in the reign of Alex ander the Third to have been in a state of considerable cultivation. Even during the wars of the three Edwards, when we take into view the dreadful disadvantages against which it had to struggle, the agriculture of Scotland was respectable.
The Scottish kings possessed royal manors in almost every shire, which were cultivated by their own free tenants and their villeyns; and to which, for the purpose of gathering the rents, and consuming the agricul tural produce, they were in the cus tom of repairing, in their progresses through the kingdom. This fact is established by the evidence of the Cartularies, which contain frequent grants, by David the First, William the Lion, and the two Alexanders, to the convents and religious houses, of various kinds of agricultural produce to be drawn from the royal manors; and the same truth is as conclusively made out by the original accounts of the Great Chamberlains of Scotland.2
1 Account of the Religious Houses in Scot land. Keith’s Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, p. 235.
2 Of these accounts, which contain a body of information upon the civil history of Scot land, unrivalled in authenticity, and of high
ANCIENT STATE OF SCOTLAND. 239
David, for example, granted to the monks of Scone the half of the skins and the fat of all the beasts which were killed for the king’s use on his lands to the north of the Tay; and the half of the skins and hides of all the beasts slain upon festival days, at Stirling, and on his manors between the Forth and the Tay.1 Innumer able charters, by his successors, to the various monasteries and religious houses in the kingdom, evince the generosity or superstition of our monarchs, and the extent of their royal demesnes. Scarcely less numer ous, and upon a scale not greatly in ferior to those of the king, were the extensive feudal estates belonging to the religious houses, to dignified clergy, and to the magnates, or higher barons of Scotland; who granted charters of lands to their own military vassals and retainers, or by leases, to other more pacific tenants, upon whom they de volved the agricultural improvement of their domains. Thus, for example, we find, in the Cartulary of Kelso, that the monks of this rich religious house granted to the men of Innerwick, in the year 1190, a thirty-three years’ lease of certain woods and lands, for the annual rent of twenty shillings; which was approved of by Alan, the son of Walter, the Steward, to whom the men of Innerwick belonged.2
The clergy, whose domains, chiefly from the liberal and frequent endow ments of David the First, and his suc cessors, were at this period amazingly rich and extensive, repaid this pro fusion, by becoming the great agricul tural improvers of the country. From them those leases principally proceeded, which had the most beneficial effect in clearing it from wood, and bringing it under tillage. In 1326 the Abbot of Scone granted a lease for life of his lands of Girsmerland to Andrew de Strivelyn. Henry Whitwell received from the Abbot of Kelso a lease for life of all the lands belonging to this monastery in the parish of Dumfries, interest, a short notice will be found in the Illustrations, letters CC.
1 Cartulary of Scone, pp. 2, 6, 8.
2 Cartulary of Kelso, p. 247. Caledonia, vol. i. p. 794.
for which the yearly rent was twelve shillings; and numerous other in stances might be brought forward. It was in this manner that there was gradually introduced and encouraged in the country a body of useful im provers, who were permitted, from the pacific character of their landlords, to devote their time more exclusively to agricultural improvement than the vassals or tenants of the barons.3
The system of agriculture pursued at this early period must have been exceedingly rude and simple in its de tails; and although it is difficult to point out the exact mode of cultiva tion, yet some information with re gard to its general character, and the crops then raised in the country, may be found in the scattered notices of contemporary historians, and in the records and muniments of the times. Oats, wheat, barley, pease and beans were all raised in tolerable abundance. Of these by far the most prevalent crop was oats. It furnished the bread of the lower classes ; and the ale which they drank was brewed from malt made of this grain. In the innumer able mills which are mentioned in the Cartularies, great quantities of oats were ground into meal; and at the various malt-kilns and breweries which we find attached throughout the same records to the hamlets and villages, equally large proportions of oats were reduced into malt and brewed into ale. In the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the First for the years 1299 and 1300, large quantities of oat malt, furnished to his different garrisons in Scotland, form some of the principal items of expenditure. In the same interesting and authentic record we find that Edward’s cavalry in their return from Galloway, in September 1300, destroyed in their march through the fields eighty acres of oats upon the property of William de Carlisle, at Dornock, in compensation for which the king allowed him two butts of wine.4 It appears in the same series
3 Cartulary of Scone, p. 32. Cartulary of Kelso, p. 829. Chamberlains’ Accounts, vol. i. pp. 5, 12, 22. Cartulary of Inchcolm, p. 31.
4 Liber Cotidianus Crarderobć Edwardi I., p. 126.
2-10 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
of accounts that Edward bought his oats, and oat malt to be brewed for the army, at various rates, extending from twenty pence to three shillings per quarter. From the multitudes of brew-houses with which every division of the kingdom appears to have been studded, from the royal manufactories of ale down to those in the towns, burghs, baronies, and villages, it is evident that this beverage must have been consumed in great quantities.
Although oats was the principal grain raised in Scotland, yet wheat was also cultivated to a considerable extent, chiefly by the higher orders : throughout the south and east districts of the country, wheaten bread was principally used at their tables; and the quantities of this grain which the Cartularies shew to have been ground in the mills evince the consumption to have been considerable. When Edward, in the year 1300, invaded Galloway, we find, by the Wardrobe Account of that period, that he pur chased large quantities of wheat, which was exported from Kirkcudbright to Whitehaven and other ports in Cum berland. It was there ground, and the flour sent back to supply the English garrisons in Galloway and Ayr. In the Wardrobe Account of the same monarch for the year 1299, it is stated that unground pease, for the use of the English garrisons, were furnished at the rate of two shillings and ninepence, and beans for the horses at four shillings and sixpence the quarter. In addition to these crops, extensive districts of rich na tural meadow, with the green sward which clothed the forest glades, fur nished grass, which was made into hay, and with all other agricultural pro duce, paid its tithe to the clergy. The fields, the mountain grazings, and the forests, were amply stocked with cows, sheep, and large herds of swine,1 which fed on the beech mast. These last formed the staple animal food of the lower classes; for even the poor bondman or cottager seems to have generally possessed, in the territorium
1 Excerpt, ex Rotulo Compot. Temp. Alex. III. pp. 12, 15.
of the village where he lived, a right of common pasture for a sow and her pigs.
Another important part of the stock ing of the farms and the forests of those times consisted in the numerous horses which were reared by their baronial proprietors. We learn from the Cartularies that great care was bestowed upon this interesting branch of rural economy. Many of the nobles had breeding studs upon their estates;2 and in the forests large herds of brood mares, surrounded by their grown-up progeny, and with their young foals at their feet, ran wild, and produced a hardy and excellent stock of little horses, upon which the hobelers, or light-armed Scottish cavalry, were mounted, which, in the numerous raids or invasions of England, under Bruce, Randolph, and Douglas, so cruelly ravaged and destroyed the country. Distinguished from these were the domestic horses and mares employed in the purposes of agricul ture,3 in war, or in the chase. Both the wild horses and those which had been domesticated were of a small hardy breed, excellently fitted for light cavalry, but too diminutive to be em ployed as the great war-horse of the knight, which had not only to bear its master armed from head to foot in steel, but to carry likewise its own coat of mail. It is on this account that we find the Scottish barons im porting a breed of larger horses from abroad.4 Some idea may be formed of the extent of the stud possessed by the higher barons and the rich eccle siastical houses by an inventory which is preserved in the Cartulary of New-
2 Cartulary of Melrose, p. 105. Cartulary of Kelso, pp. 283, 284.
3 In the farming operations of ploughing and harrowing, in the leading of hay, the carting of peats, or taking in the corn during the harvest, the wain driven by oxen appears to have been principally employed, while the conveyance of the agricultural produce to any great distance was performed by horse- labour. This appears from the minute de tails of the services due by the tenants of the Abbey of Kelso, in the Cartulary of that rich religious house. Cartulary of Kelso, p. 475.
4 Lord Douglas brings ten “ great horses” into Scotland, 1st July 1352. Rotuli Scotić, p. 752, vol. i.
ANCIENT STATE OF SCOTLAND. 241
bottle. It states that the monks of Melrose possessed in old times three hundred and twenty-five forest mares and horses, fifty-four domestic mares, a hundred and four domestic horses, two hundred and seven stags or young horses, thirty-nine three-year colts, and a hundred and seventy two-year- old colts.
But that branch of rural economy upon which the Scottish proprietors of this period bestowed most atten tion was the rearing of large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.1 Sheep, in deed, chiefly abounded in the Low lands ; and, during the latter part of the reign of David the Second, we have seen the parliament interposing in order to equalise the taxation of the districts where sheep-farming was un known and the Lowland counties, where the wool-tax fell heavily upon the inhabitants; while, on another occasion, “ white sheep” are exempted, probably meaning those sheep which, for the sake of producing a finer quality of wool, had not been smeared with tar.2 In a short time, however, the northern as well as the southern districts abounded in sheep, which became a principal branch of the wealth of the country. Their flesh was consumed at the baron’s table; their wool formed the chief article of export, or was manufactured within the kingdom into the coarser kind of cloth for the farm servants;3 their skins were tanned, and converted into articles for home consumption, or ex ported to England and Flanders. In like manner, the carcasses of the beeves were consumed by the troops of retainers, or exposed for sale in the market of the burgh ; the skins were exported in great quantities, both with
1 Excerpta ex Rotulo Compotorum, Temp. Regis Alex. III. p. 11.
2 “White sheep” is the technical phrase for sheep which are not smeared with tar in the winter time. The smearing injures the wool; and it is not improbable the exemption from tax may have been with a view to the production of wool better fitted to the pur poses of the manufacturer. Robertson, In dex to the Records, p. 117.
3 Charter of William the Lion to the burgh of Inverness, printed in Wight on Elections, p. 411.
VOL. I.
and without the hair, or manufactured into shoes, leather jackets, buff coats, caps, saddles, bridles,and other articles of individual comfort or utility. In the more cultivated districts cows were kept in the proportion of ten to every plough; but in the wilder parts of the country the number was infinitely greater.4 Goats also were to be fouud in some districts, chiefly in the wilder and more mountainous parts of the country.5
From the quantity of cheese which appears to have been manufactured on the royal demesnes throughout Scotland, it is clear that the dairy formed a principal object of attention ;6 and if such was the case upon the lands of the crown, it is equally certain that its proper management and eco nomy was not neglected by the clergy or the barons. In the Cartulary of Kelso, we find that David the First conferred on the monks of that house the tenth of the cheese which he re ceived from Tweeddale ; the same prince gave to the monks of Scone the tenth of the can of his cheese brought in from his manors of Gowrie, Scone, Cupar, and Forgrund; and to the monks of Renclalgross, the tenth of the cheese and corn collected from the district round Perth.7 From the same valuable class of records, which contain the most interesting materials for the civil history of the country, we learn that, in addition to the more import ant branches already mentioned, poul try was carefully attended to in the farm establishment; and it is through the monks, the constant friends of national comfort and good cheer, that the fact is transmitted. As early as under Malcolm the Fourth, the monks of Scone, upon the feast of All Saints, received from every ploughland within their demesnes ten hens, along with other farm produce; and from each house of every hamlet or village on the lands belonging to the Abbey of
4 Caledonia, vol. i. p. 798. 5 Robertson’s Parliamentary Records, p. 3. 6 Excerpta ex Rotulo Compot. Temp. Alex. III. p. 11. 7 Cartulary of Kelso, p. 1; Cartulary of Scone, p. 16; Cartulary of May, p.. 10.
Q
242 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
Kelso, the abbot at Christmas received a hen, for which he paid a halfpenny.1 It will be seen from these facts that the state of Scotland with regard to these necessaries, and even comforts of life, which depend upon agricultural im provement, was respectable. Wheaten loaves, beef, mutton, and bacon, be sides venison and game of all de scriptions, in rude abundance, were to be found at the table of the greater and lesser barons; while the lower orders, who could look to a certain supply of pork and eggs, cheese, but ter, ale, and oaten cakes, were un doubtedly, so far as respects these com forts, in a prosperous condition. Be sides this, both for rich and poor, there was an inexhaustible supply of fish, which abounded in the seas that washed their coasts, and in the rivers and lakes of the country. Herring and salmon, cod and ling, haddocks, whit ing, oysters, trout, eels, and almost every other species of freshwater fish, were caught in great quantities, and formed an article of constant home consumption,2 The pages of the vari ous Cartularies abound with proofs of the assiduity and skill with which the fisheries were pursued, and of the value attached to them by their proprietors. In the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the First, large quantities of herring were purchased for the provisioning of his Scottish garrisons ; and during his campaigns of 1300 in that country, he carried with him his nets and fishers for the supply of the royal table.3 Here, as in all other branches of national wealth, the monks were the great improvers, and by their skill and enterprise taught the great barons and the smaller landed proprietors, with their vassals and bondsmen, how much wealth and comfort might be extracted out of the seas, the lakes, and the rivers of their country. Stell fishings, a word which appears to mean a stationary establishment for the tak ing of fish, were frequent on the coast of Ayrshire, on the shores of the Sol 1 Cartulary of Scone, p. 16 ; Cartulary of Kelso. 2 Robertson’s Parliamentary Records, p. 3. 3 Wardrobe Accounts of Edward I., pp. 121, 122, 143, 151.
way, and generally at the confluence of the larger rivers with the sea. Be sides this, we find in the Cartularies innumerable grants of retes, or the right of using a single net within cer tain limits upon the river or lake where it was established, and of yairs, a mode of fishing by the construction of a wattled machine within the stream of the river, which was inserted be tween two walls, and of very ancient use in Scotland. In the Cartulary of Paisley, the Earl of Lennox, some time before 1224, gave to the monks of that religious house a yair fishing in the river Leven, near Dumbarton.4 A contemporary manuscript in the British Museum informs us, that in the reign of David the First the Firth of Forth was frequently covered with boats, manned by Scottish, English, and Belgic fishermen, who were at tracted by the great abundance of fish in the vicinity of the Isle of May; 5 and we know from the accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, that for the use of the king’s household not only large quantities of every kind of fish were purchased by the clerk of the kitchen, but that David the Second, like Edward the First, kept his own fishermen for supplying the royal table.
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