Illegitimacy in Medieval Scotland, 1100-1500

Illegitimacy in Medieval Scotland, 1100-1500
Author: Susan Marshall
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2021
Genre: SOCIAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 178327588X

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First full-length examination of bastardy in Scotland during the period, exploring its many ramifications throughout society.

Illegitimacy in Medieval Scotland, 1165-1500

Illegitimacy in Medieval Scotland, 1165-1500
Author: Susan Marshall
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Illegitimacy
ISBN:

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Illegitimacy was an important subject in medieval Scotland. It was a legal barrier to inheritance, and its associations with wrongful sexual conduct could be socially stigmatising. We know that these disadvantages were taken seriously, since many parents turned to legal remedies either to ensure their children's legitimate status or to mitigate the effects of their illegitimacy. But neither legal sanctions nor the disapproval of illegitimacy that lay behind them extinguished the phenomenon of illegitimate birth in medieval Scottish society. Although we cannot know the full extent of its prevalence, there is plentiful evidence of it in royal and noble families and in the Scottish Church, and it was certainly known in urban life as well. Medieval Scots had a complex relationship with illegitimacy. Most understood it to be an undesirable condition linked to moral fault, but in general they accommodated this view alongside a pragmatic acceptance of their peers who were illegitimate or were parents of illegitimate offspring. The literary texts and chronicles examined in this study reveal something of these contemporary attitudes. They also provide some insight into how Scots, legitimate and illegitimate alike, engaged with illegitimacy to reconcile its negative associations with the reality that those born outside marriage may live as virtuously, and have as much to offer their communities, as anyone else. Consideration of the role of illegitimacy and illegitimates in political events and developments between 1165 and 1500 bears out the evidence of these texts, and reinforces the impression that Scottish people in the middle ages had a highly nuanced view of illegitimacy. Bringing together some of the many references to illegitimacy in medieval sources and examining them collectively provides compelling evidence that illegitimacy was more significant as a political, social and personal concern in medieval Scotland than has hitherto been recognised.

Law and Legal Consciousness in Medieval Scotland

Law and Legal Consciousness in Medieval Scotland
Author: Hector L. MacQueen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 615
Release: 2023-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004683763

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This book explores the rise of a Scottish common law from the twelfth century on despite the absence until around 1500 of a secular legal profession. Key stimuli were the activity of church courts and canon lawyers in Scotland, coupled with the example provided by neighbouring England’s common law. The laity’s legal consciousness arose from exposure to law by way of constant participation in legal processes in court and daily transactions. This experience enabled some to become judges, pleaders in court and transactional lawyers and lay the foundations for an emergent professional group by the end of the medieval period.

1314: The Year of Bannockburn

1314: The Year of Bannockburn
Author: Callum Watson
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2024-07-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1399035207

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The Battle of Bannockburn has long been recognized as one of the most influential moments in Scottish history. The fighting that took place on 23rd and 24th June 1314 is frequently presented as a stirring tale of how a small but committed and well-organised militia army can overcome a larger, better-resourced foe, as well as a crucial early turning point in the long, bitter, and destructive conflicts between Scotland and in England in the late medieval and early modern period. This book offers an in-depth study of the immediate context of the battle, looking in detail at the preparations that both sides undertook in the months leading up to the conflict, and the reactions of the two sides to the outcome following months, aspects which have been overlooked in previous studies. Dr Callum Watson considers the state of affairs in Scotland in the autumn of 1313 and how this influenced Edward II's decision to invade Scotland in 1314. He explores the possibility that King Robert was unwell during this period and considers the influence this had on the outlook and activities of both sides leading up to the battle. He reconstructs the initial Scottish response to this threat, while examining the preparations made by the English crown for the proposed campaign and tracking these alongside Scottish military activities. Detailed consideration is given to what we know about the siege of Stirling and the resultant deal made between the Scots and the Stirling garrison, highlighting how this development fundamentally altered the expectations of both armies and placed them inexorably on the path to direct confrontation at Bannockburn. The battle itself is closely examined, taking into account how Bruce's preparations in the weeks before the event and his inventive use of the landscape secured victory for the Scots. The immediate fall-out of the battle is also discussed, covering efforts by the English crown to consolidate the defenses of northern England against renewed Scottish raiding, the experience of English widows created by the battle to secure their rights, and the cautious attempts at diplomacy – including arrangements made for the exchange of prisoners – undertaken in the months that followed. Finally, Bruce's parliament at Cambuskenneth Abbey in November 1314 is discussed alongside how the gradual redistribution of lands that this facilitated shaped the history of Scotland for the remainder of the fourteenth-century.

The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland, 1488-1513

The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland, 1488-1513
Author: William Hepburn
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2023-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783276908

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Offers a fresh perspective on the role of the court in late medieval Scotland, framing it within the wider field of court studies, highlighting its centrality to the effective government for which James IV is renowned. James IV is regarded by many historians as the most charismatic and politically successful of Scotland's rulers, with his royal court, and the institution of the royal household which underpinned it, at the heart of his reign. This book, the first comprehensive examination of the subject, takes the structures and personnel of the household - from councillors to stable-hands - as the foundation for its study of the court and its role. Beginning by looking at the distinction between household and court and the structures imposed by the household on the court, Hepburn utilises this framework to explore the lives of the people moving within it, both in terms of their duties as royal servants and their broader social and political worlds. The book argues that these people were both audience and performer in the court, receiving and producing messages about the king, royal government and the status of groups and individuals. Association with the household also became a feature of life for people away from the court, through the household-related terms in which they were described and through the lands they held. Overall, it highlights the central role of the court in the effective conduct of royal government for which James IV is renowned.

Medieval Royal Mistresses

Medieval Royal Mistresses
Author: Julia A Hickey
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2023-01-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1399081977

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Marriage for Medieval kings was about politics, power and the provision of legitimate heirs. Mistresses were about love, lust and possession. It was a world that included kidnap, poison, murder, violation, public shaming and accusations of witchcraft. Ambition and quick wits as well as beauty were essential attributes for any royal mistress. Infamy, assassination and imprisonment awaited some royal mistresses who tumbled from favour while others disappeared into obscurity or respectable lives as married women and were quickly forgotten. Meet Nest of Wales, born in turbulent times, whose abduction started a war; Alice Perrers and Jane Shore labelled ‘whores’ and ‘wantons’; Katherine Swynford who turned the medieval world upside down with a royal happy-ever-after and Rosamund Clifford who left history and stepped into legend. Discover how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust. Most of the shameful women who shared the beds of medieval kings were silenced, besmirched or consigned to the footnotes of a patriarchal worldview but they negotiated paths between the private and public spheres of medieval court life - changing history as they went.

Local Customs and Common Laws

Local Customs and Common Laws
Author: J.D. Ford
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2024-05-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004695001

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Lawyers in Scotland in the later sixteenth century took a disproportionate interest in the law governing maritime commerce. Some essays in this collection consider their handling of the subject in treatises they wrote. Other essays, however, show that disputes relating to maritime trade were handled in a different way in the courts of the towns at which ships arrived. Further essays examine the relationship between these contrasting perspectives. Although the essays focus on the law governing maritime commerce in Scotland, they also contribute to a wider debate about the nature of maritime law in early-modern Europe.

Royal Bastards

Royal Bastards
Author: Sara McDougall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2016-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191088846

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The stigmatization as 'bastards' of children born outside of wedlock is commonly thought to have emerged early in Medieval European history. Christian ideas about legitimate marriage, it is assumed, set the standard for legitimate birth. Children born to anything other than marriage had fewer rights or opportunities. They certainly could not become king or queen. As this volume demonstrates, however, well into the late twelfth century, ideas of what made a child a legitimate heir had little to do with the validity of his or her parents' union according to the dictates of Christian marriage law. Instead a child's prospects depended upon the social status, and above all the lineage, of both parents. To inherit a royal or noble title, being born to the right father mattered immensely, but also being born to the right kind of mother. Such parents could provide the most promising futures for their children, even if doubt was cast on the validity of the parents' marriage. Only in the late twelfth century did children born to illegal marriages begin to suffer the same disadvantages as the children born to parents of mixed social status. Even once this change took place we cannot point to 'the Church' as instigator. Instead, exclusion of illegitimate children from inheritance and succession was the work of individual litigants who made strategic use of Christian marriage law. This new history of illegitimacy rethinks many long-held notions of medieval social, political, and legal history.

Death, life, and religious change in Scottish towns c. 1350–1560

Death, life, and religious change in Scottish towns c. 1350–1560
Author: Mairi Cowan
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1526162903

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Death, life, and religious change in Scottish towns c. 1350-1560 examines lay religious culture in Scottish towns between the Black Death and the Protestant Reformation. It looks at what the living did to influence the dead and how the dead were believed to influence the living in turn; it explores the ways in which townspeople asserted their individual desires in the midst of overlapping communities; and it considers both continuities and changes, highlighting the Catholic Reform movement that reached Scottish towns before the Protestant Reformation took hold. Students and scholars of Scottish history and of medieval and early modern history more broadly will find in this book a new approach to the religious culture of Scottish towns between 1350 and 1560, one that interprets the evidence in the context of a time when Europe experienced first a flourishing of medieval religious devotion and then the sterner discipline of early modern Reform.

Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland

Finding the Family in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
Author: Elizabeth Ewan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351936433

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In this interdisciplinary collaboration, an international group of scholars have come together to suggest new directions for the study of the family in Scotland circa 1300-1750. Contributors apply tools from across a range of disciplines including art history, literature, music, gender studies, anthropology, history and religious studies to assess creatively the broad range of sources which inform our understanding of the pre-modern Scottish family. A central purpose of this volume is to encourage further studies in this area by highlighting the types of sources available, as well as actively engaging in broader historiographical debates to demonstrate how important and effective family studies are to advancing our understanding of the past. Articles in the first section demonstrate the richness and variety of sources that exist for studies of the Scottish family. These essays clearly highlight the uniqueness, feasibility and value of family studies for pre-industrial Scotland. The second and third sections expand upon the arguments made in part one to demonstrate the importance of family studies for engaging in broader historiographical issues. The focus of section two is internal to the family. These articles assess specific family roles and how they interact with broader social forces/issues. In the final section the authors explore issues of kinship ties (an issue particularly associated with popular images of Scotland) to examine how family networks are used as a vehicle for social organization.