Chapter 4 - The Topography of Peoples ’ Lives : Geography until 1314 Sally

Societies are much messier than our theories of them, all the more so in this shadowy period of history when Scotland emerges from 9,500 years or so of prehistoric occupation into a time when documentary sources are still few and the extensive archaeological resource is scarcely yet tapped. Inevitably, if somewhat reluctantly, we are often forced to fall back on studying those physical remains that involved a higher investment of human labour and which, if in earth and stone, have best survived the ravages of time. Fortunately, we can be reasonably confident that these will be products of the impact and articulation of the big new ideas that resulted in changes in society, the ones we want to know about. Alas, the finer grain of human existence, particularly that of the disempowered, remains largely elusive. Any overview can be only simplistic, not least given the diversity of human practice. By the middle of the thirteenth century, to be a Scot meant to be an inhabitant of a historically defined kingdom with an increasingly monetary economy where a stable monarchy with mature and regularised tools of government and a regional church structure ruled over a political entity with geographic boundaries little different from those of today's Scotland (excepting that Shetland and Orkney were still Norwegian, Berwick, the Isle of Man and parish of Kirkandrews were yet to be lost). This is not to say that regional identities were not important, but that new perceptions of self and community had evolved over a lengthy period. To understand how this might have happened we need to recognise and explore the revolutionary, often dramatic, transitions that characterise this period. First and foremost of these is the move from a kindred-based network of locally-based lordships to more formalised and distant, non-kinship-based relations of lordship. Secondly, although people in some parts of southern and western Scotland were already Christian by the early sixth century, the major missionary movement began early in our period. Quickly making its mark, the relationship between the church and secular authorities is critical to our understanding of this period, not least since the new ideology brought with it the new technology of writing. This was the means by which new systems of administration could be introduced. The power of both secular and ecclesiastical authorities ultimately stemmed from how they generated wealth from the resources of the land, notably agricultural surpluses, and it …