#david i

[ambientworld]

Listen/purchase: Forward To The Dawn by David I

[scotianostra]

On August 22nd, 1138 The Battle of the Standard was fought.

David I King of Scots was famously the ‘ane Sair sanct for the croun’ which quite literally meant “one costly saint to the crown”  his piety led to uniquely-generous royal donations to the monastic orders. Sanctity, however, did not prevent him carrying on that other Scots royal tradition - invading England.

Also known as the Battle of Northallerton, the Battle of the Standard was one of two major battles fought in the civil war between the English King Stephen and Empress Matilda in the troubled times down south, known as The Anarchy. The Scottish King David I had crossed the border into England at the head of an army some 16,000 strong, in order to support his niece Matilda’s claim to the throne against Stephen.

With Stephen busy fighting rebel barons in the south of the country, it was left to a mainly locally raised force to repel the invading Scots. Thanks in a large part to Archbishop Thurstan of York, who preached that to withstand the Scots was to do God’s work, an English army of around 10,000 men was recruited.

At the head of the English army was a mast mounted on a cart proudly flying the consecrated banners of the minsters of Beverley, Ripon and York, earning the battle its name.

The English took up their position across the Great North Road a few miles north of Northallerton, blocking the Scots advance southwards. Attempting a surprise early morning attack, King David found the English well prepared and waiting for him.

The battle began with a charge by the unarmoured ‘wild’ Galwegian spearmen, who fell in large numbers under the hail of English arrows. The Galwegians finally fled when two of their leaders were killed.

Although greatly outnumbered, the English resisted several sustained Scottish attacks. Fierce hand to hand fighting continued for around three hours until the Scottish lines broke and retreat turned into a rout. The victorious Yorkshiremen however, failed to take full advantage of the rout allowing many of the Scots to escape and regroup at Carlisle.

As a result of the battle, the Scots would control northern England for the next 20 years, so although they lost the battle they did gain a foothold for some time. On the death of David, his successor and grandson, Malcolm IV was soon forced to surrender David’s gains to King Henry II, the son of the Empress Matilda, who succeeded Stephen as King of England.

[weavingthetapestry]

“Daughter of the Rising Sun”: The Death of Matilda of Scotland

I am taking a bit of an English history detour this May Day folks, to talk about Matilda of Scotland, Queen of England, who died at Westminster on this day in 1118

Matilda was actually christened Edith and she was the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and his second wife Margaret of Wessex, better known as St Margaret of Scotland. As well as several half-brothers from her father’s first marriage to Ingibiorg Finnsdottir, she had seven full siblings- Edward, Edmund, Aethelred, Edgar, Alexander, Mary, and David. At least three (arguably four) of her brothers eventually became King of Scots, while her sister Mary married the Count of Boulogne and was mother to another Queen Matilda, the wife of Stephen, King of England. 

Like some of her brothers, Edith bore an Old English name, symbolic of her mother’s status as the sister of Edgar Atheling and a representative of the old royal house of Wessex, which had ruled England before the Norman Conquest. This impressive lineage, just as much as her reputed beauty, piety, and learning, was probably a major factor in Henry I of England’s choice of Edith as his bride, despite the claim of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle that she was then, “mistress of but modest means, being then a ward without either parent”. The marriage took place in November 1100, only a few months after Henry succeeded to the English throne. It was at this point that Edith adopted the name Matilda, which might have been more palatable to the Normans.

(In this fifteenth century genealogy of James II of Scotland and his sisters, their paternal and maternal descent was traced back to St Margaret via David, King of Scots, and Matilda, Queen of England. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.) )

Matilda’s moniker ‘of Scotland’ is also a little bit misleading. Although she was almost certainly born within the bounds of her father’s kingdom, Matilda and her sister Mary were sent away at a young age and the two princesses spent their formative years in nunneries in the south of England. At Romsey Abbey, where their aunt Christina was abbess, and later at Wilton Abbey near Salisbury, the two girls received instruction in reading and writing as well as in Christian piety, and this education seems to have been largely responsible for their later reputations as cultured and devout noblewomen. 

Matilda became known as a literary patron and builder, and she played a leading role in the government of England during her husband’s absences on the continent. She also had a noteworthy, if indirect, impact on the culture of her birth country when she commissioned Turgot, her mother’s former chaplain, to write a biography of the late Queen Margaret, which contributed to the growth of that queen’s “cult”. She also appears to have been an important early influence in the life of her youngest brother David, who became king of Scots a few years after her death, and whose reign would do much to shape Scotland’s development as a mediaeval kingdom. 

In England Matilda presided over a cultured and cosmopolitan court, whilst simultaneously maintaining an almost saintly reputation for personal piety and chastity. Numerous contemporary writers described her in glowing terms, in excess even of the usual praise lavished on kings and queens. For William of Malmesbury, whose “Gesta Regum Anglorum” is supposed to have been written at Matilda’s request, she was:

“Singularly holy; by no means despicable in point of beauty; a rival of her mother’s piety; never committing any impropriety”

In his “Historia Anglorum”, composed after Matilda’s death, Henry of Huntingdon included a short poem on her “refinement and superiority”. Meanwhile the mid-twelfth century Cistercian writer Ailred of Rievaulx, who had served at the court of Matilda’s brother David I of Scotland commented that:

“Anyone who wants to write about her wonderful renown and her strength of mind, how assiduous and devoted she was at the divine offices and holy vigils, how humble she was, especially considering her great power, will show us another Esther in our own time.”

The twelfth-century Hyde chronicler also showered the late Queen with praise, describing her as:

“a truly incomparable woman, in whose lifetime England flourished and, at whose death, England’s flower was cut off and all its beauty was taken away by her.”

Pages could be filled with this sort of lavish eulogy, but it must be admitted that Matilda was not entirely uncontroversial. Even William of Malmesbury criticised her habit of giving too generously to strangers, to the detriment of her tenants, and he attributed this to an all too human desire for fame and praise as much as her natural charity. 

Matilda’s reputation also suffered several decades after her death due to the perceived irregularity of her marriage to Henry I. Since she had spent much of her youth in nunneries, there was some doubt as to whether or not she had taken the veil, and if she had, then her marriage would have been a sinful sham, with corresponding implications for the legitimacy of her children- and therefore the English succession. This issue was debated prior to her marriage and Matilda herself testified that, although her aunt had forcibly compelled her to wear the veil, “to save my body from the raging lust of the Normans”, she had never taken vows and had angrily trampled on the veil in private. Eventually, Bishop Anselm of Canterbury declared in favour of the marriage and personally officiated at Henry and Matilda’s wedding. 

Nevertheless, decades later in 1139, when Stephen of Blois was fighting Matilda of Scotland’s daughter, the “Empress” Matilda, for the English throne, a papal hearing was convened at which Stephen publicly claimed that the Empress was illegitimate and that her parents’ marriage had not been valid. In her seminal study of Matilda of Scotland’s career, Lois L. Huneycutt theorises that this posthumous assault on Matilda’s reputation may have stymied any chance that she would be canonised, as her mother later was. Nonetheless her image did survive Stephen’s reign and her virtues continued to be extolled for centuries after her death, with later chroniclers in England and Scotland alike commemorating her as “Good Queen Maud”.

(A depiction of Henry I and Matilda in an early fourteenth century genealogy of the English kings. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)

Matilda’s contemporary popularity is particularly evident in the reported reaction to her death. On 1st May 1118, after seventeen and a half years as Queen of the English, she died in the palace of Westminster, her chief residence. She was probably only in her late thirties, but the exact cause of her death is unknown. We do know that she was widely mourned, especially by the English clergy. 

Setting aside the laudatory eulogies of various twelfth century chroniclers, an account of her funeral obsequies also survives in the so-called Warenne or Hyde chronicle. This chronicle was apparently composed c.1157, but probably drew on older sources and eyewitness accounts, and its description of Matilda’s funeral demonstrates the power of the queen’s reputation. Although her husband King Henry was apparently absent in Normandy at the time of her death, the Hyde Chronicler states that her funeral was extremely well-attended:

“almost all of England’s bishops, nobility, abbots, priors, and indeed the innumerable common masses, assembled for her crowded funeral, and with many tears they attended her burial. At the urging of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, all offered for her soul with utmost devotion an infinite multitude of masses, prayers, alms, and other benefits.”

The bishop of Salisbury then handed around the metaphorical collection plate in Matilda’s memory, and the money poured in. This seems to have been a remarkable piece of fundraising- the Hyde chronicler claimed that the total value of all gifts was enough to pay for 47,000 masses, 9,000 psalters and 80 trentals, and to sustain hundreds of paupers.

Matilda was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the tombs of Edward the Confessor and his wife Queen Edith, and her body was interred on the east side of the altar as the “daughter of the rising sun”.* Several clerics who had been close to the queen spent thirty days praying and standing vigil beside her grave, where her husband Henry I later established a perpetual tomb light. Matilda’s youngest brother David also provided for an annual memorial service to be held in her honour, while the clergy of Exeter cathedral seem to have sung masses to mark the anniversary of her death for a time. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given her personal sanctity, her tomb was reportedly the site of several miracles, although, unlike her mother, Matilda was never officially recognised as a saint. Her body was still a valuable relic however, and soon after her death an unseemly squabble broke out between the monks of Westminster Abbey and the priory of the Holy Trinity in Aldgate. The priory of the Holy Trinity was a house of Augustinian canons, which Matilda had founded in 1108. The canons claimed that the queen had expressed a wish to be buried there, and not in Westminster, and they accused the monks of Westminster of taking possession of her corpse without warrant, and hastily burying her in abbey before anyone could stop them. Eventually the dispute was settled by Henry I who, “when he learnt that the last wish of the queen had not been carried out, was exceedingly angry, and gave nothing to the monks who had hoped for a gift.” The English king showed favour to the canons of Aldgate by granting them a foundation charter, but Matilda’s body remained at Westminster, though unfortunately her tomb has since disappeared. The inscription on the tomb apparently changed several times over the years, but the original is supposed to have read (in translation):

“Here lies the distinguished Queen Matilda the Second,

Who surpassed both young and old in her time.

Pattern of morals and beauty of life,

She was for all.”

Matilda was survived by her two children- William Adelin (whose byname probable derived from the Old English “Aetheling” indicating his eligibility to succeed as king), and Matilda, who was first married to the Holy Roman Emperor (thereby gaining the title “Empress”, which she wore for the rest of her life) and then Geoffrey “Plantagenet”, Count of Anjou. William only outlived his mother by a couple of years, as he perished along with hundreds of others in the disastrous sinking of the White Ship near Barfleur on 25th November 1120. Although Henry I then had his leading vassals swear an oath which recognised his daughter the Empress Matilda as his heir, after his death the kingdom nonetheless descended into civil war when his nephew, Stephen of Blois, claimed the throne.** 

The ensuing conflict between Stephen and Matilda, now known as “the Anarchy”, continued for nearly twenty years until the Empress Matilda’s son succeeded Stephen on the throne, becoming Henry II of England and the first monarch of the royal house later called the Plantagenet dynasty. Thus through her grandson, Matilda of Scotland was the ancestor of every subsequent English monarch, as well as a distant ancestor of many Scottish monarchs. Although several twelfth-century chroniclers were particularly concerned with her genealogical importance, as the link between the old pre-Conquest kings of England and their Norman and Angevin successors, Matilda was also an important figure in her own right and her career stands out as a particularly successful example of mediaeval queenship.

(A very grumpy-looking Matilda, Henry I, and their two children William and Matilda as depicted in a late thirteenth century genealogical role. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)

Extra notes and sources can be found under the cut.

Notes:

*This is how the original is translated in the full edition of the Hyde chronicle as translated by Elisabeth van Houts and Rosalind Love here. However in an extract translated by the same scholars in this anthology, this line is given as the more puzzling “daughter of the east”.

** Interestingly, Stephen’s wife was also called Matilda, and she was the daughter of the Count of Boulogne and Mary of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland’s younger sister. This made Matilda of Boulogne and the Empress Matilda first cousins, through their mothers.

And lastly yes I know the image of Westminster at the top is not how it would have looked in the early twelfth century, since it was extensively remodelled by Henry III, and Matilda’s tomb apparently has no memorial there, but I thought it was still appropriate.

Selected Bibliography:

- “Chronicle of the Kings of England”, by William of Malmesbury, translated by J.A. Giles (1847)

- “The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy”, by Orderic Vitalis, translated by Thomas Forester (1854)

- “The History of the English People, 1000-1154”, by Henry of Huntingdon, translated by Diana Greenway. An older translation of the Historia Anglorum, made by Thomas Forester in 1853, can be consulted here.

- Ailred of Rievaulx’s “Genealogy of the Kings of the English” as translated by Jane Patricia Freeland in “Aelred of Rievaulx: the Historical Works”, ed. Marsha L. Dutton

- Turgot’s “Life of St Margaret, Queen of Scotland”, translated by William Forbes Leith

- The account of Matilda’s funeral contained in the Hyde Chronicle can be read in translation in “Medieval Writings on Secular Women”, edited by Patricia Skinner. This excerpt was translated by the same scholars who translated the full edition of the chronicle, Elisabeth van Houts and Rosalind Love, but the two translations differ slightly. I used the full edition for any quotations but I have provided the excerpt here in case anyone wanted to read a version that was online.

- “Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate”, ed. G.A.J. Hodgett. This is a collection of documents associated with Holy Trinity preserved in a 15th century MS.

- Various chronicles in “Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers”, ed. A.O. Anderson, but especially versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

- “Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship”, by Lois L. Huneycutt (2003)

[lucasnapaspeur]

david be tweeting that hell week aint over and i am : stressed

david stop giving the fandom anxiety challenge

[the-busy-ghost]

I am way too skint to be buying books and I’m supposed to be researching a totally different bit of Scottish history but look what came in the post today :)

[ftl-radio]

Wizkid x Skepta

[weavingthetapestry]

3rd May 1128: Kelso Abbey Consecrated

Although King David I was perhaps not as saintly as contemporary chroniclers would have us believe, he certainly founded a lot of monasteries. Setting aside his rather subjective view of what constituted barbarity, John of Hexham’s description of the king’s outward piety is quite revealing:

“There has been none like unto that prince in our days: devoted to divine services, failing not to attend each day at the canonical hours, and also at the vigils of the dead. And in this he was to be praised that in a spirit of foresight and courage he wisely tempered the fierceness of his barbarous nation; that he was frequent in washing the feet of the poor, and compassionate in feeding and clothing them; that he built and supplied sufficiently with lands and revenues the monasteries of Kelso, Melrose, Newbattle, Holmcultram*, Jedburgh, Holyrood- these being situated to this side of the sea of Scotland**, besides those which he benefited in Scotland***, and in other places.”

This list of abbeys patronised by David in Lothian and Cumbria alone reflects the king’s particular spiritual interests. Three of these abbeys (Melrose, Newbattle, and Holmcultram) were staffed by Cistercian monks, and two (Jedburgh and Holyrood) by Augustinian canons regular. These orders were especially favoured by David, and multiple Cistercian and Augustinian houses sprang up north of the Forth as well after he succeeded to the Scottish throne in 1124. But the king also patronised a range of other religious organisations, and his royal descendants and the Scottish nobility soon followed his lead. By the end of the thirteenth century, Scotland was home to an eclectic mix of Cluniac, Tironensian, Culdee, and Valliscaulian monasteries, as well as houses belonging to Premonstratensian canons, and the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, and various Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, and Trinitarian friaries. David’s first known foundation reflected this wide-ranging religious interest. In 1113, he settled Tironensian monks on his lands at Selkirk, now the site of a well-known Borders town. This small beginning would have important consequences for the spread of reformed monasticism in Scotland and the overall shape of the mediaeval Scottish Church...

(The abbey of Tiron, the French motherhouse of the Tironensian order. David I visited the abbey himself and the first monks at Selkirk came from there. Source - wikimedia commons where the user Calips has kindly made this image available for reuse under a creative commons license)

David’s project at Selkirk reflected the spiritual trends of the age. The early twelfth century witnessed the blossoming of another Benedictine reform movement, with various new monastic orders popping up all over western Europe (but especially in France). These attracted many people who sought to return to a purer and stricter form of conventual life and who felt that observance of the monastic “rule” of St Benedict had grown too lax, especially in the great abbeys of the day. Citeaux, the motherhouse of the influential Cistercian order which was founded in a marshy wood by Robert of Molesme in 1098, was only the most famously successful example. Another slightly less popular but nonetheless influential foundation was the abbey of Tiron, which is supposed to have been founded by the hermit Bernard of Abbeville in a “wooded place” near Chartres around the year 1109.  Tiron was granted its official foundation charter in 1114, and by the 1120s the new order had over a hundred daughter houses, especially in France, Britain, and Ireland.

One of the earliest examples in Britain was the priory of St Dogmaels in Pembrokeshire, which was founded around 1113 and became an abbey a few years later. However apart from that house’s own two daughter houses (Pill Priory and Calder Priory) the Tironensians did not spread much further in Wales, at least not in comparison with the number of traditional Benedictine and Cistercian houses. In England the Tironensian order was represented by only a handful of priories, founded mostly in the first half of the twelfth century, and one abbey at Humberston in Lincolnshire, founded in 1160. Meanwhile Ireland’s sole Tironensian house- Glascarrig Priory in County Wexford – was again a daughter house of St Dogmaels. In Scotland, by contrast, the congregation of Tiron would become extremely influential, both within and outwith the cloister. The “grey monks”, as they came to be known, had arrived by at least 1113, which is when the Chronicle of Melrose claims that David founded a community at Selkirk. The abbey which these monks established, dedicated to St Mary and St John the Evangelist, received its formal foundation charter from David c.1119-20. This also came with a substantial endowment in lands and possessions and the charter was witnessed by many important members of the prince’s inner circle, including his wife Maud, their young son Henry, and David’s former chaplain John, now bishop of Glasgow.

(St Dogmael’s Abbey in Wales, another early Tironensian foundation in Britain. Source: Wikimedia Commons, where user Stephen McKay has kindly made this available for reuse under a creative commons license)

From the beginning, the monks of Selkirk were evidently at the centre of David’s spiritual and political plans. However it is less clear why he singled out the Tironensian order as the beneficiary of his patronage. His choice might have been influenced by his chaplain John, who remained close to David even after his elevation to the see of Glasgow, and who was himself a monk of Tiron (he later attempted to retire to the French motherhouse of the order during the 1130s). Like much of his career, David’s decision to found a Tironensian house may also have been influenced by his relationship with his sister Matilda and her husband Henry I of England. Although neither had a particular interest in the Tironensians, David’s political association with Henry in the years before he ascended the Scottish throne provided him with some of the tools to indulge his own interest in the order. It was with the English king’s support that David secured possession of substantial lands in the south of the kingdom of Scotland, despite his older brother Alexander I’s opposition. His relationship with Henry I also created ties between the future king of Scots and northern France. David not only held lands from the English king around Cherbourg in Normandy, but he was also in touch with affairs in other parts of France, and he is known to have visited the abbey of Tiron in person on at least one occasion before 1114. Although the source of his particular interest in the Tironensians must remain unclear, David plainly found the spiritual ideals and organisation of the fledgling order impressive enough that his earliest recorded action as “Prince of the Cumbrians” was to invite the monks of Tiron to settle on his new lands in southern Scotland.

The new community at Selkirk was apparently quite successful in its early years. Despite the distance between Lothian and the forests of Perche, the monks there retained close links with the motherhouse. The first two abbots of Selkirk succeeded in turn as heads of the order and abbots of Tiron. The monks rose high in the Scottish church too, as the third and fourth abbots of Selkirk succeeded as bishop of Glasgow and bishop of St Andrews respectively. By this time however, it had become clear that the original home of the monks beside the Ettrick water was unsuitable. Within fifteen years of the original foundation, plans were afoot to move the whole community around twenty miles downstream to Kelso, where the River Teviot joins the Tweed.

The new site may have been selected because of its proximity to the royal castle and burgh of Roxburgh, which David had been developing as a political, economic, and administrative centre. After he succeeded his older brother Alexander as King of Scots in 1124, Roxburgh also became one of the most important royal residences in the realm, and it made sense to have the new king’s favoured monastery near at hand. Accordingly, the decision was taken to transfer the abbey to Kelso, although this was to be a gradual process, with the building work and relocation of the monks taking at least two years. Eventually, when the move was largely complete, the abbey church of St Mary and St John the Evangelist was officially consecrated on 3rd May 1128, an event which was probably attended by the king and his leading nobles.

(A twelfth century portrayal of David I and his grandson Malcolm IV in the historiated initial of a charter granted to the abbey of Kelso. Source- wikimedia commons)

Kelso abbey was to become one of the richest abbeys in the kingdom and by the end of the century it had acquired several daughter houses, including the abbeys of Arbroath, Kilwinning, and Lindores. The grey monks could be very influential figures: it has already been noted that Herbert, the abbot who oversaw the move from Selkirk to Kelso was destined to succeed to the see of Glasgow, while his successor Arnold rose to the position of bishop of St Andrews. Another (though much later) influential Tironensian was Bernard, who was first abbot of Kilwinning, then abbot of Arbroath, and then bishop of the Isles and chancellor to King Robert I. And even after David I turned to other reformed orders like the Cistercians to further his spiritual policies, Kelso abbey retained its close links with the royal family. David’s only son and heir, Prince Henry, was buried at the abbey after his untimely death in 1152. One of the abbey’s charters, granted by Henry’s son Malcolm IV a few years later, preserves the only surviving contemporary picture of Malcolm and his grandfather David, who are portrayed in a style reminiscent of the biblical Solomon and David in the historiated capital ‘M’.

Like many other Border abbeys Kelso suffered heavily during the bitter Anglo-Scottish warfare which broke out after 1296. Nonetheless it remained an important and wealthy establishment, the abbacy of which sixteenth century kings and nobles often sought to secure as a commend for their younger or illegitimate kinsmen. In 1460, Kelso even witnessed a coronation when the eight-year-old James III was crowned king of Scots in the presence of his mother and the leading nobles of the realm, following the death of his father during the siege of nearby Roxburgh Castle. The abbey outlasted this castle by at least a century, but not much more. Having already suffered considerably from English attacks during the “Rough Wooing” of the 1540s, Kelso abbey was officially dissolved after the Protestant Reformation in 1560. Much of the abbey was gradually dismantled over the next three centuries. Though the burgh which grew up around the monastery is still thriving today, the building itself is much reduced, with only the central part of the abbey church remaining above ground. The fine Romanesque architecture of these ruins suggests that they formed part of the original church consecrated in 1128. Almost nine hundred years old, the ruined church stands today as a memorial to the former grandeur, wealth, and influence of the Tironensian order in Scotland.

(A seventeenth century depiction of the ruined abbey of Kelso, made by John Slezer. Reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence, with the permission of the National Libraries of Scotland)

Notes:

* It is actually unclear whether David founded Holmcultram or was simply a patron of the monastery. Of the monasteries on John of Hexham’s list, this is also the only one which does not lie within the borders of 21st century Scotland.

** The “Scottish sea” usually meant the Firth of Forth in the Middle Ages.

*** When John of Hexham says that David also patronised monasteries “in Scotland” he probably means Scotia ‘proper’, i.e. the land north of the Forth, as opposed to Lothian, which is where Kelso, Melrose, Newbattle, Jedburgh, and Holyrood lay in the twelfth century.

Selected Bibliography:

- “Chronicle of Melrose”, as translated in “The Church Historians of England”, vol.4, edited by Joseph Stevenson

- “Early Sources of Scottish History”, edited by A.O. Anderson

- “Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers”, edited by A.O. Anderson

- “Liber S. Marie de Calchou: Registrum Cartarum Abbacie Tironensis de Kelso, 1113-1567″, edited by Cosmo Innes

- “The Charters of King David I”, edited by G.W.S. Barrow

- “The Monks of Tiron”, K. Thompson

- “Kingship and Unity, Scotland 1000-1306″, by G.W.S. Barrow

- “David I”, by Richard Oram