These jet beads were found in a field near Canonbie, in Dumfriesshire, and probably date from the late 1200s or early 1300s AD. Thought to be one of the oldest surviving examples of paternoster beads in Britain, they are now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Paternoster beads were used by many Christians in the Middle Ages to count prayers, and their name comes from a particularly popular prayer, the Pater Noster (i.e. the “Our Father” or the Lord’s Prayer). In the Later Middle Ages, the use of such prayer beads would eventually develop into what we now know as the Rosary. Items for helping people count their prayers have existed since the earliest days of Christianity, and prayer beads can also be found in other religions. However the western rosary as we know it today is believed to have developed in the twelfth century, when the practise of praying 150 Hail Marys, split into groups of ten, became common. Guilds of beadmakers were also established by the thirteenth century, although a Catholic tradition dating back to the fifteenth century states conversely that the first appearance of the Rosary occurred c.1214, when St Dominic was given one in a vision by the Virgin Mary.
Over time a structured framework evolved for praying the rosary, but in the High Middle Ages prayer beads could also be used more generally to keep count of the main prayers such as the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Rosaries could also be quite valuable items, worn as status symbols as well as devotional aids. Many written references to expensive rosaries owned by the wealthy elites of Late Mediaeval Scotland have survived, such as the “grete bedis of gold contenand sex score twa bedis and a knop” discovered in one of the treasure chests of the late King James III in 1488, or the gold beads and cross which were given as a New Year’s gift to Elizabeth Barlow, a lady-in-waiting to Margaret Tudor, in 1507 and which were worth over £62*. But whether they were fashioned from simple wood or the most precious metals and jewels, rosaries never lost their spiritual importance and they remain an important devotional aid for many Catholics today.
These particular beads are made of jet and were discovered in 1863, as part of a hoard turned up by the plough on the farm of Woodhead near Canonbie, a few miles from the Anglo-Scottish border. During the initial examination of the trove, it was suggested that the beads might have formed part of a necklace. However the shape of the beads makes it more likely that they were used for counting prayers: 13 oval beads survive along with two larger faceted beads, which might have been used to mark the completion of each “decade” (set of ten prayers).
Although these beads are not quite so showy as some of the gold examples mentioned above, jet was still a costly material in the Middle Ages. Certainly the owner of these beads thought they were precious enough to hide with the rest of their valuable goods. The hoard also included 76 silver coins (from Scotland and England), several gold rings, and silver brooches, some of which can be seen elsewhere in the National Museum of Scotland. The coins might provide a clue as to when the hoard was buried. Most of them date from the reigns of Kings Alexander III (reigned 1249 to 1286) and John (r. 1292-1296) of Scotland, and King Edward I of England (r.1272-1307). This suggests that the hoard, including these jet beads, was buried at the very end of the thirteenth century or in the first years of the fourteenth.
The border between Scotland and England had long been an area of cultural exchange and in the thirteenth century it included some of the best farmland in the kingdom, as well as some of Scotland’s richest towns. In the 1290s, however, war broke out between the two countries and this conflict would last for several decades, forever altering the relationship between the two neighbouring kingdoms and the character of the counties along the Anglo-Scottish border, Dumfriesshire included. These were dangerous and uncertain times, and whoever buried the Canonbie hoard may have squirrelled away their valuables to protect them from marauders or as an emergency source of wealth to be used in a crisis.
Whatever the context, the original owner never returned to recover much of this hoard, and so their jet prayer beads remained hidden underground for centuries. But their treasure trove at least benefited future generations as we can use their long-forgotten possessions to gain an insight into cultural and social conditions in the south of Scotland during the High Middle Ages. There is an added bonus- if the beads do predate the year 1300, they may be one of the oldest surviving examples of prayer beads in Britain. The Canonbie rosary beads thus serve as an important reminder of thirteenth century Scotland’s full participation in the wider trends of mediaeval Christendom, and might provide a glimpse into the cultural world inhabited by an anonymous Borderer on the eve of the Wars of Independence.
Notes and Sources can be found below the ‘Read More’ cut.
Notes:
*I believe £62 Scots in the year 1507 was worth between £8,000 to £11,000 sterling in today’s money, however I would need to do some more research to get an exact number. Either way this rosary was certainly a princely New Year’s Day gift! For comparison Elizabeth Barlow received 50 English shillings as her half-year wage, which was probably worth between £10 and £12 Scots in 1507.
** I have used rosary, paternoster beads, and prayer beads interchangeably in this post because while the Canonbie beads are referred to as a rosary in many sources, and the term rosary is probably the most familiar to modern readers, I’m not sure that they we can definitely say that they were used for praying the rosary in its proper sense and I believe that this concept was still evolving in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (the tradition of St Dominic aside). I am not an expert on Catholic devotional aids though so someone please correct me if I’m wrong. I am also not dismissing the tradition of St Dominic being given the rosary in a vision, but personally don’t find that explanation the most convincing though I don’t have space to go into the whole argument here.
Sources:
- “Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland”, edited by Sir James Balfour Paul and Thomas Dickson, Volumes 1 and 3
- “The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society”, Vol.3 (1863)
- “Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pans: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain”, by David Hinton
- “Beads and Prayers: The Rosary in History and Devotion”, John D. Miller
Historical Objects: Portraits of a man and woman c.1551.
The sitters in this pair of portraits have traditionally been identified as Mark Kerr, Commendator of Newbattle (born before 1526 and died c.1584), and his wife Helen Leslie (c.1520-1594). The portraits were in the possession of their descendants the Marquesses of Lothian until 1941; they are now held by the National Galleries of Scotland.
The man on the right is dressed entirely in black, with the exception of the sleeves and collar of his sark that show white underneath the outer garment. His clothes and those of the lady are appropriate for the mid-sixteenth century. The man has reddish-brown hair and forked beard. The lady on the right wears a black gown with red/pink sleeves and a white hood, under which her red hair can be seen. She is pointing to a tablet bearing musical notation. Interestingly, if these portraits are a pair, the lady is portrayed on the viewer’s left and facing the man’s right hand side. This can be found in some other portraits of married couples but more commonly the wife is portrayed on the husband’s left hand side, the viewer’s right.
The artist has variously been identified as Antonis Mor or Willem Key. Neither man is known to have visited Scotland but other Scottish nobles of the period commissioned portraits, books, and other high quality goods from Netherlandish painters, working both on the continent and in England. Many sixteenth century Scots also travelled back and forth to the Low Countries on business and in diplomatic service.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any sources that analysed the traditional attribution of the paintings in depth. Therefore I’m reluctant to accept the claim that the sitters are Mark Kerr and Helen Leslie without question, even though it’s entirely plausible (and many more famous portraits have been associated with historical figures on far less evidence). Nonetheless I thought the paintings were still lovely pieces that deserved some attention, even if the details are (understandably) hard to verify.
Reproduced by the permission of the National Galleries of Scotland under the creative commons license.
I find it hard to think of a more perfect castle than Tioram. On a tidal island, surrounded by sea, beaches, mountains and distant isles, loaded with clan history and set in moody silence….what more can you ask for?
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
“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)
Kisimul Castle sits on a rocky islet in the bay just off the coast of Barra in the Outer Hebrides. As it is completely surrounded by the sea, it can only be reached by boat and is all but impregnable. Kisimul has its own fresh water wells. Legend has it that this has been the stronghold of the MacNeils since the 11th century. The earliest documentary record of Kisimul Castle dates from the mid 16th century.
Kisimul was abandoned in 1838 when the island was sold, and the castle’s condition deteriorated. Some of its stone was used as ballast for fishing vessels, and some even ended up as paving in Glasgow. The remains of the castle, along with most of the island of Barra, were purchased in 1937 by Robert Lister MacNeil, the then chief of Clan MacNeil, who made efforts at restoration.
In 2001 the castle was leased by the chief of Clan MacNeil to Historic Scotland for 1000 years for the annual sum of £1 and a bottle of whisky.
Talking Together: The Earliest Record of A Scottish Parliament?
(A ninteenth century engraving of the great seal of Alexander II. Source- Wikimedia Commons)
On 8th April 1236, letters were issued on behalf of King Alexander II of Scotland, recording the settlement of a recent dispute between the Cistercian monks of Melrose and the nobleman Roger Avenel. Although at first sight this may appear unremarkable, the document which contains the Crown’s record of this settlement can be considered the earliest official evidence of a Scottish parliament.
Some time before 1236, Roger Avenel and his ancestors had granted use of some land in Eskdale (Dumfriesshire) to Melrose Abbey. The Abbey was heavily involved in wool and leather production. Access to upland grazing for the abbey’s livestock, as well as timber and arable, would have made this Eskdale land extremely valuable to the monks. Unfortunately for them, Roger Avenel also felt entitled to use the land exactly as he pleased, and had no qualms about obstructing the same monks he and his predecessors had endowed. Despite the terms of his previous charter, Roger and his men loosed their horses and other animals on the land, and destroyed the houses, ditches, and enclosures made by the Abbey. In order to settle “the controversies stirred between them on this account”, the dispute between the two parties was brought before the highest judge in the realm- King Alexander II of Scotland. Eventually, a compromise was reached, providing for the use of the land by both Melrose Abbey and Roger Avenel, albeit in different ways. The warring parties were thus reconciled, “in the presence of our barons at the colloquium at Liston”, in the year of grace 1235.
It is likely that the letters which record this settlement were made at least a couple of weeks after this assembly at Kirkliston, since they are dated 8th April “in the twenty-second year of the reign of our lord the king”- i.e. 1236.* The document itself was witnessed by Andrew, bishop of Moray; Clement, bishop of Dunblane; Walter Comyn, the earl of Menteith; Walter, the Steward of Scotland; Walter Oliphant, justiciar of Lothian; Henry Balliol; David Keith, the Marischal; and Geoffrey, the clerk of the liverance. This cannot be taken as a list of everyone who attended the ‘colloquium’ at Kirkliston, though I would argue that most of these men were probably present anyway. Nonetheless the letter is possibly the earliest surviving “official” Crown record of what we now call the Scottish parliament- though this is by no means certain since the early history of this institution is shadowy and fraught with ambiguity...
(The old kirk of Liston, presumably near to where the ‘colloquium’ of 1235 took place. The church has its roots in the Middle Ages and may have been standing at the time of the first Scottish parliament. Source is picture by Tom Sargent who has kindly made this picture available on wikimedia commons for reuse under the Creative Commons License)
The early development of “parliament” in Scotland is even more obscure than in neighbouring England. Very few Crown documents have survived from the thirteenth century which relate to meetings that could be considered parliaments, and even the terminology used to describe the kinds of assembly we now call parliament can be ambiguous. Thirteenth century writers do not always use the same terminology we would expect, and it is unclear whether the words they actually use had exactly the same meaning in the thirteenth century as they do now, and indeed whether these words were used consistently. Some mediaeval chroniclers do refer to certain assemblies which were held by the kings of Scotland before 1235, and which they give the name “parliament”. In one Anglo-Norman work, the twelfth century chronicler Jordan Fantosme states that William the Lion held “sun plenier parlement” (translated as his “plenary” or “full” parliament) in 1173, when he wanted to consult the wise men of his kingdom on whether or not he should support the rebellion of Henry “the Young King” against the latter’s father Henry II of England. “Gesta Annalia”, a late thirteenth century Scottish chronicle, also uses a Latinised version of the French term “parliament”, to describe an assembly held by King Alexander II in 1215. However, no official documents associated with these “parliaments” survive, and the chroniclers who referred to them did not define their use of the term.
In records produced on behalf of the Scottish Crown, the word “parliament” itself doesn’t appear very often before the end of the thirteenth century. However quite a few surviving records do use the Latin word “colloquium” to refer to certain assemblies of the king and his barons- indeed this is the word used to describe the meeting held at Kirkliston in 1235. “Colloquium” has a similar meaning to the French word “parliament”, in that they both loosely describe a “talking together” or a discussion. In thirteenth century England, the Latin and French terms were often treated as interchangeable, and so early twentieth century historians, searching for early evidence of a similar institution in Scotland, were quick to identify any colloquium mentioned in Scottish records as a parliament in the usual sense of the word. However the word also carries its fair share of ambiguity. We do not know whether a “colloquium” in thirteenth century Scotland would have looked anything like our idea of a mediaeval parliament, nor whether the term always meant the same thing, nor can we identify what it was that set a “colloquium” apart from any other assembly or council in which the king of Scots consulted his leading vassals. There is also the danger that, having first encountered the terms “colloquium” and parliament in English and French contexts, historians have gone looking for a similar phrase in Scottish sources and inadvertently analysed the evidence through a subjective lens, based on a preconceived notion of what a parliament was.
Although more recent historians have acknowledged this danger, unfortunately the nature of the surviving evidence seems to compel them to work within the same framework, using the existed, if limited, terminology as best they can. The “colloquium” of thirteenth century Scotland does seem to be the closest thing we have to a word for the kind of formal assembly of the political community, chaired by a king, which we might describe more easily as a parliament in late mediaeval and early modern Scotland. It is also possible (indeed, likely) that the colloquium held at Kirkliston in 1235 was not the first of its kind. Nonetheless with such fragmentary evidence, it is probably reasonable to view that assembly as a very distant ancestor of the Scottish parliament that we know today.
So what might this parliament have looked like? During the Late Middle Ages, yet another phrase was commonly used to refer to both parliaments and general councils in Scotland- these were described as meetings of the “Three Estates”. This seems to have originated from the mediaeval theory that a Christian society should be made up of three sorts of people: those who prayed, those who fought, and those who worked. Different parts of Christian Europe developed regional variations on this theory but, in the context of the Scottish parliament, the “First Estate” (those who prayed) tended to refer to the higher clergy (bishops and important abbots). The “Second Estate” (those who fought) meant the higher nobility (from dukes down to lords of parliament and richer freeholders), and the “Third Estate” (those who worked) only referred to the commissioners elected to represent the country’s burghs (so not the common man as such).
However, in 1235 this parliamentary model had not yet evolved. The exact composition of thirteenth century Scottish parliaments is obscure, but in the record of the colloquium held at Kirkliston only the king and his ‘barons’ are mentioned. Evidence from other thirteenth century assemblies indicates that it was primarily members of the higher nobility who attended these- earls and the most powerful barons. Although they are not mentioned in the record of the Kirkliston assembly, the kingdom’s bishops also seem to have been permitted to attend these other “parliaments”. Burgh representatives do not appear until the 1290s, and A.A.M. Duncan has argued that they were not a regular fixture until much later. The other freeholders of Scotland (below the rank of earl and great baron) also do not seem to have attended parliament much before the fourteenth century. So the colloquium at Kirkliston in 1235 was probably just a meeting of the king and his leading nobles, though perhaps some of the bishops also attended.
In any case, the number of attendees would probably have been quite small- G.W.S. Barrow has argued that they would have “numbered in dozens or scores rather than in hundreds”. Also the Scottish parliament was always unicameral, in contrast to the English institution, which seems to have developed its separate Houses by at least the mid-fourteenth century. There was also no fixed location where parliaments were held as yet, and aside from the 1235 assembly at Kirkliston, during the thirteenth century meetings were also held in Stirling, Roxburgh, Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, and Scone, among other places. Like the king, parliament would remain peripatetic for centuries, and though Edinburgh eventually emerged as the most popular location during the reigns of James II and James III, the Scottish parliament only established itself there permanently in the seventeenth century**. Other customs associated with pre-Union Scottish parliaments- for example the Riding of Parliament or the Lords of the Articles- were also probably unknown in the thirteenth century.
(The Scottish parliament or Estates processing in the late seventeenth century. Source- Wikimedia Commons)
Wherever they met and whoever attended, mediaeval parliaments must have differed in some way from regular assemblies. Their most basic function was to provide an opportunity for the king to consult the political community on important issues. But historians are divided over just what kind of issue which would have dominated proceedings at early parliaments. Twelfth and thirteenth century chroniclers seem to have been interested in the assembly’s role as a venue for political debate and diplomatic activity. However this was probably only part of the story. Meanwhile parliament’s financial role (approving extraordinary taxation) which was to be such an important factor in the development of the institution in England, does not appear to have been quite so central in Scotland. A third function of most parliaments- one which is particularly important in our own day- is to develop and enact laws. This was probably performed by early Scottish parliaments too, but we lack evidence for substantial legislative activity before the fourteenth century.
In 1928, while surveying the evidence of earlier thirteenth century assemblies as a preliminary to their investigation of Edward I of England’s Scottish parliaments, the historians H.G. Richardson and George Sayles focused on parliament’s function as the highest court in the land. They came to the conclusion that, “the primary purpose of these early parliaments of Scotland was the dispensing of justice.” Certainly this is the role which we can see the colloquium at Kirkliston performing in the single surviving record which that assembly produced. The next documented colloquium, which met in 1248 at Stirling, is also known only from the record of an arbitration which took place there, again under the eye of Alexander II, while legal cases again crop up on several occasions during the reigns of Alexander III and John Balliol and the minority of Margaret (the remainder of the documented parliamentary business during the late thirteenth century is largely concerned with international diplomacy, which may however simply be due to the fact that this was the only subject which was considered important enough to record). However, in the 1960s, A.A.M. Duncan disagreed with Richardson and Sayles’ verdict, pointing out that the fragmentary nature of the evidence makes it difficult to assign special significance to any one function of the early parliaments. For his own part, Duncan characterised the early Scottish parliament as a venue for the promotion of the Crown’s interests, and “the occasion on which the rights of the king could be asserted by customary judicial process with final authority.”
(The coat of arms of Alexander II of Scotland, as portrayed in the thirteenth century ‘Historia Anglorum’ of Matthew Paris. Reproduced by permission of the British Library under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.)
Given that any debate which can be had about the early Scottish parliament’s early activities is severely limited by the patchy and ambiguous evidence available, it is perhaps unsurprising that some historians have tended to dismiss the colloquium of 1235 and other early assemblies as hurriedly as possible, moving onto the better documented meetings after 1286. As discussed above, sometimes this has even led to doubt over whether the 1235 meeting can fairly be called the earliest parliament at all. As Keith M. Brown, Alastair J. Mann, and Roland J. Tanner state in their historical introduction to the online “Records of the Parliament of Scotland” project:
“Between 1235 and 1286, therefore, parliament exists for historians in a kind of limbo – we can see that the term is used (in the early colloquium form), but can tell almost nothing about what was meant by that term. What set the early colloquia apart from previous assemblies of the king and his subjects has been lost, although there could have been a clear distinction, and the primary purpose of those early assemblies is unknown – whether they were political, judicial or legislative. There are no criteria that can be used for parliament’s emergence other than the moment that contemporary Scots began to refer to their assemblies in official sources by either the word parliamentum or colloquium. The debate about the earliest known Scottish parliament, therefore, becomes very simple – it was the Kirkliston colloquium held in 1235. Whether this was the first assembly to be referred to as such, or whether it differed in any significant way from the royal councils and assemblies that had occurred before will almost certainly never be known.”
If there is anything else to be said, it is only that, over the centuries which followed the Kirkliston meeting, the Scottish parliament evolved in many different ways, most of which could not have been foreseen by any of the men present in 1235. The mediaeval institution did at different points in its history perform a variety of functions, whether political, financial, legislative, or judicial, and although the Crown did often attempt to use parliament to bolster its own position, communication between the two was not a one-way street, and on several occasions the Estates talked back. In the early modern period, further development of the institutions and ceremonial associated with parliament occurred, while the abolition of the institution in 1707 followed a century which had seen parliament operating in new territory on more than one occasion. The current devolved parliament, which met for the first time in nearly three centuries in 1999 and usually sits at Holyrood*** is not only a very different body to that which met at Kirkliston over six hundred years earlier, but has itself changed since it was reconvened over twenty years ago. Nonetheless, a line can be drawn between the shadowy, probably elitist, assembly which took place in 1235 and the principle of public consultation which is supposed to underly Scottish democracy today. Though political systems and values must inevitably evolve over time, and though many historical events are obscure, difficult to define, and not easily subsumed into a greater narrative, the colloquium at Kirkliston is at least worth remembering as the first stage in, “the journey begun long ago and which has no end.”
(The debating chamber in the current Scottish parliament building. Source- wikimedia commons, where this photo was kindly shared by user:pschemp)
Additional Notes:
*In many official and religious documents from the Middle Ages, the year was reckoned to begin on 25th March. So if the colloquium took place in 1235 but the letters were not made until 8th April 1236, then at least a fortnight must have passed between the date when the settlement between Melrose and Roger Avenel actually took place and the date when a document was created to record this.
** Interestingly Holyrood, where the modern parliament is now based, was technically in a separate burgh from Edinburgh in the Middle Ages, the burgh of Canongate.
***When it is not in recess, which it is currently in the run-up to the May elections.
Selected Bibliography:
- Records of the Parliaments of Scotland website and in particular the record of the Kirkliston Colloquium listed under the reign of Alexander II and the historical introduction. This website is a magnificent resource, so I encourage people to look it up anyway.
- Jordan Fantosme’s “Chronicle of the War Between the English and the Scots”, translated by Francisque Michel.
- “The Early Parliaments of Scotland”, by A.A.M. Duncan as published in the Scottish Historical Review, vol. 45 no. 139 Part 1 (April 1966). Link is to JSTOR.
- “The Scottish Parliaments of Edward I”, by H.G. Richardson and George Sayles, as published in the Scottish Historical Review, vol. 25, no. 100 (Jul. 1928). Link is to JSTOR.
- “The Origins and Development of the Scottish Parliament, 1249-1329″, by Alison A.B. MacQueen. Thesis submitted for award of PhD, available on St Andrews research repository here
- “1999 Speech at Opening of the Scottish Parliament”, given by Donald Dewar
This mediaeval roof boss, shaped like a rather downcast (or possibly just sleepy) lion, comes from Elgin Cathedral and can be dated to the fifteenth century, according to the sign on site. The boss may have served as a keystone in the a vaulted ceiling. This carved stone is just one of hundreds which have survived from Elgin’s beautiful ruined cathedral, once known as the ‘Lantern of the North’.
Heiress, patron, founder, potential bookworm. Lady Dervorgilla’s achievements as a woman in thirteenth-century Scotland and England are fascinating, and often overlooked.
Last weekend I was on the roads less travelled in the Scottish Borders. Southern Scotland is maybe the most historically rich of all Scotland’s regions and is littered with abbeys, castles, towers and museums. If you’re looking to escape the crowds in August, look no further…..
theartofmadeline
dededos
vaporwave
origamiaround
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
izzy806
titsay
prguitarman
