ONE of the many fundamental contributions by Roger Mason to scholarship is his pioneering research on Latin histories of the kingdom as a source for insights into the nature of Scottish political culture. As a result, he has revealed patterns of political thought that bring us closer to the views and assumptions of the kingdom's elite than would be possible by focusing exclusively on more intellectual works of political theory. In the process he has shaped our understanding of the most important historical texts in Latin in ways that are likely to endure for as long as these works are read or their reception studied, from John of Fordun writing in the mid-1380s to George Buchanan two centuries later. This chapter will not attempt to discuss the substance of any of these histories. Instead, it will ask what might be learnt about the genre of medieval ‘national’ histories – as this is generally understood by historians – by looking beyond print editions to extant manuscripts.

Medieval ‘National’ Histories

Although John of Fordun was not the first to write a history of the kingdom from its origins, his Chronica Gentis Scotorum is the earliest to survive intact. It appears in Norbert Kersken's monumental study, published in 1995, of what he described as ‘works of long-term history, providing an overview of the “national” past from the very beginnings to the time of their writing’. Kersken argued that these texts – which he referred to as ‘national histories’ – began ‘almost simultaneously’ to be written across much of Europe in the first quarter of the twelfth century. He showed that, by the end of the thirteenth century, it was rare for a kingdom not to have been provided by one of its literati with an extensive written account of its past from its origins to within living memory.

Kersken's outstanding achievement in identifying and describing each of these works across most of Europe in the Middle Ages was only feasible by researching them as printed editions, rather than by trying to deal with a myriad of manuscripts. He was aware of the significance of these texts as editions, taking care to note when they were first printed, as well as basing his work on the most recent publications.

A: INTRODUCTION

In a “final agreement” between King Magnus Håkonsson and Alexander III, concluded on 2 July 1266 at the Dominican house at Perth, the king of Norway ceded Man and the islands around Scotland's west coast to the king of Scots for a sum of money, while explicitly retaining Orkney and Shetland. In the Chronicle of Man a scribe not long afterwards noted tersely that “the kingdom of Man and the Isles was transferred to Alexander king of Scots”. The last king of Man and the Isles, King Magnus, son of Ólaf, had died eight months earlier. Alexander was not the new king of Man and the Isles, however; neither was he the kingdom's overlord, as the king of Norway had been. He was ruling the Isles as part of his own kingdom. This has been seen from a modern perspective as the moment when (to quote Keith Stringer), Alexander III “effectively secured Scotland's identity as a unitary state by bringing nearly all its inhabitants and territories under his sole and undisputed authority”. This paper will take a different approach and explore what the Treaty of Perth might have meant to the Scottish ruling elite at the time in terms of the kingdom's unity and identity. As such, the Treaty will be regarded first and foremost as a source; not for what actually happened in practice when Man and the Isles were incorporated into the Scottish kingdom, but for what was envisaged at the time. This complements Erik Opsahl's chapter not only by viewing the Treaty from the perspective of Scottish history, but by tackling the issue of the unity and identity of the realm according to what was imagined about the kingdom's past and its laws rather than its actual political and constitutional development. This is partly a reflection of the disparity of material at a Scottish historian's disposal compared to their Norwegian counterpart. It is also possible because our understanding of the development of the Scottish state in this period has recently been transformed by Alice Taylor's seminal book.

The discussion of the Treaty of Perth in this chapter will hinge on a particular passage relating to the observance of the laws and customs of the kingdom.

We are accustomed in modern scholarship to regard the Picts as part of Scotland's history, even if there is disagreement about what part should be attributed to them. Isabel Henderson, the most distinguished scholar of Pictish studies of her generation, has remarked that ‘if we Scots like to think of ourselves as something distinct from an Irish colony then it is the spirit of tribes who went to make up the Picts that we must invoke’. It may seem obvious, therefore, that any vision of Scotland as an anciently distinct and independent entity would naturally seek to give prominence to the Picts.

This is not, however, what is found in the earliest extant documents in which the kingdom's claim to an ancient freedom was proclaimed. The most prominent among these is the magnificently confident and cogent defence of Scotland's independence written by the Scottish procurators at the papal curia in 1301, led by Baldred Bisset. This text, known as Bisset's Processus or ‘Pleading’, was written in response to the case put to the papacy by Edward I to justify his overlordship over Scotland, in which Edward famously resorted to a somewhat partial account of the legend of Britain's primeval division among the sons of Brutus, including Albanactus, eponym of Albany (i.e. Scotland). Alongside this should be considered the text (or, rather, two closely related texts) known misleadingly to posterity as the ‘Instructions’. These were once regarded (improbably) as versions of a single text in which the Scottish government relayed detailed instructions to its procurators at the Curia. They have now, however, been identified by Donald Watt as the Scottish procurators’ initial responses to the English case, providing much of the raw material for the cogent eloquence of Bisset's ‘Pleading’. Watt has suggested therefore that these should properly be referred to as the ‘Objections’. The significance of the ‘Objections’ is that it enables us to glimpse the Scottish procurators at work as they fashioned a case for Scottish independence that would be announced in the most important legal and political forum in Latin Christendom.

Because Edward I had brought the ancient past into play, the Scottish procurators were bound to articulate an opposite view of origins and early history which would justify Scotland's independence.

A fundamental challenge for understanding the history of medieval middle Britain is: how did the Border of the Scottish kingdom, which in the east originally ran through a society whose inhabitants on both sides identified themselves as English, become a frontier between two peoples, Scots and English? The most cogent answer to date is that divided allegiance led to a difference in identity. It is argued here, however, that the connection between allegiance and identity was only possible as a result of a radical change in how the Scottish kingdom was imagined as an entity distinct from the king or the royal lineage. This takes us exclusively into the realm of ideas rather than political reality. Since the ninth century (at least) the kingdom was identified with the landmass north of the Forth; in the late twelfth century, however, all territories under the ultimate authority of the king of Scots began to be seen as forming the core ‘kingdom of Scotland’ or ‘kingdom of the Scots’. It is argued that this was an essential preliminary to the Border becoming a frontier between two peoples so that, by the late thirteenth century, it is likely that all north of the Border identified themselves as ‘Scots’.

This can readily be recognised as part of a fundamental European development identified by Susan Reynolds: a growing assumption that ‘kingdom’ and ‘people’ naturally coincided regardless of size. She has shown that this pattern of thinking about kingdoms began to take root in the twelfth century. England was one of her main case studies; in this chapter attention will focus on Scotland, where this process can now be studied in unparalleled depth due to a new digital research tool and a quirk of Scottish charters. This is not, however, simply a matter of providing a more detailed example of a wider European phenomenon. A fundamentally new perspective is offered by placing charter scribes centre stage. Susan Reynolds saw the ‘background of values and assumptions that are taken for granted’ as crucial for understanding political ideas. She sought to investigate this background through studying lay collective activity as revealed in an impressive range of sources.

For those kingdoms, countries or nations which can claim to have had a continuous succession of kings from the Middle Ages, it is natural and superficially straightforward to explain their origins by describing the beginnings of the line of kings itself. This optimally may also involve some account of how the kingdom first expanded to an approximation of its modern borders. For those countries that lack such a continuous royal history, the search typically focuses on when the country’s name first came into being, or at least was first noted in historical record. These are the dry bones of what may be described as a standard modern view of a nation’s origins, brought to life in the mind’s eye through the historian’s narrative. The starting point is the country as it is today. A discussion of origins, however, can also mean engaging closely with a time when the country barely existed at all. What happens when, instead of providing a reassuring account of kings, battles and territorial expansion, the historian’s focus tightens on the most basic sense of country and kingdom?

In the case of Scotland, this takes us back before Barbour. When we read his description of the country as extending Fra Weik anent Orknay/ To Mullyrsnwk in Gallaway (‘From Wick opposite Orkney to Mull of Galloway’), we recognize it at once as mainland Scotland as we know it today. Barbour’s Scottish identity was not, of course, identical to ours. For example, in The Bruce, a knight was Scottish or English according to his allegiance to Robert I or Edward II, which could change. This is rather more flexible than modern notions of nationality. Yet, at a very basic level, country and people, Scotland and Scots, are assumed to go together by Barbour as now. It seems banal to point out that, for Barbour, the Scots exist at all only because there is Scotland, both kingdom and country – as banal as it would be to say that it would be inconceivable today to imagine Scots without a Scotland, or vice versa. And yet, however old this fundamental sense of people and country may be, it must have begun sometime. When was this, and how did it happen?

My starting point therefore is not the political or institutional beginning of Scotland – the traditional concern of historians.

The year 1195 witnessed a clutch of curious decisions by William I. Although these were not directly related to each other, they were all concerned in different ways with Scotland’s interaction with England. The most striking decision is relayed to us by Roger of Howden, who tells us, during his account of events in June 1195, that in this year King William fell ill in the royal ‘vill’ at Clackmannan, and decided that Otto of Brunswick, King Richard I’s nephew, should marry his eldest daughter, Margaret, and succeed him as king of Scots, despite the fact that there was already a male heir, William’s brother, David earl of Huntingdon. This, it transpires, was an imaginative attempt to break the impasse over William’s claim to Northumbria, whichWilliam had pressed unsuccessfully while staying at Richard I’s court the previous year. The plan faltered in the end only when William’s queen, Ermengarde, became pregnant and William hoped for a son.

The second decision is much less surprising: this was the renewal of the Scottish coinage recorded in the Chronicle of Melrose in its annal for 1195. As a result, pennies produced in Scottish mints once again resembled English pennies, whose design had been altered in the recoinage of 1180, featuring a double short cross on the reverse. The change is perfectly understandable, given that most coin in circulation in Scotland was English. What is curious is why it was decided upon in 1195, and not earlier. It is notable that later changes in the design of English pennies were reproduced much more promptly.

The third curious decision takes us back to Clackmannan, probably shortly after Easter. There, probably by 17 April, a standard form of dating royal charters was determined which, with some very rare exceptions, was adhered to until it began to be modified in 1221. This, like the recoinage, also involved a delayed adoption of English practice; the particular puzzle here, though, is why English example was not followed more diligently. From the outset of Richard I’s reign (even before his coronation on 3 September 1189), English royal charters conferring or confirming perpetuities concluded with a dating clause giving the place, the day of the month, and the regnal year; this was preceded by a statement, beginning with the words per manum, identifying the chancery official who produced the charter.

It is well known that in the central Middle Ages the native populations of Ireland and most of Scotland shared the same language, ‘high culture’ and major saints' cults. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that they formed a single people – identified in their own language as Gáedil – who stretched from Munster in the south to Moray in the north, and whose élite interacted with each other culturally and politically irrespective of any division into Ireland and Scotland. We should not be surprised, for instance, that the first record of a mormaer of Mar (a region straddling the rivers Dee and Don in Aberdeenshire) is as a casualty fighting for Brian Bóruma at the battle of Clontarf (1014). Another example of this pan-Gaelic vision is King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair's famous endowment, in 1169, of funds to assist the fer léginn (lector) of Armagh in the instruction of students from Ireland and Scotland. And when Robert Bruce faced his destiny in 1306–7, he asked Irish kings to support him because ‘we come from the seed of one nation’.

By the time Robert Bruce dispatched his words of pan-Gaelic fraternity to Ireland, however, what being Scoti was understood to mean – at least as articulated by the kingdom's literati – had taken a new form.