Scotland in 1285 – A Mini-Investigation

Introduction

Over 700 years ago Scotland was a very different place than it is today. This unit of work will help you understand what it was like to live in Scotland seven centuries ago and will introduce you to some of the key ideas you will have to investigate to know more about this first National 4 / 5 topic – Scotland in the time of Wallace and Bruce.

Population

Back in 1285 the population of Scotland was around 500 000, around eleven times less what it is today. Back then Scotland had few towns and no big cities. The map shows some of the main towns, such as Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow and Stirling. Each of these had less than 1000 people living in them! Most Scots lived in villages of less than 100 people. The capital of Scotland was Perth, not Edinburgh.

Transport

Most of Scotland was covered in mountains and thick forests. It was very difficult to travel about the country. There were no proper roads and those that did exist were dirt tracks or old Roman roads, many of which had fallen into disrepair. Most people therefore did not travel or leave their villages. It was too difficult and dangerous. There was danger from bandits and outlaws who roamed the forests. There was also the danger from wild animals such as bears and wolves. Those people who did travel used horses and boats.

The People

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Most of Scotland’s people were very poor. They lived in the countryside and worked as farmers. Most of these farmers worked for rich people who owned the land. They worked long hours and received little pay. All members of the family worked, including the smallest children. Houses were also very different. They tended to be small and simple, made from wood with mud walls and straw roofs. Conditions were cramped and families often kept their animals in the houses with them.

Some of these houses were so dark inside that they were nicknamed ‘black houses’. A tax had been placed on the number of windows on each house so poor people put as few as possible into their homes.

Food was also very different. As poorer people could not afford to buy much meat, most people used a diet based on vegetables. People also ate porridge, oatcakes, broth soup and cabbage. Sometimes they would also have fish.

Education in 1285 was very limited. No one went to school apart from the sons of the very richest people. Most of the population could not read or write. Those that could tended to be rich nobles or the priests in the church.

Living and Dying

Life expectancy in Scotland in the 13th Century was very short. On average a Scotsman born in 1285 could expect to live until about 35 years old. A Scotswoman had an even shorter life and could expect to live to about 30. On top of this around 50% of children would not survive to the age of 5. One reason for this was that medical knowledge was so poor. People did not know what caused disease. Some claimed it was the result of ‘bad blood’ in the body and therefore the ‘cure’ was to bleed people. Veins were cut and blood was allowed to flow. The problem with this was that, unknown to the people at the time, this made the patient weaker and more likely to die.

Burghs

Burghs were the most important towns in Scotland. The Kings of Scotland created Royal Burghs which were different from ordinary towns, with the right to hold markets and send an MP (Member of Parliament) to the

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Scottish Parliament. They would also have a royal castle behind the town walls. Dumfries became a royal burgh in 1186.

The Church

700 years ago people were far more religious than they are today. All the people in Scotland belonged to the Catholic Church and believed virtually everything that their priests told them. The head of the Church in Scotland was the Bishop of St Andrews. The head of the whole Catholic Church was the Pope in Rome, a powerful man whose decisions were listened to by all the Kings across Europe.

Scotland’s Powerful Neighbours

One of Scotland’s big problems was the fact that she was surrounded by two powerful neighbours, Norway and England - neighbours who had both tried to attack her. Both of these countries were larger and more powerful than Scotland. English kings claimed that they were in fact the overlords of Scotland and therefore that Scottish kings should obey their decisions. As recently as 1263 Norway had tried to invade and take over Scotland but had been defeated at the Battle of Largs. The Norwegians did however rule the islands of Orkney and Shetland at this time.

To try to improve relations between Scotland and her neighbours and put off the threat of attack, various royal marriages had taken place. Like his father Alexander II, King Alexander III (1249-1286) married an English princess, Margaret. She was the sister of the English king, King Edward I. Their daughter, also called Margaret, married King Erik of Norway.

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The Feudal System was used to run Scotland 700 years ago. King David I brought it to Scotland in 1124. It was used by the King to help him rule the country. The system was based on land. The King owned all the land but in order to run the country effectively, gave some of it away to nobles or great barons. In return for this land, the barons promised to obey the King, help carry out his laws, give him food and money, and finally provide soldiers to fight for the King. To get their land, barons had to swear an oath of loyalty to the King. This was called ‘paying homage’, as the barons accepted the King as their superior or ‘overlord’.Once the barons had received their land, they then divided it up and gave it to knights, who in return promised to obey the barons and be the soldiers who would fight for the King. The knights would divide up their land amongst the peasant farmers or ‘villeins’ who would provide food and work for the knights in return.

The King

In 1285 the King of Scotland was Alexander III. He had ruled Scotland since 1249 and belonged to a long line of Scottish kings dating back to King Kenneth MacAlpin in 843AD. The King had total power, making all the laws and expecting complete obedience. The King would place his ‘great seal’ on documents to make them law and the people would be informed of such laws by the town crier, shouting them out to the gathered crowds.

Throughout his reign, Alexander controlled the powerful nobles and tried to deal fairly with his people. In the countryside, the peasants could grow their crops and rear their animals without fear of having them destroyed or stolen by invaders. Trade grew, and the towns and burghs prospered. By modern standards, Scotland was a very poor country, but life was improving for most people. Many called this period of Scottish history a ‘Golden Age’, yet troubled times were just around the corner.

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Assignments – Scotland in 1285

Your task is to use the following assignments to build a picture about life in Scotland in the 13th Century. Use the provided illustration sheet to accompany the facts you are selecting.

Population

Answer the following questions:

1. What was the population of Scotland at the end of the 13th Century?2. Identify at least three of Scotland’s largest towns at this time.3. How many people lived in each of these large towns?4. How large were the villages in which most of the population lived?5. What was Scotland’s capital at this time?

Paste a copy of the map into your jotter.

Transport

Summarise this section, ensuring you use the following key words and phrases –

landscape roads dangersmethods of transport

The People

1. Link the Heads and Tails and write the completed sentences into your jotter.

Heads Tails

Most Scots worked mud walls and straw roofs

The pay they received ‘black houses’

Houses were in the same house as the people

They were constructed with was very low

Animals were kept as farmers

The dark homes were known as small and simple

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2. Paste the medieval house into your jotter.

3. Consider a likely meal plan for a day in the life of an average Scottish farmer. Lay it out in the following way:

Insert today’s date, 1285Breakfast – Lunch – Snack – Dinner –

4. Which two groups of people tended to be those who could read and write?

Living and Dying

Copy the following table into your jotter and fill in the blanks

Average age of death for menAverage age of death for womenPercentage of children expected to live beyond 5 yearsTreatment for disease or ‘bad blood’Effectiveness of this treatment

Question Practice – The ‘Describe’ Question

One of the types of questions you will face in this course is known as the ‘Describe’ question, where you are simply asked to show your knowledge about what happened in a particular event, or to ‘describe’ a number of historical facts.

As you work your way through this introduction unit, imagine what type of ‘Describe’ questions an examiner could ask e.g.

Describe the lives of Scottish people in 1285.6 | P a g e

Or

Describe some of the problems facing Scottish people in the 13th Century.This question will be worth 5 marks in a test so it would be helpful if you could think of at least this number of different facts.

1. Select one of the above questions, write it into your jotter and bullet point six facts that you think would help answer it. Use the information you’ve gathered so far in this unit.

2. Once you are happy with your choice of bullet points, see how quickly you could write out the answer in paragraph form. Your teacher may give you one or two ideas for how this can be done e.g. it is vital that you write out each point in its own sentence!

In the final exam you will have less than 10 minutes to complete this so see how close you can get to this in your first go at this type of question.

Burghs

1. What were ‘burghs’?2. Who created royal burghs and what privileges did they enjoy?

The Church

Copy and complete the following paragraph.

There was only one accepted church in 1285, the ----- -------- church. Its leader was the ----, who lived in ----. All kings and queens across Europe tried to obey his wishes. The head of the church in Scotland was the Bishop of -- -------.

Scotland’s Powerful Neighbours

1. Which two powerful countries surrounded Scotland?2. Identify the English king and explain why he claimed to have power

over Scotland.3. What part of modern Scotland was ruled by Norway in 1285?

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Internet / Homework Task

Visit the webpage http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/alexander_iii/ and in no more than 100 words, explain how Alexander III dealt with the threat from the Vikings up to 1266.

Leave a dozen lines or so in your jotter to complete this task if moving on to ‘The Feudal System’

The Feudal System

1. Paste the diagram into your jotter and underneath write three sentences explaining how the system worked. The first sentence could look like this:

The firststage of the feudal system saw the Kinggrant land to his barons in return for their obedience and the promise of knights to fight for the King.The words in bold are those that would have be changed for the second and third sentences.

2. What does it mean to ‘pay homage’ to someone?

The King

1. Paste and label your picture of Alexander III in your jotter.2. Describe how laws were made and explained to the people in 1285.3. Suggest at least three reasons why some people called Alexander

III’s reign as a ‘golden age’.

Question Practice – The ‘Usefulness’ Question

If you have taken a History class in S2 or S3 you may already be familiar with questions asking you to judge how useful a source is. The question will look something like this:

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Evaluate the usefulness of Source A as evidence of the lives of Scottish people during the reign of Alexander III.The word ‘evaluate’ really means you should think carefully about what makes a history source useful. There are a number of ways in which you can answer this question, some of which are very similar to the DADA technique used in S2 and S3.

The DADA technique stood for Date, Author, Detail, Accuracy.

This year we are going to use the technique TADDO.

TEACHERS TRAINERS’ TOXIC TYPEAT AROMA ALIENS AUTHORDALBEATTIE DEEMED DESTROY DATEDEFINITELY DESPERATELY DALBEATTIE’S DETAILOVERWEIGHT OFFENSIVE OWLS OMISSIONS

TYPE – Types of sources could include letters, speeches, diary entries, memoirs. Think about whether people are likely to be telling the truth in each of these. Do you think they may exaggerate or be biased? How might each of these affect the source’s usefulness?

AUTHOR – Was the author of the source in a good position to comment on the topic? Were they in a position of authority or responsibility? Should they know what they are talking about? Did they witness the events themselves? How does this affect usefulness?

DATE – Is the source a primary or a secondary source. If it is primary, what was going on at the time it was written? How does this affect usefulness?

DETAIL – Can you pick out specific points of detail that the source tells you that help to answer the question? Decide how each one affects how useful the source is.

OMISSIONS – Omissions is a fancy term for things which are left out. Can you think of important points that the source has missed out? Say what they are and note how they show the source to be less useful.

As you can see, it is vital that you make a comment for every single point as to how it affects the usefulness of the source. So, if the 9 | P a g e

TADDO!!!

question is worth 5 marks you would have to ensure that you include phrases like ‘…and this will make it more useful because…’ or ‘…but it is less useful as…’ at least 5 times.

A maximum of three marks are available for looking at the Type, Author and Date of the source.

A maximum of two marks are available for looking at the Detail of the source.

A maximum of two marks are also available for introducing points of Omission.

Therefore, there are a number of different ways in which you could build up your score to the 5 or 6 marks. Even if the question is only worth 5, it is always wise to try and write an answer worth one more. This will mean that although you may make one mistake, you could still end up with full marks.

Source Practice

Consider the following source. It was written in a letter from a former pupil in Dalbeattie High to the headteacher in 2012.

I would like to say a big thank you to all the staff who helped me during my time at Dalbeattie. When I was going through S2 and S3 I wasn’t very interested in my studies and probably annoyed a lot of people with my attitude. But you didn’t give up on me and helped me to get through the rest of school and achieve the grades that have allowed me to move on and do exactly what I was hoping to do. I don’t think I realised what a good school it is until I spoke to other people about what their school days were like.

Think about this source (evaluate it!). Spend a few moments with a partner considering the TADDO questions. Then discuss your findings with your teacher.

Now read through this Scottish Wars source. Imagine it was part of a letter written by a Scottish baron to Alexander III in 1285.

You have ruled now for many years. It has been a time of peace and prosperity. More land has been turned over to agriculture; monasteries and abbeys have grown and flourished. Trade with the continent brings much needed supplies and has bolstered the

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economy. The country is on good terms with England, a powerful and reliable neighbour.You have also enjoyed military triumph, defeating the Norwegian king at Largs twenty years past, adding the Western Isles to your domain. We should all be thankful to God for your successful and glorious reign.

Think about this question –

Evaluate the usefulness of Source A as evidence of life in Scotland during the reign of Alexander III.

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Once again spend a few moments thinking about TADDO and how these questions affect this source’s usefulness.

Do you think you would be able to answer a question such as this in 10 minutes?

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