Medieval Scotland: Kingship and Nation (review)

It is a testament to the volume of research carried out during recent decades that a book which seeks to give an overview of Scottish history from the Romans to the fifteenth century can be considered an ambitious project. Since the 1960s a growing number of more detailed studies of issues throughout the period have been produced and a range of different approaches and disciplines have been brought to bear in developing an understanding of the early history of northern Britain. The growing sophistication and complexity of the picture we have of Medieval Scotland means that it has become quite a task to construct a meaningful narrative and discussion. This becomes all the more true if the intention is to convey a sense of these historiographical developments to a general, non-specialist audience. For a subject like Scottish history, rooted within a national environment, the ability to maintain the link between academic work and a wider audience is however particularly important.

Alan Macquarrie is therefore to be praised for his efforts to introduce the history of Scotland up to 1460 to new readers in a single volume. As such an introduction it has much to recommend it. In a dozen chapters Macquarrie provides a narrative of political events and thematic studies of religious and social developments. His introduction is structured to signpost the themes and aspects which the reader can follow through the work. The discussion which follows is similarly clearly expressed and broken up into sections and subsections which are intended to make the narrative easy to follow. The numerous illustrations similarly give a sense of the settings and artefacts of the periods under discussion.

Where issues arise concerning this volume they are largely the product of covering a period of such breadth. For a later Medievalist the coverage given to the early period is surprising. The centuries up to 1100 form only one of the three sections identified in the introduction but make up half the book. Though Macquarrie's coverage of all the various peoples who were to be absorbed into the Scottish realm gives a valuable breadth of approach to these chapters, the narrative and sources for early Scotland remains hardest to convey to the non-specialist. Similarly the concentration on ecclesiastical themes, covered in three of the twelve chapters, whilst reflecting an important story, mean other issues and individuals are neglected. Thus, while the minimal presence of Lollardy and Scottish participation at the council of Basle cover nearly four pages, Edward I's Scottish campaigns between 1298 and 1304 merit four brief paragraphs and Macbeth, the best known of Scotland's pre-1100 kings, only three. Such questions of balance reflect the interests and expertise of the author and are, on one level, unfair. They do, however, demonstrate the difficulty of providing the reader with sufficient coverage of the key elements of the story.

As an effort to convey new perceptions of Medieval Scotland, this volume is also hamstrung by a relatively conservative and inward-looking approach, especially after 1100. It is disappointing that Macquarrie does not draw more heavily on the considerable recent work on Scottish connections with continental Europe and on the range of links with other parts of the British Isles. Similarly, while the statement that twelfth century Scotland transformed from 'an ancient Celtic kingdom to a medieval feudal one' may be convenient short hand, it ignores much recent work revealing both ongoing change and considerable continuity and risks falling back on outdated stereotypes. In general, there is only limited discussion of developments in Scottish government and, though this is identified as a central theme, how the kingdom's identity related to the changes in political society. Though it is inevitable that such a work will rely on the research of others, especially in the later chapters, the tensions between conflicting views are not always smoothed over. For example, Macquarrie's discussion of the late Medieval nobility is based on A. Grant and J. Wormald's conclusions...