Native Lordship in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox, c.1140-1365 (review)

Cynthia Neville's Native Lordship in Medieval Scotland is a comprehensive study of Gaelic lordship in the earldoms of and Lennox from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Her primary objective is to assess the responses of the 'native' comital families of these earldoms to the arrival of English and Continental newcomers during what has been called the 'Anglo-Norman era' of Scottish history. Neville's originality lies in her choice of case studies, which challenge established ideas about the survival of native families in post-Davidian Scotland. Prevalent historiographical tradition has worked with the themes of native disaffection against the crown, and native families' success in achieving rank and status. The conventional view is that between 1125 and 1290 there was an inevitable and steady 'integration of the customs and mores of Gaels and Europeans, despite moments of rebellion and resistance' (p. 6). The crux of the debate is to what degree the newcomers were able to impose a foreign set of values upon the Gaelic populations, or the extent to which native ideas and social organisation survived the 'cultural onslaught of the newcomers' (p. 4). On these points Neville gives us valuable insights into the two very different earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox.

In Neville's case studies, the great period of change commences around 1140, and she draws her survey to a close around 1365, the year in which Donald, earl of Lennox died. Whilst studies of lordship in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are not uncommon, Neville continues her study into the fourteenth century to assess the reaction to the Europe-wide disintegration of land-based relationships, a major focus of the book. This was a period in which she discerns a decreasing level of cultural diversity amongst the natives and newcomers to Strathearn and Lennox. The study of the process by which these changes occurred between the mid-twelfth and the mid-fourteenth centuries is the fundamental ambition of this book. The first chapter reviews the history of the families of Strathearn and Lennox between the reigns of David I and David II. Here Neville examines the successes (and failures) of the Scottish kings in engaging the native earls in the governance of the realm and the consequences of the families' involvement in national politics. The central chapters of the book study the tenurial structures of the communities of Strathearn and Lennox and how the earls expressed their authority as provincial rulers. Neville also considers the impact of the reform of the Church during the twelfth century and identifies patterns of social, political and religious transformation. Her final chapter puts forward a thematic assessment of Gaelic lordship in 'Anglo-Norman' Scotland, considering the importance of charter writing and the evidence of cultural hybridity and integration in aspects of medieval life such as the family, language and literature.

Neville has made some interesting assertions, including identifying the period before 1250 in Strathearn and 1270 in Lennox as being characterised by profound tensions between natives and newcomers. There was also notable resistance to the influence of new ideas in the same period. She argues that 'the process of transculturation and accommodation that occurred in the course of the several decades after 1140 cannot be characterized either as conservative or reactionary. Gaelic-speaking land holders, great and small, absorbed and internalized the influences of the newcomers in their midst. The foreigners, for their part, found much of value in the kin based society of their native fellows.' (p.10). These newcomers brought with them unfamiliar languages, a system of landownership that valued the written word, new methods of measuring wealth and status, and new cultural fashions.

From the mid-thirteenth century, Neville argues, opposition faded and charter evidence reveals that new structures, new forms of lordly prerogative and new ecclesiastical and confessional practices were commonplace, that reflected both Gaelic and European practices. By the...