Scottish Episcopal Acta, Volume 1: The Twelfth Century ed. by Norman F. Shead (review)

Norman F. Shead’s new edition of the 259 surviving episcopal acta from twelfth-century Scotland is extremely welcome. Although many articles have appeared on individual bishops and the foundation of cathedral chapters (by G. W. S. Barrow, Dauvit Broun, A. A. M. Duncan, and, of course, those by Shead himself), historians of the emerging medieval Scottish episcopate are still reliant on the much earlier work of Gordon Donaldson and—now more than a century old—that of John Dowden. The texts of many twelfth-century episcopal acta were also only available in nineteenth-century editions, of which many are problematic. This new edition does not disappoint. There is an efficient yet wide-ranging introduction setting out major narrative issues for the Scottish church, including: the yet-to-befully-discarded notion of a “Celtic church,” the supposed increase in the number of bishoprics under David I (1124–53), relations with new and old monasticism, and between the institutional church and the Scottish kingship and aristocracy. There are two extremely useful empirical appendices: lists of attested episcopal absences from the Scottish kingdom, and tables of acts (and how they survive) listed according to bishopric and bishop, which any working scholar will appreciate. There is also a glossary at the end, so that scholars who are not familiar with the technicalities of twelfth-century Scotland can use this edition more easily.

The acta themselves survive as seventy-two single sheets and 182 medieval copies (mostly in cartularies) and five as antiquarian transcripts. Shead does not firmly identify any forgeries among the originals (p. xli), a conclusion that other scholars might take on elsewhere. The diplomatic introduction is brief but useful, concentrating on the internal form of the documents, and produces interesting observations (such as the variety of ways the small bishopric of Dunblane had for safeguarding its rights). But there is no discussion of the hands among the seventytwo single sheets, so the reader remains uninformed about the production context and, given the importance of monastic houses in preserving the large proportion of surviving episcopal acta (particularly so given that many acts focus on that relationship), more could have been said on the archival context and its significance.

There are some real gems among the acta. Some will delight the specialist (the bishop of Dunblane, for example, being titled “bishop of Strathearn” in no. 38). The relationship between the bishop of Brechin and Arbroath Abbey is something which comes out particularly clearly. Most of the fifteen surviving episcopal acta (nos. 12-27) from Brechin (of which the earliest dates from the episcopacy of Turpin, March 1179–1191/98, and the latest to that of Ralph, 1198/9–1212/14) have some reference to handing over churches and church land to the nearby abbey of Arbroath, a royal foundation set up by King William after his defeat and capture in the 1173-74 Great Rebellion against Henry II. This gives one a sense of the intrusion of these major foundations into local society and their effect on developing episcopal jurisdiction (no wonder salvis episcopalibus appears so frequently among the acta). But there is also wider relevance: the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical courts (e.g., no. 113); the performance of homage to make peace (no. 108).

In addition, it is possible (through the generosity of the editor himself) to link this new edition to new digital search platforms, which themselves can create new research agendas. In 2007, the editor, Norman Shead, provided the new AHRC-funded project, “The Paradox of Medieval Scotland,” headed by Dauvit Broun at the University of Glasgow, with his then near-complete edition. That project (together with “The Breaking of Britain”) produced the combined charter-factoid and prosopographical database, “The People of Medieval Scotland, 1094-1314” (www.poms.ac.uk). Shead’s edition of charter texts can thus be combined with the...