Land Assessment and Lordship in Medieval Northern Scotland by Alasdair Ross (review)

Alasdair Ross is one of a small group of Scottish historians concerned with environmental, and specifically landscape, history, in the way pioneered sixty years ago in England by W. G. Hoskins.

Ross believes that the historical palimpsest of an area can be decoded and discerned by careful examination of the land as it is despite the sparse surviving records. He argues that the use and survival of particular descriptive terms for landscape divisions is critical to a proper interpretation of what occurred and to this end he has chased down every reference to dabhach in surviving Scottish records. This book lists in its appendices the results of Ross's search. It will be essential for any student of local history in northern Scotland who needs to know where and what these units of landholding were, how long they lasted, whether they underwent any changes, what size and shape they were, and what resources – from fishing to grazing – they included.

From this, Ross seeks to establish where the units came from. Dismissing nearly all prior explanations and drawing on Alex Woolf's demonstration that the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu was north of the Mounth, he argues that despite the absence of direct evidence the original unit was Pictish. Like many contemporary European landscape historians, Ross argues that the units were imposed by the central government as part of an attempt to establish order and standardise the dues owed by the occupiers. He acknowledges that continental rulers like the Carolingian dynasty were relatively more powerful, but suggests that some Scottish monarchs must have had enough authority to make such impositions.

Through his painstaking examination of particular dabhach, Ross confirms the theory promoted by Simon Taylor that when the parish formally emerged in Scotland as the area 'within the jurisdiction of a baptismal church' with the right to teinds, its bounds were determined by the existing assessment units. Whether this can be developed to demonstrate that they provided the basis of order in society remains unclear. Ross further claims that each unit had every necessary economic element for self-sufficiency, but has less to say on the matter of continuity or change over time in its exploitation.

While Ross's argument is perhaps too abstruse for the book to serve as an accessible introduction to the subject for newcomers, it will be of great importance to those who already appreciate some of the problems involved.