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Medieval cartularies are one of the most significant sources for a historian of the Middle Ages. Once viewed as simply repositories of charters, cartularies are now regarded as carefully curated collections of texts whose contents and arrangement reflect the immediate concerns and archival environment of the communities that created them. One feature of the cartulary in particular that has not been studied so fully is its materiality: the fact that it is a manuscript. Consequently, it has not been recognised that many cartularies are multi-scribe manuscripts which grew for many decades after their initial creation, both physically and textually. This book offers a new methodology which engages with multi-scribe contributions in two cartulary manuscripts: the oldest cartularies of Glasgow Cathedral and Lindores Abbey. It integrates the physical and textual features of the manuscripts in order to analyse how and why they grew in stages across time. Applying this methodology reveals two communities that took an active approach to reading and shaping their cartularies, treating these manuscripts as a shared space. This raises fundamental questions about the definition of cartularies and how they functioned, their relationship to archives of single-sheet documents, and as sources for institutional identity. It therefore takes a fresh look at the genre of medieval cartularies through the eyes of the manuscripts themselves, and what this can reveal about their medieval scribes and readers. JOANNA TUCKER gained her PhD from the University of Glasgow.
Models of Authority: Scottish Charters and the Emergence of Government is a resource for the study of the contents, script and physical appearance of the corpus of Scottish charters which survives from 1100–1250. Through close examination of the diplomatic and palaeographic features of the charters, the project will explore the evidence for developments in the perception of royal government during a crucial period in Scottish history. The project is funded by the AHRC (2014-2017) and is a collaboration between scholars from the Universities of Glasgow, Cambridge and King's College London.
The period between 1093 and 1286 laid the foundations for modern Scotland. At its start, the king of Scots ruled no more than a small east coast realm between Lothian and Moray. At its end, his authority extended over the whole area of modern Scotland apart from the Northern Isles. During the same period, Scotland's society and culture was transformed by the king implanting a new nobility of Anglo-Norman origin and establishing English influenced structures of law and government. Rees Davies observed of Scotland that 'paradoxically, the most extensively English-settled and Anglicised part of the British Isles was the country which retained its political independence' (The First English Empire, 170). The paradox could go deeper. Is it a coincidence that it was only in the thirteenth century, when Anglicisation became dominant in the lowlands, that the kingdom of the Scots ceased to be regarded by its inhabitants as a realm of many regions and began to be thought of as a single country and people? In one sense the kingdom was becoming more self-consciously Scottish; and yet its history in this period is typically seen in terms of native distinctiveness being eroded by the influx of English immigration, social institutions and culture. But, should this be seen primarily in British terms? How does this transformation relate to wider patterns of social and cultural homogenisation that have been identified in this period, embracing French-speaking elites, Flemish as well as English traders, and the religious life and institutions of Latin Christendom?
This project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council from 2007 until 2010 and combining members of the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and King's College London to investigate how a recognisably modern Scottish identity was formed during the period 1093-1286. Drawing on over 6000 contemporary charters, it constructed a unique data-base which provided biographical information about all known people in Scotland between 1093 and 1286. This has now been updated to 1314 as part of the Breaking of Britain project. This enlarged database is freely available to all on the 'Database' tab above.