For many years historians have ignored the men and families whose territorial power and local leadership made them a cardinal force in medieval Scotland.
They were, as the historian K.B. McFarlane put it, ’the victims of a strong prejudice in favour of the Crown’: there was an unwillingness to discuss individual barons save from the viewpoint of the king, and there was also a strong tendency to malign the nobility for a chronic turbulence and a natural antagonism towards the monarchy.
The Scottish Baronial Research Group was founded in 1969 to redress this balance. The contents of this book are made up of a number of essays which were presented as papers at the group’s annual conference in 1985, and demonstrate that in the space of a short time, much serious research had taken place. Together they bring us closer to a ’history’ of the nobility of medieval Scotland and as such this book is a major landmark in Scottish medieval history.
Charter Evidence and the Distribution of Mottes in Scotland - Grant G. Simpson and Bruce Webster
The Earldom of Caithness and the Kingdom of Scotland, 1150–1266 - Barbara E. Crawford
The Early Lords of Lauderdale, Dryburgh Abbey and St Andrew’s Priory at Northampton - Keith Stringer
The Charters of David, Earl of Huntingdon and Lord of Garioch: A Study of Anglo-Scottish Diplomatic - Keith Stringer
The Familia of Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and Constable of Scotland - Grant G. Simpson
The Political Role of Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, During the Minority of Alexander III of Scotland - Alan Young
The Balliol Family and the Great Cause of 12912 - Geoffrey Stell
James Fifth Stewart of Scotland - Geoffrey Barrow and Ann Royan
The Scottish Medieval Castle: Form, Function and ’Evolution’ - Geoffrey Stell
Extinction of Direct Male Lines among Scottish Noble Families in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries - Alexander Grant
William Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, and his Family: A Study in the Politics of Survival - Barbara E. Crawford
Crown versus Nobility: The Struggle for the Priory of Coldingham 1472–88 - Norman Macdougall
Taming the Magnates - Jenny Wormald.
Keith Stringer was educated at Cambridge University and has taught at the University of Lancaster since 1973. He is well known as a medievalist.
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