38. CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN EARLY AND LATER MEDIEVAL SCOTLAND (EIGHTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES)
INTRODUCTION
Later medieval Scottish chroniclers, such as WALTER BOWER, often had few written sources on which to rely, and so made use of orally transmitted tales and supposed eyewitness accounts that were passed down through the generations. What comes to be emphasized, especially in the early history of the Scots, is a level of violence and disorder that seems custom-designed to contrast with the civilized and orderly society of later medieval Scotland.
Two examples, one from the eighth century and the other from the thirteenth, demonstrate the ways in which such oral testimonies became mythologized and narratized into lessons for later Scots folk. This is particularly the case with the description of the death in 1222 of Adam, Bishop of Caithness, who, after attending the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, attempted to impose the same kinds of ecclesiastical rights in his diocese of Caithness (in the far north of Scotland) as were permitted in other parts of Scotland. Earl Jon Haraldsson of Caithness, whose loyalties were divided between the King of Scotland and, as the Earl of Orkney, the King of Norway, failed to protect his bishop against the angry mob. His lack of action spurred King Alexander II to threaten to invade Caithness, prompting Earl Jon to travel to the king’s Christmas court at Forfar to swear to his innocence.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
Chroniclers have multiple motives for including specific events in their histories, and these two examples demonstrate the competing motives of historical narration and lessons in ethical and moral behavior. Both are designed as well to demonstrate the savagery of the north in comparison to the civilization and security of the south, a common trope in Scottish chronicles.
Document 1: Mayhem in Medieval Scotland
The Murder of King Fergus Son of Aed Find of Dál Riata (R. 778–781) by His Wife
[Fergus] is said to have been poisoned by his wife and queen who was excessively jealous of him because of his affairs with other women. She afterwards openly admitted to the deed, although she was suspected by no one of such a crime. When she looked upon the dead king’s body, with mournful cries and tearing her hair, she burst out with these or similar words: “Most wretched of women, more savage than any wild beast, basest betrayer, what have you done? Have you not wickedly killed with a most cruel king of treachery, most like in this respect to the asp and urged on by wanton madness, your lord the king, most loving of all husbands and handsome beyond the love of women, whom alone you loved with the innermost love of your heart more than all men now living? But this wicked crime will not go unpunished. I shall be avenged upon myself. Accordingly do you, accursed hand, hasten to prepare and do not let pass this same cup with which you drank the health of your lord, not long ago your sweetest lover, or boldly prepare an even more bitter cup for my lips too!” Then after she had drained the lethal draught she immediately began: “But that witch’s potion ought not to suffice as full atonement for me who committed such a great crime. No! rather should I be tied to the tails of horses and dragged off to be hanged and this unspeakable body should be burnt to ashes in fires of thorns and the ashes scattered to the wind.”
The Murder of Adam, Bishop of Caithness (1222)
This year that illustrious pastor Adam bishop of Caithness, formerly abbot of Melrose, along with Serlo his monk earned the fellowship of the saints after much suffering. For after the savage threats of impious men, after the bruising of injuries and bloody wounds, after the clubs of James and the stones of Stephen, at length he suffered the fire of Laurence by being burnt in his own house called Halkirk. His body scorched by the fire and bruised by the stoning was found whole beneath a heap of stones after the fire, and was given an honorable burial in the church. All this happened because he demanded teinds [tithes] and other ecclesiastical rights from those in his jurisdiction. They became inflamed with rage, and more than 300 men assembled in one place on the Sunday within the week after the [feast of the] Nativity of the Blessed Mary [September 8th]. And he was stoned by them, seized, beaten, bound, wounded, stripped and thrown into his own kitchen, which had been set on fire, and there he was burnt to death. Before this they killed the monk who was his companion, as well as one of his servants. But Earl John of Caithness, although he stayed nearby and had seen the people in arms converging from all sides, when asked by some of the bishop’s servants to come and help, ignored what was going on, saying: “If the bishop is afraid, let him come to me.” And it was because of this that many believed him to be party to this crime.
But our lord king Alexander, as he was on the point of setting out for England and had halted at Jedburgh to settle some business of his realm, was brought the news of this crime by trustworthy messengers. So he put that business aside and, raising an army as became a catholic man and a prince ordained by God, he set out for Caithness. Though the aforesaid earl proved on the testimony of good men that he was innocent and had offered no support or advice to those ruffians, yet because he had no immediately south to take appropriate vengeance on them, had to give up a great part of his lands and [pay] a large sum of money to the king in order to win his favour. He likewise handed over for punishment many of those who had done this deed; and the king had their limbs cut off and subjected them to various tortures.
While the lord king celebrated Christmas at Forfar, the earl of Caithness came to meet him, and there after handing over money recovered from the king the land which he had made over the year before [as reparation] for the death and burning of the bishop already mentioned. However the earl did not escape punishment for that crime, for when seven years had elapsed that same earl was hemmed in by his foes in his own house, killed and burnt. Which only goes to show the truth of the following lines:
There is no juster law in human affairs
Than that of the murderer perishes by violent death himself.
Source: Bower, Walter. A History Book for Scots. Edited by D. E. R. Watt. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1998. Pp. 26, 135–137.
AFTERMATH
According to legend, King Fergus’s grandson was Kenneth MacAlpin, who is traditionally counted as the first king of a united Scots people, having conquered the Pictish lands and joined them to Dál Riata, the western region of Scotland, to create the kingdom of the “Scots.” The alleged murder by and suicide of a Scots queen out of jealousy for her husband’s mistresses does not seem to have deterred future kings of the Scots from engaging in similar behavior, as many were known to have numerous illegitimate children, including the important king Malcolm III.
The death of Bishop Adam was a useful excuse for King Alexander II (r. 1214–1249) to push his sovereign boundaries northward into lands at least nominally controlled by the kings of Norway. His were the first truly successful inroads into the northern reaches of Britain. However, the bishops of Caithness continued to struggle to gain the kind of control over their diocese as the bishops of southern Scotland enjoyed.
ASK YOURSELF
How reliable do you think orally transmitted histories might be, even when they are not filled with supernatural elements?
Why would the men of Caithness—who professed to be Christian, after all—be so hostile to the idea of a bishop exercising jurisdiction over them?
In what way was King Alexander II’s intercession into the religious conflict in Caithness a politically astute move?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
North–south conflicts in Scotland were an enduring situation throughout the medieval period (and beyond). Consider this reading in light of the excerpt on King William the Lion’s invasion of the same region of Caithness and the revolt of Donald MacWilliam.
Although the murder of King Fergus occurred three centuries before the reign of Macbeth, King of Alba (r. 1040–1057), their stories came to feature legendary depictions of wives who are murderous—neither of which are factual or verifiable. Consider the role of the ambitious or vengeful wife in popular legends about kings, and the possible influence of the story of King Fergus’s wife on William Shakespeare’s depiction of Lady MacBeth.
Further Information
Cowan, Edward J. “Myth and Identity in Early Medieval Scotland.” The Scottish Historical Review 63, no. 176, pt. 2 (1984): 111–135.
Hammond, Matthew H. “Ethnicity and the Writing of Medieval Scottish History.” The Scottish Historical Review 85, no. 219, pt. 1 (2006): 1–27.