Scotland in 1285 – A Mini-Investigation
Introduction
Over 700 years ago Scotland was a very
different place than it is today. This unit of
work will help you understand what it was
like to live in Scotland seven centuries ago
and will introduce you to some of the key
ideas you will have to investigate to know
more about this first National 4 / 5 topic –
Scotland in the time of Wallace and Bruce.
Population
Back in 1285 the population of Scotland was around
500 000, around eleven times less what it is today. Back
then Scotland had few towns and no big cities. The map
shows some of the main towns, such as Edinburgh, Perth,
Glasgow and Stirling. Each of these had less than 1000
people living in them! Most Scots lived in villages of less
than 100 people. The capital of Scotland was Perth, not
Edinburgh.
Transport
Most of Scotland was covered in mountains and thick forests. It was very difficult to
travel about the country. There were no proper roads and those that did exist were
dirt tracks or old Roman roads, many of which had fallen into disrepair. Most people
therefore did not travel or leave their villages. It was too difficult and dangerous.
There was danger from bandits and outlaws who roamed the forests. There was also
the danger from wild animals such as bears and wolves. Those people who did travel
used horses and boats.
The People
Most of Scotland’s people were very poor. They lived in the countryside and worked
as farmers. Most of these farmers worked for rich people who owned the land. They
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worked long hours and received little pay. All members of the family worked,
including the smallest children. Houses were also very different. They tended to be
small and simple, made from wood with mud walls and straw roofs. Conditions were
cramped and families often kept their animals in the houses with them.
Some of these houses were so dark inside
that they were nicknamed ‘black houses’. A
tax had been placed on the number of
windows on each house so poor people put
as few as possible into their homes.
Food was also very different. As poorer
people could not afford to buy much meat,
most people used a diet based on vegetables.
People also ate porridge, oatcakes, broth
soup and cabbage. Sometimes they would
also have fish.
Education in 1285 was very limited. No one went to school apart from the sons of
the very richest people. Most of the population could not read or write. Those that
could tended to be rich nobles or the priests in the church.
Living and Dying
Life expectancy in Scotland in the 13th Century was very short. On average a
Scotsman born in 1285 could expect to live until about 35 years old. A Scotswoman
had an even shorter life and could expect to live to about 30. On top of this around
50% of children would not survive to the age of 5. One reason for this was that
medical knowledge was so poor. People did not know what caused disease. Some
claimed it was the result of ‘bad blood’ in the body and therefore the ‘cure’ was to
bleed people. Veins were cut and blood was allowed to flow. The problem with this
was that, unknown to the people at the time, this made the patient weaker and
more likely to die.
Burghs
Burghs were the most important towns in Scotland. The Kings of
Scotland created Royal Burghs which were different from ordinary
towns, with the right to hold markets and send an MP (Member of
Parliament) to the Scottish Parliament. They would also have a
royal castle behind the town walls. Dumfries became a royal burgh
in 1186.
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The Church
700 years ago people were far more religious than they are today. All the people in
Scotland belonged to the Catholic Church and believed virtually everything that their
priests told them. The head of the Church in Scotland was the Bishop of St Andrews.
The head of the whole Catholic Church was the Pope in Rome, a powerful man
whose decisions were listened to by all the Kings across Europe.
Scotland’s Powerful Neighbours
One of Scotland’s big problems was the fact that she was surrounded by two
powerful neighbours, Norway and England - neighbours who had both tried to attack
her. Both of these countries were larger and more powerful than Scotland. English
kings claimed that they were in fact the overlords of Scotland and therefore that
Scottish kings should obey their decisions. As recently as 1263 Norway had tried to
invade and take over Scotland but had been defeated at the Battle of Largs. The
Norwegians did however rule the islands of Orkney and Shetland at this time.
To try to improve relations between Scotland and her neighbours and put off the
threat of attack, various royal marriages had taken place. Like his father Alexander
II, King Alexander III (1249-1286) married an English princess, Margaret. She was
the sister of the English king, King Edward I. Their daughter, also called Margaret,
married King Erik of Norway.
The Feudal System
The Feudal System was used to run Scotland 700 years ago. King David I brought it
to Scotland in 1124. It was used by the King to help him rule the country. The
system was based on land. The King owned all the land but in order to run the
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country effectively, gave some of it away to nobles or great barons. In return for this
land, the barons promised to obey the King, help carry out his laws, give him food
and money, and finally provide soldiers to fight for the King. To get their land,
barons had to swear an oath of loyalty to the King.
This was called ‘paying homage’, as the barons
accepted the King as their superior or ‘overlord’.
Once the barons had received their land, they then
divided it up and gave it to knights, who in return
promised to obey the barons and be the soldiers who
would fight for the King. The knights would divide up
their land amongst the peasant farmers or ‘villeins’
who would provide food and work for the knights in
return.
The King
In 1285 the King of Scotland was Alexander III. He had ruled Scotland since 1249
and belonged to a long line of Scottish kings dating back to King Kenneth MacAlpin
in 843AD. The King had total power, making all the laws and expecting complete
obedience. The King would place his ‘great seal’ on documents to make them law
and the people would be informed of such laws by the town crier, shouting them out
to the gathered crowds.
Throughout his reign, Alexander controlled the
powerful nobles and tried to deal fairly with his
people. In the countryside, the peasants could
grow their crops and rear their animals without
fear of having them destroyed or stolen by
invaders. Trade grew, and the towns and burghs
prospered. By modern standards, Scotland was a
very poor country, but life was improving for most
people. Many called this period of Scottish history
a ‘Golden Age’, yet troubled times were just
around the corner.
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Assignments – Scotland in 1285
Your task is to use the following assignments to build a picture about life in Scotland
in the 13th Century. Use the provided illustration sheet to accompany the facts you
are selecting.
Population
Answer the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What was the population of Scotland at the end of the 13th Century?
Identify at least three of Scotland’s largest towns at this time.
How many people lived in each of these large towns?
How large were the villages in which most of the population lived?
What was Scotland’s capital at this time?
Paste a copy of the map into your jotter.
Transport
Summarise this section, ensuring you use the following key words and phrases –
landscape roads
dangers
methods of transport
The People
1. Link the Heads and Tails and write the completed sentences into your jotter.
Heads
Tails
Most Scots worked
mud walls and straw roofs
The pay they received
‘black houses’
Houses were
in the same house as the people
They were constructed with
was very low
Animals were kept
as farmers
The dark homes were known as
small and simple
2. Paste the medieval house into your jotter.
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3. Consider a likely meal plan for a day in the life of an average Scottish farmer.
Lay it out in the following way:
Insert today’s date, 1285
Breakfast –
Lunch –
Snack –
Dinner –
4. Which two groups of people tended to be those who could read and write?
Living and Dying
Copy the following table into your jotter and fill in the blanks
Average age of death for men
Average age of death for women
Percentage of children expected to live
beyond 5 years
Treatment for disease or ‘bad blood’
Effectiveness of this treatment
Question Practice – The ‘Describe’ Question
One of the types of questions you will face
in this course is known as the ‘Describe’
question, where you are simply asked to
show your knowledge about what happened
in a particular event, or to ‘describe’ a
number of historical facts.
As you work your way through this introduction unit, imagine what type of ‘Describe’
questions an examiner could ask e.g.
Describe the lives of Scottish people in 1285.
Or
Describe some of the problems facing Scottish people in the 13th Century.
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This question will be worth 5 marks in a test so it would be helpful if you could think
of at least this number of different facts.
1. Select one of the above questions, write it into your jotter and bullet point six
facts that you think would help answer it. Use the information you’ve
gathered so far in this unit.
2. Once you are happy with your choice of bullet points, see how quickly you
could write out the answer in paragraph form. Your teacher may give you one
or two ideas for how this can be done e.g. it is vital that you write out each
point in its own sentence!
In the final exam you will have less than 10 minutes to complete this so see
how close you can get to this in your first go at this type of question.
Burghs
1. What were ‘burghs’?
2. Who created royal burghs and what privileges did they enjoy?
The Church
Copy and complete the following paragraph.
There was only one accepted church in 1285, the ----- -------- church. Its leader was
the ----, who lived in ----. All kings and queens across Europe tried to obey his
wishes. The head of the church in Scotland was the Bishop of -- -------.
Scotland’s Powerful Neighbours
1. Which two powerful countries surrounded Scotland?
2. Identify the English king and explain why he claimed to have power over
Scotland.
3. What part of modern Scotland was ruled by Norway in 1285?
Internet / Homework Task
Visit the webpage http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/alexander_iii/ and
in no more than 100 words, explain how Alexander III dealt with the threat from the
Vikings up to 1266.
Leave a dozen lines or so in your jotter to complete this task if moving on to ‘The
Feudal System’
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The Feudal System
1. Paste the diagram into your jotter and underneath write three sentences
explaining how the system worked. The first sentence could look like this:
The firststage of the feudal system saw the Kinggrant land to his barons in return
for their obedience and the promise of knights to fight for the King.
The words in bold are those that would have be changed for the second and third
sentences.
2. What does it mean to ‘pay homage’ to someone?
The King
1. Paste and label your picture of Alexander III in your jotter.
2. Describe how laws were made and explained to the people in 1285.
3. Suggest at least three reasons why some people called Alexander III’s reign
as a ‘golden age’.
Question Practice – The ‘Usefulness’ Question
If you have taken a History class in
S2 or S3 you may already be
familiar with questions asking you
to judge how useful a source is.
The question will look something
like this:
Evaluate the usefulness of Source A as evidence of the lives of Scottish people during
the reign of Alexander III.
The word ‘evaluate’ really means you should think carefully about what makes a
history source useful. There are a number of ways in which you can answer this
question, some of which are very similar to the DADA technique used in S2 and S3.
The DADA technique stood for Date, Author, Detail, Accuracy.
This year we are going to use the technique TADDO.
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TEACHERS
AT
DALBEATTIE
DEFINITELY
OVERWEIGHT
TRAINERS’
AROMA
DEEMED
DESPERATELY
OFFENSIVE
TOXIC
ALIENS
DESTROY
DALBEATTIE’S
OWLS
TYPE
AUTHOR
DATE
DETAIL
OMISSIONS
TYPE – Types of sources could include letters, speeches, diary entries, memoirs.
Think about whether people are likely to be telling the truth in each of these. Do you
think they may exaggerate or be biased? How might each of these affect the
source’s usefulness?
AUTHOR – Was the author of the source in a good position to comment on the topic?
Were they in a position of authority or responsibility? Should they know what they
are talking about? Did they witness the events themselves? How does this affect
usefulness?
DATE – Is the source a primary or a secondary source. If it is
primary, what was going on at the time it was written? How
does this affect usefulness?
TADDO!!!
DETAIL – Can you pick out specific points of detail that the
source tells you that help to answer the question? Decide how
each one affects how useful the source is.
OMISSIONS – Omissions is a fancy term for things which are left out. Can you think
of important points that the source has missed out? Say what they are and note how
they show the source to be less useful.
As you can see, it is vital that you make a comment for every single point as to
how it affects the usefulness of the source. So, if the question is worth 5 marks
you would have to ensure that you include phrases like ‘…and this will make it
more useful because…’ or ‘…but it is less useful as…’ at least 5 times.
 A maximum of three marks are available for looking at the Type, Author
and Date of the source.
 A maximum of two marks are available for looking at the Detail of the
source.
 A maximum of two marks are also available for introducing points of
Omission.
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Therefore, there are a number of different ways in which you could build up your
score to the 5 or 6 marks. Even if the question is only worth 5, it is always wise to
try and write an answer worth one more. This will mean that although you may
make one mistake, you could still end up with full marks.
Source Practice
Consider the following source. It was written in a letter from a former pupil in
Dalbeattie High to the headteacher in 2012.
I would like to say a big thank you to all the staff who helped me during my
time at Dalbeattie. When I was going through S2 and S3 I wasn’t very
interested in my studies and probably annoyed a lot of people with my
attitude. But you didn’t give up on me and helped me to get through the rest
of school and achieve the grades that have allowed me to move on and do
exactly what I was hoping to do. I don’t think I realised what a good school it
is until I spoke to other people about what their school days were like.
Think about this source (evaluate it!). Spend a few moments with a partner
considering the TADDO questions. Then discuss your findings with your teacher.
Now read through this Scottish Wars source. Imagine it was part of a letter written
by a Scottish baron to Alexander III in 1285.
You have ruled now for many years. It has been a time of peace and prosperity. More
land has been turned over to agriculture; monasteries and abbeys have grown and
flourished. Trade with the continent brings much needed supplies and has bolstered the
economy. The country is on good terms with England, a powerful and reliable
neighbour.
You have also enjoyed military triumph, defeating the Norwegian king at Largs twenty
years past, adding the Western Isles to your domain. We should all be thankful to God
for your successful and glorious reign.
Think about this question –
Evaluate the usefulness of Source A as evidence of life in Scotland during
the reign of Alexander III.
5
Once again spend a few moments thinking about TADDO and how these questions
affect this source’s usefulness.
Do you think you would be able to answer a question such as this in 10 minutes?
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