Medieval Scotland | Alice Goodwin

‘Unreliable Barbarians’: How Language Contributed to Cultural Conflict in Late Medieval Scotland

By Alice Goodwin

Gaelic society and culture in late medieval Scotland were comprised of a complex system of lordships, languages, and identities, built over hundreds of years and assigned various ethnic labels before Gaelic. The changes that are observed in the associations of Gaelic culture and society with barbarity and political unreliability are external judgements brought about by attempts to distinguish the English, and later the Lowlanders, from the Gaels. Accusations of political unreliability are largely rooted in the familial rivalries which occurred in the Lordship of the Isles during the later medieval period, with violent in-fighting and frequent shifts in power fuelling observers to class Gaelic society as politically unreliable. Concepts of barbarity were continually evolving throughout the Middle Ages, and yet the accusation of Gaelic barbarity occurred at every point of its linguistic evolution, showing the continued need for neighbours to the south to differentiate themselves from the Gaelic society in the north. This was exemplified in the Highland/Lowland distinction which was prominent by the end of the fourteenth century, allowing the newly emerged ‘Scots’ of the Lowlands to associate themselves with the civilisation of the English by creating a geographical and societal divide. In doing so it is clear that associations of barbarity and political unreliability assigned to Gaelic culture and society provide insights about those perpetuating the judgment, rather than showing a reflection of Gaelic society itself, displaying the wish of the ‘accusers’, whether English or Lowlanders, to distance themselves from what they judged to be undesirable traits possessed by Gaels.

The late medieval period is typically characterised as beginning with the Anglo-Norman invasion and ending in the early sixteenth century with the Nine Years War, although this is a significantly Anglicised picture of the period which also includes significant change for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Throughout the early medieval period, and before the formation of a ‘Kingdom of the Scots’, there were numerous ethnic groups living in the north of Britain, each establishing dominance at different points, including the Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, Angles, Britons, and the Vikings. Following the conquest of the eleventh century and the Anglicisation of parts of southern Scotland, Gaelic society and culture was spotlighted as a barbaric corner in what was becoming a progressively civilised island, at least in the eyes of the English. The Scottish Gaelic identity at this point was emerging as distinct from that of Ireland, with the languages growing apart and a new separate consciousness as the Gaels of Scotland developing, along with unmistakable differences in art and appearance. It remained the case in the later medieval period that Scotland contained an array of languages and ethnicities, including variations on Celtic, Scandinavian, and English language, and yet a seeming dichotomy emerged between Gaelic culture and society and that of the developing Scottish nation in the south of the country. Perhaps because the two most prominent cultures were those of the Gaels and the new Scots south of the Forth, they were pitted against each other, at least in the eyes of the Lowlanders. For at this time the notion of the nation was appearing, and it may be the case that the Scots were attempting to assert their culture and society as the dominant and most civilised – and, as such, the proper culture of Scotland.

Associations between Gaelic society and barbarism were not new to the later Middle Ages, as the term had been used to describe inhabitants of northern

Britain for centuries, although the use of the word had significantly changed since late Antiquity when

Roman authors were commenting on the Picts or the

‘wild Scots.’ Previously meaning pagan, or a nonreligious person, Romans were able to assign the label of barbarian to groups and in doing so assert their superiority and justify intervention on behalf of the Church. However, as Christianity spread and there were fewer pagan groups, the use of ‘barbarian’ changed, now coming to mean peoples living in a way deemed to be sub-Christian, even if they believed in the Christian God. Adapting the meaning of the word allowed for societies to express their superiority over others, as it is only through the self-identification of one culture as civilised that the image of the barbarian is created. Accounts of those living in the north of Scotland are seemingly consistent throughout history, with Solinus in the third century describing the Scots as ‘rough and warlike with barbaric customs,’ and both the Scots and Picts characterised as ‘savage tribes’ by Ammianus Marcellinus in 360.

External perceptions of northern British society, including those of the Picts, the Scots, and the Gaels can be seen to change little throughout the centuries preceding the period in question, and associations with barbarism and political unreliability were already well-established by the end of the twelfth century. The consistency of writings on the Scots and 14

Gaels suggest that judgements were merely being repeated throughout the Middle Ages, rather than new perspectives sought and opinions reconsidered. This encourages the question of whether associations between Gaelic culture and society actually increased during the later medieval period, or whether they were just repeated more often.

The understanding of the idea of barbarity had grown by the later Middle Ages to encompass cultural judgements, although religion was still a major factor in the concept of barbarianism, which now featured an emphasis on ‘ungodliness’, with observers determining that the behaviour of the Gaels, their savagery and ignorance of proper Christian action was not sufficiently godly and required intervention. Such traits are highlighted by Gerald of Wales, writing in the late twelfth century, using the example of Gilbert of Galloway who, in his bid for rule of Galloway, had blinded and murdered his halfbrother, assuming rule in 1174. Perceptions of Scots as barbarians were so pervasive that chroniclers quoted from one another the descriptions of Scottish cruelty throughout the invasion of 1173, none doubting the credibility of such accusations for the image of the savage Scot were at this point entrenched in English opinion. In distancing themselves from their Scottish neighbours in this way, the English were asserting their superiority, which they also employed when discussing Wales and Ireland. The grouping together of the Celtic communities – as the fringes of civilised Europe - ensured that England was considered culturally closer with the rest of Europe than their unruly neighbours. Increasing associations of Gaelic culture with barbarity was in this way not confined to Scots Gaelic, with perceptions of the Irish lords, especially during the Gaelic Resurgence of the fourteenth century, also increasingly fitting with the narrative of civilisation vs barbarism.

By the late thirteenth century, the Highland/ Lowland distinction had emerged, intending to separate Gaelic culture and society from the more anglicised Scots in the Lowlands. This accompanied the changing use of ‘Scots’, which was now used to refer to the Lowlanders, with those living in the Highlands branded as ‘wild Scots’ or ‘Irish’, at a time when the kingdom of Scotland had emerged, meaning that residents were now considered a more homogeneous group than they had been in previous centuries. This concept distressed the Scots in the south, who wished to separate themselves from the Gaels in the north, and remove the associations between all Scots and barbarity, instead shifting the judgement of wild and barbaric onto the Gaelic Scots in the north and west of the country, and in doing so creating distinctions of Lowlander and Highlander. These labels functioned very similarly to those of civilisation and barbarity, with Lowlanders seeking to show their superiority to Highlands and ensure that they were not grouped together with the Gaels of the Highlands by those in England or Europe. There is also a geographical element to these labels, with the landscape of the Highlands being unsuitable for the agriculture practiced in the Lowlands, contributing to ideas of Highlanders as unwilling to work and occupied with their feasting and fighting, in contrast to the Lowlanders who had complex agricultural and societal systems in place. In drawing identities based both on perceived ethnicity and geography, Lowlanders created a penetrating cultural system that survived many centuries and caused much animosity between the groups, succeeding in stirring up prejudice towards the Highlanders, and in doing so, reducing associations between themselves and Gaelic culture and society.

To conclude, the associations of Gaelic culture and society with barbarism and political unreliability throughout the later Middle Ages have very little to do with the substance of Gaelic society itself, instead being the work of observers seeking to separate themselves from what they perceived to be the flaws of the Gaels. Ideas of political unreliability within Gaelic society in this period are often attributed to the violence and instability of the Lordship of the Isles, which in itself is a selective view and cherrypicks aspects which are perceived to be barbaric to an outsider. Associating the Scottish with barbarism was not new in the later medieval period, and yet the associations grew through the deliberate escalation of the English and the Lowlanders. The English sought to separate themselves from their Celtic neighbours throughout this time, envisioning their place as the civilised society surrounded by barbarians, with the contrast only emphasising their superiority. This mindset was also adopted by the new Lowlanders of Scotland, with their anglicised culture and society being pitted against Gaelic culture and society, highlighting Gaelic barbarity and political unreliability in order to align themselves with the civilised English. In drawing upon wellestablished ideas of the ‘wild Scot’, Lowlanders were able to continue the narrative of the barbarians in the north of Britain, only now excluding themselves and characterising Scotland as a country of two halves, one half civilised and the other barbarous.