The Court was not forgotten in the reforming zeal of David, and following up the innovations, which seem to have been first introduced by Alexander, he assimilated the Scottish Court to the Anglo-Norman model, with which both brothers must have been familiar. It must not be supposed, however, that before this period a Court was unknown in Scotland; but it was probably of a primitive character, even after the innovations of Queen Margaret. Howel Dha is supposed to have laid down certain regulations, about the middle of the tenth century, for his Court in Wales; and without putting faith in the apocryphal ordinances ascribed to Malcolm the Second, it may be safely assumed that Scotland, in the eleventh century, was at least as far advanced in this respect as Wales in the tenth. Fordun, who gives to Crinan the title of Abthane of Dull and Seneschal of the Isles, describes the Abthane as the Head of all the royal Thanes; and though the title is evidently an error, the office may have been a reality, for it would have been simply identical with that of the Welsh Distyn, the Lord High Steward or Seneschal. In every Scottish Earldom the Seneschal was next in authority to the Earl—his Deputy or Maor, who appeared in his place at the greater Shire Moots appointed by William; and Crinan may have filled such an office under the king. The feature most worthy of remark, however, in the constitution of the Welsh Court, was the rank and position of the royal attendants, the highest alone—the Distyn—being on a footing with the Chief, and the royal officials of the Commot; while only the leading Court officials were on a level with the Breyr, or noble proprietor; and the other members of the household ranked only just above the Boneddig, or Lesser Freeman. Dignity of the highest description, therefore, was not attached at this period to service about the royal person; and the classes from which the Welsh king chose his courtiers and attendants were the lesser freemen, and the dependants known as Mab aillts, rather than the noble class which furnished the Maors and Cynghellwrs.[336]
It must not be imagined that this was a Welsh or a Celtic peculiarity, for there was a time when the Hird, or Court, of the Frank kings was of a yet more primitive description, the attendants in the Hird being all on a servile footing, known as Scalcs, and chosen most probably from the subordinate race. The Household appears to have been under the superintendence of the Sene-scalc—perhaps the Senior Slave—the Stable under the March-scalc, officials who seem to be traceable amongst the Anglo-Saxons in the Wealh-gerefa and the royal Horswealh, the latter raised by his office to the footing of a Ceorl.[337] Totally unconnected with the servile classes, and in the absence of the sovereign exercising royal authority over the whole kingdom, as well as over the Household, was the Deputy, the “Dux et Major Domus regni Francorum,” more familiarly known as the Maire du Palais, whose original Teutonic title was probably the Stallr. The office was originally elective, the Franks choosing the Deputy as well as the actual sovereign; and it must in some respects have resembled that of the Celtic Tascio. It latterly became hereditary, as is well known, in the family of Pepin and Charles Martel, who monopolized the office in Austrasia and Neustrasia, until they exchanged the title of Maire du Palais for that of king. No other great official besides the Stallr is traceable in the Norwegian Court, for which, at the opening of the eleventh century, Olive the Saint framed regulations, which must have been adopted for the usages of other Courts of the same period; though the use of the word Hus-Carles, both there and in England, may point to the gradual replacement of the scalc by the freeman about the royal person. The progress of Roman innovation soon necessitated the presence of officials whom the simpler institutions of the north ignored; and to receive the offerings of the fiscal tenantry, made in lieu of the feorm, veitzslo or actual support afforded to the sovereign and his retinue, a Camera, or treasure-chamber, was required; the leading Camerarius, or Chamberlain, the Lord High Treasurer of the age, becoming, as purse-bearer, a most important member of the Court. The charter next became a necessary document to attest the possession of proprietary right; and accordingly, in the early part of the ninth century, it was ordered in the Frank Capitularies, “that there should be chosen everywhere good and true Chancellors, to write public charters before the Comes, Scabini, and Vicarii.”[338] Much more, then, was it necessary that a similar official should be in attendance at the fountain-head of all chartered grants, and consequently the royal Cancellarius became another most important attendant upon the royal person, the clerkly attributes required for the Chancellorship naturally placing it in the hands of the clergy. Most of these changes were probably introduced amongst the Franks after their king had been converted into the Kaiser of the West; and as the old Allodial Stallr disappeared with the institutions of which he was a part, the office, which raised a subject to such a dangerous proximity to the throne, seems to have been divided between his subordinates. His leadership in war fell to the share of the Constable, the commander of the royal armies, in the absence of the king, whose name is derived from the same title of Stallr, held by a Comes, or Graphio, instead of by the Heretoga of the whole kingdom. The Mareschal had not yet arrived at the leadership of the army; his duties were still connected with the horse, but they had increased in dignity with the growing importance of the Chevalerie; for though not the head of the army, the representative of the royal farrier had become the captain and leader of the Chivalry of the age. The judicial functions of the Stallr were performed by the Grand Justiciary, the President of the royal Courts of Law; whilst the Seneschal, who, though he retained his servile name, had, like the Mareschal, long discarded his servile origin, rose to the office of “Maire du Palais;” and in France he was also supreme over all the justiciaries. In Germany the Stallr was unknown, the Dukes of the Alamanni, Bavarians, and Saxons, having themselves been originally, in some sort, the Stallrs or Deputies of the king of the Franks; and by the time that the Empire passed to the eastward of the Rhine, the Court had become thoroughly Romanized, the Allodial Stallr never forming any part of it. His functions were accordingly divided between his two leading subordinates, the Seneschal and the Mareschal, the former being the Pfaltz Graf, or Count Palatine, and representing the Maire du Palais; whilst the Mareschal was the Heretoga, and leader of the host. Together with the three Chancellors and the Chamberlain, they were the first to give their votes at the election of a Kaiser, whom they were bound to accompany to Rome; and, in later times, with the subsequent addition of the Grand Butler, they were known as the seven Electors, monopolizing amongst themselves the sole choice of the Emperor.
Little can be said of the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Court after the establishment of the sole monarchy by the race of Alfred, though it was scarcely framed at first upon the Roman model, resembling rather that of Wales or Norway, or the Teutonic Hird, after the freeman rather than the noble had replaced the scalc. A nearer advance towards the usages of the Feudal era is disclosed in a charter of the Confessor’s reign, attested apparently by the royal court, the great Jarls or Dukes being the leading witnesses amongst the laity; and next to them in importance the Stallr, known under his Latin title of “Regiæ procurator Aulæ,” probably the Constable. The Aulicus seems to be the next official—he may have been the Chamberlain—and the Palatinus, perhaps the Pfaltz Graf, or Seneschal of the Household; followed by the Chancellor, whose office was deemed at this time of scarcely sufficient importance to be held by one of the higher clergy. The Butlers of the king and queen, with three Stewards, close the list; two of the latter being attached to the king, whilst the other was in attendance upon the queen.[339] The Justiciary and the great Feudal functionary, whose name is still identified with military command, are missed from the Court of the Confessor; the Anglo-Saxons were not a race of horsemen—chivalry and the Mareschal came in with the Normans.
Some of these officials may have been introduced into the Scottish Court by Margaret, but with the exception of the Constable, the Justiciary, and the Chancellor, who appear in the time of Alexander, none of the great Feudal dignitaries who were in constant attendance upon the royal court in the middle ages are to be met with in the few existing charters which date before the reign of David. The earliest Constable on record was Edward, son of Siward, who fully justified the confidence of Alexander and David on the field of Stickathrow, the office—of which the jurisdiction, like that of the ancient Stallr, extended over all the country within a certain distance of the royal person—after the death of Edward, becoming hereditary in the great Norman family of De Moreville. Alan, son of Flahald, was another noble of the same race, who, like most of the actual followers of the Conqueror, crossed the Channel before the general use of surnames had arisen amongst the Normans, and upon his son, Walter, David conferred the hereditary Seneschalship of the realm; his descendants, it need hardly be added, deriving their name of Stewart from the dignity thus acquired by their ancestor. Neither the Chamberlain nor the Mareschal held their offices by a similar hereditary tenure; the former in the capacity of royal treasurer, exercising supreme sway over the Third Estate, who paid the largest ordinary contributions into the treasury; holding his “Courts of Eyre” or circuits, and presiding in the great assembly of the burghs; whilst the Mareschal was the supreme judge and referee in Courts of Honour and of Chivalry. The Justiciary and the Chancellor completed the six greater dignitaries of the Scottish Feudal Court, Constantine, Earl of Fife, being Justiciary at the opening of David’s reign, the only Gaelic Earl who appears at that time amongst the leading courtiers holding office. Service about the royal person was scarcely yet regarded as befitting the great Gaelic Mormaors, and as the Court henceforth was in reality the Supreme Council of the kingdom, the preponderance of the Feudal element in the direction of affairs was quickly developed.
Such were the leading features of David’s civil policy; the state of the Scottish Church, and the changes introduced during the course of this reign, will be the subject of the ensuing chapter. The influence of David upon his native country has been compared to that of Alfred upon England, and of Charlemagne upon a wider sphere, but in some respects it was of a different character. Alfred was the saviour of the Anglo-Saxon race from complete subjection to the Danes, and though he can scarcely be called a king of England, he was the real founder of the monarchy. Within the limits of his ancestral dominions, and of the rescued principality of English Mercia, he was the reviver of letters; the creator of a navy; the reformer of the army, upon which he expended a third of his revenue; and, as the builder of walled towns, he may in a certain sense be regarded as the originator of a burgherhood; but, like Charlemagne, he was a collector and not a maker of laws, the constitutional institutions which have been attributed to him belonging, unquestionably, to other periods. His was a policy of defence not of aggrandisement—not even of amalgamation beyond the limits of the Anglo-Saxon race—of defence by sea and on land; of renovation rather than of innovation, for it was not an era for the development of great constitutional changes. But David was a mighty innovator, scarcely reviving anything except bishoprics; and even in his ecclesiastical policy, in all other respects, he was equally an innovator. He instituted a feudal court, a feudal nobility, and feudal tenures, governing the country upon feudal principles; for the great dignitaries of the court, in his time, were not merely the holders of honorary offices, but the actual ministers of the crown. He introduced the charter into general use, confirming proprietary right throughout the kingdom, the earls and freeholders by ancient Scottish tenure, henceforth standing, side by side, with the new noblesse and their vavassors, until all difference insensibly disappeared. He created a burgherhood, and laid down a novel Code of Law, by which the earlier system was gradually superseded by the principle still acknowledged—“the verdict of the neighbourhood.” Augustus found Rome brick and left her marble; but David found Scotland built of wattles and left her framed in granite, castles and monasteries studding the land in every direction. He found her a pastoral country, and before the close of his reign she is described as the granary of her neighbours; and though the expressions of Ailred are probably exaggerated, as an exporting country she must have made considerable progress in agriculture. England may trace the germs of her monarchy to Alfred, and of the union of her people under one sovereign, though it was certainly not consummated in Alfred’s time. First amongst the Cæsars of the Western Empire stands Charlemagne, scarcely, however, the originator of the mighty results of that revival which still continue to influence the continent of Europe. But of feudal and historical Scotland; of the Scotland which counts Edinburgh amongst her fairest cities, and Glasgow, as well as Perth and Aberdeen; of the familiar Scotland of Bruce and of the Stewarts, David was unquestionably the creator. With the close of the eleventh century ancient Gaelic Alban gradually fades into the background, and before the middle of the twelfth, modern Scotland has already risen into existence.
CHAPTER X.
THE CHURCH.
At some remote and long-forgotten period, Christianity was first preached amongst the Provincials of Britain; and it became the established religion of the Romanized portion of the island after the great revolution effected by Constantine. Three British bishops accordingly sat at the Council of Arles, as representatives of the three Imperial provinces; and the presence of a similar deputation from the island is occasionally noticed in the accounts of other important councils. After the Faith had reached Britain from the neighbouring coasts of Gaul, it appears to have passed across the western Channel into Ireland—for there were believers in that country at the beginning of the fifth century;[340] although, from the success attending the labours of St. Patrick amongst the leading clans of the north and west, the conversion of the whole island has been generally attributed to the preaching of that celebrated missionary. From the date usually ascribed to the arrival of Patrick in Ireland, it is not improbable that his mission to that country was connected with one of the visits of Germanus and his companions to the neighbouring island of Britain.[341] The progress of the Pelagian heresy in the country of which its originator was a native, had excited the alarm of the orthodox Britons, who craved the assistance of their brethren in Gaul to aid them in eradicating the evil, and at a council which was held by the heads of the Gallican Church, Germanus and Lupus, the bishops of Auxerre and Troyes, were commissioned to cross the Channel, and refute the doctrines of the arch-heretic Pelagius; whilst about the same time, the notice of Celestine, Bishop of Rome, being attracted towards the state of the West, he dispatched Palladius, the Deacon, to exercise episcopal functions amongst the Irish believers in the name of Christ.[342] The actions of Palladius have long been consigned to oblivion, but the name of Patrick is still venerated as the great Apostle of the Truth to Ireland.[343]
Born of parents of senatorial rank in one of the British provinces, at the age of sixteen Patrick was carried off by a party of marauders, and sold as a slave amongst the northern Irish.[344] Six years he passed in captivity before he was enabled to effect his escape; and upwards of twenty more elapsed, the greater part of which he probably spent amongst the monasteries of Gaul, before he returned to settle in the land of his birth, where his kindred earnestly entreated him to remain. But he had long felt an ardent desire to effect the conversion of the heathen Irish, and listening at length to the promptings of his fervent zeal, he revisited the scene of his early captivity, and undertook the holy task in which he was destined to be blessed with such complete success. His lengthened residence in Gaul must have familiarised him with the system so prevalent in that quarter; and the manner in which Patrick appears to have planted his religious communities throughout the provinces of Ireland, evinces the extent to which he had been affected by the monastic spirit of the age.
Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli, about the middle of the fourth century, was the first to introduce into Western Europe the custom of the bishop and his clergy residing together according to monastic rule, and to familiarize the inhabitants of cities with the presence of ascetics, hitherto confined to the desert and the wilderness. His example was followed by Augustine of Hippo, and Martin of Tours; and through the latter, the founder of monachism in the Gallic provinces, the system appears to have penetrated into the British Isles. Beda has left upon record a description of the Church of Lindisfarne, founded by Aidan in the best days of the Gaelic Church, which identifies the customs of that bishopric, still remaining in force at the time of the Norman Conquest, with the practice of Eusebius and Augustine.[345] Nor is it necessary to adduce the traditionary relationship between St. Martin and the Apostle of Ireland, as a proof how largely the Churches, which preceded the mission of Austin to the Anglo-Saxons, must have been indebted for their characteristic features to the celebrated Bishop of Tours.[346]
Many of the Gaelic monasteries were founded in remote and inaccessible situations; but the most important appear to have been placed, in exact imitation of the Abbey of Tours, at a short distance from the capital, or chief fortress, of the neighbourhood. Such was the case at Armagh, Lindisfarne, and St. Martins near Canterbury—that ancient British church which is said to have retained the early privilege of maintaining a bishop within its walls down to the time of the Norman Conquest.[347] Here the bishop dwelt with his clergy, and the rest of the brethren, of whom the great majority were laymen. All were bound to the observance of the same Rule; and all, as monks, were under the superintendence of the abbot of the community. In one point, however, a wide difference was observable between the constitution of the Gaelic Church, and the ecclesiastical system elsewhere prevailing; and this peculiar variation from the general rule may, in a great degree, be attributed to the circumstances under which monachism was originally introduced amongst the Gaelic people.