Medieval Scotland 2: Writing is Overrated

folks, we're back with part 2 of our series on Medieval Scotland wherein we encounter the Kingdom of Alba, which is what the English called Scotland back then. we don't know what they called themselves because they weren't too fond of writing, which is a big theme this time. we look at the rise and fall of Alba, the historical MacBeth, and the Normanization of Alba by the royal court against the wishes of basically everyone else below them. and hooboy, are they going to have good reason to hate the Anglo-Normans after this whole fiasco.

Gaza charities mentioned:

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The good.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
The good people don't need the admin chat. I think,
you know, that's the coldest of cold opens.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
It's like, yeah, dog, you see my email, So.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
How did how did my email find you? Oh man,
it's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yeah, great.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Teetering and teetering is espeally out of find me, just
like on the verge of madness.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
But it's fine.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's like, I'm really you know, what if a a
kind of like eldritch horror was found me teetering on
the precipices of madness, but not in a racist way,
is that does that count?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Like? I don't know, I don't know. It depends on
how vaguely you can describe the existential terror that you
are ironted with.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I probably you know I have.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
I have the skull type of a of a hated
Hebridian or something so so like maybe that's why I
can't comprehend it, because I'm just so well born.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, you have the protruding brow ridge of the of
the Neanderthal slov that's a joke. That is a joke.
That is a joke, Like yeah, like.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Look, guys, we don't believe in phrenology. I want to
make that Claire.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I mean unfortunately, HP Lovecraft does have the bangers and
that's you know.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
So we were in his thrall.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah yeah yeah mmmm oh man. Uh you know I
said that about Neanderthals and everything. And the other day
I saw a picture of Mussolini. It was one of
those like uh like jump scare, yeah, jump scares. It

(02:01):
was one of those like, uh, world War two. It
just tweets like the events of World War two in
order or whatever. And it was like a picture of
Ethiopia and there was this picture of Mussolini there and
like his brow ridge. I'm like, dog, you were the
last living Neanderthal. That thing is insane. I cannot imagine

(02:24):
why you would portray yourself looking like that. You you
look like a fucking moi. Your head is so goddamn big,
like wrap anubi statues, Like, holy shit, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Master race?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Here?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
People? We got we got another one. We got another one, dog.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
We've got the h We've got the feat uh deeply
degenerate pervert Austrian and art school fail out Austrian and
the uh so dumb he might he might very well
be unfrozen Neanderthal dictator of Italy like bravo, gentleman, master Race,

(03:07):
you did it. You fucking did it. Like and you
you'll see people in the know they'll be like, oh,
like Hitler, you know, he was like a military genius,
which I mean, first of all, no, uh uh but
uh but you know that was what the whole Operation
Valkyrie thing to kill him was about. Was this general's

(03:27):
thought he sucked ass, but a lot of them did.
But the uh, but you you very rarely see the like, oh,
Mussolini was she like was like a military like like
you know, they're like they don't they don't want to
bring up Mussolini and like I remember these uh uh

(03:50):
remember these stories about how like uh during the Spanish
Civil War, uh, Franco was basically told the Germans like
I don't, I don't want and I don't want the
fucking Italians to show up here again. He's a goddamn idiot.
What are we even? What are we doing? That one.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's so ironic too, because it's like everyone agrees that
Mussolini sucks, like on on their side except for the
Italians currently, who are like, I don't know what you're
talking about, dog, Why would I take down my plaque
commemorating El Duce who was great, Like it's it is,
you know, not if you go to the really like
you know, the absolutely great parts of Italy like Bologna,

(04:31):
which are just like, oh, here's our memorial to all
of our farm fallen communist comrades, right like shout out Bologna.
But I tell you what, Bro, You'd be walking around
and you'll be like, huh.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Wow, that's still uh like I went. I was in
fucking Marsala years ago.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Like then obviously I was like gonna go drink Marsala
at like some Marsala winery. You know, your girl was there,
and like there you gotta do the little tour. And
they're like, bah blah blah, here's the barrels. This is
what the process is like. And they're like and here's
the plaque commemorating when Mussolini visited.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
And I'm like, jog like a they like, it's still.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Have it up, be there, you kept that up after
that of the kingdom.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Let me just draw your attention to it, because isn't
that great?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Isn't that a neat little piece of history?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
And I'm like, bro, like the way I would keep
that the fuck down right, and it's just like they
don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Glad you have fucked Italy up. So goddamn bad, so bad,
holy shit. Oh man, Mussolini protruding brow ridge bitch, yeah
he uh, just like I see it every time I

(05:54):
see a picture of him, I'm like, man, what do
you squint? What were you squinty to see here? And
I obviously cannot relate to the horrors of World War One,
but like, man, oh like that much. It must have
been insanely brutal for you to just be like you

(06:16):
see that guy over there who's drooling and uh, you
know has like the Habsburg forehead somehow. Yeah, we him.
It's just like the march on Rome and you're like,
who is that leading the group? Where did they get

(06:36):
where did they get that fossil?

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Real talk, real talk?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh man? Yeah, that's uh, you know, making fun of
Mussolini's braw ridge. I don't know if it's a time
on her tradition, but.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's gonna be one.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Get some skull shaping surgery, have that bad boy shaved
down to know not.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know what I hear is great?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Uh, further shape of your skull being hung upside down
alongside your mistress.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
That is actually good for this. Yeah, it remains intact
until the people could buy shoot you. And old ladies
are beating you. Is beating your body was with sticks,
and it's so bad that they have to remove the
bodies after a few days, not out of respect, but
just because because it was becoming a public health hazard.

(07:28):
Like their entrails on the ground under them, the the
carrion are are inbound.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Mm hmmmmmm.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Anyway, uh fuck then fuck that guy that's real talk.
Fuck anyone who's uh still playing on that ship today.
Are let's let's talk about uh these rowdy rowdy folk,
rowdy roddy piper in the northern Ish part of the

(07:58):
Britannic Aisle. Sometimes times maybe there's some islands up there too.
Uh yeah, Hello, and welcome back to We're Not So

(08:40):
Different podcast about how we've always hated, no, no, we've
always hated Mussolini and how while his school shape is humorous,
people who share that same unfortunate brow ridge are not
destined to follow his lead because that's bullshit. But he
did look like a Neanderthal, So suck at you, dead bitch.

(09:03):
They hung you upside down. I wish they'd have done
it twice. Anyway, folks, we are back. We're gonna talk
more about medieval Scotland. But before we get there, we
got a couple of questions. First one is from Bardic Inspiration,
who says when people moved for not just vibes, was

(09:24):
it often like well goodbye friends and family, I'll never
see you again, or was there an expectation they would
come and visit move back to their original home eventually.
I think Eleanor has mentioned nobles like kind of having
the mindset of the former when they sent their kids off.
But I'm just curious about common folk.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I mean, it all really depends, right, because you
also have exceptions to the first rule, like with royalty.
So for example, you know, quite famously Isabelle that she
will She was like back and forth between London and
Paris constantly. She was like, I'm back, bitch, Hey, I'm marking,
I'm narking out my sisters in law for fucking other dudes.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Like that's what's up, right.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
So, Like, I mean, if if you kind of like
live nearby and you're sufficiently high flutin, you might move
around a lot. But if you're lower level and you've
been married off somewhere really far away, it's just kind.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Of like, yeah, fuck it.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
And and like there's a difference between getting like married
off to Spain from England and you know elsewhere I
will Spain, you know, Grenada or some shit, right, Like
it's a long it's long longer away. For ordinary people,
it's kind of like, well, a lot of ordinary people
don't go very far. Like that's that's one of the

(10:38):
major things. I mean, probably you're gonna marry someone in
your own town or like the town over possibly the
town over again.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
You may like you may end up getting like.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Apprenticed out and like go on out into the wider world.
But oftentimes when you're getting apprenticed out, one of the
idea is here is that if you start making that good,
good money, like you'll call for mom and dad, yeah,
and then like you'll take care of them in their
old age.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Now. Of course, there are some people who just kind
of like are like bye right off and off they go.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
But like, because you're usually from larger families, it's kind
of like, oh, yeah, well that happens, Like, I mean,
Jesus Christ, that was happening in the twentieth century when
my grandmother left Ireland, like she didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Go back again later, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Like, I mean she wrote back and forth and like
my great uncles came out to visit sometimes and things
like that, but like she didn't go back to Ireland, right,
it was like that's it. But you know, she was
one of eight billion children roughly. My grandmother's family were
the family of everyone on earth. So uh, congratulations everyone,

(11:47):
you're all from kil Kenny to me now. But yeah,
like the point is, you know there used to just
be like a lot more Like yeah, I guess that
that just is how it is. But because you simply
have more children, you can kind of absorb that loss
a little.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Bit more, if that makes sense. So yeah, it's really
really dependent.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
But yeah, a lot of people, if they run off
to the city, they ain't coming back down to the farm. No,
I mean they might, they might send money, they might not.
You know, they might send for you, they might not,
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
I think, I mean, I think before the era of
widespread mass communication, widespread instantaneous mass communication i e. Telephones,
the proliferation of telephones, I mean a lot of moves
were going to functionally be well, goodbye friends and family,
I'll never see you again, Like yeah, I mean because

(12:42):
because you can't do it, like the fact that we
can talk across an ocean instantaneously right now is I
mean it would be wild magic to those people, like
it's magic to me, and I mean I know how
it works.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Like yeah, I mean, I guess one thing, Like you know, if.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
You know, those patrons who've been following along with our
Cameron series will note though there's a lot of people
in those stories and like, granted they're fictitious, but there's
a lot of people in those stories who are like
and then he moved to Cyprus from Florence, and oh,
this guy from Pavia moved to Burgundy, right like, So
there is an expectation that people will move around, that

(13:21):
they can do it. You're probably more likely to do
it if you're someone like a merchant, right like, if
you're someone with money, it's a little bit more possible
to do that. And sometimes those people come back and
sometimes they don't. And that's it's all dependent, right, So
there is more moving around than you would think, but
it's just kind of like dependent on what people's family
situation is. I know that's wishy washy, but I guess

(13:44):
it's just that it's like now, you know, people are
really different, so it just kind of depends on what
their relationship is with their family.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, I mean I think you could say that. And
you know, at some point there is a there's a
point where you just can't make a trip of a
certain distance, whether you don't have enough money too or
it's not feasible, you know, there's wars or something like that.
And I mean, you know we have that now, but

(14:14):
we you know, have phones and the internet and all
that sort of stuff and pictures and all that. So yeah,
you know, I think it's well, it was dependent. It
was probably one of those things where they probably like
girls who are sent away probably would have loved to
talk to their mom or their brother, you know whoever
about like you know stuff, and boys who are sent

(14:36):
away as wards or apprentices or whatever, you know, probably
would have loved to talk to dad and mom. But
you know, but you can't because all you can do
is maybe write a letter if you you know know
how to do that, or gonna have someone do it
for you. Yeah, Bartica inspiration, thank you very much for
the question. Next, we got one from Gaffsie says in

(14:57):
in the Eastern Roman Empire, eunix continue to be lloyd
and military and administrative roles well into the late Middle Ages,
and it was a reasonably common fate for the post
emperors or defeated pretenders. In the territories of the Western
Roman Empire, the practice was apparently limited to castrati and
only began in the early Medieval period early Modern period
before eventually petering out. What accounts for this difference. Was

(15:20):
it just the case of the Eastern Roman Empire having
a continuity extending into classical tradition and the Western Roman
Empire having that big interregnum, or were there other reasons?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's probably what my
biggest guess would be, is that they just keep doing
weird shit over there. Liked out that they're like, yeah,
you know what, you know what really set this shit off?
If we cut some dude's balls off, that'd be that's
gonna this shit is lit. I mean, even with the castrati,
you know, the castrati form are really they're really different class, right,

(15:56):
you know, because they're they're a performing class. Not a
political class such as it is. So yeah, I mean
I think that there is a sufficient change in how
culture works in the West so that that no longer
becomes feasible. I mean, so the thing is, if you're
going to have a bunch of dudes geld themselves, you

(16:17):
know or be well, they probably aren't gelding themselves.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Let's be honest.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
You know, like you have to have like sufficient cash
monies to make that worth their while, right, and like
a contiguous state that it's like, yeah, this seems like
a good career move for me. And you know, if
you look at the Western Roman successor states, like it's
not that they're doing necessarily badly, but they're much smaller,
they don't have the taxation levels to kind of ask

(16:43):
for those things. And also they are just not acquiring
their power in the same way or seeking to show
their power in the same way. You know, things are
a lot more martial in general until the Church settles
things down. And you know, the Church isn't big on
building yourself, so because it's sort of like well, I

(17:06):
mean like ideally don't fuck yeah, we'd love it if
you didn't do that, but you're supposed to kind of
overcome that with the force of your will, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I would think that part of
it is just being a holdover from you know, the
Roman Empire, because you know, Constantine had eunuchs at his
court just like Diocletian head before him, and you know,

(17:34):
they continued that thing. It's also like it was far
more common over there. It was common in North Africa.
The Egyptians make reference the ancient Egyptians make reference to it.
It was very common in China as early as like
four thousand years ago. So like it's, uh.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
But you got you gotta have you have to have
a big fancy palace culture, right, like you got to
have big fancy put the culture and then we just
don't and.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
They don't have that in Europe until Charlemagne, and he
was not.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
It wasn't about that life.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
He wasn't about that same life, probably because the cultural
norms around him had changed. You know, if he had,
if he had been in what they still called the
Roman Empire over there, they you know, they might have
kept that practice, but since they didn't, you know, here
we are probably Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
It's a weird one to go back to as well,
like I mean, it's like, after you lose it for
a couple hundred years, you're not gonna be like yo.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Anyone, anyone want to cut their balls off? Like who
go ball?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Like gelding tonight, gelding to night King, Hey, hey, gelding tonight.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
You know no, oh my god, these people will not leave.
I cannot stop getting free offers from the Crown to
gueld It's like it's a.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Hard cell, you know, it's a it's a weird one
to try to bring back if you think about it, you.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Know, stop texting me about this. You're annoying. Yeah, Gussie,
thank you for the question. We answer questions from our
patrons at the beginning of our episodes, and we also
release bonus episodes and have a discord and all that.
So if you want to do any of that, check

(19:20):
us out Patreon, dot com, slash wnstpod it's five bucks
a month. But also, and far more importantly, please donate
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the Samir Project and medically for Palestinians in the show notes,

(19:40):
so please check those out. Check out anything else you
find on Twitter, Blue Sky, or where Instagram, wherever. I
don't you know, wherever it is, I don't know, you know,
just help people however you can. Yeah, yes, anyway, let's
get onto the main show. So we enter the second
period of medieval Scotland. First period, as we discussed last time,

(20:02):
was the time of a nascent Scotland and Scottish identity,
stretching from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain
to the formation of the Kingdom of Alba. It saw
the various disparate clans and ethnic groups that inhabited the
northern end of the island go from warring hated neighbors
to a begrudgingly assimilated people thanks to a little outside

(20:25):
encouragement from the Vikings. The third period, which we will
cover next time, is everything from the start of the
First Scottish War of Independence in twelve ninety six to
the beginning of the early modern period. But that's for
the future, as we are firmly in the second period
right now. This period covers from about nine hundred to
twelve ninety six, when the core of Scottish identity as

(20:49):
we understand it was formed. However, there was as yet
no Kingdom of Scotland. Instead, the political entity that ruled
much of northern Britain at the time is known is
the Kingdom of Alba, although this is a term of
convenience imposed on them by the English, much like the
name Scotland. For the sake of avoiding confusion, we will

(21:11):
refer to the polity as Alba and the people as
either Albans or Scots. We should, however, remember that the
people of Alba were mostly Pictish Gaels who had assimilated
in the previous period and wouldn't be joined by Normanized
Scots or Scotto Normans until later. Scott o Noorman is
a fun word. Though the second period does give us

(21:34):
the rise of recognizable Scottish people and culture, they still
weren't terribly big on record keeping for much of the time.
This period extends beyond or this extends just beyond the
lay people, as the churches and clergy of Alba didn't
seem nearly as keen on the whole writing thing as
their clerical brethren to the south and west in England

(21:55):
and Ireland, even after the churches up north were purged
up online influence early in the Alba period, an event
which for which we have almost no evidence thanks to
again they'm not being big fans of writing. But I digress. Lastly,
the second period give us the reign of Scotland's most
famous and infamous monarch, Macabethod macfinlick Finlake I don't know,

(22:19):
better known to us as King Macbeth. Yes, the titular
king of Shakespeare's tragedy was indeed a real guy. But
would it surprise you to learn that the play is
almost nothing like real life?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Probably not as much as we would like it. There's
no historical evidence that a trio of which has materialized
out of thin air, prophesied both his tramp and his doom,
and then said prophecy was continually reinforced via a supernatural phenomenon. Also,
we aren't sure whether he was aware of the sassarean
section procedure for birthing children or not. No, but for real,

(22:55):
we'll talk all about the historical Macbeth and why Shakespeare
may be partly innocent of some of the charges of
historical inaccuracy, at least in this regard as we talk
about the middle period of the Scottish Middle Ages. Yeah,
so here's the part where you're expecting me in eleanor
to start breaking down the inner workings of the so

(23:16):
called Kingdom of Alba look like in the early years
following the death of Donald two in nine hundred and
I mean, we'd really love to do that, but there's
just one problem. They didn't like writing stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Down the hat it. Historians hate it.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Historians hate this one weird trick, breaking the pin and
chisel in half and just throwing them.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
In walk it off, doing anything else other than sit down.
I do hate that.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, just just walk off. Yeah. You know. It's
very difficult to suss out many details of Alba before
the reign of David I, who began the Normanization of
the Scottish crown and nobility in a twenty four Again,
we're talking about a polity that certainly existed as kings

(24:05):
were crowned, but that is largely generalized based on the
recordings of the English, who didn't think too highly of
the Yahoo's from north of the Walls, and a decent
chunk of the center of this polity was taken up
by Moray, a territory that was only loosely controlled by
the throne of Alba. A medieval text called the Chronicle

(24:26):
of the Kingdom of Alba, likely written in the eleventh
century by an unknown author, tells of the reigns of
these monarchs through the reign of Kenneth in nine to
ninety five, and is considered to have been written by
someone familiar with Alba. However, it is very short and
written in Hiberno Latin, the largely unheard of literary style

(24:47):
of Latin used by Irish Gaelic monks at the time.
Any other details narrative details about the kingdom and its
monarchs will come from the Anglo Saxon Chronicle or the
Irish histories of the time, which we're contemporary of course,
but of course not written by the people themselves. Just
so you know what we're dealing with here. So Eleanor,

(25:07):
I am tripping over myself to explain all this about
Alba and Picts and Scots and the like. Why is
this so confusing? Why are the English like this? Why
couldn't they just be like, hey, what are you called?
And they would have been like, you know, I don't know, Gaelo, pictos,
don't whatever they wanted to call themselves.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
But yeah, all English harbastards. I guess that's one of
the main I mean, well, one big issue is that
you know, by the time all of this stuff is
really firming up in any reasonable way, you know, you're
talking about Vikings, you know, it's Danes that we're dealing with,
so the Danes would have to go do it.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
And the Danes are like asking people things, you.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Mean, killing killing killing them Yeah, okay, cool, cool cool cool, No,
I know how to do that right, So they're not
particularly in interested in, uh, getting their terms right unfortunately.
And you know, in both cases, like whether you're talking
about like the Kingdom of Northumbria and its relationship with

(26:13):
the people up in Scotland, or you know, with the
Vikings who come later, they you know, just want to
be dorugatory about it because they're kind of keeping these
people as enemies. They're keeping these people off side, and
you know, it's a slur.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
And they're they're slur.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Purpose damn it. They they were they were expressly rejecting
woke and they were they were saying the slur is
outright like that, yeah it's And then.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
You know, eventually, because when they when they do end
up kind of combining with the like Gaelic speakers and
things and the Gaelic speakers kind of come out on
top in terms of that cultural project. It's sort of like, well,
who care, right, Like they don't.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
It's it's like.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
You, I don't need to worry about it, you know
that they're more interested in like, well, do you have
a king? What's the what is the king control? Like
that's the stuff that they find interesting, you know, Like
unfortunately we've not invented like the field of anthropology yet,
so they just don't care as much as we do.
And it just sucks because it's like, yeah, yeah, these
are things that we kind of like come up with

(27:21):
in the nineteenth century. It's like how I would like
it if people had like written down folklore, traditions or
like local customs, and they just fucking don't, right, So
we're left to kind of fumble around, right.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, And I mean we should remember that we could
you know, picked is what we call them, but that
was a Roman you know, that was a Roman name
for them. We do I mean, as far as I
can tell, we do not know what these people called
themselves before, even if.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
They're a fucking contiguous group, right.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yeah, before before like almost the year thirteen hundred, We
don't really have records of what these people like, what
people what the general citizen are on the ground would
call them, like, we don't you know, maybe maybe they
would just talk about being in clans or whatever. But yeah,
we'll get there. I mean, it's not a moral judgment,

(28:16):
but I do ask, like everybody around them, the Irish
long history of writing, the English long history of writing,
the French obviously as well, they all went bananas for
this stuff. But is there like a historical reason why
the Scots when we're ambivalent to it? And if there isn't, like,
are there historical theories for why some places just don't
adopt writing when all of their neighbors who they relate to,

(28:38):
have done so.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
And our ways are the old ways?

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Guess that's a good point. You got me there. I
don't need this shit, yeah right, his daddy didn't, ye. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I mean I'm assuming that they probably have a really strong,
you know, spoken culture. I'm sure that they had that
shit on lock, and so it's sort of like, well,
why do I need that? And I think that there's also,
you know, in a group where there's a lot of
flux in terms of what the other peoples are around you,
to an extent that eventually becomes like a way of saying,

(29:12):
this is what our culture does. Like we don't know,
we don't write things down. I'm not like you, right,
We're we are able to remember long, complex stories because
we're not idiots.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Like, oh oh, do you need to write it down?
Does the little baby need to write it down to remember?

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Like you don't have a clay and storyteller who can
remember your history back four hundred generations losers, losers, every
one of.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
You exactly, And so you know, it's it's easy, you know,
it's kind of like how we'll be like, haha.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Cats are so stupid.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
But like they can hear and smell and see things
that like we've got no idea and they must be
looking at us going like these guys are so fucking dumb.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Right, And if they're.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
So stupid, like they have infiltrated our homes, they get
all of the attention they could want. They get fed
all of the time. It's just like a thing with
dogs and wolves. People are like, look at this stupid dog,
Look what you descended from. It's like the dogs won
for the food, the food that go to them. The
cats win it doesn't matter if we think they're stupid
because they can see basically see in the dark. Like

(30:14):
what are you talking?

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, right, And so it's like one
of these things with you know, when we're like, well,
why didn't this culture do it? It's it's like, well,
you know, that's easy to say it now that writing
has become so important, and you know, they were just
probably doing something else. And unfortunately, you know, much in
the way that cats can see in the dark a

(30:35):
lot better than us, we lost the you know, the
the techniques and the cultural know how to.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Follow these particular storytelling patterns.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
So we just don't fucking know what's going on because
we decided to do something else, you know.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's a very chauvinistic question. And I phrased
it that way on purpose, because I mean, yeah, they
just because.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
We deserve to go off as a treat. That's why
it's it's not there. It's it's not their way of life.
Like I mean, like riding is beyond endemic to us.
It's a it's a fact of exit of our existence essentially,
but like we you know, like it wasn't It's just

(31:17):
like how they're you know, there are still quasi or
people who still attempt to be like nomadic tribes in
you know, this postmodern world that we live, and there
are still people like that, you know, who don't want
to be bothered, you just want to live their way
of life. You know, the North Sentinelese in India, the
the island they have where they'll shoot anyone who comes near,

(31:41):
you know, and good for them. Yeah, yeah, anybody who
goes over there, you're getting you know.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
You and.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
I really hope they do.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, they leave your ass looking like fucking borahmerr. Just
run through, run through with a quiver of arrows, a
quick worthy Anyway. We often talk about medieval Scotland as
a you know, tribal or clan based society in this
formative time, but how did that look in practice? Was

(32:14):
you know, did they have like extensive clan violence like
the vendetta systems of the medieval Italian peninsula, like uh,
inside of that or or is it all like this
is how my clan worked in thirteen fifty and it's
like okay, cool, So.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah, a lot more of the former.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
I mean we start to learn more basically from kind
of like the late tenth century onward surprise the time
when we we generally do we see kind of like
less of the stuff, you know though about like a
clan on clan violence and things like that until you

(32:53):
sort of get to the early modern period though.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean, like, yeah, you might not like each other,
and of course they probably have, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Like I'm sure that someone killed someone and everyone gets mad.
You know, we see that all over the continent at
the time. But I mean the real vendettas that are
the ones that.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
People still talk about now.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
They all have to do with enclosure, unlike the clearance
of the highlands and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
So you know, those ones.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Are all so much more modern, and indeed, as a
good historical materialist podcast, I think that you know, I'm
just putting my flag in the sand, and you know,
it's like that kind of clan on clan violence is
the result of like a scarcity of land and about
the capitualization towards eventual capitalism. Not to say that there

(33:42):
isn't interclan violence, of course, there is, of course there is,
but you know, like you've got kings and stuff like that,
and they are still kind of going to try to
rule you. So obviously they're not going to want you
brawlin down in the field, and so like, you know,
especially from the tenth century on, you know, things kind
of get a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Chilling.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
You know, like we're trying to intermarry with the continent here.
You got to like keep it up, like keep it
looking fresh, keep good.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
You know, you got to be got to be normal
about everything. And I mean the fact that they did
have recognized kings who ruled over like a decent chunk
of this land is indicative that the clan based society
was not that uh was not so ingrained that they
couldn't go to like a higher power so to speak,

(34:33):
which you would which you of course did not see
in uh in the Italian Peninsula in the Middle Ages,
because every time there was a king or someone who
or an emperor who took over some part of that,
the people were like, no, we're going to forcibly break
ourselves apart again, and uh yeah, but uh yeah, it's yeah,

(34:58):
it's a fun time. We don't we don't know, we
don't know a ton about it, but we're gonna go
through and then we'll start talking about the Normanization of
it and we'll get a lot more info. But yeah,
at this point, what we're calling the Kingdom of Alba
controls like I guess what's called the central Lowlands. Kind

(35:23):
of they wouldn't get Edinburgh, they wouldn't conquer down to
Edinburgh or Lothane for until what's coming up. But then
the middle part of the island what is known as
Moray or Marai, and it's it was much bigger than

(35:43):
the current what i'm is like a county or you know,
municipal delineation of Marai. Now that part was still mostly
independent and the leftovers of the old Kingdom of Fortriu
that that had been mostly assimilated by force into Alba.

(36:05):
The northern Highlands were mostly just you know, that was
either Vikings or those people are too scary, we'll leave
him up there. And the Yorkneys and Shetlands were their
own Viking things at that time. But yeah, that's what
we're talking about here. So nine hundred is when Donald
the second dies and his son Constantine the Second is

(36:28):
going to rule for a long ass time. He's going
to rule for forty three years, and he's the one
that they is said to have like kind of he
said everything in motion. He's the one that kind of
started bringing all this stuff together. They are continually fighting
the Vikings, you know, who are You know that they

(36:52):
continue their raids throughout this period, as is their wont
As we said earlier, there was some kind of standardization
of the Scottish Church. Uh likely them ridding it of
what they saw is like Viking or Gaelic pagan elements,
but we don't.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Know there's it's yeah, so I mean as the name
kind of indicates, with like a guy who's calling himself
like Constantine Constant, it's like they're intentionally trying to be like, oh,
we're very continental, you know, We're we're like oh yeah,
like I know, I know all about Rome, like look

(37:33):
at me.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Look at me. And so as a result there they are.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Really attempting to kind of bring themselves to conformity with Rome.
And it's likely that they were kind of practicing the
more sort of like Gaelic or Celtic for Christianity, like
that the stuff that's coming out of Ireland right like,
you know, because.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
The the Irishmunks had it really down.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
And then this is certainly something that we see happen,
for example in Northumbria places like that where they end
up just kind of attaching themselves to Rome more specifically.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
But you know, there's a big.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Charm offensive on Rome's part, So it's not a surprise
that someone who's called Constantine is doing this, right Like,
so this is a part of a conscious cultural absorption
of what's happening on the continent. But again, exactly what
was going on with the church, we don't know. Yeah,
your guests is as good as mine, right, Like, who knows?

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, yeah, it's we don't know. Yeah. Constantine did take
control of the Kingdom of the remains of the Kingdom
of Strathclyde, which gave them control of what is now
Edinburgh and began allowed them to begin conquering Lothian, which

(38:55):
I mentioned earlier, which is on the east side of
Scotland where in the southeast uh, where the Firth of
Fourth bites into the island a little bit. And his
son uh continued roaring with Murray and they they would

(39:20):
sometime during this period, take like a loose control over Murray,
Like Murray paid them some kind of deference, but to
what degree, we clearly don't know. Uh af After this, uh,
you get more of their sons from Endolph uh to
Malcolm the second. So Endolf begins in nine fifty four,

(39:43):
and this whole period is a lot about consolidation these guys.
A lot of these guys are not very well known,
though they do have some good names. There's one known
as dub Uh. You know, just do you be a
big fan of dub Quellyn is a good one. And
then yes m Labe who is only known by reference

(40:09):
in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and he and uh and
there's an Irish chronicle as well, and he's only known
by reference because they call him King m Labe and
so and there's this period from nine to seventy three
to nine seventy seven where the previous king died and

(40:31):
the next king wouldn't have taken power and so uh yeah,
that's sure, Yes, Okay, that's the level of not documentation
we're talking about here. We like one of these kings
is like a guy I mean literally, Like that's how
you fill in like the lore in you know, if
you're building out like a fictional universe, Like you're like, yeah,

(40:53):
this guy was only known to reference due to uh
destroyed records or whatever. It you know. During this time,
their relations with the Danish Anglobe kings whatever you want
to call them down south, we're pretty fine. They made

(41:19):
accords and alliances several times. In ten thirty one, Malcolm
the second went into agreement with King Canute over a Strathclyde.
It was formally ceded to King Malcolm after the death

(41:39):
of its final king, and from this point until the
War of Independence, the Scottish and English borderlands would be
basically a nebulous zone, or control between the two neighbors
was constantly shifting, you know, with skirmishes or new inheritance
claims or whatever. So like this it's I don't know

(42:01):
everything from like north of Newcastle Ish to south of
Edinburgh's who knows? Are you English? Are you Danish? Are
you alban Who knows? Who the fuck knows?

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Yeah, I guess too.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
The one thing to say about this is like these
are such modern desires to like label people in this way.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
We're like, well, what are you? And they're like, uh, farmer.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Right, Like, you know, it's the ideas of nationality are
just you know, sure there are ideas of you know,
us versus them, you know, like go ask any check
and they'll be like, I'll tell you who I'm not
is a fucking German like you this time, but especially
in these places, you know, like these things are just

(42:53):
so much more porous. And yeah, you've got invaders and
the invade did and I think that that's a.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Little bit more clear.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
The you know, and and yeah, I want to know more.
But I want to know more because I'm you know,
I'm postmodern and I'm like, yeah, oh, hey, can anyone
tell me what this means?

Speaker 3 (43:10):
You know?

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah exactly, like yeah, I would, yeah, endeavor to use again.
This is like the periodization thing, Like if we don't
have an agreed upon a set of words what these
things mean, and like it doesn't, this whole thing breaks down.
I can't even discribe, you know, Like I'm like I'm
literally looking at a map of northern England and Scotland

(43:34):
and like measuring between, Like okay, this is kind of
what we know for here. This is like it's it's
so vague that it's it's hard to do. But this
really does tell you why we haven't focused much up here.
It's just because.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Because we have to do this to you, because I
have to do this.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
It's it's very frustrating. Uh yeah. Anyway, in after ten
thirty four there was a big succession issue. Malcolm the
Second didn't have any sons, and so the crown went

(44:12):
to his grandson by his eldest daughter, whose name was
Duncan the First, and this is the beginning of what
is known as the House of dunk Killed. But six
years into his reign a general from that always restive
region of Mariah got a bug up his ass and

(44:36):
decided he was going to fight. And that guy's name
was Macbeth. And yeah, this is the historical Macbeth. So
I will briefly give the historical sketch, Eleanor can give
the Shakespeare's sketch, and yeah, we're going to then talk

(44:57):
about why this is actually the fault of the historians
of the time and not Shakespeare at least this once
basically King Macbeth he did fight Duncan. He did fight
King Duncan killed him, but they were fighting in an
actual battle. They met on the battlefield and it was
decided in that regard. And also Macbeth isn't really that

(45:24):
much of a usurper because he's also the grandson of
Malcolm the second, just by Malcolm the second, second daughter.
So like this is you know when the English when
when the English and you know, the war, the roses
and stuff were like, you know, fourteen times removed. But
it's still you know, somebody's kids, so I can technically

(45:44):
claim it's it's the same. It wasn't like my wife
is a bitch and she told me to kill this guy,
and you know whatever. And Macbeth has a long reign.
He reigns for seventeen years, does pretty good job. His
son actually does take the throne in like a in

(46:07):
what is not a extremely Uh there wasn't a ton
of violence when his son took the throne, but his
son also died. Uh, was defeated by Malcolm the third,
the son of Duncan the First, and uh, yeah, that
restored the House of dunk Keled. But Macbeth was just

(46:35):
like he was just a normal like he's just average.
He's a normal king. Like there are like that. There
are statements and reports that he was like a pretty
good king and he was. He Cannute the Great accepted

(46:55):
his submission like it's like a whole you know, like
he's just like a normal king. He did you know,
he he kept, you know, trying to incorporate new parts.
It definitely incorporated Maria Moor into the kingdom by having
a king from there. He fought with the Cumbrians, you know,

(47:18):
like he like they they were fighting with, you know,
the Kingdom of what what was the Kingdom of England
just before the just before the Norman conquest. He's just
like a you know, just a normal guy now eleanor briefly.
I'm sure a lot of our listeners are well versed
enough to know but Macbeth, but maybe not the general

(47:41):
outlines of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, which is amazing, by the way,
I don't care if it was fake or not. Who
gets a ship?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
But yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't matter, right, Like
none of y'all bitches would know about Macbeth is.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
It's a tale told by an idiot full of sound
and fury signifying nothing. Like William Faulkner was right, that
is one of the best lines in literary history.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Like completely like okay, so the act one c one bitch,
like here comes Macbeth and his homeboy bang quote an
average Scottish name, but they are they are generals in
king Duncan's army and they find the double bubble Bubble
toil and trouble witches right, and they're like, oh, prophecy

(48:24):
time and they say, Macbeth, you were going to get
promoted two times. First you're gonna come the Thane of
Coddor of Codor, and then you are going to become
King of Scotland. And they're like, banquo, Look, your descendants
are going to be kings, but you're not going to
get a king.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Dumb yourself, right, And then they're like, hey, can I
get some more information?

Speaker 2 (48:45):
And they're like a cinara suckers and they all kind
of like disappear in a puff of smoke. And then
right after that, a King Duncan does name Macbeth the
Thane of Codor because he's been so helpful in recent battles,
and so Macbeth's like, oh, real shit, those ladies were
onto something. And the king is like, yo, I'm gonna
come to your crib at Inverness. We're all gonna hang out. Uh.

(49:09):
Lady Macbeth gets the deuce and she's like, oh, I
will help you buy whatever means necessary.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
Wink wink wink wink. Dunt Dun duh uh.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
So basically, so Macbeth and duncan then get to the
castle and Macbeth is like, I'm gonna kill his motherfucker
and then and then that'll like.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I know how to become king. I'll just like to
kill the king.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
And so Lady Macbeth is like, Okay, I'm gonna drug
the guards so that Macbeth can come in here and
kill the king. He does like and uh, and he's like,
oh shit, I shouldn't have done that. But Lady Macbeth
is like, I think you'll find this is chill. You
should calm down, and she kind of leaves a bunch

(49:58):
of bloody daggers next to the king's before McDuff, who's
another nobleman, arrives and McDuff comes in is like, forsooth,
I can't believe that this has happened, and Macbeth is like, damn,
it must have been these drunk ass guards who did it.
Better kill them all so that and everyone is like yeah, real,

(50:18):
real talk. But meanwhile, the king's sons, Malcolm and Donald
Bane run off because they're like, I also do not
wish to be killed, but they're kind of blamed for them.
Everyone goes, oh, well, the sons must have done it.
They must have got these drunk guards to do it.
So anyway, Macbeth be comes a thing of Scotland, but

(50:39):
he feels weird about it, being, as you know, he
killed the king, and he remembers the prophecy about how
Banquo's descendants are going to inherit the throne, so he
basically arranges to kill Banquo and his son Flayance. So
Banquo is killed, but sudden escapes and so there's a

(51:03):
big bank with that night, and Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Because Shakespeare loves a ghost and so do I.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
So it's great and he starts like talking to it,
and everyone is like.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Is the king crazy?

Speaker 2 (51:17):
And Lady Macbeth is like, ha ha, everyone thanks for coming,
like great, great time. Definitely nothing to see here, definitely
no king's talking.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
To coming to our off Broadway play exactly. King the
King was lovely tonight. His apprentice was McDuff, thank you.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
So and then she's like, why don't you calm your shit?
He cannot calm his ship, So off he goes to
go find the witches, and he's like, surely I can
go hunt these girls down and then they will tell
me that I'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
So obviously he's got to go into the wood to
do that because that's where witches live.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
And so unfortunately though, like the people march in after
him to go like kill him.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Right, So basically, uh, he says, like.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
They say, you don't need to fear anyone born of woman,
That's what they say. He's like, am I gonna be okay?
And they're like, oh no, you don't need like it's
it's it's very much like I am no man, shit right,
And the.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Idiot, you idiot. Do you know what I would have
been doing. I would have been studying every medical text
I could find and figure out a way a man
could not be born of a woman, and then figuring
out cesarean section which had been around for a while,
and then being like, ah fuck, we got outlaw.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
These like and they're like, look, so you can't just like,
no one born of a woman can kill you. You're
gonna be safe until the wood itself rises up against you.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
So you know, what are the odds of that happening?

Speaker 2 (52:57):
But they're like, uh, but you know what, sorry, but
Banquo's son is absolutely going to like inherit eventually, so
Macbeth is like time to do terror like kills everybody,
kills Mcduff's family. McDuff meanwhile had been off like trying
to find one of Duncan's sons, Malcolm see like He's

(53:20):
gone down to England to find Malcolm, and Macduf is like, yo,
I am so driven crazy by my family being killed,
so please like come back here, leadd army kill Macbeth
like I want that sweet sweet revenge, right. So Macbeth

(53:41):
meanwhile is hanging out at one of his many castles,
so he's in Dunnison. But then he's told that burnham
Wood is moving towards him. What how can it wo
do that? And that is because Malcolm's army is carrying
branches from the forest and they're using it as camouflage
to like go after the castle. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth goes

(54:07):
crazy and she's like sleepwalking and she tells all of
her secrets to the doctor. She then offs herself and
then it's the big final battle. Macbeth hears that Lady
Macbeth is killing herself has killed herself and he's like,
oh no, my hot wife, she was so great. Anyway,

(54:29):
he loses the battle. McDuff goes after him, and then
Macbeth learns that Macduff was born from a cesarean woo,
which is a loophole what like I don't know, and
Macbeth's still from a woman.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
It's not like an artificial womb dog.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
And and also can I just point out that like
normal battlefield talk, like hey, yeah, well while we're here,
like clink clack clink, how did your mother give her
to you? Just just out of curiosity. Anyway, Macbeth realizes that
that's loophole. He's going to die and he's like, why
did you just kill me? Now, Macbeth kills him and

(55:11):
he brings the head to Malcolm, and Malcolm is like
a sweet piece for everyone, goes over to Scone and
his crowned king. The end, it's a banger. It's an
absolute fucking banger.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
It has to be a good win. Yeah yeah, And
you know, I mean, obviously the witches and all that stuff,
there's no record of that. But the thing about the
rest of it is you would think, like, oh, he
just churched up some story, you know, like the real history,
because of the real history as much. You know, as
we said, he was just a normal king. He ruled

(55:46):
for seventeen years. He took you know, control in a
normal European medieval European style power struggle between between the
possible claimants to a throng, you know, normal stuff. But
actually in this case, Shakespeare can be absolved because he

(56:08):
was working from something called Holland Shed's Chronicles, which was
a two volume set of books of British history published
in fifteen seventy seven fifteen eighty seven, and it was
three volumes on England, Scotland and Ireland, and it had

(56:28):
this story of Macbeth about how he had taken power
illicit illegally, which I mean, you know, you can see
how you get there. He In this chronicle, three witches
are mentioned, like fairies or something like they're fairies of
some kind. So like, you know, you can tell that

(56:50):
we are working with you know.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Only the finest fucking only the finest sources. But look,
the modern era is just like so much more logical
and rational than the medieval period.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
I want to make that clear.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
We have we have we have advanced so far beyond
herrod As saying, my cousin told me the ourb giants. Uh.
But yeah, basically, you know, Shakespeare read this, uh, built
out some stuff about Macbeth in his head, and then

(57:26):
ran with it. But this chronicle was considered like a
you know, a fairly close or very close historical account
of Macbeth. There are differences, there's uh, you know, differences
in everything, but you know, artistic license is what it is.
So yeah, we were asked about the historical Macbeth, and

(57:49):
there it is. He was a normal king, uh, normal
Scottish king for the time. Uh he died, Uh, I
mean he died, yeah, of Malcolm the third in Uh,
you know.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
I guess the other point to be made here is like,
let's also not forget that, you know, Shakespeare is a
court composer, right, and he's he's writing for James the
first James, the first notable Scottish guy, noted Scottish guy
and also noted batshit crazy person who believes in witches.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Right, So it's like, yeah, he had the what was
it like, the demonology?

Speaker 3 (58:30):
Yeah, the demonology.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
It's it's fucking crazy, dude, It's really good.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
It's bad.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
And his demonology is wild, Like it's it's more wild
than like normal medieval accounts. You're like, whoa, okay, calm,
you know.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Like, oh yeah, like modern people are the weirdest ones
for it, like medieval people would be like, I think
that's a little far fetched. Bro, James the First is like, no, no, no,
some witch has tried to kill me while I was
clossing the English Channel. And if that's the dude you're
dealing with, right, if you're dealing with mister, witches are
trying to kill me, and you want to be like, oh,
real shit, you write.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Something with some witches in it? You know, done deal?
What's it? Know?

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Your audience?

Speaker 3 (59:08):
Right, it's fine, It's fine.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah. After Macbeth died, as I said, Macbeth was killed
by Malcolm the Third in a revolt, and Macbeth's step
son Lulock was also killed about a year later. Then
Malcolm the third re established restored the throne or the

(59:32):
house of Dunk killed. And yeah, Malcolm the third was
pretty important because he was the king when the Normans invaded,
when they invaded the South, and he took his people
and he took this as an opportunity to make some
territorial gains and everything, and they just started fucking up

(59:55):
the North, the North of England big time. You know.
He was Malcolm actually married uh, the sister of Edgar
athel Ling who was one of the lesser claimants to
the English throne and putu and you know, he was

(01:00:16):
real involved in this. And then William the Conqueror, as
was his wont got some of his boys and said, hey,
go up there and harry the North. And who boy
did they did?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
He?

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
Ever?

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
It was it has been described as possibly being worse
than what they did to England.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
It was Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Yeah, it's a ship like these things are. I cannot
stress enough that the harrying of the North, both in
England and Scotland is a genocide like that's that's what
went down. And neither place has entirely recovered population wise
since then.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
So that's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Malcolm, Malcolm the third was forced to submit
to English overlordship, turned over his son Duncan as a hostage,
and thereafter the English took a real direct interest in
the future of Alba. The English culture started leeching into

(01:01:19):
their or the French culture in this case, as they
adapt they adopted agnatic primogeniture, the way that the French
and the English had during this time. And yeah, eleven
four David the First, who spent a lot of his
formative years in England, becomes the king and he's like,

(01:01:42):
I hate the Scots, your old asshole hillbilly morons. Fuck it,
we're doing this shit Norman style. And everyone was like
not everyone, but the royal court was like, hell, yeah
we are, and and well we'll see what everyone else said.
But yeah, so you wanted to know. It was asked

(01:02:06):
what they're setup, was like, what the courts were like?
And now we can tell you because the scott or
the alban court they had a seneschal and all of
these except for the Chancellor, are hereditary positions and this
would later become the Steward or the High Steward of Scotland.

(01:02:27):
Then there is the Chancellor, who is in charge of
the royal chapel, you know, the were the king worships
and all that sort of stuff. There's the Chamberlain. There's
a constable who is, you know, in charge of the
military forces. There is the butler, and there's a marshall,
who is different from the constable because he's in charge

(01:02:48):
of the cavalry. So yeah, that is how they set
up the court. But during this time, from David the
First to Alexander the third, so from about eleven twenty
four to twelve eighty six is going to be the forcible, violent,

(01:03:09):
attempted conversion of the entire area of Scotland into becoming
English or I'm sorry, becoming Norman. And yeah, they are
going to impose Norman customs, the Norman social and hierarchical relationships.

(01:03:32):
They implement the manorial system. The David creates the first burghs,
which were likely the first urban centers what we would
consider urban centers in the country. And I mean, as
you could see a proud people who had resisted writing

(01:03:52):
and stuff like that for so long, they hated it.
Mariah revolted in eleven thirty and was occupied because I
mean they there was not a lot you could like.
It was very hard, especially because David had good relations
with the with the Norman kings of England, so we

(01:04:14):
could just call, you know, call on them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Yeah, yeah, he could just call the cops on you.
And and also fundamentally, you know, one of the big
things that they're they're doing is kind of also introducing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
More cap vlry based warfare. And so what are you
going to do against a bunch of guys on.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Horses, right, It's it's very, very fucking difficult if you
are standing in a field with a stick, which is
how these things used to be done, to just take
on the heavily armed and armored guy on a horse.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
It's just you are going to get mowed down. Like
that's you know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
All you need to do is like be slightly next
to a cop on a horse one time, and you'll
be like, oh, I see right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was bad. An English monk
named Walter of Coventry said in the thirteenth century. He said,
the modern kings of Scotia count themselves as Frenchmen in race, manners, language,
and culture. They keep only Frenchmen in their household and following,
and have reduced the Scots to utter servitude they by

(01:05:25):
eleven seventy four. So an interesting thing about this is
this Normanization process is really top heavy, like it's basically
all at the top, because even the nobles are the
Scottish nobles are like what the fuck are you guys doing? Like,
and the Scottish nobles what we would consider like old

(01:05:46):
Scottish or like alban nobility or whatever, did seem to
retain a lot of the titles going into the later
Middle Ages. So like there's this real weird difference where
you have the very top being like, we're going to
do this, and then you have the giant country south
of you saying you're going to do this, and the

(01:06:09):
nobility and the peasantry being like, but I don't want to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
I like my I was doing my thing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Yeah. I like my peat bog. I like my fishing.
I like my you know what. I like my painting
myself in blue squares and raiding like I don't know,
leave me the fuck alone. Yeah. In eleven seventy four
there was an outbreak of real violence. The king at
the time, William the First, was captured following an action

(01:06:37):
at a place called Alnwick, and there is an accounting
of this by William of Newburgh, who says when King
William was given over to the hands of the enemy,
God's vengeance permitted not also that his most evil army
should go away and hurt, For when they learned of
the kings capture, the barbarians first were stunned and desisted

(01:06:58):
from spoil, and presently, as if driven by furies, the
sword which they had taken up against their enemy, and
which was now drunken with innocent blood, they turned against
their own army. Now there wasn't the same army a
great number of English, for the towns and burghs of
the Scottish realm are known to be inhabited by English.
On the occasion, therefore, of this opportunity, the Scots declared

(01:07:18):
their hatred against them, innate, though masked through the fear
of the king. And as many as they fell upon,
they slew the rest of who could escape, fleeing back
to the royal castles. So it got real fucking bad.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Yeah, and messy, just like it's difficult to parse, is
the point?

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Yeah, it is, it is hard to parse. There are
going to be famous Scottish resistors to this. Fergus of Galloway,
Harold Madison, Jesus Christ. I think it is called I
think it's called Summer Lead. I'm not even going to

(01:08:05):
defile the beautiful Gaelic language with my trying to pronounce
his actual name. And then there were two groups, the
Meheth's and the mcwilliamses, and they led some resistance in
their own parts, and this was so fierce and they
were so hated by the Crown that in twelve thirty

(01:08:27):
the final McWilliams was caught and it was a six
month old baby girl and a chronicle at the time.
I'm not going to read it because it's awful, but
her head was dashed against the wall when she was
six months old. So that's the kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Usually you have to get the mountain and to do
that sort of shit. Am I right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Am I right? George R. Martin reference.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Yeah, Like we're not talking about like I mean, you know,
not not that, not that English resistance to the Normans
was any less fierce, but like we're talking about something
that went on for so long that it became a
let's crush babies in the town in the in in

(01:09:17):
the Edinburgh town square, like you know, it's just yeah,
it's it's insane.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
It got pretty wild, Okay, things right, and this is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
All going to set up next time because they're going
to have the First War of Independence about it, and
that's a lot of fun. But we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Here at the very end there the territorial expansion continues
apace because again they have the backing of the Normans
down south and you know, the armies of the king
and everything like that. So the Crown of Alba's able
to consolidate most of the lands that we call Scotland

(01:09:58):
by twelve sixty six. The Orkneys became vassals in the
thirteenth century and were assimilated over time, and the Shetlands
would come a little bit later. But basically like we've
now like we've gotten a Scottish identity thanks to the
external opposite imposition by Vikings and then the Anglo Normans,

(01:10:21):
and you have like the territory that we understand because
the crown was able to keep imposing Normanization. The House
of dunk Killed remains in power until the death of
Alexander the Third in twelve eighty six, whose three children
had all predeceased him, and that meant in twelve eighty

(01:10:44):
six the throne passed to a young girl whose name
it was Margaret, known as the Maid of Norway, of
the House of Severe And she's just a kid here.
She was four at the time. So there were guardians
who were regents, and when Margaret was never crowned. They

(01:11:10):
were going to crown her in twelve ninety, but she
died along the way. I couldn't find anything about there
being like foul play about this. I think she just died. Died.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
It happens a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Yeah, yeah, like people just die now. But imagine you
don't you know, you don't have antibiotics and stuff, and honestly,
who if somebody did assassinate her. It was a terrible
fucking idea because it was going to bring down the
English on them, because once Margaret died in twelve ninety,
there were what do we go at least fourteen fourteen

(01:11:47):
I'm sorry, at least thirteen claimants to the throne of Alba,
and there's an interregnum around then. And we'll get into
it next time, but it's yeah, the Guardians try to
keep a lid on things and it kind of works

(01:12:12):
for a little while, and then the English get fed
up with it and they're like, okay, we're going to
impose ourselves and that's how you get the House of Baliol.
But yeah, we will talk. We'll talk next time. But yeah,
this is uh, yeah, this is medieval Scotland. It's there's
interesting outlines of things there, and you can see like

(01:12:37):
all of the workings in this long back and forth
between the royal head and and the nobility and the
peasants like fighting over like whether they're going to be
forcibly assimilated or how this is going to work. And
then the and I mean, when the Normans take power,
the English can become regionally dominant because they finally worked

(01:13:00):
out all the ship that they had at the top,
and there were far more people there. And now that
they've got Viking, uh you know, quasi vikings there, they
you know, they have great ships. So now you're just
kind of like, hm, ship, what are we going to do?
And yeah, we're going to see how you know, how
that how that plays out next time. I don't know it,

(01:13:21):
it might be might be one or two episodes. I'm
not sure how long it'll take us to get through that.
But yeah, the English are gonna come up there, and
they are for a time going to find out that
that was a very very bad fucking idea.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Tell you what I'd like never before if you think
you know about the English being at ye're you're They're
just they're going to be That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Yeah, they're gonna be huge assholes. We're going to talk
about you know, we're going to talk about the real
William Wallace and all that sort of stuff, the real Robert,
the Bruce and how all that went down and uh yeah,
why these uh yeah, the these people, you know, they
they did for a time fight off the English. But

(01:14:18):
but yeah, we'll get there. Folks. Thank you very much
for listening. We hope you enjoyed, uh the the time
here in the foggy North. Thankfully it's summer so we
still have a decent amount of sunshine. Yeah, and as
I said, we'll be back entering later Middle Ages of

(01:14:39):
Scotland next time. And if you are a patron, If
you're a patron, we will have our next episode on
day six of the de Cameron. It'll be out in
on Friday this Friday. So yeah, check that out and
sign up for the Patreon if you're interested that or

(01:15:00):
the series we just did on and or or whatever. Yeah,
but eleanor what what do you got going? I heard
you on Minority Report, sorry, the Majority Report, the Major Report.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Yeah yeah, cool, so you know do Yeah, and our
good friend Derek from American Prestige it came along with me.
So if you haven't seen that yet, uh, you can
go check that out. I neglected to mention last week
that I was on cancel Me Daddy. Uh so that's out.

(01:15:36):
Wait really yeah so that's cool. Yeah, I mean those
those bitches are cool. So I was on cancel me Daddy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
It was such a big deal.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
Yeah, I'm such a big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Shut up. I live in Tallahassee. Shut up. Look like
you got like like like people in the discord are
like posting pictures of like a you know, like a
church they lived near, like a German church. It's like
seven hundred years old, and I'm like, oh fair, yeah see,
and they're like, yeah, just see that every day when
I wake up, Like that's so cool. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
I'm telling you someday, like the goal is someday like
live We're not so different somewhere in Europe.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
And then I'm gonna make you go to.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
A bunch of churches and you're gonna be like, this
bitch is inseparable actually.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Incorrect, you you know, you know good and goddamn Well, yes,
let's go, and I will ask them all about what
relic they're based around. I need to see.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Yeah, yeah, canny shows the relic where's the relicant.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
The toe bone of Saint Margaret or whatever we get
going on.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
Yeah, it's like a showy Yeah, so there's that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
If you haven't checked that out, I'll say before I
was on women like Sex the other week. Uh yeah,
I think that's what I neglected to mention, So yeah,
go check those things out. Otherwise, I'm on the socials
going medieval. Yeah, you can see my nonsense there if
you want to see pictures of churches. And I do

(01:17:05):
have an Instagram which is just doctor Elanreaniga where I
have a lot of pictures of churches.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
But yeah, that's about it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
Yeah, yeah, and you can find me that Luke is amazing.
You can find my Alcha People's history, the will Republic
if you want to hear me talk about Star Wars.
But yeah, that is going to do it for us today.
Thank you very much for listening, and we'll see you
next time. Bye.