#Not to mention the other way round! ESPECIALLY in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Scotland saw huge immigration into it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-busy-ghost · 7 years ago

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Medieval Scotland itself may have been an out of the way place, but anyone who thinks that medieval Scots were cut off from wider trends, particularly on the European continent, really has not understood the character of Scots across the centuries at all

#We never shut up about Scotland for a start but we also tend to leave it in HUGE numbers #And this was no different for the Middle Ages though the mass emigration of the modern period hadn't yet started #Students were frequently abroad even after we got three universities of our own- that was the thing you got educated abroad #Merchant colonies can be found from Poland to the Mediterranean though the Netherlands are particularly well represented #Not to mention military links- Scots were frequently found fighting other countries' wars and nowhere more so than France #the Garde Ecossaise is famous enough I should think!#Not to mention our historically important links across the North Sea with Norway and Denmark though the strength ofthis fluctuated over time #There are cadet branches of Scottish families in France; there's a legend of a 'lost clan' in an Italian valley;#once when I was on holiday in the Netherlands and we were going round a Gelderland castle the guide heard we were Scots #And happened to say 'huh that's cool because there's a lot of people round here with a Scottish surname'- a Dutch version of Armstrong #There were Scots on crusade obviously but there were also Scots working in southern Spain and other areas of Muslim influence #Not to mention the other way round! ESPECIALLY in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Scotland saw huge immigration into it #Whether Norse or Norman or Flemish and they mixed with the resident Gaelic and British and Anglo-Saxon cultures forming a hybrid nation #And we can trace the DOCUMENTS of Roma and 'Moor' (a wide range of peoples fit this medieval descriptor) back to the late 15th/early 16th c.#if not earlier #I've really not explained this very well at all but like key to understanding medieval Scotland is its links with the outside world #Although a country on the edge geographically but its people- at least in the upper echelons of society though probably lower too-#were as a group almost always trying to be outward-looking and trying to stay ahead of the curve #They didn't always succeed whether due to lack of funds or lack of internal political stability or a small population #But it was key to medieval Scotland's character that the Scots were always trying to push themselves into the European centre #And that not just politically but- perhaps more importantly and long-lasting- in terms of education and trade and culture #Ok I've ranted long enough and haven't explained it properly but essentially if you're going into medieval Scotland #expecting to find a cultural backwater cut off from the rest of Europe then you've fundamentally misunderstood the Scots #And their ability to shove their way into literally everything #This goes also for the British Empire but that's not quite such a proud legacy for Scotland cos we suck and all but that's another story

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