Lordship and Environmental Change in Central Highland Scotland c.1300–c.1400

Medieval buildings and environmental change: chronology,ecology and political administration at Castle Sween, Knapdale

“…Historical discourse surrounding the region within which Castle Sween is situated, however, has charted changes in the area's medieval political geography which have international reach; with this western fringe of mainland Scotland framed as a battle ground between the competing interests of the Scottish, Norwegian and English Crowns in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, mediated by powerful regional lordships which retained close political and cultural ties with nearby Ireland throughout (Brown 2004, 255). On an even wider scale, climate change across the northern hemisphere has also been recognized as an influential factor in the region's politics during this period, as conditions transitioned from the relatively benign and warm Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) which has often been ascribed to 800-1300 AD, to the much less predictable (and often economically disastrous) later medieval and early modern 'climatic worsening' or Little Ice Age (LIA) (Oram and Adderley 2008;Fagan 2000;Lamb 1977, 449). Indeed, the Scottish Crown's increased ability to exert political over-lordship during the prosperous latter end of the MCA has often been used to explain the apparently sudden emergence of masonry castle buildings throughout the west Highlands and Islands during the thirteenth century.…”

'The worst disaster suffered by the people of Scotland in recorded history'

“…The proxies employed as summer and winter temperature indicators -Ural and Siberian tree-ring data (Briffa et al 2001) and the Greenland Ice Cap respectively (eg Adderley & Simpson 2006;Dawson et al 2007;Vinther et al 2003) -are, obviously, distant to Scotland and should not be used as absolute indicators of climatic variability here, due to the ameliorating or worsening effects of other oceanic and atmospheric factors the further removed a locale is from the context in which the data was obtained. The approach most commonly pursued, therefore, is to contrast Northern Hemisphere/North Atlantic summer temperatures from dendrochronological analyses: stable isotope records providing an index of relative winter 'severity' from ice core data and for an annualised long-multi-proxy mean (Crowley & Lowery 2000;Oram & Adderley 2008). Such annualised multi-proxy data indicates that there was a long period of higher annual mean temperatures that began before ad 1000 and continued into the later 13th centurywhat is referred to as the 'medieval warm period' or 'medieval climate anomaly' [hereafter MCA] -but within this timeframe, both proxy data and historical accounts are punctuated regularly both by cold episodes and by extreme weather events.…”

“…This episode was short-lived, however, with some indication of a return, by the early 1330s, to the wet conditions of the previous decade, but this yielded swiftly to a plunge to the lowest temperatures experienced across the North Atlantic region since before 1000. While this plunge in temperatures has been described as 'a period of polar cooling that is minor by glacial standards' (Mayewski et al 2004: 252), it was the catalyst for a series of dramatic changes in social organisation and economic structures in Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland (Dugmore et al 2007;Dugmore et al 2009;Lyons 1988;McGovern et al 1988;McGovern et al 2007;Oram 2010;Oram & Adderley 2008;Oram & Adderley 2010). The cumulative effect of these extended episodes over many years had been more pronounced than the traumas created by shorter periods of year-to-year variation.…”

“…The eastern Lowlands were buffered to some degree from the worst of the climatic deterioration and here the sharp plaguedriven contraction in population may have eased pressure on food supplies that the poorer growing conditions had brought, but population decline and limited availability of resources contributed to economic stagnation. In the north and west, the full impact of climate change and weather events moving in from the Atlantic stimulated profound change as it affected behaviour at all social levels (Oram 2010;Oram & Adderley 2008;Oram & Adderley 2010). The failure of long-established fishing-based economies in the Western Isles before the end of the 14th century, contraction of the grazing resources for the cattle-based society and economy of much of the Highlands (possibly already devastated by the murrain), and deterioration of soil conditions as increased rainfall leached nutrients and accelerated erosion stimulated major socio-political reorientation.…”

“…Stock numbers consequently fell, with the main impact at the lower end of the social spectrum, where tenants of landlords who operated a rentbased exploitation regime became less capable of meeting their obligations. The loss of visible wealth and social prestige, and the ability to sustain the complex support systems upon which an elite culture of conspicuous consumption and display was carried, which that declining income entailed, required radical behavioural change if it was to be addressed effectively (see Oram & Adderley 2008;Oram & Adderley 2010 for discussion).…”