Regnal consolidation and regional networks : charters and religious benefactions in the diocese of Glasgow, circa 1120 to 1270

It has been argued that the development of royal government and legal concepts in twelfth and thirteenth century Europe was closely linked to the emergence of national identity amongst people belonging to each kingdom. Medieval Scotland is no exception. Many studies on the establishment of Scottish identity, especially its territorial spread in the thirteenth century, have been done hitherto from the viewpoint of consolidation of the kingship, settlement of Anglo-Continental landholders, and the common law. On the other hand, given the number of surviving charters (either royal or private) recording religious benefactions to major churches, it would be also a sensible way to approach this issue by investigating these donors and their gifts. The diocese of Glasgow is a province in which numerous transactions and negotiations between secular powers and ecclesiastic institutions were recorded from the time of the future David I's reorganisation in the 1120s. Furthermore, the chronicle of the monks of Melrose is a remarkable testimony to the change of identity of the Scots. These facts make the diocese and a few surrounding divisions key areas of research. According to surviving documents, many of which have been collated in cartularies, the charters granted to Glasgow Cathedral, Melrose Abbey, and Paisley Abbey (which had an indirect royal connection through the Stewart foundation) demonstrate distinctive patterns of social networks between the institutions and donors or witnesses. Typically these networks grew both in local and cross-regional terms, and connected the nobility, even those of different socio-political background, together. Undoubtedly the geographical spread of benefactions of each establishment reflects the development of personal or familial interrelationships of this kind. Also, in the case of confirmations, instructions, and lawsuits, some higher authorities such as the king, bishop, and Pope issued their own documents. It is likely that their involvement created a common legal awareness in the whole province. In particular, the increasing reference to regnum Scotie in charters is strong evidence for the definition and consolidation of regnal authority, especially in the new, relatively unsettled territory such as Carrick, the Lennox, and Argyll where sovereignty and the common law of the Scottish king were established during the thirteenth century. In this way it can be seen that the sovereignty and identity of Medieval Scotland were gradually developed and spread through a mechanism of religious benefactions whose legal and socio-political aspect was discernible in the local activities by each landholding family as well as the top-down governmental policy of the king.