This paper arose out of an attempt to study in detail the development of local aristocratic society in twelfth-century Scotland. The themes to be advanced below will develop the current body of Scottish historiography and will present a picture of society characterised by the fragmentation of settlement into small local groups. At the same time these groups all remained part of the larger regional society. Analysis will take the form of a regional study and will be principally focused upon the relatively well documented county of Roxburghshire. The observations made by Professor Barrow regarding the majority of minor landholders established in this area suggest a stratum of society which, being relatively neglected in an assessment of attachments and relationships, would bear further study. Roxburghshire was an important royal centre and established within its borders were three of Scotland’s most important monastic communities. By examining a number of associated themes and relationships, it should be possible to measure the strength of local attachments and assess the strategies adopted by individual Anglo-French families in developing the networks through which they became firmly established.

Discussion will focus upon the reigns of Malcolm IV and William I and will concentrate upon the development of a number of landholding communities within Roxburghshire. The smaller landholdings in the subject area can be placed in a number of distinct localities, the internal unity of which serves to emphasise the importance of locality in the development of aristocratic society below the level of the greater territorial magnates. Within each locality the various landholdings were marked by relatively close geographical proximity. The evidence of settlement indicates strongly that the developed attachments of a number of social groups were rooted in geography. There was considerable growth in the number of new landholdings established in the county during the period 1153–c.1190. By the close of the reign of William I in 1214, three small landholding communities can be identified in the subject area with each locality being marked by a degree of geographical specificity. In the east of the county close to the modern border with England, a small community developed along the parallel valleys of the Bowmont and Kale Waters.