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3 - The Trousseau of Isabella Bruce, Queen of Norway (The National Archives, Kew, DL 25/83)
- Edited by Cordelia Warr, University of Manchester
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- Book:
- Medieval Clothing and Textiles
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 10 May 2024
- Print publication:
- 14 May 2024, pp 73-98
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Summary
The inventory of the bridal goods of Isabella Bruce, Queen of Norway, drawn up on 25 September 1293 in Bergen, is considered an important document concerning Scottish-Norwegian relationships at the end of the thirteenth century and has been studied and cited mainly by historians. On closer examination of the text, however, a number of interesting remarks can also be made on the diverse items that made up the trousseau of the Scottish-born queen, their manufacture, quality, fabric, material, colours, and purpose. The colours and decorations of the bedding sets and soft furnishings in particular seem to be linked to significant heraldic figures.
For this article, a palaeographic and linguistic analysis was carried out on a digital copy of the document. The findings contribute to an explanation for some problematic loci, which have led to a new identification of the author/scribe of the inventory and their origins.
The text shows a number of the linguistic features that have been identified in medieval British business documents. Additionally, the analysis sheds light on a couple of technical words found in the inventory whose interpretation is not clear (banker? was perhaps used as an adjective meaning “for the seats” and palees was perhaps a noun meaning “two-coloured vertical striped cloth”). The document also contains the Medieval Latin hapax phalereteca which might mean “a metal ornament similar to a phalera” or perhaps “a sort of lock similar to a phalera.”
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
After the loss of part of their overseas empire in the 1260s, the Norwegian kings sought to re-establish ties with the Scottish crown. This was accomplished in August 1281 through the wedding of Margaret, daughter of Alexander III of Scotland, and the young king, Eirikr II of Norway. Margaret was about six years older than her husband, who was about thirteen years old at that time. The marriage lasted less than two years: Margaret died giving birth to her only daughter, Margaret of Norway, probably on 9 April 1283. The Norwegian princess became the heir apparent to the Scottish throne after Alexander III's death, but she died on her way to Orkney in late September or early October 1290. As the heir of his late daughter, Eirikr took part, albeit without success, in the Great Cause that took place between 1290 and 1292 in order to choose a new king of Scots.
6 - Masculine Given Names of Germanic Origin in the Ragman Roll (1296)
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- By Valeria Di Clemente, Philology at the University of Catania, section of Foreign Languages and Literatures (Ragusa), Italy.
- Edited by Matthew Hammond
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- Book:
- Personal Names and Naming Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 18 September 2019
- Print publication:
- 21 September 2019, pp 148-165
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Summary
The so-called Ragman Roll records fealties and, in some cases, homages as well, given by Scottish nobles, landholders, prelates, and burgesses to Edward I of England upon completion of the military campaign of spring–summer 1296, capping off the successful English invasion of Scotland. Individual oath performances date back to the early summer of 1296, but most homages and fealties took place during the Berwick parliament of 28 August 1296. These documents show ca 1900 name occurrences, for ca 1638 to 1666 individuals.
The oldest witness of the instrumenta is kept at the National Archives, Kew, Scottish documents section, under the shelfmark E39/17/4, a copy of which is preserved at the Archives Nationales de France; the most important and complete copies, however, were written by the Yorkshire notary Andrew de Tange in 1306 and are kept at the National Archives, Kew, Scottish documents section, under the shelfmarks C47/23/3, C47/23/4, and C47/23/5. The seals of the oath performers were appended to the documents; they hung in groups from the parchment folios. According to McAndrew's survey, 912 of them have survived, although in many cases detached.
A first partial edition of C47/23/4 is Prynne's Antiquae constitutiones, 649–64; the reference edition is still Thomson's Instrumenta publica (henceforth IP), based on C47/23/3. A calendared English version of C47/23/4 is in Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, vol. 2 (henceforth CDS ii), no. 823. A thorough description of the seals attached to the documents is to be found in Bain's appendices I to III. More recently, an in-depth scientific analysis of the seals contained in the documents of 1296 has been carried out by B. A. McAndrew. A number of oath performers of 1296 are described from a prosopographical point of view in the PoMS database (People of Medieval Scotland, 1093–1314).
As name-giving practices in Scotland during the central Middle Ages represent the result of the superimposition/fusion of linguistic and cultural layers, due to different influences, it has been rewarding to verify to what extent the Germanic element may have affected thirteenth-century masculine nomenclature in the light of the Ragman Roll witness. The cradle areas of single names have roughly been individuated; there are, however, a number of cultural reasons to be considered.