Scotland in the Middle Ages concerns the history of Scotland from the departure of the Romans to the adoption of major aspects of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century.

From the fifth century northern Britain was divided into a series of kingdoms. Of these the four most important to emerge were the Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, the Britons of Strathclyde and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia, later taken over by Northumbria. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late eighth century, Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established along parts of the coasts and in the islands.

In the ninth century the Scots (Gaels) and Picts combined under the House of Alpin to form a single Kingdom of Alba, with a Pictish base and dominated by Gaelic culture. After the reign of King David I in the twelfth century, the Scottish monarchs are best described as Scoto-Norman, preferring French culture to native Scottish culture. Alexander II and his son Alexander III were able to regain the remainder of the western seaboard, culminating in the Treaty of Perth with Norway in 1266.

After being invaded and briefly occupied, Scotland re-established its independence from England under figures including William Wallace in the late thirteenth century and Robert Bruce in the fourteenth century.

In the fifteenth century under the Stewart Dynasty, despite a turbulent political history, the crown gained greater political control at the expense of independent lords and regained most of its lost territory to approximately the modern borders of the country. However, the Auld Alliance with France led to the heavy defeat of a Scottish army at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and the death of the king James IV, which would be followed by a long minority and a period of political instability. Kingship was the major form of government, growing in sophistication in the late Middle Ages. The scale and nature of war also changed, with larger armies, naval forces and the development of artillery and fortifications.

The Church in Scotland always accepted papal authority (contrary to the implications of Celtic Christianity), introduced monasticism, and from the eleventh century embraced monastic reform, developing a flourishing religious culture that asserted its independence from English control.

Scotland grew from its base in the eastern Lowlands, to approximately its modern borders. The varied and dramatic geography of the land provided a protection against invasion, but limited central control. It also defined the largely pastoral economy, with the first burghs being created from the twelfth century. The population may have grown to a peak of a million before the arrival of the Black Death in 1350. In the early Middle Ages society was divided between a small aristocracy and larger numbers of freemen and slaves. Serfdom disappeared in the fourteenth century and there was a growth of new social groups.

The Pictish and Cumbric languages were replaced by Gaelic, Scots and later Norse, with Gaelic emerging as the major cultural language. From the eleventh century French was adopted in the court and in the late Middle Ages, Scots, derived from Old English, became dominant, with Gaelic largely confined to the Highlands. Christianity brought Latin, written culture and monasteries as centres of learning. From the twelfth century, educational opportunities widened and a growth of lay education cumulated in the Education Act 1496. Until the fifteenth century, when Scotland gained three universities, Scots pursuing higher education had to travel to England or the continent, where some gained an international reputation. Literature survives in all the major languages present in the early Middle Ages, with Scots emerging as a major literary language from John Barbour's Brus (1375), developing a culture of poetry by court makars, and later major works of prose. Art from the early Middle Ages survives in carving, in metalwork, and elaborate illuminated books, which contributed to the development of the wider insular style. Much of the finest later work has not survived, but there are a few key examples, particularly of work commissioned in the Netherlands. Scotland had a musical tradition, with secular music composed and performed by bards and from the thirteenth century, church music increasingly influenced by continental and English forms.

Political history

Early Middle Ages

Minor kingdoms

In the centuries after the departure of the Romans from Britain, four major circles of influence emerged within the borders of what is now Scotland. In the east were the Picts, whose kingdoms eventually stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. The first identifiable king to have exerted a superior and wide-ranging authority, was Bridei mac Maelchon (r. c. 550–84), whose power was based in the Kingdom of Fidach and his base was at the fort of Craig Phadrig near modern Inverness.J. Haywood, The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age (London: Pearson Education, 2004), , p. 116. After his death leadership seems to have shifted to the Fortriu, whose lands were centred on Strathearn and Menteith and who raided along the eastern coast into modern England. Christian missionaries from Iona appear to have begun the conversion of the Picts to Christianity from 563.

In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name Scots. In 563 a mission from Ireland under St. Columba founded the monastery of Iona off the west coast of Scotland and probably began the conversion of the region to Christianity.A. P. Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80–1000 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), , pp. 43–6. The kingdom reached its height under Áedán mac Gabráin (r. 574–608), but its expansion was checked at the Battle of Degsastan in 603 by Æthelfrith of Northumbria.A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba: 789 – 1070 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , pp. 57–67.

In the south was the British (Brythonic) Kingdom of Strathclyde, descendants of the peoples of the Roman influenced kingdoms of "The Old North", often named Alt Clut, the Brythonic name for their capital at Dumbarton Rock. In 642, they defeated the men of Dál Riata,A. Macquarrie, "The kings of Strathclyde, c. 400–1018", in G. W. S. Barrow, A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, eds, Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), , p. 8. but the kingdom suffered a number of attacks from the Picts, and later their Northumbrian allies, between 744 and 756.A. Williams and A. P. Smyth, eds, A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales, c. 500-c. 1050 (London: Routledge, 1991), , p. 106. After this, little is recorded until Alt Clut was burnt and probably destroyed in 780, although by whom and what in what circumstances is not known.A. Gibb, Glasgow, the Making of a City (London: Routledge, 1983), , p. 7.

Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had conquered much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia, in the south-east.J. R. Maddicott and D. M. Palliser, eds, The Medieval State: Essays Presented to James Campbell (London: Continuum, 2000), , p. 48. The first English king in the historical record is Ida, who is said to have obtained the throne and the kingdom about 547.B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: Routledge, 2002), , pp. 75–7. Ida's grandson, Æthelfrith, united his kingdom with Deira to the south to form Northumbria around the year 604. There were changes of dynasty, and the kingdom was divided, but it was re-united under Æthelfrith's son Oswald (r. 634–42), who had converted to Christianity while in exile in Dál Riata and looked to Iona for missionaries to help convert his kingdom.B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: Routledge, 2002), , p. 78.

Origins of the Kingdom of Alba

This situation was transformed in AD 793 when ferocious Viking raids began on monasteries like Iona and Lindisfarne, creating fear and confusion across the kingdoms of North Britain. Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles eventually fell to the Norsemen.W. E. Burns, A Brief History of Great Britain (Infobase Publishing, 2009), , pp. 44–5. The King of Fortriu, Eógan mac Óengusa, and the King of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta, were among the dead in a major defeat at the hands of the Vikings in 839.R. Mitchison, A History of Scotland (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2002), , p. 10. A mixture of Viking and Gaelic Irish settlement into south-west Scotland produced the Gall-Gaidel, the Norse Irish, from which the region gets the modern name Galloway.F. D. Logan, The Vikings in History (London, Routledge, 2nd edn., 1992), , p. 49. Sometime in the ninth century the beleaguered Kingdom of Dál Riata lost the Hebrides to the Vikings, when Ketil Flatnose is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles.R. Mitchison, A History of Scotland (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2002), , p. 9.

These threats may have speeded a long-term process of gaelicisation of the Pictish kingdoms, which adopted Gaelic language and customs. There was also a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns, although historians debate whether it was a Pictish takeover of Dál Riata, or the other way around. This culminated in the rise of Cínaed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin) in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin.B. Yorke, The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c.600–800 (Pearson Education, 2006), , p. 54. In AD 867 the Vikings seized Northumbria, forming the Kingdom of York;D. W. Rollason, Northumbria, 500–1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), , p. 212. three years later they stormed the Britons' fortress of DumbartonC. A. Snyder, The Britons (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), , p. 220. and subsequently conquered much of England except for a reduced Kingdom of Wessex, leaving the new combined Pictish and Gaelic kingdom almost encircled.J. Hearn, Claiming Scotland: National Identity and Liberal Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), , p. 100. When he died as king of the combined kingdom in 900, Domnall II (Donald II) was the first man to be called rí Alban (i.e. King of Alba).A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286 (General Books LLC, 2010), vol. i, , p. 395. The term Scotia would be increasingly be used to describe the kingdom between North of the Forth and Clyde and eventually the entire area controlled by its kings would be referred to as Scotland.B. Webster, Medieval Scotland: the Making of an Identity (St. Martin's Press, 1997), , p. 22.

High Middle Ages

Gaelic kings: Constantine II to Alexander I