Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 9, 2011

The Culture of Scotland in the High Middle Ages refers to the forms of cultural expression that come from Scotland in the High Medieval period which, for the purposes of this article, refers to the period between the death of Domnall II in 900, and the death of Alexander III in 1286. The unity of the period is suggested by the immense breaks which occur in Scottish history because of the Wars of Scottish Independence, the Stewart accession and transformations which occur in Scottish society in the fourteenth century and afterwards. The period differentiates itself because of the predominance of Gaelic culture, and, later in the medieval, Scoto-Norman French culture.

As a predominantly Gaelic society, most Scottish cultural practices throughout this period mirrored closely those of Ireland, or at least those of Ireland with some Pictish borrowings. After David I, the French-speaking kings introduced cultural practices popular in Anglo-Norman England, France and elsewhere. As in all pre-modern societies, storytelling was popular. In the words of D.D.R. Owen, a scholar who specialises in the literature of the era: "Professional storytellers would ply their trade from court to court. Some of them would have been native Scots, no doubt offering legends from the ancient Celtic past performed ... in Gaelic when appropriate, but in French for most of the new nobility." Almost all of these stories are lost, or come down only vaguely in Gaelic or Scots oral tradition.