Excerpt from Bamff Charters, A. D. 1232-1703: With Introduction, Biographical Summary and Notes
OF English country life in the Middle Ages lively pictures have been handed down to us from the time of Chaucer. To most persons country life in Scotland during the same times is shrouded in mystery. Chronicles and official records throw little light on the life of the Home. Scotland is not too rich in public documents, and is still poorer in private documents given to the public. To many the glimpses of social life afforded by my charters will be thought revelations. Few, I fancy, will be fully prepared for the extreme simplicity of life found in the houses of lairds of substantial property. The furnishing of a sixteenth century manor house is simply that of a modern bothie. The plenishing of many a married ploughman’s cottage at the present day would be found very comfortable in comparison. For establishing in life a young couple about to marry provision is shply found by the assignment of so many measures of oatmeal and barley per annum, and that - in the earlier times at least not commuted for money, as might be supposed, but simply doled out in kind. Porridge washed down With home-brewed beer must have been the staple diet. But again with this primitive simplicity we have to the full the old Scottish regard for birth. The certificate thought necessary to qualify the young scion of Dalhousie for military service under a foreign king is very instructive.
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