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Government in Medieval Scotland, includes all forms of politics and administration of the minor kingdoms that emerged after the departure of the Romans from central and southern Britain in the fifth century, through the development and growth of the combined Scottish and Pictish kingdom of Alba into the kingdom of Scotland, until the adoption of the reforms of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. Kingship was the major form of political organisation in the early Middle Ages, with competing minor kingdoms and fluid relationships of over- and under-kingdoms. The primary function of these kings was as war leaders, but there were also ritual elements to kingship, evident in ceremonies of coronation. The Kingdom of Alba, which emerged from the unification of the Scots and Picts in the tenth century, retained some of these ritual aspects, most obviously in the coronation ceremony at Scone. While the Scottish monarchy remained a largely itinerant institution, Scone remained one of its most important locations, with royal castles at Stirling and Perth becoming significant in the later Middle Ages before Edinburgh developed as a capital in the second half of the fifteenth century. The Scottish crown grew in prestige throughout the era and adopted the conventional offices of western European courts and later elements of their ritual and grandeur. In the early period, the kings of the Scots depended on the great lords of the mormaers (later earls) and Toísechs (later thanes), but from the reign of David I, sheriffdoms were introduced, which allowed more direct control and gradually limited the power of the major lordships. While modern knowledge of early systems of law is limited, royal justice can be seen as developing from the twelfth century onwards with local sheriff, burgh, manorial and ecclesiastical courts and offices of the justicar to oversee administration. The Scots common law began to develop in this period, and there were attempts to systematise and codify the law and the beginnings of an educated professional body of lawyers. In the late Middle Ages, major institutions of government including the King's Council and Parliament developed. The Council emerged as a full-time body in the fifteenth century, increasingly dominated by laymen and critical to the administration of justice. Parliament also emerged as a major legal institution, gaining an oversight of taxation and policy. By the end of the era it was sitting almost every year, partly because of the frequent minorities and regencies of the period, which may have prevented it from being sidelined by the monarchy. ==Kingship== In the early medieval period, with its many competing kingdoms within the modern boundaries of Scotland, kingship was not inherited in a direct line from the previous king. A candidate for kingship usually needed to be a member of a particular dynasty and to claim descent from a particular ancestor.〔A. Woolf, ''From Pictland to Alba: 789 – 1070'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0-7486-1234-3, p. 27.〕 Kingship could be multi-layered and very fluid. The Pictish kings of Fortriu were probably acting as overlords of other Pictish kings for much of this period and occasionally were able to assert an overlordship over non-Pictish kings, but sometimes had to acknowledge the overlordship of external rulers, both Anglian and British. Such relationships may have included obligations to pay tribute or to supply armed forces. In victory subordinate rulers may have received rewards in return. Interaction and intermarriage into subject kingdoms may have opened the way to absorption of such sub-kingdoms and, although there might be later overturnings of such annexation, it is likely that kingship was being gradually monopolised by a handful of the most powerful dynasties.〔B. Yorke, "Kings and kingship", in P. Stafford, ed., ''A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland, c.500-c.1100'' (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), ISBN 1-4051-0628-X, pp. 76–90.〕 The primary role of a king was to act as a war leader, reflected in the very small number of minorities or female reigning monarchs in the period. Kings organised the defence of their people's lands, property and persons and negotiated with other kings to secure these things. If they failed to do so, the settlements might be raided, destroyed or annexed and the populations killed or taken into slavery. Kings also engaged in the low-level warfare of raiding and the more ambitious full-scale warfare that led to conflicts of large armies and alliances and which could be undertaken over relatively large distances, like the expedition to Orkney by Dál Riata in 581 or the Northumbrian attack on Ireland in 684.〔 Kingship had its ritual aspects. The Scottish kings of Dál Riata were inaugurated by putting their foot in a footprint in stone, signifying that they would follow in the footsteps of their predecessors.〔J. Haywood, ''The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age'' (London: Pearson Education, 2004), ISBN 0-582-50578-X, p. 125.〕 The Kingdom of Alba, unified in the ninth century and which would develop into the kingdom of Scotland, had Scone and its sacred stone at the heart of its coronation ceremony, which historians presume was inherited from Pictish practice, but which was claimed to date back to the first arrival of the Scottish kings from Ireland. It was here that Scottish kings before the wars of independence were crowned, on the Stone of Scone, before its removal by Edward I in 1296. The first ceremony for which details survive is that for Alexander III in 1249. They describe a ceremony that combined elements of ancient heritage, the Church and secular lordship.〔 He was consecrated by the Bishop of St Andrews and placed on the throne by the Mormaers of Strathearn and Fife and his genealogy recited in Gaelic back to his Dalriadric Scottish ancestors by a royal poet from the Highlands.〔J. Bannerman, "MacDuff of Fife," in A. Grant & K. Stringer, eds., ''Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, Essays Presented to G. W. S. Barrow'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), pp. 22–3.〕 There was no anointment or crowning ceremony, as was common elsewhere in Europe. Later kings seem to have resented this omission and attempted to remedy it by appeals to the Pope. However, Scottish kings are usually depicted wearing crowns and carrying the normal regalia associated with kingship.〔B. Webster, ''Medieval Scotland: the Making of an Identity'' (St. Martin's Press, 1997), ISBN 0-333-56761-7, pp. 45–7.〕 For most of the medieval era, the king was itinerant and had no "capital" as such. David I (r. 1124–53) tried to build up Roxburgh as a royal centre,〔 but in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more charters were issued at Scone than any other location. Other popular locations in the early part of the era were nearby Perth, Stirling, Dunfermline and Edinburgh.〔P. G. B. McNeill and Hector L. MacQueen, eds, ''Atlas of Scottish History to 1707'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 159–63.〕 In the later Middle Ages the king moved between royal castles, particularly Perth and Stirling, but also holding judicial sessions throughout the kingdom, with Edinburgh only beginning to emerge as the capital in the reign of James III at the cost of considerable unpopularity.〔J. Wormald, ''Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0-7486-0276-3, pp. 14–15.〕 The unification of the kingdom, the spread of Anglo-Norman custom, the development of a European trading economy and Robert I's success in achieving independence from England did much to build up the prestige of the institution.〔N. H. Reid, "Crown and Community under Robert I", in G. W. S. Barrow, A. Grant and K. J. Stringer, eds, ''Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-7486-1110-X, p. 221.〕 Like most western European monarchies, the Scottish crown in the fifteenth century adopted the example of the Burgundian court, through formality and elegance putting itself at the centre of culture and political life, defined with display, ritual and pageantry, reflected in elaborate new palaces and patronage of the arts.〔Wormald (1991), p. 18.〕 Renaissance ideas began to influence views on government, described as New or Renaissance monarchy, which emphasised the status and significance of the monarch. The Roman Law principle that "a king is emperor in his own kingdom" can be seen in Scotland from the mid-fifteenth century. In 1469 Parliament passed an act that declared that James III possessed "full jurisdiction and empire within his realm".〔 From the 1480s the king's image on his silver groats showed him wearing a closed, arched, imperial crown, in place of the open circlet of medieval kings, probably the first coin image of its kind outside of Italy. It soon began to appear in heraldry, on royal seals, manuscripts, sculptures and the steeples of churches with royal connections, as at St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.〔 The first Scottish monarch to actually wear such a crown was James V, whose diadem was reworked to include arches in 1532. They were re-added when it was reconstructed in 1540 and this remains the Crown of Scotland. The idea of imperial monarchy emphasised the dignity of the crown and included its role as a unifying national force, defending national borders and interest, royal supremacy over the law and a distinctive national church within the Catholic communion.〔A. Thomas, ''The Renaissance'', in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, ''The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), ISBN 0-19-162433-0, p. 188.〕 New Monarchy can also be seen in the reliance of the crown on "new men" rather than the great magnates, the use of the clergy as a form of civil service, and the development of standing armed forces and a navy.〔J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, (''A History of Scotland'' ) (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0-14-013649-5.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Government in Medieval Scotland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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