Edinburgh Castle Research
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EDINBURGH THE CASTLE MEDIEVAL RESEARCH DOCUMENTS Arkady Hodge CONTENTS Introduction The King s House Part 1: Calendar of References Section A: 600 1124 Section B: 1124 1291 Section C: 1291 1341 Section D: 1341 1513 Section E: 1513 1603 Part 2: Index of Locations Appendix 1: Anglo-Saxon Edinburgh? Appendix 2: The Castle of Maidens Appendix 3: The Inventories of 1282, 1291 and 1296 Appendix 4: The English Garrisons Appendix 5: A 15th-Century Sauna Appendix 6: A Medieval Parliament Appendix 7: Life in Prison Appendix 8: The King s Daughter and the Moorish Lassies Appendix 9: Royal Beasts Lions and Other Exotic Animals at the Scottish Court Appendix 10: The Artillery Addendum The Black Lady Tournaments in Primary Sources Addendum The Royal Tapestries Bibliography INTRODUCTION THE KING S HOUSE Edinburgh Castle is a seat of power, its fortified walls placed in a strong and Although its physical appearance emphasises defensive strength, the castle fulfilled many diverse roles throughout the Middle Ages. It was a royal residence as well as a military fortress, and this combination of functions made it particularly was a setting for parliaments and diplomacy, an administrative complex, a state prison and a military arsenal, not to mention a treasure house, an archive for documents and a major store for basic supplies such as salt beef and porridge oats. Beyond the activities contained within its walls, the castle also stood at the centre of a larger territory, exerting varying forms of economic and organisational influence across the wider landscape encompassed by the view from the battlements, and especially over the town which shared its name, and stretched down the Royal Mile away from its main gate. Its role cannot be fully understood without reference to its setting. Moreover, the castle was also a distinct community in its own right, home to a group of people whose identities were defined by their association with it, ranging from princes to blacksmiths, and from prisoners to priests. Fortress of the Kingdom has brought together everything that we know about the archaeology and structural history of 1 Edinburgh Castle Under Siege has history.2 The aim of this project is to provide a wider context for these findings, by making a thorough survey of the references in early written sources, and thus diversity of activities which took place within it. The bulk of the relevant material consists of items recorded in the expenses of the royal court and government, but the sources are very diverse, ranging from legal documents to literary fiction, and from eyewitness diaries to acts of parliament. The period covered by this survey begins with the earliest allusions to Edinburgh around about the 7th century AD, when the feasting hall of a local king and his warriors seems to have stood on Castle Rock, but the relevant material become much more detailed after the accession of King David I in 1124, when the castle the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI departed to London to join together the monarchies of Scotland and England as James I of Great Britain. This report consists of two main parts: first, a chronological calendar of all the textual references that have been located, followed by an alphabetical index of all the specific structures and functions which they identify within the castle. This is supplemented by a series of short appendices focused on topics that require Arthurian mythology to its development during the Renaissance as the centre of by placing them in their proper context. First, it will provide a general outline of the organisation of royal power in medieval Scotland, and the ways in which that se of the project. Before any of that, it is perhaps useful to begin with a basic outline of the physical site, and can be divided into four component areas, which existed as part of the terrain before any permanent structures were built on the Castle Rock. The outermost area of the castle consists of the final section of the lower ridge to the east on which the Royal Mile stands, known as the Castle Hill the only place from which a straightforward approach to the higher crag of the Castle Rock is possible. The top of the ridge here was widened in the 18th century to create a level plaza named the Esplanade, an open space outside the defences which creates a clear sense of physical separation between the buildings of the town and the fortifications on the steeper cliffs of the Castle Rock. Until a major redesign of the defences in 1650, however, this area looked very different the outer bulwarks of the castle projected boldly forward into the area of the esplanade, and in the third quarter of the 16th century there may have been as many as four separate rampart-lines between the buildings of the town and the higher cliffs of the Castle Rock. ter precinct covered a much larger area than the modern esplanade, stretching down the steep slopes on either side. On the south, a section of its outer wall still stands just behind the houses of the Grassmarket, and on the north (where the slope is called the Castle Bank), a ruined tower and outer rampart overlook the train tracks running through Princes Street Gardens they originally stood on the shoreline of a wide stretch of water known as the Loch nd at these ramparts, but extended beyond them -west gateway led out into an impressive expanse of Gardens and Orchards, sweeping round the southern and western flanks of the Castle Rock. The scale and sophistication of this outer area has been somewhat masked by the construction of the esplanade, which has the effect of isolating the castle visually as a more compact structure on the higher crags. Inward from the esplanade, the Castle Rock rises up dramatically, but at its foot stands a compact entrance zone, providing access from the esplanade, and it is known conventionally today as the Outer Ward. This consists of a line of defences across the base of the cliffs, and a road leading inward round the northern flank of the crags, to an inner entrance. The defences at the base of the cliffs, consisting of a deep moat, drawbridge and gateway, were developed after 1650, and the neo-baronial gatehouse superstructure was only built the 1880s, but this area represents the only practical route of access into the castle, and as visitors move inwards they quickly encounter surviving medieval structures the Flanker building on the north side of the road which now contain the tourist shop, and the inner entrance, known as the Portcullis Gate, with its Renaissance facade marking the entrance into the interior of the castle. The third area of the castle consists of the western part of the Castle Rock, stretching away beyond the Portcullis Gate, at a lower level than the highest central crag the Middle Ward. From an early date, this area was encircled by a clifftop rampart, incorporating a western postern gate providing access to a discreet footpath down the back of the crag, but there seem to be relatively few clear indications of medieval structures within the rampart. The large buildings which now dominate this part of the Castle Rock date from the 18th and 19th centuries, and there are only two clearly identified areas of medieval activity here, a metalworking zone located in the area of the modern café, and an artillery rampart drawn across the interior of the zone in 1573. It seems likely that this general area was also the location of the 16th-century bronze foundry where cannons were produced for James IV and James V during the Renaissance, but precise evidence remains somewhat elusive. The innermost sector of the castle is the Inner Ward, consisting of a raised platform of solid rock, fortified on all sides by ramparts. There are currently two entrances to this inner area, an outdoor stairway known as the Long Steps, and a ramped road leading up to an archway called these are located at the only two practical points for access to the inner ward, though the precise means of approach using a stairway and ramp may post-date 1603. Inside the ramparts, the inner ward area can be subdivided into two sectors the northern part, through which the area is entered, was heavily reconstructed in the 17th century, and further modified by the removal of most of its buildings in the Victorian era; it now consists of a relatively flat plaza, with the isolated structure of apel standing above the two entrances at its north-western corner, and artillery positions extending along the enclosing ramparts to the north and east. -up sector, containing a substantial quadrangle of buildings around a courtyard known as Crown Square. Although the appearance of these buildings has been modified by later reconstruction, the basic layout dates back at least as far as the reign of James IV (1488 1513), with elements of the complex originating at an earlier date some probably as early as the 13th century. place of royal power in medieval Scotland, Edinburgh Castle formed part of a system of government with a very specific structure. To a large extent, this structure of government defined the physical layout within the castle, and dictated the organisation of the financial records, which form the main body of written evidence relating to the castle in the medieval period. These three structures castle, government and records existed in parallel, and it is necessary to begin with an outline of the shape of the royal government, as an aid to understanding the spatial organisation of the castle itself, and the textual structure of the documentary evidence.