Introduction

On 2 July, 1266, diplomatic representatives of King Magnus vi of Norway and King Alexander iii of Scotland convened in Perth to sign a treaty aimed at bringing political order to the unstable Norse-Scottish frontier.1 Three years earlier, Alexander iii had sponsored an invasion of the Inner Hebrides, territo- ries which had long been claimed by the Norwegian crown, prompting Magnus vi’s predecessor, King Hákon iv, to launch a colossal fleet to fight back the Scottish invaders and reestablish Norway’s preeminence over the isles around the Irish Sea. Despite its ambitious scale, the Norwegian fleet was driven back, leaving those proud possessions of the Norwegian crown in the hands of a foreign ruler.2 But it was not until 1266 that the Scottish king’s practical lordship over the Hebrides was formalized in a finalis concordia, known more commonly as the Treaty of Perth.3 In a seemingly ancillary clause, Magnus vi emphasizes his lordship over two other island provinces, Orkney and Shetland, explaining that he was to retain the lordships, homages, rents and services from them to his own ‘dominion’.4 With this simple interpolation, the Norwegian king estab- lished a political regime that would come to shape the Norse-Scottish frontier and dictate the relations between the Norwegian and Scottish crowns for an- other two centuries until, in 1468/69, those isles also fell into the hands of a Scottish king, James iii.5 During that time, Orkney and Shetland represented

1 Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 21 vols. [dn], eds. C.C.A. Lange et al., Christiania & Oslo 1849–1995, 8, no. 9. 2 Edward J. Cowan, “Norwegian Sunset, Scottish Dawn”, in Norman H. Reid (ed.), Scotland in the Reign of Alexander iii 1249–1286, Edinburgh 1990, 103–31. Hákon iv’s biography, Hákonar saga hákonarsonar, and fragments of Magnus vi’s biography, Magnúss saga lagabætis, pro- vide the most detailed accounts of the conflict and aftermath: Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar 2: Nidrlag søgu Hakonar Hakonarsonar [HsH 2], in Fornmanna sögur. Eptir gömlum handritum, vol. 10, Copenhagen 1835, Chs. 314–33; Magnúss saga lagabætis – Sögubrot Magnúss Konúngs Hákonarsonar [MsL], in Fornmanna sögur. Eptir gömlum handritum 10, Copenhagen 1835, 155–63. 3 Richard I. Lustig, “The Treaty of Perth: A Re-examination”, Scottish Historical Review 58, 1979, 35–57. 4 dn 8, no. 9: ‘et exceptis jnsulis Orchadie et Hietlandie quas jdem rex Norwegie cum dominijs homagijs redditibus seruicijs et omnibus juribus et pertinencijs suis infra easdem contiguis do- minio suo specialiter reseruauit’. 5 Norges gamle Love. Anden række 1388–1604, 4 vols. [NgL 2], eds. Absalon Taraganger et al., Christiania and Oslo 1904–1995, 2, nos. 115, 116; Barbara E. Crawford, “The Earldom of Orkney and Lordship of Shetland: A Re-interpretation of their Pledging to Scotland in 1468–70”, Saga Book 17, 1967/8, 156–76; idem, “The Pawning of Orkney and Shetland: A Reconsideration of

2 introduction the last bastions of Norwegian power in the region around Northern Britain and, some historians have argued, the final frontier in Scotland’s manifest des- tiny of political expansion.6 In surveying Norwegian-Scottish relations in the late Middle Ages, historians have almost invariably presented the events of 1266 and 1468/69 as moves in a diametric struggle between Norwegian and Scottish civilizations. That struggle, which ultimately favoured Scottish interests, supposedly manifested itself at the grass-roots level, particularly in the community of Orkney, where Norwegian power and Norse culture gradually gave way to Scottish immigra- tion and the encroachment of the Scots language and Scottish social organi- zation and legal traditions.7 The earldom of Orkney, the Norwegian crown’s satellite government in the isles and the central agency for local political con- trol, is said to have become the domain of Scottish aristocrats and shifted its political, social, and cultural orientation toward Scotland accordingly.8 Much the same has been said of the bishopric of Orkney, which, although subject to the metropolitan church in Nidaros, fell into the hands of Scottish prel- ates whose alliances with secular and clerical leaders in Scotland overshad- owed their nominal allegiance to Norway.9 The populace as a whole is also believed to have vacillated between Norwegian and Scottish fronts, at times invoking and at times reneging on their allegiance to the Norwegian crown

the Events of 1460–9”, Scottish Historical Review 48, 1969, 35–53; idem, “The Pledging of the Islands in 1469: The Historical Background”, in Donald J. Witherington (ed.), Shetland and the Outside World 1469–1969, Oxford 1983, 32–48; Kai Hørby, “Christian i and the Pawning of Orkney: Some Reflections on Scandinavian Foreign Policy 1460–8”, Scottish Historical Review 48, 1969, 54–63. 6 E.g. Cowan 1990. 7 Scholars of the early twentieth century presumed that there was a confluence of ethnic, cultural and political elements, whereby changes in the ethnic or social makeup of the isles was directly correlated to changes in their political affiliations. See e.g. Peter A. Munch, Det norske Folks Historie, Christiania 1852–1862, here 1858, 465; Anton W. Brøgger, Ancient Emigrants. A History of the Norse Settlements of Scotland, Oxford 1929, 166–97; Alfred W. Johnston, “Scot- tish Influence on Orkney”, Scottish Historical Review 13, 1916, 210. This view is also expressed in the otherwise commendable work of Gordon Donaldson, who at one point spoke of ‘the racial composition of the inhabitants’ of Shetland and ‘admixtures of southern blood’ (Gor- don Donaldson, “The Scots Settlement in Shetland”, in Donald J. Withrington (ed.), Shetland and the Outside World 1469–1969, Oxford 1983, 12, 16). 8 William P.L. Thomson, The New History of Orkney, Edinburgh 2008, 189. 9 Ronald G. Cant, “The Church in Orkney and Shetland and its Relations with Norway and Scotland in the Middle Ages”, Northern Scotland 1, 1972, 1–18; Barbara E. Crawford, “The Bish- opric of Orkney”, in Steinar Imsen (ed.), Ecclesia Nidrosiensis 1153–1537: Sykelys på Nidaro- skirkens og Nidarosprovinsens historie, Trondheim 2003, 143–58; Thomson 2008, 153–55, 190.