Acknowledgements
List of Maps and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Preliminary notes
Introduction
Part 1: Rulers and Ruled, 1124-1230
1: The early Scottish state?
2: Common Burdens in the Regnum Scottorum
3: Written law and the maintenance of order, 1124-1290
Part II: The emergence of a bureaucratic state, c.1170-1290?
4: The institutions of royal government, c.1170-1290
5: The development of a common law, 1230-1290
6: Accounting and Revenue, c.1180-1290
7: A bureaucratic government?
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Alice Taylor is a Reader in Medieval History at King's College
London. She was born in London and studied History at St Peter's
College, Oxford. After receiving her doctorate from Oxford in 2009,
she was a Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge until 2011,
when she joined the History Department at KCL. The Shape of the
State was her first book, and was jointly awarded the Royal
Historical Society's Whitfield Prize in 2017. Also in
2017, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for History.
In the next generation, all arguments on Scottish governance (and
much else) will start from this book.
*Paul R. Hyams, American Historical Review*
[Alice Taylor] is to be congratulated and thanked, not only for a
remarkable contribution to our knowledge and understanding of
medieval Scotland and its systems of government and law, but also
for the stimulation which her work will undoubtedly provide.
*Hector L. MacQueen, Edinburgh Law Review*
[A]uthoritative new study....Through a close reading of the
surviving source material that challenges several long-held
assumptions, Taylor breaks new ground. This book is the culmination
of more than a decade of detailed studies by Taylor. It is a
challenging work, informed by profound scholarship and a keen sense
of purpose. It is sure to lead to considerable discussion and
inspire further work in this difficult area of study.
*J.S. Hamilton, Scotia: Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish
Studies*
Every generation or so a book is produced that is truly
transformative of our understanding of the historical processes
that led to evolutionary step changes in the development of a
culture or polity. Such is the status of Alice Taylor's magisterial
study of the formation of the medieval Scottish state. ... Through
Alice Taylor's scholarship we have been presented with a new
historiographical horizon; now we need to populate the new
landscape with the detail of the new world beyond it.
*Richard Oram, Renaissance Quarterly*
In this hugely significant and ambitious book, Alice Taylor offers
a detailed survey of the developing form of royal government in
Scotland during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries... Through
rigorous and insightful analysis, Taylor has constructed a vital
interpretive model for understanding the dynamics of royal power in
Scotland during this period.
*Victoria Hodgson, University of Stirling*
The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland is a work of great
scholarship and insight. Through its penetrating analysis of
detailed evidence and complex sources, it builds a picture of the
gradual development of the state in early Scotland, drawing upon
fresh approaches and evidence to yield a textured and nuanced
understanding of the growth of royal government in 12th and
13th-century Scotland ... Situating its analysis in a European
perspective, it makes an important contribution to the study of
medieval kingship, statecraft and the aristocracy. This is a
ground-breaking book which will set the terms of debate for many
years to come.
*Judges' comments for the 2017 Whitfield Prize of the Royal
Historical Society*
This volume represents a truly remarkable scholarly achievement.
Without doubt, it is the single most significant work to be
published on the Scottish legal system during the central Middle
Ages in over 20 years. And yet is does more. Its revolutionary
conclusions convincingly explain how the laws of the realm were
transformed by shifting power structures in twelfth-century and
thirteenth-century Scotland. Furthermore, it achieves this goal in
such a way as to demonstrate that the Scottish experience is of
great comparative significance.
*Comparative Legal History*
As another referendum looms, this book comes at an opportune moment
to act as a corrective to the co-opting of the medieval past. It is
ambitious and thorough; it succeeds in its stated aims, and then
some.
*Toby Salisbury, Reviews in History*
The scope of the ground-breaking scholarship displayed by Taylor in
this book is remarkable. Through meticulous and rigorous research
into extremely difficult manuscript traditions -- which were once
described as an 'Augean Stable' of texts by their early-modern
editor -- she has recovered much evidence which was previously
simply unavailable to Scottish historians.
*Andrew RC Simpson, Comparative Legal History*
Alice Taylor is to be congratulated on an outstanding work.
*Stephen Marritt, Sehepunkte*
excellent ... a historian with Taylor's rare accomplishments will
be able to shed more light on the matter ... So much illumination
has already been provided by this remarkable book that to ask for
more would be unreasonable
*J. D. Ford, Modern Law Review*
this impressive and timely monograph ... does indeed represent the
most significant contribution in a generation to the study of the
development of government and law (the 'state' in anachronistic
terms) in the emerging medieval Scottish kingdom. Moreover, it must
prompt careful reassessment of much of our understanding of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries in that realm and beyond. It is a
challenging but undeniably rewarding read on many levels, a model
in structure, historiographical context and the layering in and
critical evaluation of complex, often seemingly contradictory,
records sources (many of them freshly translated and reconsidered
by the author).
*Michael Penman, Parliaments, Estates and Representation*
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