Is there a Scottish version?
Posted by Anonymous to Our Town and Its Business at 12 November 2015 at 20:10
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There is indeed. It was the Clan system . In general terms it was feudalism. Serfdom is part of it and the difference to slavery is in degree. Land owners owned the inhabitants of the land.
In Scotland , crofters farmed the area they lived on and except for a small percentage , everything they produced belonged to the Chieftain or The Laird.
Fish in the rivers and game in forests belonged to The Laird. Salmon belonged to the KIng
Disputes with neighbours meant sons of crofters were expected to fight and die for The Laird.
In more recent history, absentee Highland landowners discovered sheep were more profitable than people.
They turned the crofters out of their homes , burning the thatched roofs over their heads to force them to leave.
The event became known as The Highland Clearances.
Settlement areas were created at the coast with no means of livelihood.
Many were transported on leaky boats across the Atlantic to a place that became known as
Nova Scotia.
I read somewhere recently clan members' rights of ownership were eventually established through the courts. But not before horrendous hardship had been perpetrated against them by those with power.
If a man committed an offence , he could be sentenced, with his entire family to work in a coal mine for a private owner.
The mine was accessed by long rickety ladder. A mother would go down with an infant in a basket on her back. By the time she came back up, her hair would be so matted with coal dust and skin so coated, she would be hardly be recognizable as human.
The King created Royal Burghs. People living and earning a livelihood in a burgh were freemen.They
had elections.
Towns had gates that were closed at night. A watchman would guard the gates. Every hour he would ring a bell, call out the hour and shout ALL's WELL.
If a person could hide and earn a living in the town for twelve months, he too could become a freeman.
But that was hard because mediaeval guilds protected the trades. The right to be a saddler for example passed from father to son. There was no free trade.
The Industrial Revolution changed things. In hard times, children died of starvation.
Things were worse in France. They had a different revolution. With a guilotine.
The British were afraid it would spread and established the first police force.
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2 comments:
It has always been a dangerous thing to be born at the bottom of an economic or political ladder.
We studied the feudal system but it was a cold look. You got the picture that the top guy owned the river and the big house while the ' tenants ' got to farm the bits assigned to them. Clearly there was to be no mixing. Sort of like the cattle and sheep people in the west.
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