Scotland also developed
a monetary system under King David. Silver coins were minted to encourage trade and
commerce. Before this most Scots exchanged goods by barter.
The king took command
of commerce by creating burghs to exclusively buy and sell, banning all trade outside the
burgh’s market. He limited the number of burghs, while ensuring a spread all over
Scotland.
Those who became burgesses had to deal with all trade in the burghs
There were many burghs all around Scotland. These included Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Berwick, (the only port) and Stirling in the Anglian southeast (Lothian). North of the Forth David’s elder brother, Alexander I established more ports for overseas trade, Aberdeen, Perth, and Inverkeithing. These were the earliest burghs in Scotland, closely followed by Crail, Dunfermline, St. Andrews, Elgin, Forres, and Montrose. The only places in the west that were given burgh status were Rutherglen, Lanark, and Renfrew. The rents, tolls and fines that the burghs provided were David I’s earliest and most important sources of money. By giving burghs preferential treatment he hoped to build them up quickly and attract to them foreign traders and craftsmen with skills that Scotland lacked. Most of the early burgesses came from Flanders, northern France, England and Lothian. Their common language was English: the use of English spread from the burghs. **David I also divided the kingdom into three economic regions, each with its own prominent burgh. Berwick was the largest of the burghs south of the Forth and Clyde; it was also the wealthiest in Scotland before the Wars of Independence. Perth was the principal burgh of central Scotland, and Aberdeen dominated the area north of the Grampians. The growth of the burghs in Scotland during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was incredible. There were at least 50 burghs by the end of the thirteenth century, most established before 1200. The main reason for this speedy development was international trade. The riches created by international trade were what raised Scotland’s cathedrals, abbeys, and castles. 1200 - 1300 was a Golden Age for the Scots, which they looked back on so longingly from the fourteenth century onwards. During the twelfth century Flanders’ need for woollen materials far surpassed the local supply, therefore they turned their attentions to England’s supply of wool. They found this to be of much higher quality than the local produce. Unfortunately this still did not fully supply the demand for wool in Belgium so they began to import it also from Scotland. Although Scotland’s wool was not as high in quality as the English wool, it was still among the best in Europe. As well as wool the Flemish exported sheepskin and hides in great quantity. Fish was also sent abroad in vast numbers. Some important fisheries included the herring fisheries in Ayr and Dumbarton in the west and in the north, Inverness. Aberdeen was the place for cod, so much so that in Flanders it was known as aberdaan. Aberdeen was also the main centre for Scotland’s renowned salmon trade. Crail’s prosperity was based around the herring fisheries of the Isle of May. Thus Scotland had an immense trade surplus by the thirteenth century, and a per capita income that was probably as high as England’s. This was a high point that has never been equalled yet. Unfortunately this economic boom didn’t last forever. It ended when Edward I invaded in March 1296, sacking Berwick and massacring its inhabitants. The following twenty years saw the tide of war rolling back and fore across Scotland, seriously damaging most, if not all of the burghs, and devastating the economy. As early as 1308 Aberdeen had recovered, but it wasn’t until 1318 that Berwick was recaptured from the English. During this time any traditional patterns of trade had to be rethought. Craft activity had decreased, and Edinburgh (through Leith) and Dundee became the main areas for overseas trade. Scottish merchants were more active, whereas before most trading in Scotland had been done by foreigners. While the power of the merchants in Scotland grew, its economy and towns were collapsing. The Crown, clergy and barons were all in the merchants’ debt and with crafts still in decline manufactured goods were vital. A major source of income for everyone, both peasants and lords, was exported goods. The power of merchants was strengthened in the years after the Wars of Independence (when Berwick and Roxburgh were lost) and with the coming of the Black Death in 1349. According to tax assessments of the time, the economy of Scotland shrank by around 60 percent between 1296 and 1366; this also helped the merchants become more powerful. Most seaborne trade was coastal, in the Middle Ages. Even though Scotland had its principal trade links with Flanders and Northern France, its economic ties with England had inevitably been very close, so the souring of these relations after Edward’s invasion of Scotland in 1296 had an extreme effect on the Scottish economy. Not only was trading destroyed between England and Scotland, but English hostility also deterred other traders from dealing with Scotland. Scottish trade in the fifteenth century shifted to the Low Countries, France and the Baltic. By medieval standards the trading ships were unusually large; they also sailed in convoy, for protection against English pirates. Scottish trading routes, particularly to France and the Low Countries, were vulnerable to English attack. Soon seaborne traffic became a rarity, and most remote places were given up. Customs records from this time show that there was no traffic on the West Coast, there was no sea fishing anymore, and that very few Scottish ships ventured through the English Channel. The Scots relied heavily on trade with Flanders, especially Bruges. Before the Wars of Independence there was already a large settlement of Scots in Bruges, then still part of the French Empire and the principal trading entrance into Flanders for foreign traffic. So later Flanders, especially Bruges, was seen as a safe haven. It also became Scotland's main military supplier from the 1290s onwards. Mons Meg, the famous cannon still on display in Edinburgh Castle, was sent from there to Scotland in 1457. To strengthen these ties with Bruges, a ‘staple’ was set up so that all wool, sheepskins, and hides that were exported by Scottish merchants, by law had to be taken straight to Bruges. It is thought that it was Robert the Bruce who arranged this. Since these goods were the main exports from Scotland, Bruges came to dominate overseas trade from Scotland for more than 150 years. Bruges was the most cosmopolitan city and the greatest international market north of the Alps in the 1300s and through most of the 1400s. There was other trade, mainly in grain, with other lands that had chiefly been supplied by England in earlier times. In Dieppe there was a small Scottish colony, which remained there until the English occupation of northern France in 1415. Also, there was trade with the Baltic ports of Danzig (Gdansk) and Stralsund (now in East Germany). As well as this, the Teutonic Knights kept commercial representatives in Linlithgow and Edinburgh. But apart from grain, imported goods only came through Bruges. There is no record of the volume of exports before the Wars of Independence, but the volume of exports for most of the fourteenth century for hides and wool is impressive. There was an annual average of 40000 cowhides, and the wool and skins of 2 million sheep were exported in 1372. After the Black Death prices slumped, but the amount of exports stayed high until the 1390s, before plummeting by over half. This extreme decline was caused by a general economic recession, which had been intensified by a worsening of international relations with England. The economy recovered for a short while, from the 1420s to 1430s. James I helped this process but afterwards traditional trade slumped even lower than before. Inevitably there has to be a limit on the amount of credit that can be raised, and by the middle of the fifteenth century Scotland had exhausted her credit. The remedy was to promote crafts, in order to reduce import dependency, and try to improve the economy by developing new industries for export. It is thought that James I had wanted to do this, but the merchants were unwilling to change. Since James greatly depended on the merchants’ support, so this gave him little room for manoeuvre. Eventually change came, not imposed by Kings or Lords, but thanks to the ordinary people. Burgh populations had either been level or falling for the previous 150 years, but in 1450 they began to rise. Declining competitiveness had weakened the merchants, and those in the greater burghs were unable to hold on to their positions of superiority in the burghs. The drive towards self-sufficiency and the opening of new markets found a decisive champion in James III. He was more interested in money, arts, and crafts than any other part of government, which his peers found indecent. With the help of one of his closest friends, an Italian-Flemish merchant prince named Anselme Adornes, he brought about an economic revolution in Scotland. He attempted to introduce a copper coinage system to Scotland for everyday transactions, similar to that in the Burgundian Netherlands, but this was an absolute disaster. However, he redeemed himself with his promotion of craft organisations and trade standards; this, along with his votes for crafts in burgh elections, was entirely successful. Other successes were his introduction of the free trade policy and his championship of sea fishing. The Scottish coastal and urban economy were completely changed by these ideas, even though the full impact of these changes was not to be felt for a few years, during the reign of James IV. The most dramatic and long-lasting effect was made by the encouragement of crafts, even though they did not affect the export side of trade. The only growth in exports happened outside of the burghs. For a long time cloth had been the only major bulk export from Scotland, and this had all been woven outside the burghs in the countryside, but controlled by the merchant entrepreneurs. Salt was another expanding export in the middle of the fifteenth century; this was also produced outside of burgh control, in saltpans linked to major collieries at Tranent in Lothian (Prestonpans) and Dysart in Fife. The herring fisheries in the firth of Clyde, and on the Forth were also revived. Little of this additional trade went to Flanders. Exports in hides, cloth, wool, and fish to La Rochelle and Bordeaux rapidly expanded in the late fifteenth century. By the early sixteenth century France had overtaken the Netherlands as Scotland’s principal foreign market. |
