Geography of Scotland in the early modern era facts for kids
The geography of Scotland in the early modern era looks at the land and people of Scotland from the 1500s to the 1700s. This was before the big changes of the farming revolution and the start of factories. Scotland's geography is mainly split into two parts: the Highlands and Islands in the north and west, and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands are further divided by the Great Glen. The Lowlands include the rich Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands. Both the Uplands and Highlands had short growing seasons, made even harder by the Little Ice Age, which was coldest around the late 1600s.
During this time, a network of roads grew in the Lowlands. Special Drover's roads, used for moving cattle from the Highlands to north-east England, were well-known by the late 1600s. Later, military roads were built to help soldiers move around, especially after the Jacobite risings in the 1700s. At first, most farming happened in small communities called fermtouns in the Lowlands or bailes in the Highlands. But gradually, large estates owned by a few people became the main way land was managed. This led to a new look for the countryside, with straight fields and farms built in specific places, connected by roads. People also tried to make farming better, bringing in new crops, methods, and enclosures. This meant that the old run rig system, where land was shared, started to disappear.
It's hard to know exactly how many people lived in Scotland before the late 1600s. The population probably grew for most of this period. By 1691, there were about 1.2 million people. By the first official count in 1751, there were about 1.26 million. Unlike today, where many people live in cities, the population was spread out more evenly across the country, with about half living north of the River Tay. Most people lived in small villages or single homes. The Little Ice Age caused some land to be left empty because it was too cold to farm. But new settlements appeared in places like Ettrick Forest, which used to be hunting grounds. As the population grew, some villages split into smaller hamlets. About ten percent of people lived in the many towns (burghs) that had grown since the Middle Ages, mostly in the east and south. By 1750, Edinburgh and its surrounding areas had a population of 57,000.
By the early modern era, Gaelic had been shrinking for 300 years and was seen as a less important language, mostly spoken in the Highlands and Islands. It was slowly being replaced by Middle Scots. From the mid-1500s, written Scots was more and more influenced by the Standard English spoken in Southern England, which became the language of important people. After Scotland and England joined in 1707, many in power and education discouraged the use of Gaelic and Scots, and even the idea of being Scottish. Scotland's borders were mostly set by the early 1500s, except for the "debatable lands" near the English border, which were officially settled in 1552. When James VI became King of England, the border became less important for military reasons. He called it the "middle shires" of Great Britain. However, it remained a border for laws and taxes until the Act of Union in 1707. Edinburgh became the capital in the 1400s and remained a key government center. From the 1600s, the jobs of shires (areas like counties) grew from just legal matters to wider local management. The local church area (parish) also became important for local government. By the mid-1600s, this system was common in the Lowlands but less so in the Highlands. People became much more aware of geography and political lines during this time, and Scotland was mapped in detail for the first time.
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Scotland's Land and Climate
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The main thing that defines Scotland's land is the difference between the Highlands and Islands in the north and west, and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands are split into the Northwest Highlands and the Grampian Mountains by a long crack in the earth called the Great Glen. The Lowlands are divided into the rich Central Lowlands and the higher lands of the Southern Uplands. The Southern Uplands include the Cheviot hills, where the border with England runs.
The Central Lowland belt is about 50 miles wide. It has most of the good farming land and is easier to travel through. This meant it could support most of the towns and regular government. However, the Southern Uplands and especially the Highlands were not as good for farming and were much harder to control. These areas had a short growing season. In the highest parts of the Grampians, there were only four months or less without ice. For most of the Highlands and Uplands, it was seven months or less.
The early modern era also saw the impact of the Little Ice Age. This was a time of colder and wetter weather around the world, which was at its worst towards the end of the 1600s. In 1564, there were 33 days of continuous frost, and rivers and lochs froze. The 1690s were the coldest point, leading to the Seven ill years of famine.
Roads and Travel
Most roads in the Lowlands were looked after by local officials. They collected money from landowners and got tenants to do work. By the early 1700s, the way grain prices spread across the country showed that the road network had improved a lot. By the late 1600s, drover's roads were well-established. These roads stretched from the Highlands through south-west Scotland to north-east England. They were used to move Highland Cattle to England for meat. In the Highlands and Galloway in the early 1700s, the government built and maintained a series of military roads. These were meant to help troops move easily if there was a rebellion.
Farming and Land Ownership
At the start of this period, most farming was done in small communities. In the Lowlands, these were called fermtouns, and in the Highlands, they were bailes. These were groups of a few families who farmed an area together. The land was divided into strips called run rigs, which were "runs" (furrows) and "rigs" (ridges). These usually ran downhill to include both wet and dry land, which helped with extreme weather.
During this time, a new system of land ownership became common. A few large estate holders owned most of the land, and many workers farmed it. This greatly changed the landscape as old feudal ways of owning land were replaced. This change also helped the Scottish Agricultural Revolution begin, which further changed the Scottish countryside from the early 1700s. This was the start of creating a landscape with straight, rectangular fields, carefully placed farm buildings, and connecting roads.
After Scotland and England joined in 1707, there was more contact between the two countries. This led to a strong effort by rich landowners to improve farming. The Society of Improvers was started in 1723, with 300 members including dukes, earls, and landlords. New farming methods were brought in, like making hay, using the English plough, and planting foreign grasses, rye grass, and clover. Turnips and cabbages were introduced. Lands were enclosed (fenced off), marshes were drained, and lime was added to the soil. Roads were built, and woods were planted. Farmers also started drilling and sowing seeds in rows, and using crop rotation (changing crops each year to keep the soil healthy). The potato was brought to Scotland in 1739, which greatly improved what poor farmers could eat.
Enclosures began to replace the old run rig system and shared grazing land. New farm buildings, often based on designs from pattern books, replaced the old fermtouns. This meant that different building styles from different regions were replaced by more standard forms. Smaller farms still had a long, linear shape, with the house, barn, and cow shed in a row. But on larger farms, a three- or four-sided layout became common, separating the house from the barns and servants' quarters. Different regions also started to specialize in certain types of farming. The Lothians became a major area for growing grain, Ayrshire for raising cattle, and the Borders for sheep. However, even though some landowners helped their displaced workers, enclosures often led to people losing their jobs and being forced to move to towns or even abroad.
Population and Settlements
It's very difficult to find reliable numbers for Scotland's population before the late 1600s. Based on English records, it's thought that by the end of the Middle Ages, the Black Death and later outbreaks of the plague might have reduced Scotland's population to as low as half a million people. Rising prices for food, which usually means more demand, suggest that the population probably grew in the first half of the 1500s. It then leveled off after the famine of 1595, as prices were quite stable in the early 1600s.
Calculations based on tax records from 1691 show a population of 1,234,575. This number might have been greatly affected by the famines of the 1690s. The first truly reliable information about the national population comes from a count done by Reverend Alexander Webster in 1755. This showed that Scotland had 1,265,380 people.
Compared to after the Highland Clearances and the industrial revolution (which moved many people around), the population was spread out evenly across the country. About half of the people lived north of the River Tay. Most people in the early modern era, in both the Lowlands and Highlands, lived in small villages or isolated homes. One effect of the Little Ice Age was that some land that was difficult to farm was abandoned early in this period. It became impossible to grow crops in some areas, especially in the uplands. However, new settlements were created when hunting grounds like Ettrick Forest were opened up. Less desirable low-lying land was also settled, often with names that included words like bog, marsh, and muir.
As the population grew, some of these settlements were divided to create new hamlets. More difficult land was settled again, and sheilings (groups of huts used when summer pastures were grazed) became permanent homes. Perhaps ten percent of the population lived in one of the towns (burghs) that had grown since the Middle Ages, mainly in the east and south. These towns might have had an average population of about 2,000. The largest, Edinburgh, probably had over 10,000 people at the start of this era, but many towns were much smaller than 1,000. During the 1600s, the number of people living in the capital grew quickly. It also spread beyond the city walls into areas like Cowgate, Bristo, and Westport. By 1750, with its surrounding areas, Edinburgh had a population of 57,000. By the end of this period, the only other towns with over 10,000 people were Glasgow with 32,000, Aberdeen with about 16,000, and Dundee with 12,000.
Language in Scotland
By the early modern era, Gaelic had been losing ground for 300 years. It was becoming a less important language, mostly spoken in the Highlands and Islands. It was slowly being replaced by Middle Scots, which became the language of both the rich and most of the population. Scots came mainly from Old English, with some influences from Gaelic and French. In the 1400s, it was called Inglyshe and was very similar to the language spoken in northern England. But by the 1500s, it had its own spelling and writing rules, mostly separate from those developing in England.
From the mid-1500s, written Scots was more and more influenced by the Standard English of Southern England. This was because of growing interactions between the royal families and politicians of Scotland and England. With more English books available and their growing influence, most writing in Scotland started to follow the English style. Unlike many kings before him, James VI generally disliked Gaelic culture. After he became King of England, he increasingly preferred the language of southern England, even though he had praised Scots "poesie" (poetry) before. In 1611, the Church of Scotland adopted the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, which was in English. In 1617, it was said that interpreters were no longer needed in the port of London because Scots and Englishmen were now "not so far different bot ane understandeth ane uther" (not so different that one couldn't understand the other). One historian, Jenny Wormald, described James as creating a "three-tier system, with Gaelic at the bottom and English at the top."
After the Union in 1707, when Scotland and England joined, political power shifted to England. Many people in authority and education discouraged the use of Gaelic and Scots. The Scottish Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), founded in 1709, aimed to teach English and reduce the connection to Roman Catholicism, which was linked to rebellious Jacobitism. It was partly a cultural goal, intending to "wear out" Gaelic and "learn the people the English tongue." Although SSPCK schools eventually taught in Gaelic, the overall effect helped to weaken Highland culture. Many important Scots of this period, like David Hume, saw themselves as Northern British rather than purely Scottish. They tried to get rid of their Scots accents and words to establish Standard English as the official language of the new Union. Many wealthy Scots learned English from people like Thomas Sheridan, who gave lectures on English elocution (clear speaking) in 1761. These lectures cost a guinea (about £170 today) and were attended by over 300 men. Sheridan was even made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh. After this, some of the city's thinkers formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. However, Scots remained the everyday language for many people in rural areas and for the growing number of working-class people in towns.
Scotland's Political Landscape
Scotland's size and borders were mostly set in their modern form by the early 1500s. The only exception was the "debatable lands" at the western end of the border with England. These were settled by a French-led group in 1552, and the Scots' Dike was built to mark the boundary. The Scottish administration of the Borders was divided into three areas: East, West, and Middle. When James VI became King of England, the border became less important for military reasons. He called it the "middle shires" of Great Britain. In 1605, he set up a group of ten men, half from Scotland and half from England, to bring law and order to the region. But lawlessness continued, and it remained a border for laws and taxes until the Act of Union in 1707.
Edinburgh became the capital city in the 1400s. It was the richest and largest city in Scotland and held the main law courts, parliament, and the royal residence at Holyrood Palace. Even after James VI moved to London when the crowns of Scotland and England were united in 1603, Edinburgh remained the center of government. Even after the Acts of Union in 1707 removed the Scottish parliament, Edinburgh kept the treasury and law courts.
From the 1600s, the responsibilities of shires (like counties) grew from just legal duties to wider local management. In 1667, officials called Commissioners of Supply were appointed in each shire to collect the land tax. The local church area (parish) also became an important unit of local government after three main laws were passed in 1574, 1579, and 1592. These laws created what became known as "the Old Poor Law." Under pressure from local officials, the parish became responsible for helping poor people during times of famine. This was to stop them from wandering the roads and causing trouble. By the mid-1600s, this system was largely in place across the Lowlands, but it was limited in the Highlands.
People became more aware of geography and political boundaries during this period. Scotland was mapped in detail for the first time. In the late 1500s, Timothy Pont created many sketch maps of Scotland. He recorded the names and details of 20,000 places he visited or noted. His work became the basis for the maps of Scotland published in the next century by Willem and Johannes Blaeu. In the 1700s, mapping became more military-focused. The armed forces took over the job of mapping. One response to the Jacobite uprisings in 1715 and 1745 was the Ordnance Survey. Over 800 military maps of Scotland from this time still exist. The new generation of mapmakers were engineers and military surveyors.
