THE OATMEAL CIVILISATION

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32210, 31 January 1970, Page 4

THE OATMEAL CIVILISATION

• Hlstray Of «• Mb* Ptapte IMBIB* M T. C tarat Cota. This leaned end witty boot: by an economic M*h*m wtil take Me place beside G.M.tav«iyttte*WMribcial History” as a work at once authoritative aid ln £aet ft kaneffiately makes us wonder however we managed to get along for so long without its masterly judgments and insights. Professor Smoot begins with a brief account of medieval Scotland sad the sort erf nation that rvMtai at the be-gtnnine-ar WwMl Ho makes the point that Its agrarian society was “aristomrtie, wneoracteus of Hass, designed far w>r," ft® difference between toe Mghkaris sad the I rwtaml owe of oaiptadtewetju "Mtai society was baaed «a t&wUp modified by feudalirak Lawistid society on feudalism tempered by Mnffiip.” With the union of the two crowns in the slovenly person of James VI and 1 and the outbreak <rf something like peace, these ties tended to loosen, though for many years Lowland lairds were to hive a more awtoeratie eewtrel over their tenantry than existed in England, and in the Highlands the dan chief kept his authority, which extended even to dan members indiscreet enough tn be tenants of some other laird. Along the Border, raiding still went on, and'in the Highlands the martial tradition was maintained by private war, smouldering fires which could be blown into flacae by the Jaeobite eanse or by the rivalry of nobles. Professor Smout puts it drily: The wolf became extinct about 1690: the cattle thief took longer to extirpate.” The gradual advance in Bring standards, even when derived from trade or manufacture, benefited most the landowning class. By fair means or foul it kept its stranglehold on government. In the early seventeenth century a form of serfdom was imposed on coalminers and salters by legislation. The electorates sending members to Westminster (after 1707) were tiny, and, when they were indocile, could always be swamped by ‘‘paper barons,” voters created by title-deeds to small portions of land. The laird and his people moved steadily apart and ancient hospitality fell into decay. “All over Scotland the Restoration nobles got drunk in their dining rooms in front of their friends but not in front of their tenants and followers.” The relationship of laird and man is only one of the many themes Professor Smout handles so competently. He gives an exact account of housing conditions, from the castle shedding its defensive function to the miserable huts of the peasantry, often shared with their cattle. The eighteenth century two-roomed “but and ben” of the comparatively' prosperous was a crowded interior, made tolerable only by the almost universal “box bed,” whose sliding doors gave privacy to husband and wife. The development of Scottish agriculture is another theme. From chronic

neei rtaivetinn (bad harvests brought aefnel starvation) in the sixteenth century, when the few cattle kept alive ihwmgh the winter were too weak to walk to the spring pasture and “lifting Day" was devoted to carrying them out, laird-sponsored advances are recorded, until in the eighteenth century Lowland farming, after the "agricultural revolution (and enclosure) was ahead of England in producing for the market.

The potato was meanwhile promoting population increase in the Highlands, which remained a problem area, from low fertility, remoteness, treelessness caused by keeping too many goats, and landlords more selfish and ruthless than any in the country. Though Smout does not overplay Highland clearances—he does not believe they increased the poverty of the victims—he mentions that they “shattered at a Mow the Highlander’s faith in his chief.”

The book throws interesting light on Scottish education, which was much more a middle-class privilege than legends about it suggest. Town councils were less efficient at providing schools than many rural parishes, and in the 18th century Edinburgh was “nationally famous” for its education at all levels when a third of its citizens remained illiterate. In the Highlands, though some charitable agencies did well, Gaelic and distance made education patchy. Yet John Knox triumphed in the large number of Bible readers all over toe country.

The brilliance of Scots intellectual achievement, all the brighter when set beside toe primitive realities of life, from John Napier (of logarithms) to toe 18th century flowering in Edinburgh Professor Smout establishes firmly. At toe same time he sketches in such distressing episodes as toe "unique wave of judicial murder" attending toe 17th century arraignment of witches or toe 1696 execution of Aikenhead for blasphemy. And be cannot resist giving us '■ toe horrifying detail of sanitary conditions in Edinburgh during toe time of its greatest cultural eminence. This book will prove a valuable antidote to toe excesses of Scottish romanticism. It reminds us, for instance, that toe kilt was unknown before toe 18th century. Throughout it is based on authoritative detail, and this makes its adroitly-phrased generalisations completely acceptable; The illustrations are especially well-chosen and memorable. The book’s only blemish is some careless proof-reading. Here we may be grateful for an inspired misprint: medieval bishops were “a byword for immortality.” (Incidentally, as late as toe 16th century a pre-Reformation archbishop’s doctor prescribed him ten weeks of “moderate and carefully regulated incontinence.”) Perhaps a glossary might have been provided for the miserable Sassenach. Terms such as wadsetter, tacksman, grassum, kindly tenants, feued out, do get explained somewhere, but your reviewer is still-ruefully chewing over “outwlth."