1 - Price trends in medieval Scotland

Summary

Scotland is half the size of England and Wales, but because of its relief, soil and climate, the area of Scottish arable and good pasture land is only about a fifth or sixth the size of England's. Rough grazing in Scotland is three times as plentiful as arable land, ensuring a pastoral bias in its agriculture and economy which has left its mark on Scottish prices. Scotland was always a country ‘more gevin to store of bestiall than ony production of cornys’, making grain correspondingly dear there and livestock cheap. Geographical factors also encouraged the consumption and even the export of fish.

Estimates of the population supported on this land have varied widely, from about a million to less than half that, but the most recent work on English population, estimates of which have also fluctuated widely, now suggest that the larger figures look the more reliable. A figure of about 6 million for England now commands widespread respect, if not universal agreement, and that in turn might imply about a million for Scotland.

The six to one ratio with England recurs with disconcerting frequency, but the upper population estimate for medieval Scotland is also supported by what we know of early eighteenth-century Scottish population totals. In England and very probably in Scotland too, it was not until after 1700 that population recovered to the levels achieved before the Black Death, so the figure of 1.1 million for Scotland in 1707 has implications for medievalists.