Government in medieval Scotland

Government in medieval Scotland, includes all forms of politics and administration of the minor kingdoms that emerged after the departure of the Romans from central and southern Britain in the fifth century, through the development and growth of the combined Scottish and Pictish kingdom of Alba into the kingdom of Scotland, until the adoption of the reforms of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century.

Kingship was the major form of political organisation in the early Middle Ages, with competing minor kingdoms and fluid relationships of over- and under-kingdoms. The primary function of these kings was as war leaders, but there were also ritual elements to kingship, evident in ceremonies of coronation. The Kingdom of Alba, which emerged from the unification of the Scots and Picts in the tenth century, retained some of these ritual aspects, most obviously in the coronation ceremony at Scone. While the Scottish monarchy remained a largely itinerant institution, Scone remained one of its most important locations, with royal castles at Stirling and Perth becoming significant in the later Middle Ages before Edinburgh developed as a capital in the second half of the fifteenth century. The Scottish crown grew in prestige throughout the era and adopted the conventional offices of western European courts and later elements of their ritual and grandeur.

In the early period, the kings of the Scots depended on the great lords of the mormaers (later earls) and Toísechs (later thanes), but from the reign of David I, sheriffdoms were introduced, which allowed more direct control and gradually limited the power of the major lordships. While modern knowledge of early systems of law is limited, royal justice can be seen as developing from the twelfth century onwards with local sheriff, burgh, manorial and ecclesiastical courts and offices of the justicar to oversee administration. The Scots common law began to develop in this period, and there were attempts to systematise and codify the law and the beginnings of an educated professional body of lawyers. In the late Middle Ages, major institutions of government including the King's Council and Parliament developed. The Council emerged as a full-time body in the fifteenth century, increasingly dominated by laymen and critical to the administration of justice. Parliament also emerged as a major legal institution, gaining an oversight of taxation and policy. By the end of the era it was sitting almost every year, partly because of the frequent minorities and regencies of the period, which may have prevented it from being sidelined by the monarchy.