SOURCE: "Chivalry and Feudal Obligation in Bar-bour's Bruce," in The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideas of Order and Their Decline, edited by Liam O. Purdon and Cindy L. Vitto, University Press of Florida, 1994, pp. 77-95.

[In the following essay, Purdon and Wasserman discuss Barbour's emphasis on feudal custom as opposed to chivalric ideal in The Bruce.]

Recently, scholars have begun to demonstrate how, in The Bruce, John Barbour manipulates poetic convention and historical fact for the artistic and poetical purpose of creating a rousing pro-Scots account of the early fourteenth-century wars for independence. Interestingly enough, this growing critical appreciation for the form and content of the oldest extant Scottish "national epic"¹ has repeatedly drawn attention to the poem's curiously deliberate rejection of "chivalry," especially in its treatment of Edward Bruce.²

To understand Barbour's treatment of chivalry and chivalric custom, one must first place the poem in the context of the growing concept of the individual that was taking place during the fourteenth century, especially in England where such ideas were to have profound effects on the nature of feudalism and feudal obligation.³ Indeed, the Scottish war for independence and even the need for a Scottish "national epic" may be taken as manifestations of the development of the sense of the individual and of individual "rights." In fact, the Scots' revocation of claims of vassalage to the English monarch may be viewed as an at-large application of the developing right of exfestucatio or diffidatio, the repudiation of the feudal contract by a vassal if the lord did not fulfill his duties and overstepped contractual bonds,⁴ itself a reflection of a growing sense that the Pauline doctrine of the complete subjugation of the part to the whole was no longer a viable means of organizing a society in which workers made increasing demands for control of their property and conditions of employment.⁵ Yet if the growing sense of the individual as manifested by feudal exfestucatio or diffidatio was a force that Barbour wished to encourage for the sake of Scottish independence, it was also one that needed to be carefully circumscribed, as the same impulse to individual identity that separates the Scots from the rest of Britain might also work against Scottish unity, breaking the people into individual clans incapable of sustaining the unified front necessary for national independence. To extend the Pauline metaphor, the force that leads the arm to declare its independence from the body might also lead the hand to separate from the arm.

Barbour's method of fostering and at the same time maintaining control over that impulse is to call his readers' attention to the limitations of chivalry in order to enable his audience to perceive the value of feudal obligation, a less attractive but by no means less practical part of feudal custom and practice.⁶ In short, Barbour's strategy is to separate feudal obligation, the subsuming of the individual to the greater whole, from the secondary effect of personal glory through individual gallantry, demonstrating the social as well as political value of using a system of feudal obligation to unify a people under militant kingship.

To understand this secondary effect, it is perhaps helpful to turn to the literary model par excellence of medieval chivalry, the tales of King Arthur. The fourteenth-century Alliterative Morte D 'Arthur provides an instructive example of the type of chivalry that Barbour explicitly rejects. For example, Arthur's repudiation of vassalage owed by himself to the Roman emperor Lucius provides a striking parallel to the Scottish revolt against English King Edward.⁷ And the spirit of individualism, the nationalism that serves as the first cause of the revolt against Lucius, is directly reflected in the way in which the war for British independence is fought. Within the Alliterative Morte, battles are primarily the sites of individual acts of courage and nobility by knights such as Gawain or Kay, or, in the end, Gawain against Mordred or Arthur against Mordred. Indeed, the actual battle with the Romans is begun by the rash acts of one individual, Gawain. And even the final revolt against proper vassalage, the revolt against Arthur, grows out of an individual's ambition. Mordred's usurpation is, in a sense, simply the ultimate expression of individuality, of the self that places itself above all else. The great masses of soldiers are little more than backdrops for the exploits of individual knights who in the end even have the potential to eclipse Arthur. This is exactly the type of individual performance of which Barbour is suspicious.

One place in which Barbour's concern for the individual in warfare is seen arises in his rejection of chivalry in favor of strategy, or what is now called guerrilla warfare. This is a move that certainly constitutes a departure from advocating an ordered, predictable way of fighting, though not necessarily a departure from the military strategical thinking found in a work like Vegetius's De re militari, a work that would have been available and of great interest to Barbour and the heroes of his "romanys,"⁸ especially as they faced armies that were greater and more powerful than their own. In a sense, guerrilla war is faceless, a series of skirmishes between companies of men without the independent personal duels that mark chivalric warfare, and so is, in essence, the antithesis of the formally staged battles in the Alliterative Morte. Such tactics do find a parallel, however, in another series of fourteenth-century tales, the stories of Robin Hood, whose anti-chivalric guerrilla tactics are likewise employed in the renunciation of obligation to an unjust lord.⁹

While at least one scholar has argued that The Bruce should end after Barbour's blow-by-blowdescription of the Battle of Bannockburn,¹⁰ such a revision would vitiate the effect of the whole work, not only because it would eliminate memorable episodes¹¹ but also because it would preclude any mention of the disastrous Scottish campaign in Ireland. This campaign was a major military venture during the Scottish wars for independence, and for that reason alone could not be ignored by Barbour. But more important than that, it was not the kind of subject to be passed over, unflattering as it might be to the Scottish cause, because it provided Barbour with an appropriate historical means of demonstrating the inherent weakness of the chivalric ideal and the strength of feudal obligation. Through his account of Edward Bruce's administration of the campaign, Barbour uses this costly Scottish defeat to inform his audience of the virtue of feudal obligation.

According to Barbour, Edward Bruce is a capable, chivalrous knight—one "stoutar … yan a libard" (14.2). Barbour first develops this view of Robert Bruce's brother in the episode concerning the retaking of Galloway. By this time in the wars for independence, most of Scotland north of the Scottish Sea, except for Galloway, is loyal to Bruce. Edward wants to subdue Galloway and, when given the chance, does so, winning at Dalbeattie. "Throw his [Edward's] chewalrous chiwalry," says Barbour, "Galloway was stonayit gretumly / And he dowtyt for his bounte" (9.541-43). This victory inspires further acts of chivalry, one of which, recounted by Sir Alan of Cathcart, involves Edward's daring attack with fifty mounted knights on an English force consisting of at least thirty times that number:

Schyr Eduuard yat gret ɜarnyn had
All tymys to do chewalry
With all his rout in full gret hy
Folowyt ye trais quhar gane war yai …

[9.588-91]

Edward may be given to chivalry, but the narrative focus is actually on "his rout." The battle is really one between "companies"—"he and his cumpany" (594), the "Inglis cumpany" (601), and "schyr Eduuardis cumpany" (614), as the audience is thrice told within a short span of time. While Edward is the flower of chivalry (and a lucky soldier, as this account of the battle in the mist indicates), he is more attentive to the fulfillment of his chivalric ambition, his individual glory, than to the details of feudal warfare, such as the strategy shown here of transforming potential enemies into close allies by securing their loyalty through feudal obligation.

This tendency toward impracticality on Edward's part is brought into sharp focus later, when, beginning the Irish campaign, Edward forges alliances based solely upon the word or verbal bond of his potential enemies—in short, using words exchanged between individuals as individuals so that peace is negotiated much as chivalric war is fought. Chivalry, individual distinction in warfare, results in individual bonds of fealty, peace between institutional leaders rather than between the companies of men who have waged war. And it is here that the growing notion of the individual that made it conceivable to break the feudal bond between the Scottish vassals and their English Lord through exfestucatio or diffidatio makes the newly forged bonds vulnerable to rupture. Walter Ullmann notes:

The very idea of diffidatio contains as an integral element the concept of fides, for diffidatiois nothing less than the withdrawal of loyalty from the lord by the vassal. This loyalty was not institutionalized, but was intensely personal: it was the bond which kept lord and vassal together and had reference exclusively to the lord as an individual person. In contrast to the descending theme of government, one is here presented with a definite individual-personal relationship, that kind of relationship which, by virtue of the institutionalization of faith, could not and did not exist in the descending form of government, in which not the individual but the office constituted the essential ingredient.¹²

As his army makes its way southward, for example, Edward bargains with the Irish, enlisting their support to help him drive the English from Irish shores. What he works out, at first, is simply an agreement or a hycht (14.16), which, later, he reaffirms as all of Ulster "his pes haly cummyn wer" (14.98). But this does not stop the attacks on the Scottish forces. Again, after the success at Dundalk and the routing of Sir Richard of Clare's fifty-thousand man army in the battle near the forest of Kilross, Edward accepts just the word alone of his potential enemies. In this instance, the term fewte or fealty (14.331) is used as an Irish king named O'Dempsey invites Edward to accompany him to see his Irish realm. But like the previously sworn allegiance that does not secure a peace for the Scottish, this new verbal bond also proves to be without substance as the Irish actually attempt to drown Edward and his entourage. Edward's approach to unifying Ireland behind the Scottish cause is somewhat reminiscent of his brother's nearly fatal indenture agreement with John Comyn,¹³ and reminiscent of another similar agreement made during the wars, involving King Edward of England and Sir Aymer de Valence. King Edward promises Valence a reward in the form of vast tracts of land in return for the destruction of Robert Bruce and his army. While service and reward—that is, elements of feudal reciprocity—are stressed in this instance, the bond is again only verbal, resulting in a fortunate disregard for King Edward's order to kill all prisoners.¹⁴

Indeed, it is only after Robert Bruce and his army come to Ireland at Edward Bruce's request that Edward begins to secure allegiance through feudal obligation. On the return to Carrickfergus, for example, we hear for the first time during the entire campaign that the Irish kings are rallying behind Edward, swearing to be his men:

Ye kingis off Irchery
Come to schyr Eduuard halily
And yar manredyn gan him ma
Bot giff yat it war ane or twa.
[16.305-8]

Although this use of vassal homage (manredyn) finally secures the peace in Ireland, however, Barbour is quick to point out that this political arrangement is subsequently undermined by Edward's inability to control himself and to plan his deeds with greater care. The implication in the narrative account of the waywardness of Edward's chivalry is that, had he established his control of Ireland "with mesure" and not been given principally to feats of gallantry and boldness, then the Scottish rule in Ireland would have remained intact.

This mistake of not consistently securing the service and support of the Irish through feudal obligation during the entire Irish campaign costs many—like Gib Harper—their lives, and the Scots, their control of Ireland. As tragic as Edward's ignominious defeat and subsequent death are, however, they serve to emphasize, by comparison, how valuable feudal obligations can be when establishing the social and political unity of a realm. They put in relief Robert Bruce's careful, nearly systematic way of building alliances through feudal obligation.¹⁵ More important, they invite us to consider the virtue of feudal obligation itself and the practical and ethical implications of social and political order based in a system of feudal obligation.

According to Barbour, the kind of feudal obligation that once secured Scotland's freedom and independence—and must now, in the uncertain early years of the Stuart dynasty, be rejuvenated in order to secure anew that very same freedom and independence¹⁶—consists of the traditional components of homage, fealty, and fief, with homage being the most important.¹⁷ What is more, as in traditional treatments of this vassal homage, Barbour adds, this relationship is most effective when it is specific or individual, binding each to the other in obligations of reciprocity, in essence paralleling Ullmann's observations concerning personal rather than institutional loyalty in the feudal contract. This is demonstrated by Barbour early in the poem shortly after King Edward dissolves his feudal relations with Robert Bruce, who will not be his vassal, and James of Douglas, whose vassalage he will not accept.¹⁸ As Douglas meets Robert Bruce at Moffat and tells him of his plight, he recognizes Robert Bruce as his true lord and king and does homage:

& quhen Dowglas saw hys cummyng
He raid and hailyst hym in hy
And lowtyt him ffull curtasly,
And tauld him haly all his state
& quhat he was, & als how-gat
Ye Clyffurd held his heritage,
And yat he come to mak homage
Till him as till his rychtwis king.
[2.152-59]

This specific homage is then followed by a homage done by the entire barony, who are also loyal to Bruce's cause.¹⁹ Although Barbour does not identify the homage in this second instance as "specific" or "individual," such is the implication. The fact that the barons' friendship is attained along with the homage, as Barbour indicates, suggests a degree of familiarity that could result only from an individual interview with Robert Bruce:

Bot off yar nobleis, gret affer,
Yar seruice na yar realte
3e sall her na thing now for me,
Owtane yat he off ye barnage
Yat yidder com tok homage,
And syne went our all ye land
Frendis and frendschip purchesand
To maynteym yat he had begunnyn.
[2.183-89]

Barbour reintroduces this idea of a specific vassal homage later in the poem when Douglas begins the process of reclaiming his heritage from Clifford. The specific nature of the vassalage in this case is emphasized through its association with an individual. What is different about this association—what, in other words, enhances its importance here—is that the individual who does the homage to Douglas is Thom Dicson, one of many common men introduced and named in the poem.²⁰ Douglas knows at this point in the campaign that, because Clifford is a formidable opponent, he must be shrewd and work by sleight if he is to reclaim his heritage. When he arrives in Douglasdale to begin the campaign, Dicson, an old servant, summons every good man and more to do homage to Douglas. What is more, like Ubbe in Havelok the Dane,²¹ he is the first to do homage to his lord:

Sa wrocht he throw sutelte
Yat all ye lele men off yat land
Yat with his fadyr war duelland
Yis gud man gert cum ane & ane
And mak him manrent euerilkane,
And he him selff fyrst homage maid.
[5.292-97]

The implication here is that each man becomes Douglas's man. What is different is that vassal homage is no longer restricted to the noble or warrior class but now extends down to the commons. In short, the fealty is sworn to the Douglas as a person rather than to the institution or position that Douglas represents or holds. Ullmann makes an interesting point concerning the dual roles that a king holds:

One must divide kingship into two parts: first, there was the king by the grace of God—the theocratic king par excellence—who, because he alone had received the power to rule from God, stood above his subjects … who could not call him to account; secondly, next to this theocratic function every medieval king was also a feudal lord. In many vital respects this feudal function was diametrically opposed to the theocratic function; thus, every medieval king was an amphibious creature, because as a theocratic king his will alone counted, while as a feudal king he had entered into contractual relations of an individual nature with his tenantsin-chief and thereby had become one of them.²²

The difference between Edward Bruce and his brother Robert is that Edward, in chivalric fashion, has forged his allegiances to others as a theocratic lord, while Robert has adopted the mode of a feudal one and has, as we shall see, become one of the people he would lead.

This downward extension of vassal homage is introduced at least one other time in the poem—not long, interestingly enough, after Clifford's defeat. In this second instance of "egalitarian" vassal homage, however, it is not Douglas but rather Bruce to whom the commons do homage. While Bruce is on the run from Sir Amery, he enters a house inhabited by a "howswyff." After introducing himself as a traveling man, he talks to the woman and listens to her praise "Robert ye Bruys." When it seems appropriate to reveal his disguise, Bruce does so. The woman is confused at first; she does not expect her king to be in the area unescorted. As soon as she learns of her countryman's plight, however, sheresponds, first, by saying the situation is not correct, and then offers Bruce her two sons. Barbour neither uses the term homage nor an equivalent here, but homage is implied in the woman's subsequent reference to her sons as now Bruce's "sworn men":

"… Yai sall becum ɜour men in hy."
As scho diuisyt yai haiff done,
His sworn men become yai sone.
[7.266-68]

More examples of conventional vassal homage involving the noble or warrior class are used by Bruce and Douglas during the rest of the struggle; combined with these "egalitarian" forms, they help unite the Scots in their cause for freedom and independence. These instances are not as fully developed as the early examples of vassal homage in the poem, but they are no less significant. An illustrative example, for instance, occurs after Bruce routs the English and pro-English forces in the Battle of Loudon Hill. Seeing that the outnumbered Scottish forces have won the day by cunning and strategy, many who live nearby offer their support to the prospering Scottish cause by doing homage to Bruce. The term "homage" is used here. What is more, the homage is again a specific homage as each new vassal goes before Bruce to become his man:

Swa war yai blyth withowtyn dout,
For fele yat wynnyt yaim about
Fra yai ye king saw help him swa
Till him yar homage gan yai ma.
[8.387-90]

The Scottish forces' defeat at Loudon Hill of an army five times their size in number is no small feat. More significant for the cause and to the outcome of the poem, however, is Barbour's imaginative association here between this Scottish victory as a turning point in Scottish military fortunes and a large-scale unification of the Scots behind the cause by means of vassal homage.

A variant form of conventional vassal homage is also introduced by Barbour later in the struggle as the Scots gain the upper hand, as it were, against the English. Specific or individual like the previous examples considered so far, this kind of vassal homage—a homage of atonement—addresses the need to gain support of those whose loyalty had formerly been given to the English crown. During a skirmish in the forest of Selkirk, Sir Thomas Randolph, King Edward's nephew and one of Bruce's long-time foes, is captured by Douglas. Rather than let discontent fester, Bruce decides not to imprison and ransom Randolph but rather to forgive him. He offers this forgiveness in addition to an earlship involving control of the lands of Murreff in return for Randolph's loyalty and cooperation. Randolph, as the text indicates, neither kneels before his new lord nor swears an oath of fealty to Bruce. Homage and fealty are suggested here, however, as Barbour states that Bruce trusts in Randolph's new "worthi wasselage" (10.270). Moreover, that Bruce gives Randolph "syndry landis" and makes him "ryche … off land & fe" (10.274) also introduces enfeoffment, the third part of the conventional tripartite vassal homage ritual. The assured loyalty resulting from Randolph's vassal homage is evidenced not long afterward as Randolph, relying upon the ingenuity and help of Will Francis, captures Edinburgh Castle, a crushing blow to English prestige.²³

The emphasis Barbour places on various forms of specific vassal homage in The Bruce reveals Barbour's understanding of the immediate, actual implications of this feudal practice. The secured and inviolable relationship between a lord and his man may not be as attractive as Edward Bruce's show of chivalric prowess, Barbour suggests, but it is much more practical and substantial. It unites, as has been shown, people from different levels of society, and from different sides of a conflict.

What is more, it provides a quasi-legal means of defining and protecting property, and an effective means of uniting and reassuring people emotionally as well as psychologically—again, in a way that loyalty to descending institutional authority does not. The former, illustrated several times in the poem, involves usually either protection of property or assurance of heritability. The first example of this is presented most noticeably in the memorable episode concerning the Scottish appropriation of Rathlin Island early in the history of the struggle. As the Scots alight on Rathlin shores, vassal homage in the form of homage and fealty is used to secure the peace between the island's population and the Scottish forces, which have been joined by Earl Lennox and his men. The agreement and bond gives Bruce ready access to a large fighting force comprised of the island's men and their pages and to all the provisions his men might need. In return for this support, the people are assured that their possessions and property will be protected from depredation or confiscation:

And yai as lord suld him ken,
Bot at yar possessioune suld be
For all his men yar awyn fre.
Ye cunnand on yis wys was maid,
And on ye mom but langer baid
Knelyt and maid ye king homage,
And yarwith swour him fewte
To serve him ay in lawte,
And held him rycht weill cunnand,
For quhill he duelt in-to ye land.

[3.750-60]

The protection of the heritability of property is often suggested in the various instances of vassal homage done either to Bruce or Douglas, but it is dramatically enunciated on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn. In this episode, Bruce reminds the troops they are fighting for the freedom and honor of the Scottish people. He chooses his words carefully because he knows the army with which his thirty-thousand-man force is about to clash is a "wonder to see." Understanding the value of disinformation, he tells his men that the English look bad, and reminds his followers that they are fighting for the right to be free, a right for which they must be prepared to make the supreme sacrifice as they bear themselves manfully. As he comes to the end of his speech, he offers a promise. He asserts that, if any man shall die on the morrow, that man's heirs will be assured their rightful inheritance. In other words, whatever happens, his men's possessions and property cannot be alienated in perpetuity:

And ik hycht her in leaute
Giff ony deys in yis bataille
His ayr but ward releff or taile
On ye fyrst day [his land] sall weld
All be he neuer sa ɜoung off eild.
[12.318-22]

If growth of the individual is defined as the increased ability to control one's property, then Barbour, through The Bruce, argues that the best guarantee of heritability—hence, the individual—is, paradoxically, the seeming subordination of the individual through feudal loyalty, which protects heritability.

Vassal homage as an effective means of uniting people emotionally and psychologically is usually emphasized by Barbour either in terms of acts of loyalty, such as the support Bruce receives from his vassals as they wait out the winter at Loch Lomond, or, more important, in terms of the fraternal and familial bond that is the basis of feudal reciprocity. This kind of bond is remarked in several ways in the poem. It is apparent, for example, in Bruce's and Douglas's relationships to their men, illustrative examples of which follow the Battle of Loudon Hill and the Black Douglas's fight with Sir Robert Neville, respectively. Not far from Inverarie, on the way to Mounth, for instance, Bruce takes ill and becomes so sick that he can neither ride nor walk. This dramatic change in their leader's health distresses Bruce's men. Barbour describes the emotion of their response as if it were the emotion expressed by one brother to another under similar circumstances:

Yen wyt 3e yat his men war wa,
For nane wes in yat company
Yat wald haiff bene halff sa sary
For till haiff sene his broder ded
Lyand befor him in yat steid
As yai war for his seknes,
For all yar confort in him wes.
[9.42-48]

Likewise, as soon as Douglas's men have defeated Sir Robert Neville near Berwick March, Douglas allows his followers to seize what they can from the battlefield. The men collect their booty, which Douglas, in turn, divides among them. When he refuses to take any for himself, Douglas's action is described by Barbour as the action of one who is almost paternal—whose concern is for the welfare of his men as if they were members of his family:

Ye prayis amang his menze
Eftre yar meritis delt he
And held na thing till his behuff.
Sic dedis aucht to ger men luff
Yar lord, and sua yai did perfay.
He tretyt yaim sa wisly ay
And with sa mekill luff alsua
And sic a-wansement wald ma
Off yar deid yat ye mast cowart
He maid stowtar yen a libart,
With cherysing yusgat maid he
His men wycht and of gret bounte.
[15.539-50]

Another way in which the psychological and emotional unity created by vassal homage is expressed in terms of the familial/fraternal bond is in Barbour's treatment of women. There are, to be sure, many pro-Scots and pro-English women in the poem. As might be expected, too, the former outnumber the latter. It is not, however, the women's numerous war-related activities or even direct involvement in vassalic obligation²⁴ that Barbour principally links with the fraternal/familial nature of the feudal relationship. Rather, it is the stereotypic view of woman that Barbour uses to throw in relief the reciprocity informing the feudal cohort. The frailty of women and the need for them to be sent away for their protection during the winter at Loch Lomond, for example, emphasizes the dogged loyalty that exists between a lord and his men. Bruce's halting of his entire army in Limerick to accommodate a humble washerwoman in childbirth, likewise, may suggest a Scottish belief in the sanctity of human life and the family, but, by the same token, proves to be an expeditious means of reaffirming and expanding feudal order. While the narrator identifies Bruce's act as being one of "full gret curtasy," he also adds that the Irish who have witnessed this courtesy do homage ("manredyn") immediately thereafter.

The most obvious way the fraternal/familial basis of vassal homage is emphasized is in the coronation of David and his subsequent marriage to Edward III's sister Joan toward the end of the poem. What is interesting about this example is not that it includes specific homage from nobles as well as commons or that it is associated directly with family through the marriage of David and Joan. What underscores the fraternal/familial in this marriage/homage event is Bruce's inclusion of the "tailɜe," or entail, to provide for succession in the event that an heir to the throne does not result from the new union:

Ye king maid yaim fair welcumyng
And efter but langer delaying
He has gert set a parleament
And yidder with mony men is went,
For he thocht he wald in his lyff
Croun hys ɜoung sone & his wyff,
And at yat parleament swa did he.
With gret fayr and solemnyte
Ye king Dawy wes crownyt yar,
And all ye lordis yat yar war
And als off ye comynyte
Maid him manredyn and fewte.
And forouth yat yai crownyt war
Ye king Robert gert ordane yar,
Giff it fell yat his sone Dawy
Deyit but ayr male off his body
Gottyn, Robert Stewart suld be
Kyng and bruk all ye realte
Yat hys douchter bar Mariory,
And at yis tailɜe suld lelyly
Be haldyn all ye lordis swar
And it with selys affermyt yar.
[20.119-40]

Barbour's emphasis upon feudal custom and practice rather than the chivalric ideal is an obvious response to the political realities affecting late fourteenth-century Scottish succession. Through vassalic obligation—that is, through the relationships resulting from vassal homage—Barbour demonstrates that social and political unity can be achieved. The attraction or illusion often associated with the chivalric is nowhere to be found in the practical feudal relationships resulting from homage, fealty, and fief. But those superficialities, Barbour reminds his audience in his treatment of Edward Bruce, are more a liability than an asset. Unburnished as it may be, the relationship that mutually benefits a lord and his men is, finally, the basis of a free and independent feudal monarchy. Furthermore, that relationship, Barbour indicates, can and must be additionally secured by extending specific vassal homage to all levels of society—that is, to the commons as well as the nobility.

Notes

¹Barbour's Bruce, 3 vols., ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid and James A. C. Stevenson, The Scottish Text Society (Edinburgh), 4th ser., 12 (1980), 13 (1981), 15 (1985). Hereafter references to this edition of the poem will appear in the text.

² On Barbour's treatment of chivalry in general and Edward Bruce in particular, see Lois H. Ebin, "John Barbour's Bruce: Poetry, History, and Propaganda," Studies in Scottish Literature 9 (1971-72):223-24; Bernice W. Kliman, "The Idea of Chivalry in John Barbour's Bruce," MS 35 (1972):493-95; Bernice W. Kliman, "John Barbour and Rhetorical Tradition," Annual Medievale 18 (1977): 110; Bernice W. Kliman, "The Significance of Barbour's Naming of Commoners," Studies in Scottish Literature 11 (1974):111; and Anne M. McKim, "James Douglas and Barbour's Ideal of Knighthood," Forum for Modern Language Studies 17 (1981): 176-79.

³ Walter Ullmann, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 64.

⁴ For a discussion of renunciation, see Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 246-48. See also MarcBloch, "Les formes de la rupture de l'hommage dans l'ancien droit féodal," in Mélanges historiques, 2 vols. (Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1963), 1:189-209; and Glossarium Mediae et Infirmae Latinitatis, 12 vols., ed. D. Du Cange (Niort, 1884), 3:453-54.

⁵ See I Cor. 12:4ff. For a discussion of the rise of the individual in the context of "class struggle," epitomized by the revolt of 1381, see David Aers, Community, Gender, and Individual Identity: English Writing, 1360-1430 (London: Routledge, 1988). In particular, Aers sets the growing sense of the "individual" not against the traditional Pauline metaphor invoked by medieval authors butagainst the "received cultural categories" of contemporary critics and traditional views of a fixed hierarchy based on an assumption that the authors who espoused such views did so for all classes (see especially pp. 6-10). Of course, the development of the concept of the individual is an ongoing phenomenon not limited to the fourteenth century. For a more "traditional" discussion of the roots of the medieval concept of the individual, see Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972).

⁶ The contrast between chivalry and feudal obligation conforms to Barbour's use of pairs of opposites as structuring devices within The Bruce. On the epistemological informing structural principle in the poem, see Judith Grossman, "The Correction of a Descriptive Schema: Some 'Buts' in Barbour and Chaucer," SAC 1 (1979):43-44; Kliman, "The Idea of Chivalry," 481; Kliman, "John Barbour and Rhetorical Tradition," 112; McKim, "Barbour's Ideal of Knighthood," 173; Walter Scheps, "Barbour's Bruce and Harry's Wallace: The Question of Influence," Tennessee Studies in Literature 17 (1972):24 n. 8; Jacqueline Trace, "The Supernatural Element in Barbour's Bruce," Massachusetts Studies in English 1 (1968):56, 63-65; and Ian C. Walker, "Barbour, Blind Harry, and Sir William Craigie," Studies in Scottish Literature I (1964):204-6.

⁷ For an excellent example of chivalric warfare between individual knights, see in particular The Alliterative Morte Arthure, A Critical Edition, ed. Valerie Krishna (New York: Burt Franklin, 1976), 11. 2044-94. Moreover, it is important to note that the conflict with the Emperor Lucius is over a matter of "homage" (I. 99).

⁸ For the poetical version of the De re militari, see, for example, Knyghthode and Bataile, ed. R. Dyboski and Z. M. Arand (EETS, o.s., 201 [1936], 19-35). For the Scottish prose version, see Diane Bornstein, "The Scottish Prose Version of Vegetius' De re militari," Studies in Scottish Literature 8 (1971):177-83. For further discussion of Vegetius in the Middle Ages, see Philippe Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 170, 210-12, 214, 251-52, 297.

⁹ In regard to the historical Robin Hood and the origins of the legend in the fourteenth century, see John Bellamy, Robin Hood, An Historical Enquiry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). Bellamy notes that allusions to "bastard feudalism and the legal and social institutions it contained," such as the "giving of liveries and fees, distraint knighthood, the office of sheriff and the administration of the forest" in the Gest of Robyn Hode, locate the origins of the legend in the fourteenth rather than the thirteenth or fifteenth centuries (58). Interestingly enough, an example of the conversion of former enemies through personal feudal obligation (some might say "cooption," others "appropriation") may well be found in Bellamy's historical Robin Hood, who, according to account books, was taken into Edward II's court as, among other positions, a member of the "valetz de chambre" during the early 1320s.

¹⁰ W. A. Craigie, "Barbour and Blind Harry as Literature," The Scottish Review 22 (1893): 179-80.

¹¹ See, for example, the Black Douglas's victory at Lintalee, Robert Bruce's care for the pregnant washerwoman, the Battle of Byland, the raid on Weardale, or the Treaty of Northampton.

¹²Individual and Society, 65.

¹³ Robert Bruce's indenture agreement reads as follows:

And [Robert] said, "Sen 3e will it be swa
I will blythly apon me ta
Ye state, for I wate yat I have rycht,
And rycht mays oft ye feble wycht."
Ye barownys yus accordyt ar,
And yat ilk nycht writyn war
Yair endenturis, and aythis maid
To hald yat yai forspokyn haid.
[1.507-14]

¹⁴ Valence not only disregards Edward's order to kill his prisoners but also employs homage as a way of securing their loyalty after the English victory at Methven. This strategy is exemplified in the case of Thomas Randolph:

And to ye king off Ingland sone
Yai wrate haly as yai haid done,
And he wes blyth off yat tithing
And for dispyte bad draw and hing
All ye presonneris yocht yai war ma.
Bot Schyr Amery did nocht sua,
To sum bath land and lyff gaiff he
To leve ye Bruysis fewte
And serve ye king off Ingland
And off him for to hald ye land
And werray ye Brws as yar fa.
Thomas Randell wes ane off ya
Yat for his lyff become yar man.
[2.455-67]

¹⁵ Walker, "Barbour, Blind Harry," 205.

¹⁶ Ebin, "John Barbour's Bruce," 206.

¹⁷ See, for example, A Source Book of Mediaeval History, ed. Frederic Austin Ogg (New York: American Book Company, 1908), 216-28; see also Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, 2 vols., trans. L. A. Manyon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 1:146-62; Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture, 237-65; Carl Stephenson, Medieval Feudalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1942), 5-14, 17-24.

¹⁸ According to Barbour, the Scots naively invite Edward I to adjudicate the Scottish succession after the death of Alexander III in 1286. The Scottish barons, Barbour indicates, forget that Edward hadpreviously placed the Welsh in bondage and conducted his "foreign" policy by force and cunning. This point is demonstrated by Barbour in his account of how Edward installs and then deposes a puppet king, John de Baliol, in Scotland as a pretext for seizing that realm. Forgotten or omitted from this retelling of history is any treatment of John de Baliol's rebellion against the English crown or of Robert Bruce's sworn fealty as earl of Carrick to Edward in 1296. Added to this revision of history, too, is the offer to Robert Bruce of a lordship over the fief of Scotland in exchange for vassalic obligation to Edward. While Barbour emphasizes that this offer is unacceptable to Robert Bruce, the manipulation of history of which it is a part is more important to the poem, not only because it establishes the context within which the Scottish wars for independence are justified but also because it introduces an abuse of vassal homage. Edward's attempt to secure Robert Bruce's fealty is not for the mutual benefit of Scotland and England but rather for Edward's individual benefit and political aggrandizement. Edward's designs upon Scotland in general, and upon Robert Bruce in particular, are put in contrast in the latter part of the prologue by Barbour's account of Edward's disregard for James of Douglas's claim to the hereditary right of his father's lands and knight service. Whereas Edward would make Robert Bruce—a king—his vassal, in Douglas's case he ignores the issue of immunity and does not permit the legitimate heir to property within the realm to do homage and become his man. This unwillingness to accept James of Douglas as a vassal is not a perversion of the vassalic relation, as it is in Robert Bruce's case, but rather an outright rejection of vassal homage.

¹⁹ McKim, "Barbour's Ideal of Knighthood," 169-70.

²⁰ Kliman, "Significance of Barbour's Naming of Commoners," 109.

²¹Havelok, ed. C. V. Smithers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 60-64, 11. 2173-2274.

²² Ullmann, Individual and Society, 66-67.

²³ Two other notable homages of atonement are included in the poem. One, involving the Lord of Lorne's men, occurs after the fight at the Bander Pass (10.123-35). The second concerns Lawrence of Abernethy (13.564).

²⁴ The example in which a woman is directly involved in vassalic obligation arises in the poem's episode in which the Scottish forces return to the mainland, landing on the shores of Turnberry. The people the Scots encounter for the most part are afraid to show support for the Scottish cause. A lady who is distantly related to Bruce ignores the English threat and offers Bruce men who are in her service:

Bot a lady off yat cuntre
Yat wes till him in ner degre
Off cosynage wes wonder blyth
Off his arywyng, [and] alswyth
Sped hyr till him in full gret hy
With fourty men in cumpany
And betaucht yaim all to ye king.
[5.133-39]

Abbreviations

EETS

Early English Text Society

MS

Medieval Studies

SAC

Studies in the Age of Chaucer