‘Mapping the March’ is a major research project selected by the ERC and funded by UKRI. Each semester we invite speakers to present papers on topics related to borders and borderlands in medieval and early modern Europe.
17/02/2025 –The Surnames and other expressions of kin solidarity in the Anglo-Scottish Marches before 1498 by Professor Jackson Armstrong, University of Aberdeen.
The borderlands of England and Scotland in the later Middle Ages are deeply associated with a turbulent raiding culture. In the sixteenth century this became chiefly identified with the so-called Riding Surnames, the kin groups of the region who defied authority, lived by violent feuding, and identified closely with their relations on the opposite side of the border. First recorded in 1498, Surname groups appeared in the fifteenth century alongside other expressions of kinship ties among the higher peasantry and lesser landowners of the English far north. These phenomena reveal prominent social and cultural patterns which suggest the significance of kinship ties on the borderland was more nuanced than has been appreciated to date.