Grenzen und Grenzregionen

Haubrichs, Wolfgang

Bibliographic data

Description

Persistent identifier:: 1655724991

URN:: urn:nbn:de:bsz:291-sulbdigital-108918

Title:: Grenzen und Grenzregionen

Author:: Haubrichs, Wolfgang

Place of publication:: Saarbrücken

Publisher:: Saarbrücker Dr. und Verl. Saarländische Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek

Structure type:: Monograph

Collection:: Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Saarländische Landesgeschichte

Volume number:: 22

Year of publication:: 1994

Number of pages:: 283 S.

Copyright:: Saarländische Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek

Language:: eng

Digitised pages:: 284

Description

Title:: The Anglo-Scottish Border: Growth and Structure in the Middle Ages

Author:: Barrow, Geoffrey W.

Structure type:: Chapter

Collection:: Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Saarländische Landesgeschichte

Digitised pages:: 16

Full text

Geoffrey W. S. Barrow
The Anglo-Scottish Border:
Growth and Structure in the Middle Ages*
The border dividing England from Scotland runs on a roughly south west - north
east alignment for approximately 110 miles (176 km), from the head of the
Solway Firth - an arm of the Irish Sea - on the west to a point 3 1/2 miles north of
the mouth of the River Tweed on the east. In the medieval period the border line
followed the midstream line of the River Esk as it flows into the Solway Firth, and
the midstream line of the River Tweed as it flows into the sea at Berwick [see
Figure 1], for until 1482 the burgh and castle of Berwick upon Tweed lay in
Scotland, not England, and that fact explains why 'Berwickshire' is a Scottish, not
an English, county1. Even although Berwick was occupied and elaborately fortified
by the English in the generations following 1482, it was not formally annexed to
England before the second half of the nineteenth century* 2. It has always been a
point of pride among its inhabitants - 'Berwickers' - that they are still in a state of
war with Tsarist Russia, for although Queen Victoria's government declared war
upon Russia in 1854 in the name of England, Scotland, Ireland etc. and Berwick
upon Tweed, they forgot to specify Berwick when making peace by means of the
Treaty of Paris in 1856.
Looked at historically, the Anglo-Scottish border could be seen as an artificial
creation, the product of a series of compromises between northern rulers, who
failed to extend their power as far south as they would have wished, and southern
rulers who despite their greater wealth and potentially bigger armies lacked the
resources to subjugate and permanently occupy the northern part of the island of
Britain. But the Border is not wholly artificial if by that we mean that it has no
basis in the hard facts of geography and geology. Between Solway and Tyne the
British island narrows to about 70 miles (112 km), a fact of which the Roman
army engineers took advantage when they built first of all the Stanegate, a military
way, and then in Emperor Hadrian's reign a wall, mainly of stone but partly of turf,
from Wallsend on Tyne to Bowness on Solway3. That natural 'Waistline' produces
Ail works cited are published in London unless otherwise stated.
1 Nicholson, R., Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1974), 507; Macdougall, N., James III
(Edinburgh, 1982), 154-5, 169.
2 Scott, J., Berwick upon Tweed (1888), 478. By the Reform Act of 1884, Berwick ceased to be a
parliamentary burgh and became part of the Berwick upon Tweed division of the County of
Northumberland. Previously the 'Liberties of Berwick', as the small district immediately around Berwick
upon Tweed was known, lay in a species of limbo or no-man's land, although clearly subject to English
rule. The Local Government reforms of 1974 (20 and 21 Eliz. II, c.10, schedule 1) have confirmed
Berwick's status as an English borough.
3 Breeze, D. J. and Dobson, B., Hadrian's Wall (3rd edn. 1987).
197

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