Looking for references for Medieval highlander traditions

Nothing comes immediately to mind; but you might try the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) for re-enactors who "live" in the medieval era and what traditions the Scottish contingent follows. In my experience, SCA members are willing and eager to help authors.

SCA is a good resource. You might want to narrow to the decade and are, though - medieval is a LONG period. And different areas of the highlands had differing traditions.

I have Domestic Life in Scotland at home. If you want me to look something specific up, I can.

greendragon said:

SCA is a good resource. You might want to narrow to the decade and are, though - medieval is a LONG period. And different areas of the highlands had differing traditions.

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This is very true. The Scotland of the Dal Riata (about the 7th century) was a very different place to the Scotland of Robert Bruce (14th century).

Just fyi, many books on Scottish clans, coat of arms, and tartans include background material. Even if such background material is too general, the bibliographies of these books will likely point you in the right direction.

robeiae said:

Just fyi, many books on Scottish clans, coat of arms, and tartans include background material. Even if such background material is too general, the bibliographies of these books will likely point you in the right direction.

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In fact, you might as well skip most of the text and jump right to the bibliographies. There's an awful lot of hokum & hooey that's been published on these topics, so you shouldn't rely on anything you find in them that can't be verified in a primary source. If there's no bibliography, or one that includes mostly other books of the same sort as the one you're looking at, stop and go on to the next book!

(And be warned: any book that purports to identify specific clan tartans before the 18c, let alone say anything about clan history connected to a tartan, is ipso facto unreliable and badly researched. The patterns may be old. The "clan" link to particular patterns is modern.)

Jack Whyte's novel 'Robert the Bruce' will likely provide a lot of the information you're looking for. He always does his homework.

ishtar'sgate said:

Jack Whyte's novel 'Robert the Bruce' will likely provide a lot of the information you're looking for. He always does his homework.

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Relying on someone else's novel as your research is never a good idea. No matter how much homework the other author did, they've used it in the service of their own fiction and you're not going to be able to tell where they've stuck close to their research and where they've made changes or just made stuff up because their story needed something -- unless you've gone ahead and done the research yourself, in which case you don't need to rely on their novel.

I heartily endorse reading a good historical novel for its own sake. Just don't use it as a shortcut for research.

Can you narrow it down more than "Medieval?"

Technically that covers anything from the 5th century through c. 1485 or so.

For most of the Medieval period what is now Scotland was part of the Pictish kingdom, part of an Irish kingdom of Dál Riata in what is now Argyle, or part of a Norse holding (especially the far north and the islands). Decide on area and year and go from there. The differences in language, culture, economics, etc. were relatively huge for such a small area that is now regarded as a single location.

benbenberi said:

Relying on someone else's novel as your research is never a good idea. No matter how much homework the other author did, they've used it in the service of their own fiction and you're not going to be able to tell where they've stuck close to their research and where they've made changes or just made stuff up because their story needed something -- unless you've gone ahead and done the research yourself, in which case you don't need to rely on their novel.

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While that's true, the OP was looking at battle preparation and meal times, something Jack wouldn't likely alter. Actually, just did a quick check and you can find the handfasting information you need at http://medievalscotland.org/history/handfasting.shtml
Good luck with your novel!

Late to the party, but I want to point out that Highland culture is very different to than in the southern Scotland. The Highlands are heavily influenced by Gaelic traditions, where the Scots of the lowlands had more contact with English and European (especially France) traditions. For example, the Highlands did not recognise the King of Scots as their king, until they where forced to by James VI (many kings before had tried to and failed.) If I was going to recommend any novels, I would put Nigel Tranter at the top of the list, who is far better than anyone since for capturing the period, and wrote numerous novels throughout the medaeval period. For early period I recommend a book called From Caledonia to Pictland (James Fraser), and for later 'Dominion and Lordship - Scotland 1070 - 1230' (Richard Oram). Anything by Oram is great, so is GWS Barrow and Jenny Wormald. Also of interest might be 'Alba' by Alexander Ross. I also recommend the BBC's A History of Scotland presented by Neil Oliver, which talks expressly about the conflict between Gaelic and Scots Scotland.

If you are interested in contacting academics, your best bet is through the University of the Highlands and Islands, who specialize in Highland history, culture and literature.