Dating the earliest Chronicle scribes: Scribal profile 8’s reference to David as earl
Scribal profile 8 is one of the earliest in the Chronicle (see What was the ‘original’ Chronicle?). It was responsible for the bulk of Hugh of Saint-Victor’s De tribus maximis circumstantis gestorum in Julius B XIII, and for annals for AD 1017–1171 in Faustina B IX. This profile’s dating is essential for understanding when the Chronicle project was begun; it is also crucial for dating the many profiles which follow it sequentially in the manuscript.
The latest datable ‘event’ within the profile’s stint was the killing of Thomas Becket on 29 December 1170 (f. 21r, though in the Chronicle this is recorded under AD 1171 since the year was reckoned to begin on Christmas Day). However, there is another textual clue to this profile’s date of working. Under AD 1170, David, brother of King Máel Coluim and King William, is described as ‘earl’ (f. 20v, where the text is describing Isabel, aunt of Máel Coluim and William and ‘of Earl David of good hope’, bone spei Dauid comitis). David was earl of Huntingdon and also Lennox for a time, but this reference is certainly anachronistic for a scribe potentially working shortly after 29 December 1170. The title must have been inserted by the scribe or their source. It therefore provides a starting point for establishing an earliest date (a terminus post quem) for Scribal profile 8’s work. (This reference and its implications for dating the earliest Chronicle scribes was first identified by the Andersons, The Chronicle of Melrose, p. xiv.) However, ascertaining when David became an earl is far from straightforward.
The earldom of Huntingdon. One of the main Latin contemporary chronicles for the period in question (compiled by Roger of Howden and known to scholarship as Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis) tells us that Henry the Young King granted to David ‘for his homage and service’ the earldom of Huntingdon and also Cambridgeshire (Howden, Gesta, p. 45). This apparently occurred at a council in Paris in Spring 1173 (after 8 March, before 15 April). Keith Stringer has pointed out that this was essentially a ‘speculative grant’ which was unlikely to translate to any meaningful possession of the earldom (Stringer, Earl David, p. 21). Nevertheless, David was evidently ‘actively engaged in the running of the estate’ in 1173 and 1174 (Stringer, Earl David, 24) and he issued charters relating to Huntingdon during the period (Stringer, Earl David, Acta nos. 23, 34, 58 and 75), though he was never styled ‘earl’ (comes) in these acts, opting instead for ‘brother of the king of Scots’. In Jordan Fantosme’s near-contemporary account of the period, he describes how, in early May 1174, King William pledged ‘to give him [David] all Lennox as a life tenancy and also the honour of Huntingdon’ (Fantosme, Chronicle, pp. 162 and 199). This could also be read as a ‘speculative grant’, however, given William did not possess Huntingdon at that time and therefore could not make good on his gift. Either way, David forfeited Huntingdon soon after the siege of Huntingdon in July 1174, when the title was assumed by Simon de Senlis (III) (Stringer, Earl David, p. 28). On Simon’s death in 1184, Huntingdon was ‘returned to’ William by Henry II at a council at Clerkenwell on 18 March 1185 (Howden, Gesta, p. 337). William then ‘immediately, in the presence of the king, gave that earldom to his brother David’ (Howden, Chronica, ii, p. 285). The firmest date for David’s full possession of the earldom of Huntingdon is therefore 18 March 1185, though he was perhaps regarded as having a claim to the title from Spring 1173 to late Summer 1174.
The earldom of Lennox. As mentioned, there is a reference in Jordan Fantosme’s chronicle to William’s pledge of Lennox to David in early May 1174 (Fantosme, Chronicle, pp. 162 and 199). There is one charter (recorded in a cartulary) indicating that David was exercising lordship over Lennox in this early period. In it, David gives churches in Lennox to Kelso Abbey (Stringer, Earl David, Acta no. 35), though again David is not styled ‘earl’. It has been argued that this charter, dated at Roxburgh, was written before the end of May 1174 when David left Scotland (Stringer, Earl David, pp. 14–15 and 22). Putting this together with Jordan Fantosme’s chronicle, it seems that soon after William’s ‘pledge’ in early May 1174, monastic houses like Kelso were looking to David as the new secular authority in Lennox. David is not known to have been particularly active there after this, and he resigned the earldom no later than the 1190s (Stringer, Earl David, p. 16).
Overall, then, the question of when David ‘became earl’ of either Huntingdon or Lennox is somewhat complicated. The real question for our purposes, however, is not when David was finally in full legal possession of an earldom. It is when David could realistically have been referred to as ‘earl’ (comes) by himself or by others writing about him. Near contemporary chronicles are a potential guide here. Jordan Fantosme does refer to David as earl (Fantosme, Chronicle, p. 112 ‘del cunte’, p. 113 ‘le cunte’). It has been argued that Fantosme was writing in 1175 or even at the end of 1174 (Fantosme, Chronicle, p. 26), although the earliest manuscript of his work is late 12th or early 13th century (Durham Cathedral Library c. iv 27; Fantosme, Chronicle, p. 50). Fantosme’s work is in verse rather than prose, however, meaning its need for rhythmic harmony makes it less susceptible to later scribal errors, and so it is conceivable that a chronicler could in 1174/5 be comfortable referring to David as ‘earl’. In other contemporary chronicles, however, David is generally referred to as ‘the brother of the king of Scots’.
An obvious alternative source to investigate is charters. Keith Stringer has argued that: ‘When David had rights or claims to two earldoms before 1185, his personal style did not regularly include the title of earl … [I]t was only from mid-March 1185 that David took comes as part of this normal charter style … For his career as a whole, the conclusion is quite plain nonetheless. David was not always given, nor did he necessarily use, the comital style to which he was, or appears to have been, entitled’ (Stringer, Earl David, pp. 213–14). Despite this inconsistency, the charters evidence can be revealing. There is one notable example where David’s use of comes to describe himself in his own (extant original) charter may be as early as 1173 or 1174, presumably on the basis of his claim to Huntingdon (NRS GD28/4; Stringer, Earl David, Acta no. 27). However, it is also possible that this charter was datable after 18 March 1185 when he acquired the earldom from Henry II.
The next datable original documents which style David ‘earl’ are compelling for our purposes as they are for Melrose Abbey, and quite possibly written by Melrose scribes. These are from a series relating to the Avenels (Robert and his son Gervase) and their properties in Eskdale, Dumfriesshire, given to the abbey along with other privileges. Incidentally, Robert Avenel died on 8 March 1185 as a novice at Melrose, where he was buried, as was his son Gervase in 1219 (both deaths and burials are recorded in the Chronicle). Two of these charters relating to Eskdale include ‘Earl David, brother of the king of Scotland’ as a witness (Dauid comes frater regis Scotie: NRS GD55/39 and 55/40; Melr. Lib., i, nos. 39 and 40). One is a chirograph datable after 5 May 1180 (GD55/40, on the basis that Osbert, abbot of Kelso, is a witness); it seems likely that it was written before Robert’s death on 8 March 1185, though the text could also be read as though Robert had already passed away, the agreement being then between Melrose and his son Gervase. The other is a charter of Robert himself and therefore certainly datable before 8 March 1185; its earliest possible date of creation would be based on the styling of David as ‘earl’, so perhaps March 1173 (GD55/39).
All of this means that it was feasible for David to appear in a ‘Melrose context’ with the title of ‘earl’ by 8 March 1185, if not before. Keith Stringer notes that, if these charters were produced on the eve of Robert Avenel’s death, the title here may have been ‘bestowed proleptically, in anticipation of David’s acquisition of the Huntingdon honour at King Henry II’s court about a fortnight later [at the council at Clerkenwell on 18 March 1185]’ (Stringer, Earl David, p. 214). Whether the scribe had Huntingdon or Lennox in mind as David’s chief claim to the title, the Eskdale documents show that charter scribes did not regard 18 March 1185 as a threshold only after which David could be recorded in writing as an ‘earl’.
With all of this complex detail in mind, let us return to the central question for dating Scribal profile 8: when could a scribe at Melrose Abbey feasibly refer to him as ‘Earl David of good hope’? The earliest conceivable time would be the council in Paris in 1173 (after 8 March, before 15 April) when the Young Henry promised him Huntingdon. More firm is May 1174, when William pledged him Lennox and Huntingdon, and when David seemingly acted as earl of Lennox (even if not styled as such) in a charter for a Scottish monastery. We are on safer ground moving into the 1180s: certainly by 8 March 1185 (the death of Robert Avenel) charter scribes around Melrose could regard David as comes. The earliest conceivable date, under any circumstances, for Scribal profile 8, then, presumably has to be after the Paris council, which was after 8 March but before 15 April 1173. However, it is quite feasible that in reality the scribe was working later into the 12th century.
The Andersons (The Chronicle of Melrose, p. xiv) deduced that if the Huntingdon earldom was meant in the reference under AD 1170, then the options for Scribal profile 8’s time of writing were either 1173×1174 or after 1185. They took the reference bone spei (‘of good hope’) to mean that David was heir presumptive to the kingship at the time, and so this would have been penned before the birth of William’s son Alexander II in 1198, and probably before William’s marriage to Ermengarde de Beaumont in 1186. On balance, they opted for no earlier than 1185 for the Chronicle’s initial composition, rather than the 1170s. Broun (The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, pp. 53–5) saw 1173 and thereafter as a ‘perfectly viable’ earliest limit for this styling of David in the text, and therefore opted for 1173×1174 for the Chronicle’s creation (1174 because that is the limit of the scribe’s extension of a timeframe at the end of Hugh of St Victor’s Chronicle). In the digital edition, an attempt is made to strip back as many assumptions as possible about when scribes might be writing. This means that Scribal profile 8’s dating is simply ‘after 8 March 1173’ (i.e., after the absolute earliest possible date of the Paris council where the Young Henry promised David Huntingdon), though palaeography can inform us that it was not likely beyond the 12th century.