Bastles and Barnekins - Steel Bonnets: 2 Quiz

Answer: Recet

Recet meant either receiving stolen property or harbouring a wanted man. A Yett was the iron door of a tower. A bastle was fortified house, usually on the English side of the border. (The word is possibly from the French Bastille - a fortified place).

The term is often used interchangeably with "pele" but normally a bastle was like a house and a pele was a small castle. Pele probably came from the Latin "pilum" - "stake or palisade" and originally meant a stockade but it later came to mean the tower.

A "barmkin" was also originally a stockade but later the term also meant the courtyard within the wall.

Answer: The English wardens were required to keep in closer touch with their government then their Scots counterparts

The land on the Scottish side of the border seems to have been better than the land on the English side so the local Scots were probably better off than the English. The English wardens were a long way from London but even on 16th century roads the Scottish wardens were close to Edinburgh. Smoking people out of fortifications was sufficiently common for there to be a term (scumfishing) for it.

Answer: They would flee from gunfire

They seem to have gotten over this fear quite soon (assuming the report was not just a slander). The wheel lock appeared about 1530 allowing guns to be carried ready for firing and without matches which could betray your position with a glow or smoke (very important in border warfare). Wheel locks were always expensive and "high tech" in the 16th century. In 1590 there was an incident when the Scots claimed 60 men out hunting were set on by 400 armed English. The English claimed it was a raiding party as there were at least three times the number and at least four score had firearms.

Answer: A pole arm (long handled battle-axe)

Some versions of arms of Jedborough have a horseman brandishing one over his head but most show a knight with an ordinary lance. The official description mistakenly calls it 'a kind of lance (called a Jedburgh staff)'. There are several accounts of the Jethart staff or axe. One is description is a pole arm like the Lochaber axe, a second description says it had an elliptical blade, a four foot haft with iron stops to protect the hands and a head socketed and secured by flanges which protected the shaft and a third says it was a two metre staff with a 120cm old sword blade.

In the 16th century it was temporarily banned by Act of Parliament.

Answer: Over 1,000 words

It was 1,069 words long. He cursed them from the top of their head to the soles of their feet and went on to specify other body parts then he specifically cursed their possessions including 'thair geise, thair hennys', thair barnys, thair biris' (byres) then he added all other curses anyone had ever made. In 2001 this curse was carved onto a 14-ton granite boulder in Carlisle. It has been blamed for the current problems with floods, fires, redundancies, foot and mouth disease and the local soccer team being relegated.

Answer: They were left-handed

There is some evidence for this. Most spiral staircases turn clockwise to give a right-handed defender an advantage but the Kers' towers had anti-clockwise stairs. The borderers seem to have been relatively temperate.

Answer: Tarzan tower

There is a Greystoke castle (the fictional Tarzan was Lord Greystoke).
I have not been able to find the origin of the names Fatlips or Bite-about. If anyone knows please tell me. Fatlips Castle is a four-storey 16th century stone rectangular tower house built by the Turnbulls of Barnhill. Hillslap is near Galashiels and dates from 1585. It is the Glendearg of the Sir Walter Scott's book "The Monastery". Bite-About House in Berwickshire dates from the 16th or 17th century. It is an L-plan tower house with a main block and one wing.

Answer: Burn standing crops

They seem to have been happy to break their word to the government but one author could only find three cases of fellow borderers being betrayed. One case was when a reiver called Parcy Reed was betrayed by the Halls. This was such a disgrace that a late 19th century innkeeper called Hall was embarrassed to admit his name and emphasised he was from a different branch of the Halls.
On at least one occasion on a warden rode (government reprisal raid) Irishmen had to be enlisted to burn standing grain. The wardens often had mercenaries - chiefly French for the Scots and Germans for the English (but it is recorded that Italian, Spanish and Greek troops were used).
Houses were cheaply made so they could be easily rebuilt in three or four hours if they were burnt (in times of danger it was known for the roof beams to be taken to a strongpoint for safety). The typical materials were brushwood and mud - called "rice and gloor" in England or "cat and clay" in Scotland.
There were several fortifications known as "vicars' peles", so priests were in need of protection. There are surviving ones at Alnham, Elsdon and Corbridge (which has sloping stones to act as book rests).

Answer: A public reproof

This was known as "bauchling". If you broke your word you could be subject to bauchling. This was so effective that it was known for an offender who had neither made amends or fought his accuser to be killed by his relatives. Sometimes the spear could be fixed to the housetop of the person accused or the glove could be hung in a church or an effigy of the offender (often upside down) was attached to a horses tail. After 1553 bauchling was (legally) only allowed with a licence from the warden.

Answer: The people had very little

A visitor to Liddesdale is supposed to have asked when he found there were no churches in the valley 'are there no Christians here' and was told 'Na, we's a' Elliots, Croziers an' Armstrongs'.