Highlands and Lowlands in Late Medieval Tuscany

Highlands and Lowlands in Late Medieval Tuscany

Cohn, Samuel K.

Mìorun Mòr nan Gall, ‘The Great Ill-Will of the Lowlander’? Lowland Perceptions of the Highlands, Medieval and Modern (2007)

Abstract

On first perception, comparison of lowlanders’ prejudices against their highland neighbours in Tuscany and Scotland suggests that these same stereotypes may have been universal throughout Western Europe during the late middle ages and early modern period. From Fordun’s chronicle to Enlightenment Scotland, the highlander was depicted as ignorant, brutish, impoverished, violentin short not far removed from the animals they grazed. As Fernand Braudel and Giovanni Cherubini have shown, Italian sources from chronicles to humanist commentary were rich in mocking condemnation of their highlanders, both in their sylvan settings and when they ventured down to the cities in search of work.

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