Editing Border reivers (section)

{{Short description|1200s–1600s raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border}}
{{other uses}}
{{redirect|Reivers|the actor|David Reivers|other uses|The Reivers (disambiguation)}}

{{Use British English|date=November 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}
[[File:Reivers raid on Gilnockie Tower.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Reivers at [[Gilnockie Tower]] in [[Dumfries and Galloway]], Scotland, from a 19th-century print|alt=]]
[[File:Wat o' Harden's horn.JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|Notorious raider [[Walter Scott of Harden]]'s horn, noted in a poem called "The Reiver's Wedding" by [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott]]. It reads in part: "He took a bugle frae his side,/With names carved o'er and o'er,/Full many a chief of meikle pride,/That Border bugle bore."
]]
'''Border Reivers''' were [[Cattle raiding|raiders]] along the [[Anglo-Scottish border]]. They included both [[Scotland|Scottish]] and [[England|English]] people, and they raided the entire [[border country]] without regard to their victims' nationality.<ref>Neville, C. J. "The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later Middle Ages." Law and History Review 9, no. 1 (1991): 7-8. {{doi|10.2307/743658}}.</ref><ref name="doi.org">Hay, D. "England, Scotland and Europe: The Problem of the Frontier." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 25, 1975, pp. 81. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3679087.</ref> They operated in a culture of legalised raiding and feuding.<ref name="Leeson2009">Leeson, Peter T. "The Laws of Lawlessness." The Journal of Legal Studies 38, no. 2 (2009): 473. {{doi|10.1086/592003}}</ref><ref name="Neville, Cynthia 2002">Neville, Cynthia. "Scottish Influences on the Medieval Laws of the Anglo-Scottish Marches." The Scottish Historical Review 81, no. 212 (2002): 171. {{JSTOR|25529646}}</ref> Their heyday was in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the [[House of Stuart]] in the [[Kingdom of Scotland]] and the [[House of Tudor]] in the [[Kingdom of England]].

The lawlessness of the Anglo-Scottish Borderlands in the 16th century is captured in a 1526 description of Tynedale and Redesdale:

<blockquote>"[Inhabitants there]...nothinge regard[ed] eyther the lawes of God or of the kinges majesties for any love or other lawful consideracion, but onely for the drede and feare of instante coreccion."<ref name="Ellis, Steven G 1995, p.62">Ellis, Steven G. Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State. Oxford University Press, 1995, p.62.</ref>
</blockquote>

The term "Border Reiver" is an [[endonym and exonym|exonym]] and anachronistic term used to describe the raiders and bandits who operated along the Anglo-Scottish Border during the late Middle Ages and early modern period. The reivers, as we understand today, emerged in textual and archaeological evidence sometime between 1350 and 1450,<ref name="auto25">{{cite book|last=Robson |first=Ralph |date=1989 |title=The English highland clans: Tudor responses to a mediaeval problem |url=https://archive.org/details/englishhighlandc0000robs |url-access=registration |publication-place=Edinburgh |publisher=J. Donald Publishers |isbn=0-85976-246-7 |lccn=90113482}}</ref><ref name="auto19">Steingraber, Aubrey Maria. Landscape and the Making of the Medieval Anglo-Scottish Border: Power, Place, and Perspective c.1200–c.1500. PhD Thesis, University of York, Department of Archaeology, March 2022. p83</ref> with their activities reaching their height in the 16th century during the Tudor period in England and the late Stewart period in Scotland.<ref name="auto14">Fraser, George MacDonald. The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers. HarperCollins, London, 1995. {{ISBN|978-0-00-272746-4}}.</ref> They were infamous for raiding, eliciting protection money or taking hostages('blackmail'),<ref name="doi.org"/> cattle rustling, and lawlessness, where justice was frequently negotiated through arbitration at Truce Days rather than enforced through the peremptory and inescapable punishments mandated by state law.<ref>Ellis, Steven G. Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State. Oxford University Press, 1995, p.59.</ref> Many crimes, such as theft and feuding, were treated with less severity due to the ancient customs and culture of the Borderlands, which had evolved over centuries to tolerate and even codify such practices.<ref name="Leeson2009"/><ref name="Neville, Cynthia 2002"/><ref>Neville, C. J. "The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later Middle Ages." Law and History Review 9, no. 1 (1991): 14. {{doi|10.2307/743658}}.</ref>

Although less well-known than Highlanders in Scotland—whom they met and defeated in battle on occasion—<ref name="auto11">{{cite book|last=Sadler |first=John |date=2006 |title=Flodden 1513: Scotland's greatest defeat |url=https://archive.org/details/flodden1513scotl0000sadl |publication-place=Oxford |publisher=Osprey |isbn=978-1-84176-959-2 |lccn=2006389275}}</ref> the Border Reivers played a significant role in shaping Anglo-Scottish relations.<ref>Boscher, Paul Gerard. Politics, Administration and Diplomacy: The Anglo-Scottish Border 1550–1560. PhD Thesis, University of Newcastle, 1988.</ref> Their activities were a major factor in ongoing tensions between the two kingdoms, and their raids often had international repercussions.<ref name="auto23">Moffat, Alistair. The Reivers: The Story of the Border Reivers. Birlinn Limited, Edinburgh, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-84158-656-4}}.</ref> There is an emerging historical debate over how great their threat and the extent to which their raids were state-directed rather than purely opportunistic.<ref name="auto19"/><ref name="auto21">Robb, Graham. The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England. Picador, London, 2018. {{ISBN|978-1-5098-0470-2}}.</ref><ref name="auto14"/><ref>Newman, Caron. "The Anglo-Scottish Western March: A Landscape in Transition." In Settlement Change Across Medieval Europe: Old Paradigms and New Vistas, edited by Niall Brady and Claudia Theune, 257–265. Ruralia XII. Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2019., Passim</ref>

The culture of the Border Reivers—characterised by [[honour]], close family bonds, and self-defence—has been said to influence the culture of the [[Upland South]] in the United States. Many Borderers migrated as families to America, where their values are thought to have contributed significantly to the region's social structure and political ideologies, with echoes of their influence persisting even today.<ref>Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. Oxford University Press, New York, 1989. {{ISBN|978-0-19-506905-1}}.</ref><ref>McWhiney, Grady, and McDonald, Forrest. Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 1988. {{ISBN|978-0-8173-0458-4}}.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/how-northern-england-made-southern-united-states |title=How Northern England Made the Southern United States |website=History Today |date=31 October 2019 |access-date=4 December 2024}}</ref>