The borderlands of England and Scotland in the later middle ages are deeply associated with a turbulent raiding culture. In the sixteenth century this became chiefly identified with the so-called Riding Surnames, the kin groups of the region who defied the authority of both kingdoms’ rulers and their officials, lived by violent feuding and livestock raids, and identified closely with their relations on the opposite side of the border. But these groups, and related expressions of kin solidarities in the region, are not well understood prior to their first official mention in a record from 1498. Nevertheless, there is evidence for the existence of Surname groups in the fifteenth century and also for quite different expressions of kinship ties (names using double patronyms), not least among the higher peasantry and lesser landowners of the English far north. These different phenomena reveal prominent social and cultural patterns in this borderland, which suggest the significance of kinship ties here was more nuanced than has been appreciated to date.
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