Scotland in the Middle Ages bards to the Lord of the Isles, existed in Scotland and a larger number in Ireland, until they were suppressed from the seventeenth century. Members of bardic schools were trained in the complex rules and forms of Gaelic poetry. Much of their work was never written down and what survives was only recorded from the sixteenth century. In the late Middle Ages, Middle Scots, often simply called English, became the dominant language of the country. It was derived largely from Old English, with the addition of elements from Gaelic and French. Although resembling the language spoken in northern England, it
England in the Late Middle Ages The Warm Period was followed by several centuries of much cooler temperatures, termed the Little Ice Age; by the fourteenth century spring temperatures had dropped considerably, reaching their coldest in the 1340s and 1350s. This cold end to the Middle Ages impacted significantly on English agriculture and living conditions. England's environment continued to be shaped throughout the period, through the building of dykes to drain marshes, tree clearance and the large scale extraction of peat. Managed parks for hunting game, including deer and boars, were built as status symbols by the nobility from the twelfth century. The English economy was