Upon this scene, during the period when Scotland was under the rule of this dynasty, two great additional features were introduced. The first consisted of those Norman castles or strongholds, either built by the Norman barons to whom grants of land had been made, and which contributed so greatly to their power in the country, or by the kings of this race upon the crown lands; and around the latter would cluster those groups of dwellings, inhabited by traders and artisans, which, on the banks or at the mouths of navigable rivers, formed the burghs and seaport towns in which the trade and commerce of the country was carried on. The second great feature consisted of those monasteries founded by these kings for communities of regular canons or other monastic orders of the Roman Catholic Church, which, with their stone-and-lime buildings, the extensive tracts of land attached to them, and the industrial habits they fostered, would tend greatly to extend the cultivation of the soil, and to promote the social condition of the people under their influence. We have a somewhat imperfect description of Scotland as it was in the time of Alexander the Third, compiled not long after his death. It commences at the eastern border between England and Scotland, and first names Tyvidale, that is, Teviotdale, with its two royal castles of Rokesborow or Roxburgh, and Geddeworth or Jedburgh, the latter a favourite residence of Alexander the Third. Then follows Lothian, with its castles of Berwick, Edinburgh, Dunbar, and Strivelyn or Stirling. These two provinces extend, it tells us, from the border to Erlesferie and Queneferie, that is, to the Firth of Forth. In the districts which extend in the west from the Clyde to the Solway it names only the new castle built upon the Ayr water, and in Galewey, Anandale the land of the Lord Robert de Brus, the royal castle of Dounfres or Dumfries, that of Kirkcudbright, belonging to William de Ferrers, and the castle of Baleswynton, belonging to John de Cumyn. The central districts are not named, but here was the extensive forest of Ettrick and Traquair separating the eastern from the western districts. Beyond Lothian, it tells us, lay the land of Fif or Fife, in which were the burgh of St. Andrews and the castle of Locres or Leuchars. Beyond the Firth of Tay was the land of Anegos or Angus, in which were the castles of Dundee and Forfar; and then follows ‘a certain waste called the Mounth, upwards of sixty miles long and sixteen broad, across which a most wretched passage can be taken to the north, without food’ (ubi est pessimum passagium sine cibo). Then follows Mar, and Bouwan or Buchan, in which is the burgh of Aberdene with its royal castle. Followed by the land of Morref or Moray, with the castles of Elgyn and Spiny, and then Ross and Cateneys or Caithness.[9]