Neil, your thoughts are precious concerning the madness of our times, but I do not think it was uneventful to live in Scotland in the year 1300.

this was the year ushering in the Hundred Years' War in Europe, England, and Scotland.  Dreadful fighting among jousting nations trying to rule the area.

This was the century of the Black Death.  2/3 of Europe's people died.  More women than men survived, because women were more likely to stay at home instead of venturing out where the plague was,
so women began to have more "say" about land and possessions.  To marry a landed widow was the aim of many surviving men (from A Distant Mirror by historian Barbara Tuchman).

This terrible century brought in the Renaissance, which had as much bad about it as good.  True, more learning, more participation of the people, but also
 pagan syncretism in religion.  Translating the old pagan classics brought ideas which led people away from faith, but not entirely, for many contended for the faith.

My Scottish forebears lost much of their huge land ownings in this time, because they sided with the wrong leaders, and were punished by the King of England, who
took away not only the landowners' farms but also destroyed the monasteries of Scotland such as Paisley and Melrose.  Many many people died in the wars between
England and Scotland alone.  The Templars fled from France to Scotland, as they were purged by the Pope and the King of France, and famous new Templar
abbeys went up, such as Roslyn.

The 14th century has been upheld as a time as bad as ours.  But there are differences, in the prophetic timeline, between then and now.  For one thing, Israel was
not in the land.  For another, the advances of science had not overshot wisdom, to create techniques of brainwashing and to build monstrosities such as
CERN, not to speak of the atomic age itself, (the Japanese and Germans were almost to victory in nuclear technology
when the Manhattan Project was put into place, and there was little we could do but follow suit to make atomic bombs--and now we are again held hostage by
the nuclear ambitions of nations).

No, the people Scotland in 1300 did raise lots of sheep, but that was not all they were up to.    

Maranatha, our Only Hope.