ACR, 8, p. 705-6 (21 June 1507)

by Edda Frankot

The Aberdeen Burgh Registers tend only to include brief statements concerning court cases that were dealt with by the burgh courts. From these, it is often difficult to establish the circumstances of a legal matter or of the parties involved in it or to draw any conclusions on the reasoning behind a certain verdict. With regards to cases of verbal or physical abuse, for example, there are often no details on who perpetrator or victim were, what their relationship was, where the abuse had taken place, what the character of it was and who had witnessed it. Of course, these registers were not written for entertainment or to facilitate twenty-first century research, but to keep a record of the decisions of the burgh courts. But one cannot help but be curious to know more.

The character of the Aberdeen records make it all the more interesting, then, when we do come across additional information in a court case, such as depositions of witnesses. It gets even more exciting when the majority of witness statements was made by women, a group generally underrepresented in legal sources. On the 21st of June 1507 fourteen depositions, nine of which were given by women, were recorded in the Aberdeen registers. These depositions concerned the age of a girl, Isabel Buchan, the heir of the late William Buchan, a burgess of Aberdeen.

There are eight entries in total concerning this case between 30 April and 21 June. From these it appears that the matter at hand was whether Isabel Buchan should still be under the tutory of one of the two parties in the case, David Colp. According to Scots law, orphaned minors (that is to say, minors whose fathers had died) were under tutory until they reached puberty. For girls this was at the age of twelve, for boys at fourteen. At that age minors would come into ownership of their property, though they would remain under curatory until they reached majority (for boys) or were married (for girls).

The depositions of the fourteen witnesses that appeared in court on 21 June are interesting in that they provide information on how people remembered important occurrences like births and deaths when communication was still to a large extent oral. There were no registers of births, marriages and deaths until after the Reformation, and few people beyond monasteries and burgh councils would have recorded important events.

From the statements of the fourteen people deposing in this case it appears that especially the women linked their memories to important feast days and to other memorable life events. Two of the women described their memories of Isabel’s baptism. Bessy Sibbald, Isabel’s godmother, recalled that she ‘hewf hir one monunday before festerinevine and sche dynit that day in Alexander Chameris house’. Alexander Chalmers’ wife, Isabel of Cullen, deposed that she too ‘hwyff Isabell Buchane one monunday before festerinevine’. To ‘hwuf’ means to lift a child from the font as a sponsor during the baptismal ceremony. Based on these memories Bessy thought that Isabel Buchan was at least eleven, as both Andrew Branch, the girl’s godfather, and Alexander Chalmers were still alive when she was baptised. Isabel of Cullen confirmed that her husband died when the girl was one year old, believing she was past her eleventh birthday.

According to Margaret McGlynn, who researched proof of age cases from sixteenth-century England, baptism was the ‘most common single memory of the birth’.¹ Mc Glynn noted that the lifting of the child from the font by the godparents after the baptism, the most significant moment in the ritual, stood out in people’s memories of the event. This expression of social relationships, as McGlynn called it, between the godparents and their godchild, was no doubt further enhanced by the subsequent dinner at the house of one of the couples present at the baptism in our case.

From the depositions in the Aberdeen registers, it appears that some documents were also presented in court on the 21st of June, though any details as to what they contained are lacking. However, it appears that the memories of some of the deponents were linked to the drawing up of these documents. John Moir, for example, deposed that he was bound in an obligation with Willam Buchan for his marriage goods a year before ‘yone obligacioun bundin be the prior of Monymusk’. Presumably this meant that Isabel’s parents were married about a year before this obligation was drawn up, and that Isabel herself could not have been born more than about three months before it (though this is not explicitly stated). Two of the women linked their memories of Isabel growing up to another document presented in court, a deed dated on St Catherine’s day (25 November – the year is not mentioned). Elizabeth Mowat stated that she did not know how old Isabel was but that she was not quite four when the deed was drawn up. Andrew Cullen’s wife deposed that Isabel could ‘gang, ett and drink befor the de[e]d’.

In thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England, written evidence was not seen as the most reliable. According to John Bedell in his article on memory and proof of age in that period, both judges and jurors considered written documents as inferior to memories of people who had personal knowledge of a certain event, though they were regularly presented as auxiliary evidence.² McGlynn noted that in the earlier decades of the sixteenth century very few written documents were used as evidence in proof of age cases in England. People were very aware that written sources could be lost (as well as forged) and that personal memories were more reliable in the long run. This had changed by the late sixteenth century when society as a whole had become more literate.³

That written documents in themselves were not considered sufficient proof in early sixteenth-century Scotland either, is confirmed by the deposition of John Cullen, whose only recorded statement was that he ‘trastis the writ producit under the aldermanis seill’, apparently another document that was present in court. On the whole, though, written documents do appear to have played a more significant role than was usual in England at the same time, but based on one case it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions with regards to Scottish practice in the early sixteenth century.

Relying on the evidence of witnesses and documents, the bailies concluded that Isabel Buchan was eleven years old. Though this is not stated explicitly in the verdict, this meant that she would remain under the tutory of David Colp for a further nine months or so, after which she would be able to enjoy the fruits of her inheritance (though under curatory until she married).

The observations about the functioning of memory in proof of age cases correspond to conclusions made by authors analysing similar sources. Elizabeth van Houts, for example, noted that women, especially mothers and wet nurses, were important as ‘rememberers of birth details’, as this was considered part of the female domain. In such cases women’s testimonies were vital, as is clear from our 1507 case as well.⁴

Of course, much more can be said about medieval memory in all its facets than it is possible to relate in a short post. Hopefully other proof of age cases like this will crop up as our transcription efforts continue and more research will become possible. But even if not, this case on its own has already provided us with some nicely detailed insights into the workings of memory in medieval society, especially those of women, and as such into the events that most likely mattered most to them.

ACR, 6, p. 904 (11 February 1485)

by Edda Frankot

The port of Aberdeen in the later fifteenth century was not nearly as busy as it is today. Exactly how many ships docked at the medieval quays in an average year is unknown, but in the first half of the fifteenth century less than ten ships sailed abroad in most years.¹ How many more would have had other Scottish ports as their destination is impossible to say, as a thorough port administration is simply not available. Thankfully, the Aberdeen Council Registers do offer a lot of qualitative information on shipping to and from Aberdeen and on the administration of legal cases between the various parties involved in this business. Such cases could be dealt with by different courts: there are instances of legal matters being administered in bailie courts, guild courts and by admirals depute in an admiralty court.²

On 11 February 1485, in a court held by the bailies in the tolbooth, an assize (a jury) of twelve sworn men passed judgement in a case concerning the casting of goods from a buss (‘busch’, from the Dutch ‘buis’, originally a herring fishing vessel). The entry in the Aberdeen records is quite short, but offers a few interesting insights into the administration of law in the burgh and into maritime legal practice.

Many cases that were dealt with by the Aberdeen courts were decided by assizes. Sometimes the members are mentioned by name, but often also they are not. In this case twelve names are listed, but assizes in other examples range from between nine and fifteen, and usually an uneven number appears to have been preferred.³ In most cases there are no further indications as to who the members of the assize were and why they were chosen (though it will surely be possible to find out more about individuals when this project is finished and the corpus can be searched for names). An interesting exception is a case from 1449 in which seven members of the assize are identified as ‘mercatorum’, merchants, and the other eight as ‘nautarum’, skippers.⁴ In the case discussed here, too, three men are identified as members of the maritime community: Peter Andreis is the skipper of the buss in question, Copryng is his ‘stereman’, helmsman, and Michael is the helmsman of a ‘kervel’, a carvel that was most likely anchored in port at the time. As in many other examples, the ships are only identified as ‘the busch’ and ‘the kervel’, suggesting that only a small amount of vessels were docked at the quay at any one time. Sometimes names are mentioned, such as the James of Veere and the shipwreck of the Mary Grace, both with Dutch skippers, in an entry of 6 February 1482 and the Maryknight from Aberdeen in 1461.⁵

It is likely that the men elected onto the assize were in some way knowledgeable in sea law because they themselves were part of the maritime community. Normally one would only expect men of some authority and standing to be involved, as assizes were often specified to consist of ‘worthy men’ or ‘proborum virorum’, which in maritime cases would mean merchants, shipowners and skippers. But in this case two helmsmen were elected too. What is even more remarkable, though, is that two of the men specified were actually on the ship that was the subject of the lawsuit. What is more, Peter Andreis even passed judgement at his own expense (or rather that of the shipowners which he represented). One would think that this was highly unusual (and irregular), but in another case, between the earl of Orkney and merchants from Aberdeen, the matter was referred to the meeting of the commissioners of all the burghs in Edinburgh. The reason given was ‘… sen the mater langis thaim, thai arre lath to be jugis in their awne cause’.⁶ In that case too, it appears, the merchants involved would have been asked to judge their own case.

The assize decided that Walter, a merchant whose goods had been cast overboard, presumably in order to save the ship in an emergency situation, though this is not specifically stated, would be compensated for his losses. The other merchants would ‘lott’ with him. In addition, the skipper would ‘lott’ with the merchants whose goods had been cast with either his ship or his freight. To lot means to contribute a proportionate share to a common payment. This was the usual way in which the sacrifice made at sea to save the whole vessel, its goods and its passengers (in legal terminology: general average) was compensated in most of northern Europe in this period (with some variation). It is also in accordance with the Rôles d’Oléron. These medieval sea laws which originated in France appear to have been valid in Scotland, as several copies of a translation into Scots have survived as part of collections of the main Scottish laws.⁷

So, this short entry from volume 6 of the Aberdeen Council Registers already provides us with a wealth of information on maritime and legal life in the late medieval burgh: on types of ships frequenting its harbour, on who administered justice in its courts and on how its maritime practice fitted in with that elsewhere in northern Europe. There is so much more yet to explore, not only concerning Aberdeen’s harbour and its maritime community, but also with regard to many other aspects of medieval life, such as the market, the guild, and citizens breaking the law, but also concerning relations with other towns and with local lords such as the earls of Huntly and Mar. Stay tuned for more highlights from the collection!