JOURNAL OF IRISH AND SCOTTISH STUDIES Volume 9, Issue 2 Winter 2018 Scottish urban archives and histories: context and a legal historical perspective Published by Aberdeen University Press in association with The Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies ISSN 1753-2396 Contents Introduction: Scottish Urban Archives and Histories Jackson W. Armstrong and Andrew Mackillop 1 Section 1: Sources, Methods and Perspectives Whatever Happened to the Scottish Burgh Records? Athol Murray† 10 Urban Archives: Endless Possibilities Alan R. MacDonald 29 Section 2: A Legal History Perspective Arbitration in Late Medieval Scotland: ‘Bon Accord’ in Urban and Rural Contexts Jackson W. Armstrong 50 Spuilzie and Shipwreck in the Burgh Records Andrew R. C. Simpson 70 Legal Practice and Legal Institutions in Seventeenth-century Aberdeen, as Witnessed in the Lives of Thomas Nicolson of Cockburnspath and his Associates Adelyn L. M. Wilson 93 List of Contributors 130 In Memoriam Athol Murray, 1930 – 2018 Editorial Dedication Athol Murray was a scholar of extraordinary calibre. He combined an unequalled authority on Scottish archives with an instinct to raise new questions about the traces of the past and to share his deep understanding with others. He wrote more than twenty-six scholarly articles, several edited texts for the Scottish History Society, the Scottish Record Society, and he produced numerous articles and other contributions on Scottish history and archives over some sixty-fi ve years. Of particular signifi cance is the revised edition of Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi (Scottish Record Society, 2003), the fruit of a collaborative project to identify the post-holders of the Scottish church in the middle ages which he co-edited. Born in Northumberland, Athol graduated with a degree in History from Cambridge in 1952 at the age of twenty-one. He secured a permanent appointment as an archivist (Assistant Keeper) at the then Scottish Record Offi ce in 1953. There he met his wife, Joyce, who was also an Assistant Keeper. He earned a further degree in Law (LLB 1957) and a doctorate in History (PhD 1961) from the University of Edinburgh. His dissertation for the latter, on The Exchequer and Crown Revenue of Scotland 1437–1542 (1961), emerged directly from his work with these records in the SRO (now the National Records of Scotland) and has proved a mainstay for the study of late medieval Scottish government. Promoted to Deputy Keeper in 1984, Athol became Keeper of the Records of Scotland in 1985, holding the post until his retirement in 1990 after thirty-seven years of service. One of his major achievements in that role was to secure government funding for the construction of Thomas Thomson House, a dedicated archive building in Edinburgh, which opened in 1994. Following retirement Athol continued to serve in a number of professional capacities, including as the leader of a team to report on the Hong Kong government archives just before the handover to China in 1997. He remained an active volunteer in the NRS right up to his death in 2018, and an area of continued inquiry for him remained the Exchequer records. Athol was also a dedicated servant to the fi eld of historical research and its cognate disciplines. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow and vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a founder member of the annual vi Editorial Dedication Conference of Scottish Medievalists, which fi rst met in 1958. In his personal interactions with other scholars Athol was always warm and encouraging in his gentle and thoughtful way. This was true both intellectually in terms of generously sharing from his own unpublished and ongoing research and corresponding about topics of shared interest, and more generally as a fi rm supporter of young researchers in the fi eld. He set a tremendous example as one who remained fully active in the academic world long past the point at which others might have ceased to be so engaged. Athol was a scholar of great authority, learning and experience, but on top of all this he conveyed a deep warmth and sparkle that we shall always fondly remember. We are grateful to Athol’s family for their kind permission to publish his essay posthumously and to dedicate this issue of the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies to his memory. Jackson W. Armstrong, University of Aberdeen Andrew Mackillop, University of Glasgow Introduction Scottish Urban Archives and Histories Jackson W. Armstrong and Andrew Mackillop This special issue of the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies examines Scottish urban archives and Scottish urban histories. It does so with the aim of taking stock of the fi eld of scholarship and archival collections relating to Scottish burghs, exploring potential new fi elds of research and, in particular, developing one such perspective by way of example. In this task it holds a broad chronological interest joining the medieval and the modern periods, albeit with a primary focus on the fi fteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The latter emphasis concentrates attention on what has proven to be a historiographically dynamic period in the fi eld, and is one into which we seek to make a useful interjection while also highlighting the commonalities and discontinuities that stretch back from the early-modern era into the medieval period and forward into the modern. The wider goal, with particular relevance to Scotland’s history, is to consider how urban records can be put to use to address a range of topics and questions with relevance beyond that which may be considered distinctly or naturally urban. The particular viewpoint to be advanced in this collaborative exercise comes from a legal historical perspective. This collection of essays arises from the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project, which is a shared endeavour between the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies and the Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives to examine themes of continuity and transition, languages and geographies, and more generally the use of urban records for the study beyond ‘urban history’ itself.1 Given Scotland’s relatively low levels of urbanisation and its societal 1 We wish to thank Professor Michael P. Brown, editor of the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on this collection. We are grateful to all of the authors for their contributions and patience, and wish to acknowledge the contributions of all the participants in ‘The Burgh in the North’ symposium of November 2013, hosted by the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies and funded by the Margaret Jones Bequest. We wish also to register our thanks to Mr Phil Astley, City Archivist, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives, and his team, and Dr Edda Frankot, for their long-standing commitment to the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project. 2 Jackson W. Armstrong and Andrew Mackillop concentration on agricultural production prior to the industrial revolution, it is unremarkable that the volume of surviving town records from the realm in the later middle ages is relatively small and fragmentary.2 That said, it is Aberdeen’s civic archive which proves the exception to the general rule, and which offers a series of surviving burgh records which are impressive in both a Scottish and northern European context for their continuity and for their richness. With extant council registers from 1398 onwards (excepting a gap in the series from c.1414-c.1434), Aberdeen’s records are the most continuous of their kind in Scotland. For the fi fteenth century alone, more survives for Aberdeen than for all other Scottish towns combined. The international signifi cance of this archive resonates in that it provides a nearly unbroken record for a major regional nucleus of political and judicial power within the Scottish kingdom. Aberdeen (itself consisting of two neighbouring burghs; what came to be known as New Aberdeen on the River Dee and Old Aberdeen on the River Don – the latter with its own civic registers surviving from the seventeenth century) was also a major episcopal seat, the site of one of Europe’s most northern seats of learning (King’s College founded 1495 and Marischal College founded 1593), and a commercial entrepot with extensive hinter-lands and hinter-seas.3 The point of origin for most of the essays assembled here is a symposium held in 2013. They were subsequently prepared for publication in 2015; thus they refl ect the state of the fi eld at that time.4 Given the ambition to examine how urban records may be put to use for more than urban history alone, it is important to offer two different types of overview: archival and historiographical. This is the purpose of the contributions by Athol Murray and Alan R. MacDonald. In 1988 an appraisal and survey of the surviving source materials for study of medieval Scottish For the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project, see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/about/ aberdeen-burgh-records-project-97.php [accessed 3 July 2016]. For information on the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant which emerges from this collaboration, Law in the Aberdeen Council Registers, 1398–1511: Concepts, Practices, Geographies, see http://aberdeenregisters.org [accessed 1 December 2016]. 2 D. Ditchburn and A. J. Macdonald, ‘Medieval Scotland, 1100-1560’ in R. A. Houston and W. W. J. Knox (eds), The Penguin History of Scotland: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London, 2001), 145–6; I. D. Whyte, Scotland’s Society and Economy in Transition, c.1500–c.1760 (Basingstoke, 1997), 115. 3 D. Ditchburn and M. Harper, ‘Aberdeen and the Outside World’ in E. P. Dennison, D. Ditchburn and M. Lynch (eds), Aberdeen before 1800: A New History (East Linton, 2002), 377–407.