Legal institutions of Scotland in the High Middle Ages

Scottish legal institutions in the High Middle Ages are, for the purposes of this article, the informal and formal systems which governed and helped to manage Scottish society between the years 900 and 1288, a period roughly corresponding with the general European era usually called the High Middle Ages. Scottish society in this period was predominantly Gaelic. Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. The early Scottish lawman, or Breitheamh, became the Latin Judex; the great Breitheamh became the magnus Judex, which arguably developed into the office of Justiciar, an office which survives to this day in that of Lord Justice General. Scottish common law began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent.

Pre-fourteenth century law amongst the native Scots is not always well attested. There does not survive a vast corpus of native law from Scotland particularly, certainly nothing like that which comes from early medieval Ireland. However, the latter gives some basis for reconstructing pre-fourteenth century Scottish law. King Robert Bruce cites common "customs", as well as language, as features which made the Scots and Irish one people. In the earliest extant Scottish legal manuscript, there is a document called Leges inter Brettos et Scottos. The document is in French, and is almost certainly a French translation of an earlier Gaelic document. The sentence ...

"Le cro et le galnys et le enauch unius cuiusque hominis sunt pares scillicet in respectu de le enauch feminarum suarum"

... contains two Gaelic terms, and one term of Welsh origin which the French translator left alone. Cro, represents the Old Irish word cró, which means homicide, or compensation for homicide (galnys, from Old Welsh galanas, means exactly the same thing in Cumbric). Enauch corresponds to Old Irish enech, which meant "face" (C/F, lóg n-enech meant honour price). The text contains many other Gaelic terms.

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