Jackson W. Armstrong - Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe: Scotland and its Neighbours c.1350–c.1650

Drawing together an international team of historians, lawyers and historical sociolinguists, this volume investigates urban cultures of law in Scotland, with a special focus on Aberdeen and its rich civic archive, the Low Countries, Norway, Germany and Poland from c. 1350 to c. 1650.

In these essays, the contributors seek to understand how law works in its cultural and social contexts by focusing specifically on the urban experience and, to a great extent, on urban records. The contributions are concerned with understanding late medieval and early modern legal experts as well as the users of courts and legal services, the languages and records of law, and legal activities occurring inside and outside of official legal fora. This volume considers what the expectations of people at different status levels were for the use of the law, what perceptions of justice and authority existed among different groups, and what their knowledge was of law and legal procedure. By examining how different aspects of legal culture came to be recorded in writing, the contributors reveal how that writing itself then became part of a culture of law.

Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe: Scotland and its Neighbours c.1350c.1650 combines the historical study of law, towns, language and politics in a way that will be accessible and compelling for advanced level undergraduates and postgraduate to postdoctoral researchers and academics in medieval and early modern, urban, legal, political and linguistic history.

Jackson W. Armstrong is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is the author of Englands Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish Marches (2020).

Edda Frankot is Associate Professor in History at Nord University in Bod, Norway. She specialises in late medieval urban, maritime and legal history. She is the author of Of Laws of Ships and Shipmen. Medieval Maritime Law and its Practice in Urban Northern Europe (2012).

Series Editor: Natasha Hodgson, Nottingham Trent University

This is a brand new series which straddles both medieval and early modern worlds, encouraging readers to examine historical change over time as well as promoting understanding of the historical continuity between events in the past, and to challenge perceptions of periodisation. It aims to meet the demand for conceptual or thematic topics which cross a relatively wide chronological span (any period between c. 5001750), including a broad geographical scope.

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Lived Religion and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Raisa Maria Toivo

Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe
Scotland and its Neighbours c.1350c.1650
Edited by Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot

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Edited by Natasha Hodgson, Amy Fuller, John McCallum and Nicholas Morton

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Themes-in-Medieval-and-Early-Modern-History/book-series/TMEMH

Scotland and its Neighbours c. 1350c. 1650

Edited by
Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot

First published 2021

by Routledge

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2021 selection and editorial matter, Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Armstrong, Jackson W. (Jackson Webster), 1978 editor. | Frankot, Edda, editor.

Title: Cultures of law in urban Northern Europe: Scotland and its neighbours c.1350-c.1650 / edited by Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot.

Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020027957 (print) | LCCN 2020027958 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367206796 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367206802 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429262869 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: LawScotlandHistory. | LawEurope, NorthernHistory.

Classification: LCC KDC296 .C85 2021 (print) | LCC KDC296 (ebook) | DDC 349.411dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027957

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027958

ISBN: 978-0-367-20680-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-20679-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26286-9 (ebk)

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Jackson W. Armstrong and Edda Frankot

PART I
Telling tales

J.D. Ford

PART II
Communication of law

William Hepburn and Graeme Small

Joanna Kopaczyk

Anna D. Havinga

PART III
Jurisdiction and conflict

Miriam Tveit

Michael H. Brown

Jrg Rogge

Chanelle Delameillieure and Jelle Haemers

PART IV
Law in practice, in and out of court

Edda Frankot

Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz

Jackson W. Armstrong

PART V
Men of law in Scotland

David Ditchburn

Andrew R.C. Simpson

Adelyn L.M. Wilson

Jackson W. Armstrong is a Senior Lecturer in history at the University of Aberdeen. He was principal investigator in the Law in the Aberdeen Council Registers project. His book Englands Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish Marches was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.

Michael H. Brown is the Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews. His books include James I (1994), The Black Douglases (1998), The Wars of Scotland 12141371 (2004) and Disunited Kingdoms: Politics and People in the British Isles 12801460 (2013).