Andrew Alanson

Origins and family background

Andrew Alanson first appears in the Aberdeen council registers on 5 October 1439. He had just witnessed an inspection of some lands behind the old tolbooth on the Castlegate, where it had been found that there was nothing moveable on the lands that could be used to satisfy an �annualrent’, a payment which was owed to a specific creditor from the lands themselves (i.e.

The family background of Andrew Alanson is unclear. There had been Alansons in Aberdeen for decades,²⁷ but it has not been possible to establish who Andrew’s parents were. He had a brother, Thomas,²⁸ and at least one sister, whose son, Alexander Trail, would later engage in litigation with him.²⁹ At some point in his life, Andrew Alanson married a woman called Christian Cadiou.³⁰ She may have been a sister of Master John Cadiou, notary public.³¹ The Alansons are not known to have had any children, and if they did they do not seem to have survived their father.³² A record dating from 1445 describes Andrew Alanson as a â€?mercator’, i.e. a merchant trading in salmon, and the same record makes it clear that he was at the time of writing absent on business.³³ He must have been a burgess of Aberdeen and a member of the merchant guild, i.e. one with the highest trading privileges within the burgh community, because by 1447 he had been elected as one of the burgh councillors in a meeting of the guild court on 6 October that year.³⁴ Nonetheless, it should not be thought that Alanson’s only connections were in Aberdeen; he had at least one powerful friend outwith the burgh.

The picture that emerges of Alanson in 1448 is that of a well-connected and reasonably well-to-do merchant burgess and guild brother of medieval Aberdeen who had begun to hold office in the administration of the burgh. By then, he had already appeared quite frequently in the Aberdeen council registers, primarily suing and being sued by others.³⁸ His litigation was not limited to the burgh courts; on one occasion, he sued Robert Blyndseil, a representative of one of the oligarchic families that dominated burgh affairs, for certain unspecified â€?iniuris’ before the court of the bishop of Aberdeen – presumably meaning the consistorial court. Exactly why the burgh court noted the decision to submit the dispute to arbiters chosen by both parties is unclear.³⁹ There is little reason here to rehearse the many claims that Alanson brought before the burgh courts during his life, but it is worth mentioning that he was already experienced in representing himself before the bailies before he started to represent others frequently.

Bailie, councillor and deputy chamberlain

On 30 September 1448, Alanson was elected to the office of bailie himself, along with three others;⁴⁰ this was a role he would hold again later in his career.⁴¹ In that capacity, he would have been expected to preside over several of the burgh courts and to participate in the legal administration of the burgh.

Alanson’s first period in office as bailie was not without its difficulties. On 15 February 1449, Malcolm Forbes, David Dun and David Hervy were â€?accusit of the disobeying of Androw Alaneson the balyhe’. Alanson seems to have demanded that the men put up security or â€?lawburrows’ for their peaceful behaviour.⁴⁵ They had refused, maintaining that those who â€?doutit’ their good behaviour first had to swear an oath to that effect. They claimed that only then should they be required to give â€?borowes of pes’, as Alanson had demanded. The question was put to an assize, which indicated its wish to be â€?forthir avisit with men of law’ on the matter.⁴⁶ This was not the only occasion on which Alanson found it difficult to enforce his will as bailie. On 23 June 1449, John Barde was convicted by an assize for â€?disobedience of Andrew Alanson, one of the bailies of the said burgh [of Aberdeen] in the exercise of his office, concerning which matter the said bailie sought instruments’.⁴⁷ In other words, he asked for formal documentary evidence of the dispute to be prepared, probably by a notary public and perhaps by Master John Cadiou.

Whatever difficulties he faced during his tenure as bailie, Alanson continued to participate in burgh administration. He was frequently elected to the burgh council during the 1450s.⁴⁸ He held other official roles too in the course of that decade; for example, on 6 February 1458 he served as one of four deputies of the chamberlain in the chamberlain’s ayre when it visited Aberdeen that year.⁴⁹ The chamberlain was another royal officer who had responsibility for overseeing good governance in the burghs, and in particular the administration of justice and the receipt of revenues due to the crown.⁵⁰

Trusted representative and procurator

While gaining this experience as an official in the administration of justice, Alanson was also active in representing a range of clients before the same burgh courts. He acted for four separate clients during the 1450s. First, on 14 October 1454, Thomas Scot in Bourtie parish, near Inverurie, made Andrew Alanson, John Scroggs the son and William Alanson his procurators â€?in order to pursue Hugh Flesher for a cow’.⁵¹ As was standard in such constitutions of procuratory, Scot promised to ratify whatever his procurators did in his name.⁵² The dispute continued on 9 December 1454, when Hugh Flesher appeared and entered a defence, asking for 15 days to summon his â€?warrantor’.⁵³ The warrantor would have been the individual who had transferred the cow to him in the first place, and the warrantor’s obligation of warrandice would have obliged him to answer Scot’s claim for the cow in place of Flesher.⁵⁴

Second, a few weeks later, on 14 January 1455, and this time in the head court of the burgh, Andrew Alanson was back, acting for Walter Ewynson to have his case transferred or â€?repledged’ to the court of his lord, which was to be held at nearby Scotston on 3 February 1455. This could happen where a party alleged that his dispute should be heard before a different court; in this case, the point was that the lord had jurisdiction to hear disputes involving his man, and so the dispute was to be heard in the lord’s court, and not in one of the burgh courts.⁵⁵

Third, on 10 December 1455, Alanson appeared on behalf of one Sandris Harwar in the bailie court of the burgh, acting as Harwar’s forespeaker.⁵⁶ Harwar was pursuing the master of a ship to account for some cargo.

Fourth, on 9 April 1459 Alanson appeared for one James Williamson in the bailies’ court of the burgh. Williamson was being sued by a shipmaster named Hans Snel, who alleged that Williamson owed him ten pounds Scots for the transportation of 200 barrels of onions. Alanson alleged that Snel had to deliver or at least produce and offer the onions to Williamson before the payment was to be made⁵⁸; the ultimate resolution of the matter is unclear.

A man of law?

None of this should be taken to imply that Andrew Alanson was, or would have thought of himself, exclusively or primarily, as what contemporaries described as a â€?man of law’ or a iuris peritus. Indeed, on two occasions when iuris periti were mentioned in the records – which have already been discussed – it was in response to a perceived need to seek their advice in relation to disputes in which Alanson was either adjudicating or acting as a procurator. Of course, it does not follow that Alanson was not and could not have been seen as a â€?man of law’ himself. Nonetheless, even if he would have accepted or entertained that label, it is doubtful that he would have allowed it to define him.⁵⁹ Fundamentally, he was a reasonably wealthy and well-connected merchant burgess and guild brother of Aberdeen who was trusted by his peers in the administration of justice – as they understood it – and in the representation of others within the burgh courts.

In passing, it is worth noting that, in addition to his trading and administrative activities, Alanson was also a significant patron of the burgh kirk of St Nicholas and the church more generally. To name examples, he and his wife, Christian Cadiou, founded and endowed an altar to St Mary Magdalane within the kirk of St Nicholas.⁶¹ Alanson also gifted an annualrent to the chancellor of Aberdeen Cathedral, and he presided over the endowment of the Franciscan Friary established in Broadgate in 1471.⁶² In addition, he had his own chaplain, who in 1452 was Patrick Williamson.⁶³ Alanson’s endowments of ecclesiastical institutions were sufficiently extensive to cause the nineteenth-century biographer of Aberdonian provosts to comment that he â€?is best remembered by his various and generous grants for religious purposes’.⁶⁴ He also secured a guarantee that at least some such endowments could continue to be guarded and controlled by their patrons; in July 1470, the council provided that â€?quhat that Androw alanson bringis or giffis in the inhourment [adornment] to the sayde altar [of Mary Magdalene] sall ramayn at the keping of the saide Androw and his airis and thair chaplaynnis’; it added â€?euery man that giffis inhourment or feftment to the saide altar sal be maystiris and patrownis of thair awin gift’.⁶⁵

Provost Alanson in the burgh council and in parliament

On 1 October 1470, Andrew Alanson was elected as provost of Aberdeen, to hold office for a year.⁶⁶ There seems to be no reason to doubt that he should be identified with the man of the same name who represented Aberdeen as burgh commissioner in a meeting of parliament in the old tolbooth of Edinburgh a few months later, on 6 May 1471.⁶⁷ On that day, three parliamentary committees were elected. The first was the committee of the lords of the articles, which was responsible for drafting legislation to be considered by the whole assembly sitting together.⁶⁸ Alanson was chosen to join this committee. The other two committees were those of the lords auditors of causes and complaints and of the lords for the falsing of dooms; they were elected to discharge parliament’s significant judicial functions.⁶⁹ The first was able to deal with first instance complaints to parliament; the latter dealt with dooms already pronounced by inferior judges and had power to revoke them.⁷⁰ It is worth noting that Alanson served as one of the lords auditors of causes and complaints in the parliament of August 1471, giving him first-hand experience of judicial business transacted there.⁷¹

The legislation ultimately promulgated by parliament in May 1471 addressed a wide range of matters, from arrangements for the marriage of the sister of the king, James III (r.1460–1488),⁷² to a prohibition on wearing new silk clothes for those whose income fell below a certain level.⁷³ It also enacted laws to deal with the value of money in Scotland and with perjury.⁷⁴ These last points may be significant for the purposes of this chapter, because the value of money and the problem of perjury were two of three matters which one â€?Andrew Alanson’ and others had been asked to â€?avise uppoun’ as part of a commission appointed in the preceding parliament in November 1469. The commission had instructed those appointed to meet in Edinburgh on 20 March 1470 to discuss the matters in question; it was in the following terms:

Item, the hail thre estatis has committit ful powere to thir persounis underwrittin of the hail parliament to avise, commone and refer again to the next parliament or generale consail of thir materis underwrittin etc. In the first to avise uppone the inbringing of bullione in the realme and of the kepin of the mone in the realme, and to avise upone the course that the mone sal hafe etc. Item, of the reductione of the kingis lawis, Regiam Majestatem, actis, statutis and uthir bukis to be put in a volum and tobe autoriyit, and the laif to be distroyit. Item, to avise for reformationes for mane sworne athis and to set punytione thairupon. Item, to avise uppone all uthir articulis that salbe thocht spedful for the honour of oure soverane lorde and the commone gude of the realme.⁷⁵

As already stated earlier, it is likely that the â€?Andrew Alanson’ appointed to this commission was indeed the Andrew Alanson who is under consideration in this chapter, and who attended the next parliament after 1469 which considered two of these three matters. If so, it is quite plausible to speculate that he already had views on the issue of the coinage, and in particular its debasement, which was a perennial problem in the reign of James III.⁷⁶ The matter had attracted interest from Aberdeen before. On 12 October 1467, Richard Kintore, burgess of Aberdeen – who had demitted office as provost a week earlier⁷⁷ – had presented a petition to parliament with Archibald Whitelaw, dean of Dunbar and the royal secretary, expressing concerns about this matter on behalf of the clergy and the burgh commissioners.⁷⁸ As regards the third matter addressed to the commissioners – the creation of an authoritative version of the laws of the realm – it is, of course, interesting that Andrew Alanson of Aberdeen may have been involved. A subsequent parliament of 1473 did legislate for the reduction of the laws of the realm to order, and it did so in terms that indicate a clear debt to the proposal of November 1469.⁷⁹ Nonetheless, Andrew Alanson is not known to have been present at that parliament; indeed, it is not certain that any representative from Aberdeen’s burgh council actually attended.⁸⁰ Therefore, it is difficult to consider what contribution – if any – Alanson may or may not have made to the commission appointed in 1469. What is perhaps more interesting is that the original proposal of November 1469 may have been inspired in part by the sort of problem that Alanson and others in Aberdeen had come across in the burgh courts in the Lilburn dispute in January 1467. They seem to have been genuinely uncertain as to the correct law to be applied; and when the juris periti who advised the burgh council in Edinburgh – whoever they were – were consulted as to how best to resolve the inheritance dispute in question, they not only gave advice, but cited as authority for their opinion a passage in the Leges Burgorum. While further research is evidently required on the point, it may transpire that there was some link between, on the one hand, the promotion of the authority of the text of the Leges Burgorum by the juris periti of Edinburgh in 1467, and, on the other hand, the proposal to create an authoritative, accessible version of those laws in 1469. Studies such as the present one concerning Alanson’s work in the burgh courts, then, may serve to help contextualise and make greater sense of the problem considered in November 1469.

Burgh statutes and acts of the king’s parliaments

Alanson is not known to have attended any subsequent parliaments. Nonetheless, during his second term in office as provost, which began on 2 October 1473,⁸¹ he took the interesting step of promulgating a burgh statute which sought effectively to re-enact parliamentary legislation of James II (r. 1437–1460) concerning the implementation of a small claims court. Alanson’s statute, promulgated on 29 November that year, was in the following terms:

The said day it is ordand and statute be the Aldirman and consel that all burges and nychtbour’ dwelland within this burgh clamand ony sowmes within ane hundreth schillingis tobe wrangwisly haldin fra thame salbe servit within viij daies and salhafe na langar’ dilatouris eftir the Act of the kingis parliament et cetera⁸²

Why did Alanson and the council choose to do this? A little context may shed light on the matter. First, the â€?Act of the kingis parliament’ in question had been promulgated on 4 August 1455 during the reign of James II (r. 1437–1460). This provided that in each burgh within the realm there should be appointed â€?viij or [xij] personis eftir the quantite of the towne chosin of secret consale and suorne tharto’, who were to have the task of determining â€?all matiris of wrang and unlawe within the burghe to waill of v li’ or within apone viij dais warnyng’. James II’s statute went on to explain its purpose, which was â€?sua that in prejudice of the innocentis the delayar haif nocht the priwalege of the process of lawe, bot apon viij dais warnyng to be decidyt be the said personis’.⁸³

Exactly why Provost Alanson felt the need to make fresh provision along these lines is unclear. As has already been stated, delay in the administration of justice was certainly a recurring concern amongst fifteenth-century Scottish legislators,⁸⁴ and Provost Alanson’s express repetition of the rationale for the 1455 act in his own statute confirms that he and the burgh council were thinking in the same terms. It is possible that the provisions of the 1455 act were in desuetude, and that Alanson thought it appropriate to revive them due to specific concerns about the use of exceptions or defences to drag out disputes over small claims. Nonetheless, it does not seem to have been common practice for the burgh council to implement acts of Scottish parliaments through their own statutes or ordinances. The fact that the 1455 act was singled out for such attention in 1473 becomes even more intriguing when it is realised that the burgh council had already promulgated an ordinance implementing the act almost 20 years earlier. On 8 October 1456, about a year after the 1455 act was passed, the council, led by Provost John Fife,⁸⁵ had promulgated an ordinance in the following terms:

Item it is ordanit and concludit be the hale counsaile that ilke monoundai thar’ sal sit vj persounes of Counsaile to end al smal complayntis betuex nyghtboris of al soumes that ar within v lib’ eftir the act’ of the kingis parliament / and the persounes that sittis sal rais’ of the wrangar’ of ilke punde xij d’ / and give the soume be les’ than a punde xij d’ And give monoundai beis hali / thai sal sit on the tvisdai⁸⁶

This â€?implementing’ ordinance – if it may be called that – ignored the requirement that a minimum of eight members of the burgh council should sit on the new weekly court. Only six members of the council of Aberdeen were to be required to act in this way. The â€?implementing’ act also inserted a provision that the â€?wrangar’ should be fined 12 pence – this particular idea seems to have been dreamt up in Aberdeen (what was to become of the money collected is unclear). It is possible that the decision to implement the act through this ordinance was connected with other business dealt with by the council on 8 October 1456; on that day, the council appointed its commissioners to represent the burgh at the next general council of the realm, which was to be held less than two weeks later on 19 October. To explain, the general council was a â€?sister institution’ of parliament â€?with almost identical powers, but lacking the ability to forfeit for treason’.⁸⁷ The representatives of Aberdeen at the general council were to be Provost John Fife, John Marr and Master John Cadiou.⁸⁸ Perhaps there was some sense that delay in the administration of justice was to be on the agenda at this general council, and perhaps it was felt prudent for the Aberdonian commissioners to be able to say that something had been done to implement the 1455 act. The general council of October 1456 did indeed develop â€?sessions’, judicial fora which could supplement the work of the ordinary courts;⁸⁹ and one effect of that would have been to address delay in the resolution of disputes.

Nonetheless, Provost Alanson decided to pass a new statute to â€?implement’ the provisions of the 1455 act afresh in 1473. It is intriguing to note that Alanson’s statute, unlike the Aberdonian ordinance of 1456, made no reference to the idea of a court that would usually sit on every Monday. What Alanson’s statute said was that if someone initiated proceedings to recover a debt worth 100 shillings or less then he was to receive justice within eight days, and no further delay was to be permitted. It is intriguing to note that this seems to have been how the 1455 act was actually handled in practice in several – apparently unrelated – disputes decided in the Aberdeen burgh courts in 1461.⁹⁰ In each case, one party came into court and alleged that he had initiated proceedings to advance a claim worth less than five pounds. In addition, on each occasion the pursuer alleged that he had initiated proceedings eight days earlier in accordance with the king’s act in relation to such small claims. If the court accepted this – and on one occasion it required the pursuer to swear that the claim was for less than 5 pounds, in response to which the pursuer swore it was worth 4 pounds and 19 shillings⁹¹ – then immediate judgement would be given in favour of the claimant.

Seen in light of these points, Provost Alanson’s burgh statute of 1473 may provide an intriguing glimpse of the latitude which at least one burgh felt it had in implementing an act of the Scottish parliament. Perhaps the reason that the 1455 act received some attention in the first place was that the burgh did have to make its own provisions to implement it; after all, the act was silent as to when the court was to sit, and it did give each burgh discretion as to how many councillors were to sit on it. Nonetheless, even Provost Fife’s ordinance of 1456 showed a willingness to exercise more �discretion’ than this. It had departed a little from the terms of the 1455 act itself, by only requiring six councillors to attend the weekly court rather than the minimum of eight councillors required by parliament. In addition, there is limited evidence to suggest that this weekly court actually sat. Nonetheless, the broad purpose of the 1455 act – to prevent delays in the administration of justice by refusing to countenance more than eight days of delay in the face of claims worth less than five pounds – was being honoured in the practice of the court in 1461. Arguably, Provost Alanson’s statute of 1473 to the effect that those �clamand ony sowmes within ane hundreth schillingis tobe wrangwisly haldin fra thame salbe servit within viij daies and salhafe na langar’ dilatouris eftir the Act of the kingis parliament’ was more indebted to the ways in which the Aberdonian burgh courts had sought to realise the purposes of the 1455 act than it was to the strict provisions of the 1455 act themselves. It does not seem to have revived a special weekly court of six councillors – assuming it had ever sat. Rather, it appears to have perpetuated the Aberdonian way of honouring parliament’s perceived intention in 1455.

Final years

What turned out to be Alanson’s final term in office as provost ended on 3 October 1474.⁹² The last known reference to Andrew Alanson in the council registers is dated to 13 March 1475, when one Andrew Branche, son and heir of Thomas Branche, approached the council and asked for a fishing right that had pertained to his father. This right the elder Branche had assigned to Andrew Alanson; nonetheless, in an apparent act of generosity, Alanson renounced the right he had in the fishings in favour of the younger Branche.⁹³

Alanson himself was dead by 19 January 1476, when James III (r. 1460–1488) ordered the council of Aberdeen to uphold a gift he had made of a fishing that had pertained to â€?vmquhile [the late] our louit Androw alanson burgess [of Aberdeen]’.⁹⁴ The anniversary of his death was still being marked in 1491 by the chaplains of St Nicholas with a sung mass on the Sunday immediately following the feast of St Bartholomew (24 August).⁹⁵ His widow, Christian Cadiou, survived him for some time. Soon after his death, she was caught up in protracted litigation over leases of fishings that her husband had held when he died.⁹⁶ She, in her turn, gifted to the altar of Mary Magdalene â€?one complete vestment of silk’, including blue â€?velvets’ for a priest, a deacon and a sub-deacon, â€?with a cope of the same colour, ornamented with gold’. She also gave â€?a chalice of silver gilt, three ounces in weight’.⁹⁷