Notes

* I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer, and my co-editor, for their comments, to audiences at the North American Conference on British Studies (2018) and at Aberdeen (2017, 2018, 2019), and to Stephanie Dropuljic and Elizabeth Ewan for their input.

1 E. Frankot, A. Havinga, C. Hawes, W. Hepburn, W. Peters, J. Armstrong, P. Astley, A. Mackillop, A.R.C. Simpson and A. Wyner (eds) Aberdeen Registers Online, Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen, 2019, (accessed 1 July 2019) (hereafter ARO entry ID), ARO-5-0098-08. On �malefices’ in a later period, see Sir George Mackenzie, The Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal,ed. O.F. Robinson, Edinburgh: Stair Society, 2012, tit. 1, c. 1, pp. 5–6; tit. 1, c. 4, pp. 11–2.

2 ARO-5-0282-09 (1456) �… non veniebat in vico furcarum ex aliqua prouocacione malicie sed pro negociis ex pediendis’. ARO-6-0882-02 (1484) �… ordinatur quod si dictus georgeus talem imposterum fecerit offensam et prouocacionem malicie contra prefatas personas …’.

3 ARO-7-0090-03 (1488).

4 ARO-5-0486-14 (1463); ARO-5-0566-02 (1465); ARO-5-0635-01 (1468); ARO-6-0144-02 (1471); ARO-6-0158-09 (1471); ARO-6-0742-08 (1482); and ARO-6-0765-07 (1482).

5 �Malice n.’, Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, 2004, (accessed 1 May 2018).

6 ARO-6-0034-03.

7 ARO-2-0175-09, ARO-2-0175-13 (1411); he was elected anyway: ARO-2-0176-01. In ARO-6-0441-03 (1467), both parties were to �kepe hartlie kyndnes and tendirnes as accordis amangis nychtbouris of the ton’.

8 ARO-6-0825-01.

9 ARO-6-0836-08.

10 ARO-7-0128-07. See also ARO-7-0254-04 (1491) and ARO-7-0417-03 (1493).

11 J.M. Kaye, �The early history of murder and manslaughter’ (parts 1 and 2), Law Quarterly Review 83, 1967, pp. 365–95, 569–601; T.A. Green, �Societal concepts of criminal liability for homicide in medieval England’, Speculum 47, 1972, pp.

12 Quoted in T.A. Green, Verdict According to Conscience: Perspectives on the English Criminal Trial Jury, 1200–1800, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 75, n. 29.

13 Kaye, �The early history of murder’, pp. 386–7, 388–9, 389–90, 394–5, and Green, �Societal concepts of criminal liability for homicide’, pp. 691–4.

14 Green, �Societal concepts of criminal liability for homicide’, p. 691 (quote), and Green, �The jury and the English law of homicide’, p. 463, n. 182.

15 Kaye, �The early history of murder’, p. 376 (see also pp. 372, 374).

16 E.P. Kamali, �Felonia Felonice Facta: Felony and intentionality in medieval England’, Criminal Law and Philosophy 9, 2015, pp. 397–421, esp. pp. 400–1, 418–9, and E.P. Kamali, �The devil’s daughter of hell fire: Anger’s role in medieval English felony cases’, Law and History Review 35, 2017, pp. 155–200, esp. pp. 164 (quote), 185, 196–7.

17 Kaye, �The early history of murder’, pp. 389–90, 394–5; Green, �The jury and the English law of homicide’, p. 472, and J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 3rd edn, London: Butterworths, 1990, pp. 601–2. Further on malice in an English context, see the chapter on �Discord’ in my book, England’s Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish Marches, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 270–307.

18 W.D.H. Sellar, �Forethocht felony, malice aforethought and the classification of homicide’, in W.M. Gordon and T.D. Fergus (eds) Legal History in the Making: Proceedings of the Ninth British Legal History Conference Glasgow 1989,London: Hambledon Press, 1991, pp. 43–59; W.D.H. Sellar, �Was it murder? John Comyn of Badenoch and William, earl of Douglas’, in C.J. Kay and M.A. MacKay (eds) Perspectives on the Older Scottish Tongue: A Celebration of DOST,Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, pp.132–8; and A.

19 Kaye, �The early history of murder’, p. 376. See also Sellar, �Forethocht felony’, pp. 46, 56 on sources.

20 Sellar, �Forethocht felony’, p. 48, quotes from Regiam the passage distinguishing between �murdrum’ and �simplex homicidium’. On remissions for killing in earlier sources, see Grant, �Murder will out’, p. 215.

21 The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, ed. K.M. Brown et al., St Andrews, 2007–2020, (accessed 1 June 2018) (hereafter RPS), RPS 1370/2/26; RPS 1372/3/6; RPS 1469/25; RPS A1504/3/107; and RPS 1504/3/25. There was evidently other legislation passed in 1384, but the relevant MS folio is wanting (see note † at RPS 1384/11/6 and RPS 1384/11/9 which refers back to the lost ordinances on homicide). See also 1432/3/2–6 (on procedure �quhare ony man beis slane’, mentioning also forthocht felony). On remissions: RPS 1484/2/34; RPS 1487/10/5; and RPS 1491/4/12. See also A.A.M. Duncan (ed.) Scottish Formularies, Edinburgh: Stair Society, 2011 (sub styles B68, E14).

22 Sellar, �Forethocht felony’, p. 56, see also pp. 50, 53.

23 J.W. Armstrong, �The justice ayre in the border sheriffdoms, 1493–1498’, Scottish Historical Review 92, 2013, pp. 1–37, at p. 27.

24 Grant, �Murder will out’, p. 224.

25 S.A. Dropuljic, �The classification of murder and slaughter in the justiciary court from 1625–1650: Malice, intent and premeditation – food “forethought”?’, Aberdeen Student Law Review 7, 2016, pp. 121–47.

26 Dropuljic, �The classification of murder and slaughter’, pp. 145–7.

27 On chaudmellee and �suddante’, see Sellar, �Forethocht felony’, p. 49; Sellar, �Was it murder?’, pp. 133–5, 138; and Baker, Introduction to English Legal History, p.

28 The �diet books’ of the Aberdeen sheriff court survive from 1503 onwards. See D. Littlejohn (ed.) Records of the Sheriff Court of Aberdeenshire, 3 vols, Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1904–1907, vol. 1, pp. 89–100.

29 RPS 1384/11/9 (and see note † at RPS 1384/11/6).

30 Grant, �Murder will out’, pp. 216, 218. Simpson, examining RPS 1392/3/1, identifies �intentis affectibus’ in the act’s preamble as a way to express aforethought intent; A.R.C. Simpson, �Procedures for dealing with robbery in Scotland before 1400’, in A.R.C. Simpson, S. Styles, E. West and A.L.M. Wilson (eds) Continuity, Change and Pragmatism in the Law: Essays in Memory of Professor Angelo Forte,Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 2016, pp. 95–149, at pp. 134, 136.

31 RPS 1426/10. On �coming in will’, see Armstrong, �The justice ayre in the border sheriffdoms’, p. 11. On James I’s legislation and its relationship to enactments from 1370–1399, see Grant, �Murder will out’, p. 217.

32 RPS 1432/3/8. On the �Auld Lawes’, see A. Taylor, The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland 1124–1290, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 16, 272n. and 457–64, and A.R.C. Simpson and A.L.M. Wilson, Scottish Legal History: Volume One 1000–1707,Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017, pp. 59–64.

33 RPS 1432/3/9. This and RPS 1432/3/8 follow 1432/3/2 and 1432/3/4, which are about pursuit of homicides, the latter specifically about homicides in burghs.

34 Again, see RPS 1432/3/9. On remissions found in M. Livingstone et al. (eds) Registrum Secreti Sigilii Regum Scotorum, 8 vols, Edinburgh, 1908–1982 (hereafter RSS), vol. 1, pp. 1–386, which are for �forthocht felony’, not specifying the nature of the underlying offence; see Grant, �Murder will out’, pp. 218–9.

35 The total is strictly 48 if ARO-5-0732-02, a duplicate entry of ARO-6-0084-04, is counted separately.

36 ARO-5-0364-04.

37 ARO-4-0510-04, ARO-4-0510-05, ARO-4-0510-06 and ARO-4-0510-07.

38 ARO-5-0096-06, ARO-5-0096-07, ARO-5-0527-08 and ARO-5-0732-02/ARO-6-0084-04 (duplicates).

39 ARO-6-0589-08 and ARO-6-0721-04.

40 ARO-5-0607-02.

41 For comment on the various courts of the burgh, see W.C. Dickinson (ed.) Early Records of the Burgh of Aberdeen, 1317. 1398–1407, Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1957, pp.cxvii–cxxv. A preliminary assessment by Edda Frankot of �The records of the medieval burgh courts of Aberdeen’ across the fifteenth century was given at the Scottish Records Association annual conference in Edinburgh, November 2017.

42 ARO-7-0152-08. In this case, the victims were Patrick Oge and his (unnamed) wife.

43 As in ARO-6-0327-03.

44 J.R.D. Falconer, Crime and Community in Reformation Scotland: Negotiating Power in a Burgh Society, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013, pp. 101–4, quote from p. 102. For �strublance in word’, see, for instance, ARO-6-0898-08 (1485).

45 ARO-5-0424-09 (1461): �The action of forsocht felony folouit be Thomas of Chamour and Cristy Litstar on Alexander Scrogis is resplatit to the hame cumyng of the aldirman’. The other is ARO-6-0084-04 (1469).

46 ARO-6-0086-02 and ARO-6-0088-05.

47 ARO-5-0508-04.

48 As in ARO-1-0050-09 (�Actio mota inter Johannem Spryng et Patricium Crane…’, 1398). For the actions before the session, see Simpson and Wilson, Scottish Legal History, pp. 118–25 and M. Godfrey, Civil Justice in Renaissance Scotland: The Origins of a Central Court, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2009, pp. 268–354.

49 ARO-4-0211-02, ARO-4-0253-02, and ARO-5-0706-01. S. Boardman, �The burgh and the realm: Medieval politics c.1100–1500’, in E.P. Dennison, D. Ditchburn, and M. Lynch (eds) Aberdeen before 1800: A New History, East Linton, 2002, pp. 203–23, at 216.

50 ARO-5-0701-04: �Item it is sene speidful to the Counsaile to trete give thai may get the fredome to be schirrefis within the ton’ and to mak a coste tharapon’. For other burghs, see Dickinson, Early Records, p.

51 See the summary in Simpson and Wilson, Scottish Legal History, pp. 118–23.

52 On vernacularisation, see the contribution by Anna Havinga in this volume. Doom falsing is addressed in the introduction to this volume.

53 ARO-7-0761-03, noted by Frankot, �The records of the medieval burgh courts of Aberdeen’.

54 Littlejohn (ed.) Sheriff Court of Aberdeenshire,vol. 1 (Records prior to 1600). In some instances, the need for a case heard in the burgh court to be superseded by the sheriff court or a higher court was considered explicitly: ARO-5-0393-04 (1460) and ARO-6-0138-08 (1471).

55 G. Neilson and H. Paton (eds) The Acts of the Lords of Council in Civil Causes, 1496–1501,Edinburgh: s.n., 1918, p. 419. I am grateful to William Hepburn for bringing this reference to my attention.

56 For example, J. Stuart (ed.) Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen, 1398–1570, Aberdeen: Spalding Club, 1844, p. 135 (from 1530), and W. Chambers (ed.) Charters and Documents Relating to the Burgh of Peebles, Edinburgh: Scottish Burgh Records Society, 1872, p. 232 (from 1556); R. Renwick (ed.) Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Lanark, Glasgow: Carson & Nicol, 1893, p. 46 (from 1569). Neither is mention to be found in the first 100 pages of Aberdeen’s council register thirteen; J. Armstrong, S. Convery, E. Frankot, A. Macdonald, A. Mackillop, A. Simpson and A. Wilson (with others), The Aberdeen Burgh Records Database, Aberdeen, 2014, (accessed 1 December 2019).

57 Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives (ACAA), Sasine Registers (CA/2/1), CA/2/1/1, p. 81 (30 June 1487), and a similar entry appears at p. 85. I am grateful to Edda Frankot for bringing this reference to my attention.

58 In ARO-6-0184-03 (1472), the vernacular �le forsocht felloune’ is interjected within the Latin entry (i.e. instead of precogitata malicia used in the following entry). See also Sir John Skene, De Verborum Significatione, Edinburgh, 1597, sub �Forthocht-fellony, praecogitata malitia’.

59 For the latter, see the Latin charters recording grants of regality at RPS 1452/6/3 and RPS A1476/7/2.

60 RPS 1344/2.

61 Baker, Introduction to English Legal History, pp. 572–3.

62 Kamali, �Felonia Felonice Facta’, pp. 400–1, 418–9 (quotes).

63 For the 1240s, see Taylor, Shape of the State, p. 139. For the division of crimes in the later seventeenth century, see Mackenzie, Matters Criminal, ed. Robinson, tit. 2, pp. 21–3. I am grateful for discussion on this point with Andrew Simpson.

64 RPS 1432/3/2 �sik men that has done sik felonny agayn the king and fugitive fra the law’; RPS 1432/3/3 �sic a felone trespass agayn the kingis majeste’; and RPS 1483/3/147 �to vnderly the law for the felone refe made apone our souerane lordis liegis’.

65 William Dunbar, Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, in J. MacQueen and W. MacQueen (eds) A Choice of Scottish Verse 1470–1570, London: Faber and Faber, 1972, p. 124.

66 J. Rawson Lumby (ed.) Bernardus de cura rei famuliaris: With some Early Scottish Prophecies, etc., London: Early English Text Society, 1870, p. 6: �Gef that thi mortale inimy … may nocht schaw furtht his felony’ (from a late fifteenth-century vernacular paraphrase of a letter of St Bernard of Clairvaux); and Richard Holland, The Buke of the Howlat, ed. R. Hanna, Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2014, p. 165: �Thir ar fowlis of effect, but fellony or feid’.

67 John Barbour, The Bruce, ed. A.A.M. Duncan, Edinburgh: Canongate, 1997, pp. 747 (quote), 55, 57, 61, 67, 117, 119, 151, 163, 167, 177, 181, 197, 199, 729, 731, 765, 769. This is not an exhaustive list.

68 The Dunbar, Bernard and Howlat quotations just noted are given in �Felony n.’, Dictionary of the Scots Language, (accessed 1 May 2018).

69 ARO-5-0541-07. See also Baker, Introduction to English Legal History, p. 601n, on English indictments �ex subito casu’, or by sudden chance.

70 It is worth noting RPS 1318/14 on the repledging of animals. This act provides that anyone interfering in this process, should their malice become known and attainted, they will be fined, viz. �…Et qui aliter fecerit et malicia sua cognita fuerit et attainta sit in amerciamento decem librarum’.

71 Both parties entered pledges for lawburrows: ARO-5-0599-02, ARO-5-0599-03, ARO-5-0599-04 (1467).

72 ARO-6-0327-03 (1474).

73 ARO-5-0028-03, ARO-5-0028-04, ARO-5-0028-05 (1449) and ARO-4-0408-04 (1445).

74 ARO-5-0286-06, ARO-5-0286-07 (1456); ARO-5-0237-04 (1455); and ARO-5-0036-04 (1449, this being among the cases recorded for the chamberlain ayre).

75 Dropuljic, �The classification of murder and slaughter’, pp. 126–9, quote at p. 129.

76 Ibid., pp. 145–6. It may follow that in Dropuljic’s case material, �forthocht felony’ need not be associated with the offence of murder at all.

77 Sellar, �Forethocht felony’, p. 50.

78 Ibid., p. 56. Sellar’s related argument (as at p. 50) is that murder came to be incorporated within �forthocht felony’. This is challenged by Grant, �Murder will out’, p. 223.

79 Grant, �Murder will out’, pp. 218–19, and Armstrong, �The justice ayre in the border sheriffdoms’, pp. 23, 26.

80 D.L. Smail, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264–1423, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003, p. 213.

81 D.L. Smail, �Hatred as a social institution in medieval society’, Speculum 76, 2001, pp. 90–126 and R.J. Bartlett, �“Mortal enmities”: The legal aspect of hostility in the middle ages’, in. B.S. Tuten and T.L. Billado (eds), Feud, Violence and Practice: Essays in medieval studies in Honor of Stephen D. White,Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 197–212.