Representation before the burgh courts, representation before parliament
Two episodes in Andrew Alanson’s long career can be used to illustrate how studying his life and work can be used to enrich our understanding of fifteenth-century Scottish legal culture.
The first comes from an inheritance dispute before one of the Aberdeen burgh courts in 1467, in the course of which Alanson acted as a procurator. The second relates to Alanson’s work as a burgh commissioner, a representative of Aberdeen in Scottish parliaments – and probably also in a parliamentary commission – between 1470 and 1471. These episodes will be discussed here, and then their potential significance will be explained.Andrew Alanson in the burgh courts and in parliament
In 1467, there arose a dispute over an inheritance following the death of one Angus Lilburn. The dispute, which was heard before one of the burgh courts of Aberdeen, was concerned with whether or not a particular royal writ, known as a brieve of inquest, should be implemented to give the disputed property to one claimant – Agnes Lilburn – or to her half-brother, John Lilburn.12 The problem was that Agnes was a child of the first marriage of the deceased, and she was claiming that the lands were hers by right in preference to her half-brother, the son of the deceased’s second marriage. The parties were represented by procurators; as has been explained they were formally constituted representatives who bound their clients by what they did on their behalf. One of Agnes Lilburn’s procurators was Andrew Alanson.13
After the procurators had made various representations – which are, regrettably, unrecorded – the burgh officers presiding over the court, that is to say in this case the provost and the bailies, appointed an assize (in historical Scottish usage this was the name for a jury) to determine the outcome of the matter. The assize’s function was to work out how to apply the royal brieve, and to this end the parties’ procurators presented them with arguments in support of their clients’ positions.
Nonetheless, the assize remained uncertain as to the relevant law to be followed in this case. Put another way, it had difficulty in interpreting the instructions in the brieve. Therefore, it asked the provost and the bailies to postpone the matter until the next meeting of the head court of the burgh. In the interim, the assize asked the provost to write to seek advice from iuris periti (i.e. �men of law’, also referred to as legis periti) of �other burghs, that is to say of Edinburgh, of Perth and of Dundee’ as to how the case should be disposed.14 The reply from the iuris periti of Edinburgh is intriguing; they stated that the daughter, Agnes, ought to succeed, �vt patet in legibus burgorum In capitulo vbi dicit de homine habente duas vxores et cetera’ (�as appears in the Laws of the Burghs, in the chapter where it discusses a man having two wives etc’). In other words, the view of the iuris periti of Edinburgh was that the brieve was to be implemented in accordance with a text known as the Leges Burgorum, the original version of which was in existence by the third quarter of the thirteenth century.15As stated, Andrew Alanson was one of Agnes Lilburn’s procurators. Arguably, Alanson can be identified with an individual who was called upon a few years later to consider the texts of medieval laws of the realm – probably including the Leges Burgorum – in more detail. This commission came in November 1469, when a meeting of the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh instructed several individuals to �avise, commone and refer again to the next parliament or generale consail’ concerning various matters. The commissioners were drawn from the three Scottish �estates’ of the clergy, the nobility and the burgesses. One of the proposals they were asked to consider was in favour 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’.16 To explain, a major problem with the medieval laws of the realm was that they had been transmitted in a �relatively uncritical and private system of manuscript collections’.17 This meant that many different versions of the laws were in circulation, causing confusion when attempts were made to apply them in practice.
The commissioners were instructed to meet to discuss the subject in Edinburgh on 12 March 1470, and amongst the four individuals appointed to represent the burghs was one Andrew Alanson.18 At the next two parliaments, which began on 6 May 1471 and on 2 August 1471 (both in Edinburgh), Aberdeen was represented by its provost, Andrew Alanson, undoubtedly the same individual who had represented Agnes Lilburn in the dispute mentioned above.19 It therefore seems plausible to suggest that this Andrew Alanson can be identified with the Andrew Alanson who was amongst those tasked with reviewing Regiam Majestatem and other medieval laws of the Scottish realm in November 1469. Regardless, in his role as a burgh commissioner, Provost Alanson was also involved in the parliamentary administration of justice; in that capacity, he sat as one of the lords auditors of causes and complaints in May 1471 and again in August 1471.20