Revisiting trusted representatives in medieval Aberdeen
This chapter revisits one aspect of an earlier study, which considered the extent to which one can identify �men of law’ in medieval Aberdeen.1 As was explained there, the meaning of the term �men of law’, sometimes given in Latin as juris periti, is difficult to reconstruct, and this may be because it was understood rather loosely in the period in question.2 It could sometimes be used to refer to a range of individuals who acted in representative and clerical capacities for others.
These included procurators, forespeakers and notaries public. Briefly, procurators were representatives who, once properly appointed, had the power to bind their clients by what they �said and did’ on their behalf.3 Forespeakers were representatives who were engaged to speak in court on behalf of others present there. They probably lacked the powers of procurators to bind their clients, with whom, it is thought, forespeakers were present in court, but who could �contradict or disavow’ what was said on their behalf.4 Notaries public discharged a range of functions, including the drafting of formal documents or �instruments’ on behalf of their clients, which would record legal transactions or the resolution of disputes and provide authoritative evidence of what had happened in any subsequent litigation.Of these individuals, only notaries required any formal legal training or education. This took the form of an apprenticeship to an existing notary, which would be followed by a formal constitution of authority to act in this way, usually granted on ecclesiastical or imperial authority, or, after 1469, on Scottish royal authority, which was thereafter in principle exercised to the exclusion of that of the emperor.5 By contrast, fifteenth-century procurators and forespeakers could – and probably most frequently did – act without any legal training, and from time to time with little or no experience of the courts in which they acted as representatives.
As one Scottish legal historian has put it, such individuals might have accepted the label �men of law’, but they would not necessarily have allowed it to �define’ them.6 First and foremost, their identity was shaped by other types of status, including those they enjoyed as clergymen, noblemen and merchant traders.Looking at the evidence of fifteenth-century Aberdeen, the earlier study mentioned above used – admittedly rather arbitrary – criteria to identify the most active procurators, forespeakers and notaries public during the period from 1 January 1450 to 31 December 1460. There emerged five individuals who appeared more frequently than any others as trusted representatives for a series of clients in the burgh courts of Aberdeen during this period. In addition, the activities of two notaries public were traced in the council registers at this time, giving a list of seven men in total. They were Andrew Alanson, Alexander Blyndseil, Richard Kintore, John Kymedi, William Scherar, Master John Cadiou and Robert Leis, chaplain (Cadiou and Leis were the notaries).
Having identified these individuals – who might, or might not, have accepted the label �man of law’ – the study then proceeded to attempt to explain why they were chosen to act so frequently. The notaries’ legal training obviously recommended them, but what about the other five men? Drawing on the evidence of the Aberdeen council registers from the period, it was argued that they were trusted to act so frequently neither because they were the richest and most powerful members of Aberdonian society nor because they had any particular legal training, but rather because they had extensive experience of holding offices within the burgh administration and so of operating the burgh courts. They had learned how to operate those courts by following the practice of others – perhaps in a rather mechanical fashion. For example, they knew the forms required to transfer property, at least according to the variant of the laws of the Scottish realm applied in Aberdeen.7
As has been explained elsewhere,8 it has since transpired that one of these individuals, Andrew Alanson, would not have met the somewhat arbitrary criteria used to decide who should and should not have been included in the small group of trusted representatives mentioned above.
Put briefly, those who acted as trusted representatives on five occasions or more for five clients or more during the period between 1 January 1450 and 31 December 1460 were included in the study. In the preliminary version of the Aberdeen Registers Online (ARO) which was used, a dispute in which Andrew Alanson acted as a representative was correctly transcribed, but mislabelled as having taken place in 1457; it in fact took place in 1467.9 Once this error was detected, it became clear that Alanson appeared on fewer than five occasions between 1450 and 1460, and consequently did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the study.10 Nonetheless, it remains true that Alanson had more experience than most when acting as a representative for others in the burgh courts of Aberdeen at this time. Furthermore, the conclusions drawn in the study are essentially unaffected if the evidence of his career is ignored.While regrettable, the error just mentioned had what turned out to be the fortunate effect of drawing the attention of the present writer to consider Alanson’s career in more detail. The results are presented below. First, the choice to focus on Alanson will be explained in some detail. In brief terms, Alanson’s career enables one to see how the evidence of the Aberdeen council registers allows scholars to test, and also enrich, existing historical accounts of the development of Scottish legal history during the fifteenth century. Arguably, this is slightly truer of Alanson’s life and work than it is of the others – although, as will be explained, in this regard Richard Kintore and Master John Cadiou could also be studied to great profit. Second, Alanson’s work and career will be reconstructed.11 Third, some concluding remarks will be offered.