Custom in Context: Medieval and Early Modern Scotland and England

“Under ye Lash of ye Law”: The State and the Law in the Post-Culloden Scottish Highlands

“…The lack of customary law ensured that communities, particularly in the Highlands, were unable to regulate this system by recourse to widely accepted community rights. 104 The Pelham ministry and its allies in Scotland argued that the chief cause of Jacobitism lay in the servile state of the rural poor. "Slavery" was the favored noun to describe clanship in the Highlands.…”

Poor Relief and the Church in Scotland, 1560-1650

“…As well as the 'comoun almes collectit to the puir at the kirk durris' and fines passing to the poor, relief income came from a range of other sources, which the session was keen to cultivate. 166 Items such as meat, fish, peats, herbs and kale sold on Sundays were to be given to the hospital, and the session was also consulted on or involved with bequests and gifts to the hospital, or chasing up and administering other voluntary contributions. 167 Still, the regular collections were the principal source of funding, and they naturally tried to maximise income from this source and exert more pressure on the congregation to contribute.…”

“…165 And in 1659 the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale recommended 'some charitie to be contribute for a poor sinking toun', in response to commissioners from Kirkcaldy who explained how their harbour 'is demolished and throwne downe'. 166 The economic hardship imposed by damage to infrastructure was sometimes recounted at great length, and on one occasion Perth Presbytery accepted a request since it was 'godly and reasonabill', indicating a religious and pious as well as purely practical element to the requested collection. 167 Although funding repair work on bridges and piers arguably blurs the lines between charitable relief and infrastructure investment, the willingness to collect for other parts of Scotland, the way supplicants framed their requests, and the language used by the church courts, suggests that relieving distress and suffering was the over-riding aim.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2011

“…Influential in contemporary understanding of English social and tenurial relationships was the concept of custom. In his article, Houston considers ‘custom as normative practice, custom as unwritten law, and custom in opposition to law’ (p. 37). In England, where it was long established, both lords and peasants substantively supported the utility of custom as a means to reinforce rights or obligations and claims to land.…”

“…Customary rights could constrain lords (and kings) as much as their tenants, and peasants often invoked ‘just’ custom during bouts of resistance. Houston argues that custom played a less prominent and more ambivalent role in pre‐modern Scottish society, where the landed elite were more cohesive and thus restricted room for disagreement and negotiation. Woolgar discusses the medieval relationships and customs that were influenced by gifts of food.…”