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Ewan J. Innes, MA(Hons Scot. Hist.) FSA Scot
© 1994
Synopsis: This essay describes the origins and development of the shire, thane, sheriff and sheriffdom in Scotland in the early middle ages.
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| Abbreviations
| 1
| 2
| 3
| Thanes and Thanages
| Bibliography
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Other sheriffdoms in the south before 1200, include Berwick, created by
1139. Lanark was created at some point during the reign of Malcolm, and was in existence
by 1162.62 There was a sheriffdom at
Traquair in 1184, which by 1233 had combine to form the sheriffdom of Peebles.63 The sheriffdoms of Ayr, Carrick and the
district of Cunningham also combined to form a larger unit based on Ayr by the late
thirteenth century.64 There was also a
sheriffdom at Selkirk created during the reign of William I.65
North of the Forth, we have in David’s reign the sheriffdoms of
Stirling, Stirlingshire and Callendar which were later to combine to form the sheriffdom
of Stirling.66 The smallest and most
unusual in that respect was the sheriffdom of Clackmannan which had been created a
sheriffdom by the end of David’s reign. Exactly why this sheriffdom failed to undergo
any form of coalescing is something of a mystery.67 The thanages of Kinross and Cromarty were turned into sheriffdoms, certainly by
the late thirteenth century and possibly before.68 There were sheriffdoms created at Scone at some point between 1128 and 1136,69 Perth between 1147 and 1153,70 Forfar between 1162 and 116471 and Kincardine in the Mearns at some point
between 1165 and 1178.72 Aberdeen and
Banff were created about 1136.73 In
Moray there were a number of sheriffs by the reign of William, although exactly where they
were sheriffs is not clear.74
Large areas of Scotland south of the Forth were clearly outside the
system by the end of the twelfth century although by the end of the next century much had
been done to remedy this situation (see map V). Moreover, there is no evidence of any
subdivision along the lines of the hundred or wapentake. The sub-divisions tended to be
the smaller units which had formed the larger sheriffdom. The Scottish sheriffdom then,
was not an exact replica of its English counterpart, it was a system, modified by the
society into which it had been placed.
To turn then to the sheriff, we have seen how the sheriffdoms north of
the forth tended to be based around thanages. The origins of his office were as like that
of the thane, to be found in England. We have seen in our earlier look at the Anglo-Saxon
institutions,75 that the sheriff had
gained an important position, as the king’s representative and judicial officer. He
was, by the eleventh century, at once the judicial, financial, administrative and military
officer of the crown. When the Normans came in, they adopted the institution of the
sheriff as they found it finding parallels with their similar office of Vicomte. As
the chancery moved over to Latin, the sheriff became the Vicecomes and the
sheriffdom the Vicecomitatus. As time went by, the sheriff remained an Anglo-Saxon
institution, but was modified to fit in with the practices of the time.
To the Normans, the sheriffdom was more important than the Anglo-Saxon
earldoms in which they were based. Consequently, the old earldoms were abolished, making
the earl less of an official and more of a private lord holding no public duties unlike
his predecessor. The development of separate ecclesiastical courts left the sheriff in
sole possession of the shire court, and hence he soon became the only representative of
the kings government in the shire. In order to ensure that the sheriff was respected by
the magnates of the shire, he tended to be of baronial rank, and by holding the position
of sheriff he enhanced his position -and was also to become the chief expression of Norman
oppression. As Morris showed:
"The greater power and prestige of the Norman as compared to the
Anglo-Saxon sheriff are evident. No longer was he a man of moderate means, overshadowed by
the nobility and prelates of the shire; on the contrary, he was often himself the greatest
man in all his region and not infrequently a benefactor of the church. Since no official
superior stood between him and the king, he enjoyed great freedom of action. As a baron
and a personal adherent of the king, he combined the prestige of a local magnate and the
status of a trusted official."76
This was the situation which David I saw at work in England. To David
the sheriff must have been very important, after all, here was a crown appointed official,
in close proximity and relation to all sections of the population in the localities. The
sheriff, as with the thane, was to be the means of extending and consolidating royal power
to throughout Scotland. There is little doubt that David introduced the sheriff to
Scotland and therefore we would expect to see some form of connection between the
introduction of the sheriff and the existing society. As the sheriffdom adapted to the
existing society, so we would expect the sheriff to adapt.
To see how David introduced the sheriff in Scotland, it is instructive
to look at who the first sheriffs were. Of the 19 earliest sheriffs which we have on
record, 11 were native Scots,77 4 were
probably native,78 and 4 were
definitely incomers.79 In no case was
the first sheriff appointed an incomer. This last point is important. For the four
incoming sheriffs to get the post, they must have lived within the sheriffdom and become
accepted by that time. It made sense for David and his successors to appoint men with
local knowledge.
The rank to which the sheriffs belong is important to look at next. The
three upper grades of society, in Scotland, north of the Forth can be summarised thus:
| East |
West |
South |
| Gaelic |
Latin |
Scots |
Gaelic |
Latin |
Scots |
| rí |
rex |
king |
rí |
rex |
king |
| mormaer |
comes |
earl |
rí |
dominus |
lord |
| toísech |
thanus |
thane |
rí / toísech |
dominus |
laird |
because the area north of the Forth-Clyde line was conquered by the
Scots, it became more centralised than Dalriada, this may well account for the fact that
by the twelfth century, there were more crown officials there than in the west.
To the south of the Forth-Clyde line, it is difficult to see what is
happening very clearly due to the paucity of evidence. It is a question of whether the
offices are coming south from Scotia or north from Northumbria. As we have seen, it was
often the thane / toísech who became the sheriff north of the Forth, while in south, the
evidence also points to this third grade as the one from which the sheriff was chosen.
The reasons for this are twofold. David had seen that the baronial
sheriff was becoming to powerful in England and so chose to use the next rank to ensure
their loyalty to the crown. Secondly, while it would seem a more obvious choice to have
the brithem as the sheriff, (after all, these hereditary lawmen had the knowledge
and legal standing to take on that side of the sheriffs responsibilities) they were
themselves, despite having the the privileges of a noble, not noble. Moreover, the legal
side of the sheriffs responsibilities was not so important in the twelfth century.
Evidence of the rank of the sheriff within society can be drawn from
both north and south of the Forth. In Haddingtonshire, we have seen that there was a
sheriff in 1184 and that it was administered by a thane before that. North of the Forth,
we have seen that thanes became sheriffs with their thanages becoming sheriffdoms. Where a
district was too small and amalgamation took place, the most important sheriff ruled the
new larger unit with the subordinate sheriffs becoming his deputies.80 A brieve of William I relating to the payment of teinds also shows the grade of
sheriff north of the Forth. Here a defaulting villanus was to be compelled to pay
by the toísech, should the toísech default, he was to be compelled to pay by the sheriff
with a penalty of 8 cows, a defaulting sheriff was to be compelled by the justiciar and
also pay a penalty of 8 cows. The sheriff therefore was equal to the toísech in his
private capacity.
There is not much evidence of the functions which the sheriff carried
out in Scotland. Later evidence of the sheriff can be traced back to give us an idea of
the general duties of the sheriff. There were three head courts held at the caput of the
sheriffdom each year which were summoned publicly with 40 days notice. In addition, there
were lesser courts which were held elsewhere within the sheriffdom, in some instances at
the caputs of the constabularies of the sheriffdom, once the centres of the smaller
amalgamated sheriffdoms.81
The sheriff court was composed of the local landowners who owed suit to
the court in respect of their land. The suitors were there to decide on a judgment either
as a jury or as a whole body. At the end of the thirteenth century, the sheriff did not
have the judicial role which he was later to hold.
The sheriff was essentially an executive officer, addressed by name in
charters, he witnessed royal documents, received royal brieves, and perambulated the
marches if there was a dispute. In this respect he is not any different to his
Anglo-Norman counterpart, where he seems to differ is in the military role appointed to
him. There are slightly conflicting ideas about this. Dickinson pointed to the Scottish
sheriff’s military role. He noted the references in the exchequer rolls at the time
of the invasion by Haakon of Norway to the building works of sheriff of Inverness, the
inventory of arms of the sheriff of Roxburgh, the watchmen appointed by the sheriff of
Stirling and the stores of bolts, quarrels and oars provided by the sheriff of Ayr.82
In Scotland clearly, the sheriff had a logistical as opposed to an
offensive role in military matters. In combination with the thane he made sure that all
members of the locality were prepared for campaign if required to under Scottish service.
It may have been the earl who led them in battle, but it was the sheriff who made sure
that they would be effective when they got there. Dickinson may be missing the mark when
he states:
"In England the sheriff was the leader of the local levy from the
earliest times, but when such a system was introduced into Scotland, or when the earl
ceased to be the local military leader (a position always accorded to him in the Sagas) we
cannot say."83
As the sheriff was a crown appointee, the crown had to have a method of
controlling him. In consequence the crown appointed justiciars to oversee the work of the
sheriff. These justiciars, modelled on the English justice, were appointed to Scotia,
Lothian and Galloway, and their earliest reference comes from the reign of Malcolm IV84 - although it is probable that as David
introduced the sheriff, he also introduced his supervisor. As the justiciar would be the
next in rank behind the king, it is not surprising to find that the justiciars were
invariably the great magnates, often hereditably,85 while in England the justice was a legally trained man of middle rank.
The sheriff in Scotland, as a man simply slipping into established
society with little more than a change of name was not, in contrast to England, seen as a
representative of alien oppression. The hereditary nature of the sheriffs office soon led
to it becoming increasingly bound up with magnates holding the office of sheriff. By the
thirteenth century earls were holding sheriffs offices hereditably.
In conclusion, we have seen how Anglo-Saxon and Celtic institutions were
taken up by the early Scottish kings and modified to meet the conditions in Scotland. As
time went on these institutions were used to extend and consolidate royal power in the
localities. The different roles undertaken by the thane, the sheriff and the shire and
thanage were vitally important to this. The strength of the early medieval Scottish kings
was that they could rely on a strong base in the localities derived from the thanages and
later the sheriffdoms, which was why they were loathe to alienate them. In contrast, the
weakness of the later Stewart kings could, amongst other things, be put down to weakness
because they had alienated their strongholds in the localities.
Ewan Innes, April 19 1994
| Abbreviations
| 1
| 2
| 3
| Thanes and Thanages
| Bibliography
| Printer Friendly |
|
