Administration of the Effects of Persons Dying. Dress Regulations.
Still drawing upon Mr. Alex. Maxwell’s researches amongst the municipal records of Dundee in the middle years of the sixteenth century, we learn that the Town Council, finding that much confusion arose from the improvidence of many of the citizens in not making testamentary dispositions of their effects, it was ordained: “that there sall be twa honest men—responsal, famous and godlie—chosen by the general consent of the haill estates of the town, and power given to them to pass—quhidder they be requyrit or nocht—to visit man or woman in peril of death; and they sall enquire at the sick gif they will mak ane testament, and gif they consent, then the visitors sall despatch and put out of the house all manner of man, and woman, and bairn, except such honest and sober persons as the sick sall desire to be present as witnesses; and the devyse and legacy then made by the sick person to be registrat authentically in the buiks of the visitors, who after the decease of the person testit as said is, sall see the dead’s will fulfillit.”
The dress worn by burgesses and others was required by law to be suited to the degree of the wearer. In the fifteenth century, Parliament ordained “anent the commons, that nae lauborars nor husbandmen wear on the week day any clothes but gray and quhite, and on haliday licht blue, and green or red; and their wifis corresponding, with curches of their awn making, the stuff nocht to exceed the price of forty pennies the ell. And that nae men within burgh that live by merchandise, unless they be in dignity as Bailie, or gude worthy man of the Council, shall wear claiths of silks, nor costly scarlett gowns, nor furrings; and that they make their wifis and dochters in like manner to dress becomingly, and corresponding to their estate; on their heids short curches, with little hudis, as are usit in England; and as to their gowns, that nae woman wear costly furs, nor have tails of unsuiting length, but on the haliday: and that no woman come to the kirk or market with her face coverit, that she may not be kend.” By another act, in 1567, it was ordered “that nae women wear dress abone their estait, except——.” The word we omit is spelled in the original the same as that which designates the nymphs in the Mahometan paradise.