REPENTANCE-STOOL, FROM OLD GREYFRIARS’ CHURCH.
And again, “That gif ony men or women be notit as common blasphemers of the holy name of God, the Bailies sall give them ane sys of neighbours; and gif they be convicted of it, they sall be usit samen as drunkards, quhidder they be rich or puir.” But a more summary system than that of assize was also adopted. “Quhasover is apprehendit banning, execrating, swearing, or blaspheming openly, sall be taen incontinent and put an hour in the choks.” This instrument of punishment was furnished with a gag which entered the mouth; and besides the one for public offenders, the citizens were “ordainit” to keep in readiness their own “choks for correcting of the banners and swearers in their awn domestic houses.”
THE JOUGS, AT DUDDINGSTON, NEAR EDINBURGH.
It is ordered that keepers of houses of ill-fame, “sall dispatch themselves off the town, or else amend, and leave sic vicious manner of leiving; for gif they be apprehendit therewith in time coming, they sall be openly banishit at the Mercat Croce.” Unchaste conduct met with severe reprobation. Men and women were “for the first fault to be admonishit by the preachers to forbear, and to shaw their open repentance publicly in presence of the haill congregation, and so forbear in time coming. But gif he and she be again apprehendit in the same fault, they sall stand three hours in the gyves, and be thrice doukit in the sea, and gif that punishment serves nocht for amendment, they sall be banishit for ever.” But the life of a coming child was not to be endangered in punishing an unchaste woman; it was enacted that, under such circumstances, “the woman, of what estate so ever she be, sall be brocht to the Mercat Croce openly, and there her hair sall be cuttit of, and the same nailit upon the cuck-stool, and she make her public repentance in the Kirk.”
Exposing offenders to popular derision was a common mode of punishment in Scotland. The stocks and the cuck-stool in the market-place, and the stool-of-repentance in the church, were all used on the supposition that the evildoer had still shame and a wholesome dread of the finger of scorn lingering in the heart. The jougs—a hinged iron band for the neck, attached by a chain to the market cross, the gate-post of the parish church, or the tolbooth, a tree, or other wise—were a common institution. The offence of the culprit would be placarded in bold characters and very plain terms on his or her breast, or overhead.
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.