The ‘Regiam Majestatem’ itself may be regarded as a version of Glanville’s well-known treatise on English law, applied with alterations and adaptations to Scotland by a Scotch writer conversant with local custom, and probably dating between A.D. 1200 and 1230.[202]
As in the laws of King David and his successors, so in the body of this treatise, references to ancient usages occur with occasional survivals of untranslated Gaelic words which seem to refer them back to Celtic tribal custom.
Celtic survivals here and there.
Thus, in Lib. II. s. ix, in reference to the modes by which nativi might obtain freedom, a specially Scotch addition is made, to the effect that if a lord has carnal intercourse with the betrothed wife of his servus, and this is proved by the visinage, the servus is thereupon released from the servitude of his lord; and then follows the phrase ‘nec aliud enache habebit a domino suo nisi recuperationem libertatis.’ This untranslated Gaelic word enache has already been met with in the enec-lann of the Irish ‘honour-price,’ and we shall find it used again when we come to the customs of the Bretts and Scots.
So, in Lib. IV. c. 7, in cases of rape the woman (according to the text of Glanville) is to make it known to men in good position (probi homines) or to the ‘prepositus of the hundred.’ In this Scotch treatise the writer inserts instead of the words ‘prepositus of the hundred’ ‘vicecomitatus vel le toshederach.’ The Gaelic Toshach or chieftain of a district is much in evidence in the marginal records of the ‘Book of Deer.’[203]
Again, in IV. 12, in a passage not found in Glanville, the theft of a calf or ram or whatever can be carried off on the back is described in the local words ‘berthinsak seu yburthananseca.’
In the same chapter is inserted the already quoted clause from the Assize of King William as to the wergeld of a thief who has been allowed to escape.
De unoquoque fure per totam Scociam est wargeld triginta vacce et una juvenca sive fuerit liber sive servus.
In IV. xxiii. a pledge is mentioned ‘quod vocatur culrach.’