Series 3 > Court book of the Burgh of Kirkintilloch 1658-1694

INTRODUCTION
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royal letter of the same date to the bishop the form burgus
baronis (as in the Dalkeith charter) is implied in the words
ad curias . . . baronum seu burgorum eorundem.1 On 24
August 1446 an inquest at Prestwick used another possible
variant, burgus infra baroniam* The form that was
adopted, and remained in fairly 3 steady use for nearly a
century and a half, was not burgus baronie (though this
ultimately did become the favoured version), nor burgus
baronis, nor burgus infra baroniam, but burgus in baronia.*
A series of charters of erection of burghs in barony, so
nearly standardised as to indicate a new basic pattern or
type of municipality, begins with that of Strathaven (in
favour of William, earl of Douglas) on 23 April 1450,
followed by three more in the next year (Biggar, Carnwath
and Spynie).5 The question at once suggests itself—are
these charter grants to be regarded as mere accidents of
survival, or do they rather point to a brand new concept
in burghal development ? Admittedly, the Great Seal
Register, our main source of information in these matters,
is exceptionally full just at this period,6 while it has very
large gaps in the first half of the fifteenth century. Yet
there are other good ‘ runs ’ of charters in the Register
shortly before this time,7 and these yield no burghs in
barony ; moreover, no burgus in baronia earlier than 1451
1 R.E.M., 220-1.
2 Prestwick Burgh Rees., 114. For later parallels, see the Lochow
charters of 1541 and 1542 (. . . burgum de Inverara infra dictam baroniam) :
R.M.S., ill, 2306, 2812.
3 For the exceptional form burgus et baronia, see the charters to Portsoy
(1550) and Fordoun (1554) : ib., iv, 541, 939 ; A.P.S., Hi, 238. As early
as 1551-52 (long before it became common) the term burgus baronie recurs
in the Clackmannan and Prestonpans charters : R.M.S., iv, 572, 720.
For burgus in baroniam (Turriff, 1512) see R.E.A., i, 354 ; and cf. Reg.
Hon. de Morton, ii, p. 303 (Dalkeith, 1664). For the variant plural form,
burgi in baroniis, as well as the regular burgi in baronia, see R.M.S., iv,
396 (Newburgh and Dysart, 1549).
4 If we supply the definite or indefinite article missing in Latin, these
forms are seen to be descriptive rather than definitive—‘ burgh in (within,
of) a (the) barony (baron) ’.
5 Ib., ii, 340, 439, 448 ; R.E.M., 221-2. Cf. Dunlop, Life and Times of
James Kennedy, 342-3.
* It has 304 abstracts between December 1449 and August 1452.
7 There are 107 charters from May 1424 to December 1427, 81 from
May 1429 to May 1431, and 68 from May 1439 to June 1441.