A M Godfrey, CIVIL JUSTICE IN RENAISSANCE SCOTLAND: THE ORIGINS OF A CENTRAL COURT Leiden: Brill (www.brill.nl), Medieval Law and Its Practice vol 4, 2009. xiii + 486 pp. ISBN 9789004174665. €161.
| Pages | 497-500 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2011.0070 |
| Author | Andrew R C Simpson |
Several years ago, Dr Godfrey observed that Scottish legal history has enjoyed a renaissance over the past few decades. As a result, our perceptions of the legal past have been transformed and enriched by several scholars, many of whom have studied the late medieval and early modern periods. However, until recently the discussion was hindered due to considerable uncertainty amongst historians concerning the significance of the foundation in 1532 of the College of Justice as a supreme court administering civil matters in Scotland. This problem has now been removed by Godfrey's brilliant study.
Lawyers had historically attributed importance to the establishment of the College of Justice. However, in 1933 Hannay argued that 1532 did not witness the foundation of a new institution as such. Rather, it represented a successful attempt on the part of James V to secure ecclesiastical funding for a court that already existed, the old Session. In Hannay's view, the reconstitution of the court in this way had little immediate impact on the institutional development of the Session. Of course this somewhat oversimplifies Hannay's argument, and one very helpful feature of Godfrey's book is his summary of the former's thesis (at 94–105). In response to Hannay, Sellar more recently drew attention to the apparent significance of the wide jurisdiction conferred upon the Session by legislation after its reconstitution in 1532 as a College of Justice. In his book, Godfrey seeks to achieve two purposes. Firstly, he aims to re-evaluate the claims noted here concerning the institutional significance of the foundation of the College of Justice. Secondly, he attempts to explain its acquisition of supreme jurisdiction in civil matters.
The book opens with a discussion of the importance of jurisdiction, the power to decide legal disputes, as the basic measure of authority in medieval Europe. Shifts in jurisdictional control therefore indicated major shifts in the ways in which power operated within society. Godfrey notes the general trend in the early modern period towards reliance on “central forms of authority to settle disputes … even in matters previously reserved to more local manifestations of jurisdiction” (2). In many European nations, various institutions – notably royal councils – facilitated this process of centralisation.
Godfrey then proceeds to re-examine the institutional significance of the foundation of the College of Justice (chapters 1–3). The first chapter explores the role of the medieval Scottish Parliament as a central court, and its...
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