Community Justice in Medieval Shetland: No Jails, Just Neighbors

Section Index:

• Norse Law and the Tings
• Power and Justice in Every Parish
• A Case of Abuse: Cultemalindie on Trial
• Enforcing Order: Ranselmen and Bailies
• Punishments and Compensations
• Modern Echoes of an Ancient Code

Norse Law and the Tings

The year 1500 found Shetland just three decades into Scottish rule, but Norse legal tradition still reigned. In 1469 Norway had formally “pawned” Shetland to Scotland, yet insisted the “language and laws of Norway” be preserved^[3]. Indeed, even into the late 1500s locals invoked “the lawis and auld custome of the countrie,” said to have held sway “for twa hundreth yearis by past” when their traditions were under threat^[4]. A modern study concludes that after 1469, “the islands continued to adhere to a system of law which was firmly rooted in the Norwegian” tradition^[5]. The Shetland ting and its subsidiary parish courts followed the spirit of Magnus Lagabøte’s 13th-century laws of Norway, tempered by local custom. Crime was understood less as king’s law than as an offense against the community and its ancient ordinances.

Each district had its local “thing”, meeting at sites marked by Norse names (e.g. Delting, Lunnasting). In theory the Jarl (and later the Scottish Crown’s deputy) appointed a lagman or lawman as presiding judge at the main Lawting. But much of the work was communal: jurors were drawn from local freeholders, and open testimony mattered. By modern standards, evidence could seem informal. Claims might turn on oath-helpers or on witness accounts, and there is folklore of accused men dashing across fields to reach sanctuary at church before sentence (a kind of medieval dash for the kirk). In practice, however, many criminal cases never made it to Tingholm at all, because most disputes were settled in the parish.

Power and Justice in Every Parish

Below the Lawting, every parish had its own apparatus of law. During the Norwegian era, each parish was a foudrie, overseen by a foud (Old Norse foged, meaning bailiff or sheriff)^[6]. The Great Foud acted as sheriff for the whole island-group, while each parish’s “under-foud” managed local order. In Shetland dialects (as late as the 17th century), these parochial officials eventually became known simply as bailies. By custom, fouds were drawn from the community’s landowners; they served without pay and could be replaced at need. The lawrightman (from Norse lagreifr) was his partner in markets: he weighed and measured wool, butter, cloth or fish offered for trade to prevent fraud. Contemporary records show that when rents or fines were paid in kind (butter, oil, coarse wadmell cloth), the lawrightman would jointly weigh the goods with the foud to ensure “baith the Fowde and Commownis gat just mesour and wecht, without hurt, fraude or gyle”^[7]. A standardized pair of scales (a bysmar) was kept by both officers as a guarantee of fair play. One foud would mark the weights, the other would sign the measure: private dishonesty was policed by public procedure.

The under-foud’s judicial duties were broad. At scheduled local courts he handled minor disputes, petty thefts or fights in the parish. One special kind of session, the schyund or “Shuynd Court”, handled inheritance. By longstanding practice, when a villager died leaving land or goods, the under-foud and a handful of neighbors would assemble at the deceased’s house (the Heid-bole) and apportion the estate among heirs^[8]. Records from a notorious 1576 case describe how this worked: “the Underfowde (which is the Bailie of the parish) accompanyt with certane honest nichtboris, comes to the principall houss … for making of the division of the said airship, callit ane Scheind”. The under-foud charged a modest fee (nine Danish shillings)^[9] for these probate duties, unless, as in one documented abuse, he pocketed the fee in kind (an ox) from each heir instead^[10].

Together, the foud and lawrightmen formed a kind of local sheriff’s court, handling both crime and commerce. Their records (mostly now lost) and later chronicles suggest that by the 1500s the emphasis was on arbitration and compensation. Even capital crimes could elicit calls for assyth, the Norse concept of weregild. A surviving 16th-century statute explicitly orders that “all bloods and ryots be assithed according to justice”^[11]. In other words, killings were expected to be settled by fine or kin-payment unless the victim’s family chose vengeance or the earl demanded execution. In practice, small communities often insisted on peace-weaving over blood feuds. Feuding neighbors might be summoned to account together in court, with penalties (multiplied fines) for leaving one’s parish pursued by dogs or weapons^[12]. Simple common sense could prevail: for instance, one regulation imposed a ten-pound Scots fine on anyone who neglected a broken bridge, recognizing community safety as part of justice.

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A Case of Abuse: Cultemalindie on Trial

This customary regime could be upended by tyranny. In 1576-77 the Great Foud Laurence Brace of Cultemalindie, appointed by the powerful Earl Robert Stewart, stood accused before the Lawting at Tingwall of abusing his office. Brace, originally a parish foud, had risen under the Stewarts and was said to “use [the foudrie] … for the benefit of his master and himself, in the oppression and plunder of the islanders”^[13]. The trial record (preserved in Balfour’s Oppressions) reveals the workings of the old system and the new power plays. Locals complained that Brace summoned Under-Fouds against their will, extorted bribes, and seized feudal dues for himself^[14]. Men who refused to be his appointed deputy were coerced by fines: one paid six hard Danish dollars to escape the role; another had to hand over a silver spoon worth eight gudlings^[15]. Worse, when an heir died under his watch, Brace discarded the sanctioned 9-shilling fee and took a full ox from the estate, the largest animal they could find, for himself. To villagers already scraping by, such abuses proved maddening.

At Tingwall, those grievances were aired. Accusers swore oaths; witnesses came forward. For the defendant, even the Stewart-backed foud could not completely ignore tradition. The records show Brace’s own men nervously invoking the “lawis and custum of the countrie” to defend his acts. The court ultimately deposed him. Though the complete verdict has not survived, the episode illustrates how the old Norse-Scots hybrid justice ran: it was both communal and hierarchical. By invoking two centuries of “auld use,” islanders tried to bind the Stewart appointee to customary limits. In the end, Brace was stripped of his foudry, and Shetland’s old law-book (“the Boole of the Law“) would soon be hidden away for good^[16].

The Cultemalindie case marked a turning point. Under the Norse formula, even an unpopular official was supposed to be removed by peers or ousted by the earl if complaints reached him. But it also presaged the suppression of Shetland custom. Goudie’s 19th-century history of Shetland notes that within a few decades the Stewart earls “subverted” island law. The Great Foud became a Scottish-style Sheriff-depute, and the old Althing “Lawting” was gradually supplanted by sheriffs and bailie courts reporting to Edinburgh, reshaping Shetland’s governance in a feudal mold.

Enforcing Order: Ranselmen and Bailies

Back in the villages, ordinary policing fell to unpaid constables called ranselmen (or kanselmen), a Norse-derived office. The term comes from Old Norse renskr, meaning “to search,” fitting their role. 18th-century descriptions (by William Gifford, based on early modern practice) make their authority clear: a kanselman “has the power of a constable to command the inhabitants to keep the peace and to call for assistance, and to enter any house… at all hours of the day or night, and search the house for stolen goods”^[17]. If, in such a night raid, the suspected thief could not give a good account of the items, the kanselman seized him and brought him to the village bailie (the parish magistrate) for further action. The bailie then took depositions (“precognition of the cause”). If the evidence pointed to theft, the thief and the stolen items were sent to the main prison (in Lerwick or Kirkwall), and a trial was scheduled by the earl’s deputy (“Stuart Depute”). Importantly, if the kanselman’s accusation proved baseless, the suspect was freed on a bond of good behaviour^[18]. In short, small-town Shetland had a rudimentary police: neighbors paid to watch for trouble, who could bind offenders for trial, but with some legal checks against malicious charges.

This was a far cry from centralized courts of men in wigs. Often it was community self-help: farmsteads and croft clusters were expected to keep an eye on one another. For example, 16th-century regulations forbade anyone from chasing stray sheep alone: at least two men (or one man and a dog) had to go out^[19], lest single farmers spring an ambush. Similarly, a justice act ordered that sheriffs (the local bailies) and twelve honest townsmen ride their parish boundaries each winter^[20] to keep order, enforce repairs, and gather witnesses. In practice, that meant Scottish-appointed officials worked with self-selected neighbors on matters from road maintenance to petty theft. Even by 1600, Shetlanders still preferred “familiar and voluntary” judgment: a 1724 bailie court order directed that community men be recorded as election ranselmen^[21], each answerable for keeping peace in his quarter.

Punishments and Compensations

The penalties for crime reflected this communal ethos. The clearest legacy was the Norse assyth or weregild: bloodguilt was redeemed by payment. If a man was killed, his family could demand a fixed compensation rather than automatically hanging the killer. Indeed, one surviving statute plainly orders that all homicides (“bloods”) be settled by payment (“assithed”) per local custom. Unpopular or adulterous culprits might instead be shamed or exiled, but state executions in the 1500s were rare in Shetland, reserved for rebellious stewarts or obvious murderers who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay. Non-lethal assaults, thefts and disputes more often resulted in fines or work obligations. For petty thieves, the procedure was basically: caught, marched to the bailie, charged, tried, and if found guilty, branded or whipped and sent away, or left to pay restitution. For example, a 16th-century law punished anyone caught with stolen cattle or sheep by quadrupled fines as they walked through each parish^[22]. Wounds or fights usually ended with the insurer (assyth payer) appointed by the under-foud, not with permanent vendetta.

The one sanction that did remain spectacular was enforced servitude at sea. A favorite diversion of the Scottish Crown in the 1500s was to send unruly islanders to be galley slaves, not much noted in the records but well known in Scandinavia. (Later Orkney records mention 16th-century “vandringfanger” sent to Norwegian galleys.) By contrast, hanging was almost a last resort in 1500s Shetland. Often medieval pleas like oath-taking or ecclesiastical punishment were allowed if sufficient gold could be paid. Only when the Earl felt a strong show of sovereignty was hanging used (e.g. the 1594 case of Aleltoun Balfour). In the small villages, communal peace mattered more than state terror. As one law bluntly put it, ordinary Sabbath-breakers were fined but not jailed, reflecting the blend of royal decrees and island pragmatism.

Folklore later remembered many of these customs. The stones on Law Ting Holm, said to be uprooted by 18th-century farmers grazing their sheep^[23], were pointed out to antiquarians. The names of island parishes hint at lost courts: Aithsting, Delting, Lunnasting, Sandsting, all bearing the Norse “-thing” for assembly. Even after the old Law Book was locked away in 1611, Shetlanders in popular lore spoke of thingmen and bluidgild, of oath-sworn verdicts and forgiveness through alms. (One popular legend, though hard to verify, held that a desperate thief might try to run the length of ting to church for sanctuary. Whether truth or tall tale, it captures the spirit of an age when law was as much a race and prayer as a formal proceeding.)

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Modern Echoes of an Ancient Code

By the Act of Parliament in 1611, Scots law formally replaced the Magnus Lagabøte code, and feudal charters began to reshape land and justice. Yet even today Shetland is not wholly Scottish-law territory. Property in Orkney and Shetland still technically follows udal law, vestige of the same Norse tradition. Modern courts “intermittently acknowledge the supremacy of udal law in property cases up to the present day”^[24]. In practice, urban Scottish justice prevails, but the spirit of community enforcement lingers in small ways. Contemporary Shetland crime figures are low; tiny villages still pride themselves on neighbor-watching and restorative practice. Local justice workers note that on islands “consensus” often trumps confrontation, a faint echo of the old system where an accused faced twelve honest neighbors in court rather than a faceless city judge.

What Shetland’s 1500s justice wasn’t tells us as much as what it was. There were no cellblocks, no state prosecutors or DNA tests. Instead, almost everyone (plaintiff, defendant, juryman, clerk) stood together on cold peat by a holy loch and resolved the matter there. Courts looked more like community meetings than royal tribunals. There were power plays (the Stewart lawmen could bend the rules, as the Cultemalindie case shows), but often the weapon of the powerless was collective tradition. In those tight-knit communities, gossip and witness held great weight: a farmer’s word under oath could save or sink a neighbor.

This island justice system may seem quaint, even brutal at times, but it was the product of a society on the edge of Europe. Isolated by geography, Shetlanders in 1500 faced crime very much as their Viking forebears had: with wooden judges’ seats on a windy island, and an emphasis on “making it right” within the community. As one modern commentator puts it, even in the 21st century Shetlanders sometimes note that “the old Norwegian laws [are] still administered at open courts… called Lawtings”, a reminder that in these isles the past never quite disappears, it just moves into the neighborhood meeting hall.

Broken English stuff:

Which monsters lurk in cold bodies of water… Celtic mythology. Alehouses vs Taverns vs Inns in 16th Century Shetland Shetland Island Folklore: Mythical Creatures and the Lost Language of Norn Goodfellows, fellowettes and women urinating outside in the 1500s Life on the Edge: 16th-Century Shetland’s Harsh and Beautiful Landscape The Beast of The Moors or The Wulver?