Workshop: New Perspectives on Civic Administration in Fifteenth-Century Towns – Aberdeen, 5&6 November 2021 – Outcomes

In a first short introduction to the workshop which was meant as a provisional appraisal at the mid-point of the FLAG-project (Finance, law and the language of governmental practice in late medieval towns: Aberdeen and Augsburg in comparison) Jackson Armstrong explained the goals of the project to the participants of the workshop:

  • Putting digitised sources – Aberdeen Records Online (ARO) and Augsburger Baumeisterbücher (BMB) – in dialogue
  • Putting two different historiographies in dialogue
  • To find out more about how town government functions
  • Comparing two dissimilar cities in two dissimilar countries with similar exceptional source survival in order to examine underlying urban commonalities in everyday language of urban government

Experienced scholars were invited to come to Aberdeen to discuss the first results, compare them with the situation in other cities of Germany and the UK and provide input and critical remarks.

Jörg Rogge described in the second introduction the key term urbanitas as the feature of a proper city, including freedom, self-government, infrastructure, administration. The team of FLAG considered three subjects to be essential: order – budget – unity. They had asked the participants to take one of these subjects as key to re-read their sources. The workshop concentrated on the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, looking at cities in Germany (Augsburg, Köln, Soest, Dresden, Görlitz) and cities in the UK and Ireland (Aberdeen, Dublin, Hull, Sandwich). The participants were also invited to add to a reader some extracts of their sources.

The conference had three sessions. The first was more concentrated on the topic of budget, the second more on unity, and the third stressed the process of recording. Every session included papers on German and British towns.

Wim Peters (Mainz) and William Hepburn (Aberdeen) started session 1 by presenting Digital hermeneutics: methodology and first results from the Aberdeen ARO corpus. They outlined approaches to using text analysis tools such as AntConc for hermeneutic purposes. Some of the functionality of these tools was presented in the talk, for instance KWIC (key word in context) i.e. methods for searching texts for key words at scale while viewing them in their original textual context. W.P. and W.H. showed results of working with the grain of the corpus text. W. Hepburn gave the example of giving ‘compt’ with quite different meanings - ‘good account’ / gude compt occurs on a spectrum between prosaic, functional usage and more moral and spiritual usage (giving ‘compt’ of the soul). The discussion of this paper was quite vivid. The approach of the team was thought to be inspiring. Some questions concentrated on the technical issues, which will be presented in a paper led by W. Peters soon. Other question and comments concerning good account or the distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ (Elizabeth Gemmill, Oxford) arouse. This theme was addressed frequently throughout the workshop.

Regina Schäfer (Mainz), was Talking about Law and Order in Augsburg. She stressed that the ‘common good’ was behind the concept of law and order. While there was a transformation of court and council between the 13th and the 15th century the older forms of law like the Schwabenspiegel (‘mirror’ to perceive right and wrong) were still valid and coexisted with other forms of law like Roman law and charters made by the council. There was a close link between council and court in Augsburg. In addition, the board of Einunger (men of the union), formed by council and court was dealing with all minor offences to restore peace within the community. The council held legislative, executive and jurisdictional power and these powers were only limited by consensus of the community (as a unit constituted by an oath, which had to be renewed every year) and adherence to ideas of common good. The council ‘recognised’ these decisions (Erkenntnisse) rather than issuing them as orders. Recht could have different meanings, referring to codifications of law but was also to offer judgement of the court. Ordnung especially named a charter of a guild. R. Schäfer stressed that rules show us only one part of the picture. Rules helped to reach the common good, which was the true goal. Citizens were meant to treat each other in friendly and neighbourly ways. This was mostly achieved through arbitration which was not written down.

Amy Blakeway (St Andrews), War and the burghs, 1528–1550 focused on the impact of preparations for war on town finances in cases where war did not actually come to the town in question. Scotland was on a war footing in this period which caused a lot of problems, even if the English didn’t actually invade. Large amounts of money were raised in tax to counter the English attacks. Prices went up considerably in this period, with particular impact on non-elite people (1540s). In addition to taxes paid to the crown for defence a town like Aberdeen had to also to pay for its own defences. The burden was heavy – old tax debts were called, men had to be furnished, every request for a royal tax prompted Aberdeen to take its own defensive measures, expenses for officials going to Edinburgh increased because of greater frequency of visits, payments for specialists like gunners were necessary. Therefore, the council had to raise a lot of money in a short space of time and this led to disputes with the central government. The officials found themselves in conflicting loyalties between loyalty to crown and duty to protect the people of the town. So, we need to think about the war that doesn’t happen and the impact that it has on budget and economy.

Julia Bruch (Köln), compared Accounting Practices in Monasteries, Towns and Courts, giving some methodological reflections. Working in the project ‘Dynamics of conventionality 400-1500’ J. Bruch explained that accounts – containing a lot of invoices describing things that were paid for – are rarely analysed according to their own logic. So, she asked: What did accounting practices look like in the middle ages and what was the wider significance of this for administration? She did so by taking a look at typologies of accounts (monasteries, towns, and noble households), the accounting situation and the materiality of accounting. She stressed that there was a common social practice of keeping accounts, a socially regulated, routinised form.  Despite differences in detail, accounts in different spheres are very similar. In the discussion the topic was raised that the reason behind accounting was not to have a balance at the end of the year, leading us to the question of why these accounts were made in these typical forms.

At the beginning of session 2 Elizabeth Gemmill (Oxford) addressed The language of things, focussing on the descriptions of objects and consumables in the burgh court records of late medieval Aberdeen. She also mentioned the mixture of languages in the council registers: Repeated processes were more likely to be in Latin, one-off records more likely to be in vernacular. She pointed out the rituals of punishment - gifts to the kirk (candles, knives) were often made very publicly as ritual of penance or a man was stripped of his clothes for insulting a burgh officer. There are a lot of records of items being ‘wrongously’ withheld in the court registers but they are rarely described. People complained most often about things that did not turn up at all or turned up in the wrong place. When goods were distrained for debts, there was a formal procedure at the market place where things were presented for appraisal. If a process of evaluation was necessary, experts (craftsmen, e. g. goldsmiths) were asked to value the confiscated good. The records are especially detailed concerning regulations about how to make meat available and about preparing royal visits. Language describing materiality was more about people’s behaviour than things.

Jessica Bruns focussed on the Knowledge between pages: book usage as a form of administrative practice from Soest. She pointed out that the archive tradition to sort charters and files (E. Pitz) was misleading. The materiality must be considered. The Index Librorum Civitatum offers a platform to search for (mostly) German city books which were sorted into categories depending on their contents. Both preserved and lost city books are recorded. Books are defined by quires and the planning effort involved, so they needed much more planning than a roll. Or as J. Bruns put it: To make a book you have to plan on making a book. Stadtbücher (City books) could be sorted into different categories taking into consideration content (books of accounting, court records, council minutes and mixed books et al.) and form: rolls, Buchzettel (records of expenditure which were crossed out and then transferred to the account), booklets, different forms and sizes of books and codices. She discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the different form, size, material (parchment, paper) and also of the internal structure (chronological order, systematic order). So, by looking at the form and content of a book it is possible to trace changing ideas of organising knowledge. The reason behind recording should be questioned for every single book so should – as the auditorium discussed – the issue of who had access. Was a book made to be consulted or just to make a record?

Eliza Hartrich (UEA, Norwich), For the Comene Wele? Languages of Unity and Division in English and Irish Municipal Records, c. 1450-1500 gave a deep insight in the sources from Hull and Sandwich in England and Dublin in Ireland focussing on the idea of ‘Comone Wele’, a phrase used fairly rarely. Referring to the work of historians such as Claire Hawes and Christopher Fletcher on ideas of common profit, E. Hartrich addressed how in the context of the Wars of the Roses, ‘comone wele’ could be ‘weaponised’ (John Watts). Even though Hartrich’s case studies dealt with geographically dispersed cities of a different size and importance for the crown, they were all administrative hubs of their region, all royal burghs and all governed in a similar way and had striking similarities in record-keeping cultures. All cities took part in a wider trend from the mid-fifteenth century of towns making new council registers with continuous, chronological records. As E. Hartrich showed ‘comone wele’ suggests unity but is actually used in periods of intense division. ‘Comone wele’ is an adversarial term, meant to bolster the authority of a political faction and make people adhere to its decisions. She showed the importance of acknowledging external influences in moulding the language of urban records. E. Hartrich also mentioned that people in Hull demanded to see the records and required to records being kept in English so they could be accessed by a wider audience.

Closing the second session Phil Astley (Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives) presented a volume of the Aberdeen Council Registers from the City Archives and explained the efforts made to make the content known to a wider public audience.

The last session was opened by Jens Klingner (ISGV, Dresden) dealing with Texts and transmission. City books and account books from late medieval Dresden. Dresden was roughly the same size as Aberdeen with about 5000 inhabitants at the end of the fifteenth century. The surviving records show the typical mixed nature of city books, recording business before council and court. The book-shaped tradition began 1404 and showed some combination of parchment and paper. Mostly entries were arranged chronologically but the form of presentation depended on the style of the town clerk. Klingner focussed especially on the Alturteilsbuch, a kind of collection of legal texts made in mid-fifteenth century which give an insight in the accounting practices including wax tablets (1437-1456). The discussion focussed on the recording practices (mixing parchment and paper-sheets in one book) and about storage: Accounts were first stored at chamberlain’s house but after some disputes were stored in a chest in the ‘town house’. Three keys were held by different people and the presence of all three was required to gain access to the account books.

Andrew Simpson (Edinburgh) addressed Brieves in the Burgh Records of Aberdeen, ca.1400-1500. Some Preliminary Thoughts. Brieve evidence from burghs in this period has never been systematically analysed. A thorough analysis might shed light on the apparent decline of the brieves system and the development of the session for civil law as well. Brieves were standardised writs under royal authority which instructed officials in Aberdeen to carry out certain business, so they provide information on the interaction between royal provision of justice and local provision. Particular individuals would pay for a brieve to be issued because they had an interest in the brieve being carried out (e.g. Alexander Roland requesting inquest into his rights of inheritance). Different brieves dealt with different questions but they worked on the same assumption: questions dealt with by local courts were based on what they had ‘seen and heard’. The officials were mostly not trained lawyers in anything like the modern sense but merchant burgesses. Purchasers of brieves were sometimes represented by procurators (also not professionals). If there was a sort of professionalism it was probably found amongst the king’s clerks. There were significant differences between Scottish brieves and English forms of action.  A. Simpson counted 99 individual brieves and Litteri domini regis in the Aberdeen records (1398-1511). The majority of these brieves dealt with tenurial claims to burgh lands. An increase of brieves of right in Aberdeen 1440-44 might be related to political disorder and an increased demand for legal action. A. Simpson also stressed the role of the Cadiou family in the creation of the records and the importance placed by contemporaries on the use of particular seals on documents. People might have resorted to brieves rather than just burgh court, perhaps partly because burgh court not resolve issues or because it was thought to be helpful to invoke royal authority. Brieves might have been a way of compelling local officials e.g. baillies to act when they were being intransigent for some reason.

The final paper was presented by Christian Speer (Halle), who asked Are town books reliable witnesses of the past? Critical considerations on the categories “note“, “transcript” and “fair copy” based on the Libri civitatis and Libri obligationum of Görlitz in the 14th and 15th century. He also discussed the aforementioned Index Librorum Civitatum. In Görlitz, a town of 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants 143 volumes of town books for the period up to 1550 are known. This enormously rich material makes it possible to examine how different sorts of city books (booklets, notes, Kladden (jotters), codices) were interlinked. Kladden were thought to consist of notes, which were later written down in a ‘clean copy’ in the Red Book (1305-1416), partly in German and Latin. C. Speer proved that this is not the case. The Kladde is a type of fair copy too. So, there were two fair copies, one in paper and one in parchment. The notes are lost. Some information from these sources went straight to Red Book as they do not appear in Kladde. Speer suggested that the Kladde was a fair copy for administrative use, the Red Book a fair copy for archival purpose. The reason for this complex recording might be a change in administrative practice, a re-evaluation of ideas about structuring data. C. Speer stressed that a fair copy is a result of a complex and error-prone process of selection, rearrangement, reduction and addition. And fair copies do not represent the complete written output of town clerks but only a special selection. The questions and discussion focussed on how information was assembled. Also, the role of a ‘Red Book’-type in archives should be considered further. And the problem of private/public arose again: Only the scribes were allowed to open the chest to read from and write in the books. People paid to have items recorded in books.

The closing discussion focused on many topics.

  • It was obvious that the ways and forms in which records were produced had to be considered thoroughly.
  • How to frame universitas/unity and describe cities was discussed again. The ideas of Max Weber, the self-government of the city and infrastructure which created common interest were especially stressed as essential for a city. It was suggested to look at religious communities within towns. The project will acknowledge these but a proper consideration of the relevant sources this would require a new project
  • Also, the problem of public/private was mentioned frequently. When did private things become public? Could we use the differentiation between public/private, which was not used by contemporaries? Could secret/open or common/individual (Eliza Hartrich) be more useful distinctions? The limited access to court books and accounting records proves how hard the council tried to keep things secret in some cases.
  • Concerning the topic of universitas it was asked if there was a shared sense of common symbolic actions or objects which were considered essential e.g. pillory, common books. Whereas the German historiography discussed the importance of rituals intensively, this is not so much the case in the historiography on Britain and Ireland. Making an inventory of common objects that are symbolic for certain aspects of urbanitas and then assessing their cultural role from their embedding in text could be done by using the mentioned digital humanities tool to compare the (perhaps not so different) political cultures in Augsburg und Aberdeen. We could also take a closer look at the officials and discuss the question of ‘patricians’ in both towns.
  • The idea to focus on language/words such as good account, common, comone wele, Gemeiner Nutzen convinced the auditorium. But it was also stressed that we should bear in mind that other places such as monasteries would have had similar ideas. That is why it is important to carefully define the specific qualities of urbanitas, so that we do not mistake ideas which were a general feature of medieval life as unique to urban settings.
  • Looking at moments of conflict might be useful for defining issues of budget/order/unity (See Blakeway paper above in particular).
  • The fifteenth century which brought a lot of changes in the organisation of cities. So, the picture in 1400 may be very different from picture in 1500.

Regina Schäfer (Mainz), William Hepburn (Aberdeen)

New perspectives on 15th-century towns: FLAG Workshop I meets in Aberdeen

http://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-9242