Glasgow Burgh Court
This tutorial is designed to help you get to grips with 17th century Scottish court records. It features examples from a minute book of Glasgow Burgh Justices of the Peace Court. The original volume is in Glasgow City Council’s Mitchell Library (reference B3/2). As the extracts from the court record featured in this tutorial show, much of the business of Justice of the Peace (JP) courts in Scottish burghs consisted of cases involving slander, rowdy behaviour, common assault, and other offences arising from everyday urban life. By working through the texts you will gain practice in reading a script with a high proportion of Secretary Hand and pick up some common legal phrases.