‘According to Justice’: Women’s interactions with the Inverness Sheriff Court, 1777-95

Abstract

This thesis examines the Inverness sheriff court criminal processes and assesses their documentary value for historians of gender, Scots law, and social history. The sheriff court represented a locus for Inverness civic life but was not solely an urban institution. Over the period under study, the court made significant efforts towards improving and cementing access to law throughout Inverness-shire, appointing various court personnel throughout rural parishes. This was primarily an attempt to counteract entrenched pockets of resistance to state authority in various areas, particularly Lochaber. It is clear that lower-order Inverness-shire residents were aware of their rights and ability to access the law, and frequently utilised the sheriff court system to adjudicate disputes and to obtain justice in response to experienced harm. This thesis will first examine the institution of the Inverness sheriff court, its place in civic society, and the men who wielded the state power instilled in the inferior court system. It will then analyse a range of crimes for what relevant cases reveal about women’s interactions with this court system, including lawburrows, resistance to judicial authority, and sexual violence. It concludes that while the surviving criminal processes of the Inverness sheriff court are vital sources of information regarding women’s lives in the late eighteenth century Highlands, analysing women in isolation does not reveal the full picture of lower-order legal interactions at this time. Women very frequently collaborated with or were supported in their attempts to gain justice by men in their communities and kinship groups. Therefore, by considering what these documents reveal about community actions and familial support in relation to the law, we gain a fuller understanding of both how the law was administered in the Highlands at this time, and how women’s lives were lived within their communities.