158 Dumfries : Its Burghal Origin. 



the astronomy of man — those star masses of freedom- 

 seeking citizens who made in those far-off days the burghs 

 in which there germinated the promise of so much human 

 hope and glory, of so much material, mental, social, and 

 political advance. If we would understand history aright 

 we must get to see how out of Norman conquest, with all 

 its tyrannous violence and blood, there not only sprang 

 public order but also conditions which fostered that popular 

 spirit with which it seemed at first so little compatible. In 

 short, the story of the burghs is the real study of history ; 

 it is a chapter of record perhaps more priceless than the 

 story of parliament, for it lies nearer the vitals of social 

 existence, and its formative influence — the most conspicuous 

 organic feature visible in parliamentary institutions — has had 

 an even wider range. 



What has Dumfriesshire to contribute towards the 

 understanding or illustration of Scottish feudalism ? What 

 traces of the first rough working, of the rapidly-evolved 

 modification, and of the manifold ultimate forces of what is 

 styled the feudal system ? What early footprints of its 

 fateful progress can we find in the records of our county, 

 its territorial divisions^ and its burghs? Its tenures, do they 

 tell anything of military service in its older forms? To what 

 ages severally belong its burghal foundations? How comes 

 it that Dumfries itself so clearly ante-dates the other cor- 

 porations? These be hard questions, and the desultory 

 contributions here offered are but fragments towards the 

 answers. 



On the threshold faces us the need to come to some 

 understanding with the word " burgh." A royal burgh at 

 an early period often combined the several qualities (i) of 

 being on crown lands, (2) of possessing a royal castle (or 

 rather castellum), (3) of being a county town, and (4) of 

 exercising its jurisdiction over very wide bounds — sometimes 

 those of the county. In the evidences for the fourth of these 

 Dumfries compares disadvantageously with some other early 

 burghs, such as Rutherglen, Elgin, Ayr, and even Wigtown. 

 In the other three it conforms to the best types, and suggests 

 comparison with Lanark, which, like Dumfries, is said to 



