178 Anderson's Protocol Book. 



named certain learned or powerful friends as " supervisors "' 

 or " coadjutors " to advise those whom he had appointed 

 executors. Thus to the Bishop of Lincoln and Friar Adam 

 Marsh was entrusted the duty of giving- their counsel to the 

 widow of Simon de Montford ;i and Thomas Grierson, younger 

 of Barjarg, constituted Viscount Drumlanrig, Sir Thomas 

 Hope of Craighall, the Lord Advocate, and several of his near 

 relations "guydders and governors" to his heir, his wife, and 

 his younger children, while he appointed his daughter Sara 

 and Jean his executrices.^ The persons so appointed are 

 spoken of by English lawyers as " coadjutors " and " over- 

 seers."^ The dictionaries^ give to "oversman" or "overman" 

 the meaning of " a man having authority," and cite instances 

 in which the word is applied to sheriffs, provosts, arbiters, and 

 superintendents of workmen. It seems, therefore, hardly 

 doubtful that Mr Shirley's conjecture is well founded. 



In some cases I have left a Latin word to speak for itself 

 — where, for example, it is not easy from the context to deter- 

 mine the exact shade of meaning. Thus " claviger " (No. 

 95) may mean a porter, or a turnkey, or a bar-oflficer ; and 

 " cellarius " (No. 19) may mean a butler or a cellarman, or 

 may be a misspelling for " sellarius," a saddler. It appears 

 to be highly probable from protocols of Anderson not con- 

 tained in this collection that in No. 97 " scissor " is not 

 used in the sense of "butcher" but in that of "tailor" 

 (" scisor "). 



Some of the surnames are not easily recognised. I have 

 not met elsewhere with the form " Lorin " (No. 42). It is 

 possible that the name which the writer had in his mind 

 was Lorane or Lorraine. 



t Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of the. 

 English Law before the time of Edward I.; Cambridge, 1878, ii., 

 p. 340. 



2 Commissariot of Dumfries, 3rd March, 1629. 



3 Thomas Wentworth, The Office and Duties of Evendors, 3rd 

 edition, London, 1640, p. 9; Sir R. L. Vaughan Williams, A Treatise 

 on the Law of Executors and Administrators, 9th edition, London 

 1893; i., pp. 193-4, 209, note 1. 



4 A New English Dictionary and The Century Dictionary. 

 Jameson does not throw much light upon the subject. 



