This book traces the emergence of towns and assesses their topography and the lives of the people who lived there. Many towns, both large and small, have been considered. The aim has not been to concentrate on the ‘big four’ – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. Their experiences are important in any study of Scottish towns; they may however not be typical. The small town has too often been overlooked and an attempt has been made here to redress that balance to some extent. Not all towns can be considered in a project of this size – multiple volumes would be required – and, with a certain inevitability, a specific town not mentioned will perhaps not sit neatly with the experiences of the rest; each has its own special history.

A work covering a broad thousand years requires varying approaches. The urban historian faces major difficulties in the lack of early source material. The earliest urban archive is that for Aberdeen which commences as late as the end of the fourteenth century, and even this series has a loss of registers for 1413–33. Other burghs, such as Lanark, are fortunate to have records of their burgh courts from the late fifteenth century. Some gild (guild) court records survive from the fifteenth century, the earliest being that for Dunfermline which commences in 1433, but medieval gild records in general survive only sparsely (see Fig. I.1). There is a reference to a meeting of the Edinburgh gild court in 1403, but this is probably a misdating and should, more correctly, be 1453. Thereafter, there are mentions of isolated entries to the Edinburgh gild in the records of the burgh, but no gild court book, as such, survives until 1550. There is reference to the curia gilde of Aberdeen in 1437; and from 1441 the gild dealings are well documented for this burgh. For Ayr, a few folios detail the proceedings of the gild court of the town from 1428 to 1432; the Perth ‘Gildrie Book’ dates from 1452; and a parchment roll minutes the gild court of Stirling from 1460 to 1475.