As our article on page 31 shows, we can learn a great deal about ordinary medieval Scots from poetic texts such as Barbour’s But the literary monuments of the Middle Ages are not our only window on to ordinary life; equally, if not more, vivid snapshots can be found in far humbler documentary survivals. In the present case, those snapshots areitself. After a brief light is thrown by a fragmentary court roll from 1317, the series begins in earnest in 1398 and from that year onwards we can watch the inhabitants of medieval Aberdeen go about their quotidian tasks.
