Commerce, Courts and Causeways
1. Burgesses
Burgesses were landowners: they owned houses and cultivated areas of their riggs and of their crofts aiding to the 'greenness' of the city. But as merchants and market traders they produced a large amount of waste. Their rights and responsibilities often included the maintenance of causeways outside their own property.
Entered in the Council Register between the years of 1399 and 1409 amongst the burgesses of the burgh of Aberdeen are John Strang, David Fidilmouth, John de Petsur and Sliscus de Marr.
Archaeologists in Aberdeen have discovered the foundations of dwellings which may have belonged to burgesses. Archaeologists have also discovered countless midden deposits containing objects used in daily life, as well as remains of plants, beetles and human parasite eggs.
2. Calsaymakers
The principal role of calsaymakers involved paving the streets within the burgh and removing the middens which built up on the street frontages. In dealing with the rubbish from the street frontages, it seems from some documents that calsaymakers created their own large communal middens. Calsaymakers were therefore directly involved in environmental improvement.
Although regular efforts were being made to clear the streets from at least 1399, the first named occupant of the role of calsaymaker appeared in 1471 when Sandy Cowtis was appointed to care for the streets of Aberdeen. Calsaymakers were appointed regularly from the mid to late 15th century in burghs across Scotland. Later the more familiar term scaffie came into use.
Traces of medieval road surfaces have been found at various places in Aberdeen including Futty, Wynd and Guestrow.
3. Merchants and Market Traders
Merchants and market traders also produced a lot of waste. Merchants were responsible for bringing produce in from around the world and were deeply implicated in the introduction of plague into the environment of Aberdeen.
Market traders were the medieval equivalent of shopkeepers and salesmen, with many stalls and booths in the Castlegate area from the 14th century onwards.
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of items purchased in the market, ranging from wooden bowls to pieces of jewellery. Some of the objects found included ceramic tableware from Yorkshire, France, Holland and Germany brought to Aberdeen by merchants.
A coin weight and a balance arm for weighing precious metals were parts of a merchant or market trader's basic tool kit. The finding of five 13th to 14th-century coin hoards within the city centre highlights the wealth of some individuals.
4. Gravediggers
Archaeologists have found many graves in and around the Carmelite Church in the Green, which was founded in 1270. No tools however have been found that can be directly related to gravediggers.
Graves tended to be shallower than today and were crammed together within the building. New graves often disturbed earlier ones and many people were buried simply in shrouds rather than in coffins. The job of the gravedigger must have been on occasions gruesome. Such burial conditions also contributed to the spread of disease.
The burgh's burial fees in the late 1560s ranged from 18d for the 'honest and rich' to free for the 'poor and indigent'.
5. King and Queen
The impact on the environment of royalty varies. In the 12th century, William the Lion visited Aberdeen for long periods.
The royal court would have been the greatest consumer in the burgh, as well as the greatest producer of waste. The burgh was later cleaned up when the court settled in Edinburgh and royal visits increased. In 1511, when Queen Margaret, wife of King James V visited Aberdeen, all middens were cleared and pig sties were removed from the street.
Much of the environmental evidence has come from middens excavated in Aberdeen. 'Waste management' can be detected from the 14th century, when midden material was 're-cycled' to level a quarry site on Gallowgate in preparation for building. Archaeologists discovered higher quality artefacts among the rubbish in the Castlegate/Virginia Street, reflecting their wealth derived from proximity to the royal castle.
6. Town Sergeants
Town sergeants such as Thome Ernach (1317) and Walteri Rede (1399), were high-ranking functionaries of the burgh. Swearing loyalty to the monarch, the burgh magistrates and the burgesses, the duties of town sergeants related directly to the execution of justice by the burgh court. Town sergeants took summons to those to be brought before a court and also took distraints (fines). Town sergeants performed a role in the settling of debts in which they acted with the baillie, poinding goods and seeing the sale of those goods in order to satisfy the debt. They also enforced any imprisonment set down by a court. These duties carried a risk of personal violence. In 1317 Maurice Suerdsleper, a burgess, was fined for attacking a sergeant sent to enforce a court ruling. Maurice had to place himself in the town prison. Sergeants also ensured that other town officials performed their duties in an honest fashion: this especially applied to bread and ale tasters.
Archaeological evidence has little to contribute to our knowledge of the work of the town sergeants, although a hint of some of the regulations which they enforced can be seen for example, in the early regularisation of property boundaries. Skeletal remains bear witness to the existence of violent injuries while the Wardhouse or prison, constructed in the 17th century on Castlegate, survives today as the Tolbooth.
7. Baillies
Baillies had a positive impact on the environment. Sitting in the baillie court they created regulations to limit the negative impact of trades, craft and groups within the burgh on the environment. They set fines and punishments for infringements and saw to it that statutes were enforced. They also set down the regulations concerning fire hazards, and attempted to restrict the spread of plague. Simon de Benyn is recorded as a baillie in 1398, the year in which the Castlegate first became the civic centre of Aberdeen.
Fire was a constant threat in burghs where both domestic and industrial buildings were predominantly made of wood and lay close together. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of fire-damaged structures. This includes a pit near Castlegate filled with the burnt remnants of a house and its contents in the 13th or 14th century.
8. Soldiers
Soldiers would have been responsible for depredation and destruction of the built environment. Aberdeen was occupied during the wars of independence (late 13th / early 14th centuries) and during the civil wars in the 17th century. In the former case, the city was razed (with the exception of religious houses). Later, in the civil war period occupation meant the destruction of some buildings such as the Bishop's Palace in Old Aberdeen.
The earliest surviving military remains in Aberdeen are parts of the walls of the fort built on Castle Hill in the 17th century. Archaeological evidence of soldiering has so far been sparse but includes a fine 13th to 14th-century arrowhead found at a site in Netherkirkgate.
