Scottish Lawyers, Feudal Law

Abstract

Ivanhoe was Scott’s first novel to venture into English history. By the story’s conclusion, the Saxon and Norman peoples have united as the English under their king and under English law. Judith Wilt has argued for a continuity between Ivanhoe and the Waverley Novels (18–48), but because of its resoundingly English theme, Scott’s perspective as a Scot has been less discussed in relation to Ivanhoe than to any of his other major works. While acknowledging that Scott masks himself by his anonymity¹ and his fictional English narrator Laurence Templeton, I shall here discuss Ivanhoe as the work of a lowland Scottish lawyer with an outsider’s perspective on English law. Ivanhoe points to the inherent dangers of interpretation in local law and gently implies an alternative in common law, both commonly applied and based on common sense.