|
Lockman, Lokman, or
Lockeman is the term seemingly the soft and delicate admiration—that
Scotsmen were wont to employ to designate the executioner. Everywhere
contempt and mockery rather than regard have been his portion; and that
a people so accustomed to call a spade not Only a spade but something
worse should choose him an appellation so apparently colourless and
inexpressive might fairly be termed a philological puzzle. Yet the mild
signification has been sanctioned—perhaps originated—by Sir Walter
himself. "Lockman," thus he has it, "so called from the small quantity
of meal" (Scotticé, ''lock'') "which he was entitled to take out of
every boll exposed to market in the city. In Edinburgh the duty has been
very long commuted ; but iii Dumfries the finisher of the law still
exercises, or (lid lately exercise, his privilege, the quantity taken
being regulated by a small iron ladle which lie uses iii the measurement
of his perquisite." Now the facts on which Sir Walter's theory rests are
indisputable; indeed, there is an abundance of evidence that throughout
the Land o' Oakes the "lock" of meal was the hangman's perquisite from
time at least anterior to the period when certain chalders of grain
became the legal dues of the parish clergyman. But this by no means
settles the question how to explain that the hangman's collection of his
salary in kind should be recognised even in his official description—
for lockman was the official as well as the popular style—as his most
distinctive function, all seeming allusion to his specific duties being
omitted. Superficially considered, the other derivation (originally
sanctioned by Jamieson) from the better-known signification of the word
"lock" as part of a door—the man who locks (i.e., the "dubsman or
turnkey")—appears more plausible; for no doubt the hangman and the
gaoler were pretty often identical, the criminal being thus under charge
of this grim representative of justice from the time that in the
character of deempster (doomster) he pronounced the sentence of death
against him, until his mortal remains were finally disposed of. But
again there is the difficulty—how to explain the seemingly almost morbid
tenderness of the Scot's regard for the hangman's susceptibilities, in
thus dropping all allusion to the more odious aspects of his office. Be
it remembered that the euphimism (if such it were) was accepted from
time immemorial; so that you read in Blind Harry's "Wallace" that
"The Lokmen than thei bur
Wallace, but baid
On till a place his martyrdom to tak'."
Indeed, it is by no means
improbable —so far as facts are known—that "lockman" was Scots for
"executioner" when locks in Scotland were not specially associated with
security, and sacks of grain in her market-places were scant and far
between.
But what forbids the
supposition that the epithet sets forth a grim allusion to locks of
another kind? Locks more distinctively associated with the doomsman's
function? —the locks, to wit, of the man or woman whose finisher he was?
- the locks by which he grasped the head it was his to expose to the
gaze of the gaping crowd? Such a derivation, be it observed, is in no
wise made superfluous by the fact that a "lock," or small handful, of
grain, was the official perquisite; nor does it stand in contradiction
to the custom, nor in the least diminish its significance. On contrary,
it would explain (and this in striking accord with the sordid or brutal
humour from which the Scottish vocabulary derives so much of its vigour)
the origin and signification of the old word "lock "in Scotland as a
quantitative term. It was the quantity grasped by the executioner: that
in any case, whatever else.
But let the derivation of
the term be what it may, the custom referred to is proof enough that the
lockman was very much in evidence. A superficial observer might leap to
the conclusion that his emoluments were out of all proportion to his
duties. Surely a handful of grain out of every boll in the market-place
would mean more than a sufficient supply of food for himself and his
family! And had he not also a livery, a free house, and a special
allowance for his more important appearances as well? Plainly,
therefore, for an official whose duties, albeit unenviable, were far
from laborious (much less exhausting), such a salary would in frugal
Scotland have been deemed inordinate. But in those elder and sterner
years the lockman did by no means loll away his hours in the listless
fashion of his modern analogue. His life was busy as well as serious.
His diocese, it is true, instead of as now embracing three kingdoms, was
contained within the bounds of a single burgh; but in olden time most
burghs were able to keep their lockman in constant occupation, while in
the larger towns he was fain to delegate some part of his duties to
subordinates. For one thing, the death sentence was attached to certain
crimes now only visited with imprisonment (as theft and incest), or held
deserving of no punishment at all—as adultery or attendance on the mass.
Again, the final ceremony was much more complex and more prolonged than
now. The criminal was not unaccustomed to address the crowd from time
scaffold—occasionally he did so at great length; and when all was over,
the body, in the case of strangulation, was commonly suspended for two
or three hours before cutting down and decapitating, when it was
customary for the hangman to continue his "watch and ward" on the
scaffold till the performance of the final rites. Hence the allusion of
Dunbar in his "Flyting":-
Nor did the lockrnan's
responsibility cease with the public ceremony, for had lie not to affix
the several members of the more noted victims in conspicuous places, or
sometimes to hang in chains the corse of the heinous malefactor to
dangle and rustle in the wind till it became a creaking skeleton? And
apart from his deathful duties he had plenty to do in the way of
whipping, branding, and mutilation. Not only was it his to apply the
severer tortures in cases of exceptional guilt, whether actual or only
suspected; he had also a well-nigh unbroken round of daily toil upon the
persons of the less heinous. Many of these were handed over to him for
punishment by the Kirk authorities; and the Session Records sufficiently
indicate how much his services were in request. Then he was under
obligation to carry out the summary sentences of magistrates by bearing
the culprit to the cross and placing him in the jougs; the application
of the pillory —with or without the delicate additions of pinching the
nose, nailing the ears, or boring the tongue—usually communicated a
spice of daily vivacity to the monotony of burgher life; the more
momentous duty of ducking scolds and adultresses occupied much of his
solicitude; and to have omitted the observance of scourging criminals
through time streets would have robbed market days of their purest
flavour of felicity. The "hangman's whip" had terrors more immediately
effective than the "fear of hell," and perhaps it impressed the popular
imagination more powerfully than either block or gallows. In fact, it
was chiefly iii the lockman that both Church and State reposed their
trust for the maintenance of order and morality. None played so
conspicuous a part in the public eye, and none discharged duties deemed
more essential to the welfare of society. His Present effacement may
indicate a marked improvement in morality, or a great advance in
civilisation, or the discovery that many of his methods were really
mistaken and ineffectual; but it is perhaps the most striking symptom of
change to be recorded in the social and ecclesiastical life of Scotland
during the last two hundred years. |
