Queer Laws of Mediceval Glasgow. and the Articles of Faith, or be formally declared to be unworthy to be joined in marriage. This educational test worked hardship on some of the unlearned. The first wedding after the enactment of this law caught the groom in an embarrassing fix. He had for gotten the Articles of Faith. As it was his first offense, the authorities consented to stop the wedding and wait while the youth com mitted the Articles to memory, and thus save his reputation. During the year 1583, the Session enacted a law prohibiting superfluous gatherings at wedding festivals and fixing the maximum cost of a wedding feast at eighteen pence. On December 19, 1593, the session en acted a law forbidding the observance of Zuil (Christmas), declaring it to be a pagan festival, debarring offenders from the com munion and prohibiting them from getting married. In 1645 a law was passed forbidding quar rels between man and wife. The statute pro vided that the guilty pair should be publicly rebuked for the first offense. For the second quarrel, both were sentenced to stand at the door of the Hie Kirk between the second and third bell, each with a piece of paper pasted across the forehead. Divorce was granted in a ceremonious fashion. The usual plan of procedure was to put the wife out one door of the Kirk and the husband out the other. That constituted the ceremony of divorce. The laws of the Session for 1586 provided uncomfortable punishments for those found guilty of violating their marriage vows. Those found guilty of adultery were to stand at the pillar for six Sabbaths, bare footed, bare-legged, clad only in sackcloth, and be carted through the town besides. In case of a relapse thereafter, the culprit was to be taken to church at six o'clock in the
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morning, after the first bell, by two deacons or any other honest men, and stand at the Kirk door, bare-footed and bare-headed, with a white wand in the hand, and there stand till after the reading of the text. Then the sin ner was to go to the pillar and there remain till the sermon was over. Thereupon he was to again stand at the church door while the people walked past him on their way home. The offender was required to undergo this salubrious sort of penance for six successive Sabbaths. In 1594 a law was passed for the benefit of ordinary harlots. Wide discretion was permitted under this statute. They could either be carted publicly through the streets, be required to stand for a time on a cockstool at the pillar or be ducked in the river Clyde, a rope and pulley having been arranged on the bridge for that purpose. The offense of smooring ( smothering ) children was lightly regarded as compared with such heinous crimes as breaking the Sabbath. The Session law of 1 592 punished those guilty of smooring children, by compel ling them to stand in sackcloth at the Kirk door for two successive Sabbaths. The excise laws were mainly confined to forbidding the sale of liquor during the ser mon of Sundays and to fixing the price of ale and wine. In 1560 the Town Council enacted that the price of the best ale should not exceed four pennies, Scots, for a Scotch pint. In 1569 the maximum price of wine was fixed at eighteen pennies, Scots, for a Scotch pint. The offense of slander also received atten tion. In 1601, the Session passed a law against speaking ill of the dead. On May 7, 1607, the same authority enacted that any servant found guilty of slandering any hon est man or woman should stand in the jugs on Monday.
