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3 - The Marginalisation of Gypsies in Scotland, 1573–c. 1625
- Edited by Allan Kennedy, University of Dundee, Susanne Weston, University of Dundee
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- Book:
- Life at the Margins in Early Modern Scotland
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 08 May 2024
- Print publication:
- 04 June 2024, pp 47-61
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Summary
In November 1609, the privy council responded to an unusual request: a petition to recognise Moses Faw and his family as ex-Gypsies. Six months previously, parliament had passed the ‘Act anent the Egiptians’, a law permanently banishing all Gypsies from the realm under pain of death. Petitioning the council, Faw praised the act as ‘worthelie set doun’ against the ‘infamous thevis’ who, ‘undir the counterfute name of Egiptianis’, had committed ‘sa mony villanyis in the cuntrey’. He suggested that the act was not intended to be used against ‘honnest, lauchfull, and trew personis’ such as himself, whose ‘birth, educatioun, and residence’ had been in Scotland, and who had withdrawn from the ‘infamous societie’ of Gypsies and disdained their ‘thevishe forme of doing’. Rather, Faw declared his wish to ‘spend the rest of his dayis’ in Scotland as ‘a quiet, modest, trew, and humble subject’. The council assented to the request, and granted a licence exempting Moses Faw and his family from the act.
Less than three years later, Moses Faw and three of his kinsmen – David, Robert, and John Faw – had been arrested, tried, and executed. They became the first individuals to be prosecuted under the ‘Act anent the Egiptians’ by a justiciary court, their crime that of being ‘known’ Gypsies. According to the privy council, Faw and other ‘counterfoote lymmaris callit the Egiptianis’ had found shelter in Selkirkshire, where they were suspected of committing robbery and other crimes, unchecked by local magistrates. Following his arrest, Moses Faw once again petitioned the council, arguing that he and his family were the only Gypsies licensed to live and travel in Scotland, and complaining that he had been apprehended at the instigation ‘of the Egiptianis that callis them selvis Bailzeis [Baillies]’. In fact, the king's advocate and privy council had been attempting to arrest Faw and his kinsmen for at least three months, and over the course of their trial in Edinburgh Moses Faw was found to have been ‘in companie and societie with the Egiptianis’, breaking the terms of his licence. All four men were sentenced to death by hanging.
The case of Moses Faw encapsulates the paradoxical position of Gypsies in Scotland under James VI. From 1573 onwards, they were subjected to a slew of repressive legislation and proclamations that sought to stigmatise and curtail their way of life, culminating in the 1609 ‘Act anent the Egiptians’.
Contributors
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- By Shamsuddin Akhtar, Greg Albert, Sidney Allison, Muhammad Anwar, Haruo Arita, Amanda Barker, Mary Hanna Bekhit, Jeanna Blitz, Tyson Bolinske, David Burbulys, Asokumar Buvanendran, Gregory Cain, Keith A. Candiotti, Daniel B. Carr, Derek Chalmers, John Charney, Rex Cheng, Roger Chou, Keun Sam Chung, Anna Clebone, Frederick Conlin, Susan Dabu-Bondoc, Tiffany Denepitiya-Balicki, Jeanette Derdemezi, Anahat Kaur Dhillon, Ho Dzung, Juan Jose Egas, Stephen M. Eskaros, Zhuang T. Fang, Claudia R. Fernandez Robles, Victor A. Filadora, Ellen Flanagan, Dan Froicu, Allison Gandey, Nehal Gatha, Boris Gelman, Christopher Gharibo, Muhammad K. Ghori, Brian Ginsberg, Michael E. Goldberg, Jeff Gudin, Thomas Halaszynski, Martin Hale, Dorothea Hall, Craig T. Hartrick, Justin Hata, Lars E. Helgeson, Joe C. Hong, Richard W. Hong, Balazs Horvath, Eric S. Hsu, Gabriel Jacobs, Jonathan S. Jahr, Rongjie Jaing, Inderjeet Singh Julka, Zeev N. Kain, Clinton Kakazu, Kianusch Kiai, Mary Keyes, Michael M. Kim, Peter G. Lacouture, Ryan Lanier, Vivian K. Lee, Mark J. Lema, Oscar A. de Leon-Casasola, Imanuel Lerman, Philip Levin, Steven Levin, JinLei Li, Eric C. Lin, Sharon Lin, David A. Lindley, Ana M. Lobo, Marisa Lomanto, Mirjana Lovrincevic, Brenda C. McClain, Tariq Malik, Jure Marijic, Joseph Marino, Laura Mechtler, Alan Miller, Carly Miller, Amit Mirchandani, Sukanya Mitra, Fleurise Montecillo, James M. Moore, Debra E. Morrison, Philip F. Morway, Carsten Nadjat-Haiem, Hamid Nourmand, Dana Oprea, Sunil J. Panchal, Edward J. Park, Kathleen Ji Park, Kellie Park, Parisa Partownavid, Akta Patel, Bijal Patel, Komal D. Patel, Neesa Patel, Swati Patel, Paul M. Peloso, Danielle Perret, Anthony DePlato, Marjorie Podraza Stiegler, Despina Psillides, Mamatha Punjala, Johan Raeder, Siamak Rahman, Aziz M. Razzuk, Maggy G. Riad, Kristin L. Richards, R. Todd Rinnier, Ian W. Rodger, Joseph Rosa, Abraham Rosenbaum, Alireza Sadoughi, Veena Salgar, Leslie Schechter, Michael Seneca, Yasser F. Shaheen, James H. Shull, Elizabeth Sinatra, Raymond S. Sinatra, Neil Singla, Neil Sinha, Denis V. Snegovskikh, Dmitri Souzdalnitski, Julie Sramcik, Zoreh Steffens, Alexander Timchenko, Vadim Tokhner, Marc C. Torjman, Co T. Truong, Nalini Vadivelu, Ashley Vaughn, Anjali Vira, Eugene R. Viscusi, Dajie Wang, Shu-ming Wang, J. Michael Watkins-Pitchford, Steven J. Weisman, Ira Whitten, Bryan S. Williams, Jeremy M. Wong, Thomas Wong, Christopher Wray, Yaw Wu, Anthony T. Yarussi, Laurie Yonemoto, Bita H. Zadeh, Jill Zafar, Martha Zegarra, Keren Ziv
- Edited by Raymond S. Sinatra, Jonathan S. Jahr, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, J. Michael Watkins-Pitchford
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- Book:
- The Essence of Analgesia and Analgesics
- Published online:
- 06 December 2010
- Print publication:
- 14 October 2010, pp xi-xviii
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