Scottish legal institutions in the High Middle Ages are, for the purposes of this article, the informal and formal systems which governed and helped to manage Scottish society between the years 900 and 1288, a period roughly corresponding with the general
European era usually called the
High Middle Ages. Scottish society in this period was predominantly
Gaelic. Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. The early Scottish lawman, or
Breitheamh, became the Latin Judex; the great
Breitheamh became the
magnus Judex, which arguably developed into the office of
Justiciar, an office which survives to this day in that of
Lord Justice General. Scottish
common law began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and
Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent.