FARANDMAN

Definition

A term from Scots law denoting a traveling merchant or merchant stranger — that is, a trader who was not a resident of the locality where he conducted business, but passed through or visited from elsewhere. The term applied to foreign or itinerant merchants whose legal status, rights, and obligations differed from those of settled local traders. Burrill records the Latin equivalent as peregrinus mercator.

Why It Matters in Research

FARANDMAN is a term of purely historical significance, confined to Scots law and essentially extinct in modern legal usage. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in medieval and early modern Scottish legal sources, particularly those drawing on Skene's lexical work on Scots legal terminology. A few points to keep in mind: The term surfaces in contexts involving the legal treatment of itinerant merchants — questions of jurisdiction, taxation, tolls, market rights, and liability — where a traveler's outsider status bore directly on his legal standing. Researchers reading early Scottish burgh laws, customs records, or trade regulations may encounter farandman or its variants when the source distinguishes between resident burgesses and transient traders. Burrill's entry connects the term etymologically to faramannus from Burgundian law and traces the root to the Saxon faran or færan (to travel). This cross-jurisdictional lineage suggests the concept was not uniquely Scottish but reflects a broader medieval legal category of the traveling merchant found across Germanic and Scandinavian legal traditions. Researchers working comparatively across early medieval European commercial law may find related terms — portman, merchant stranger, peregrinus — performing analogous legal functions in other corpora. The term has no practical application in modern Scots law. Its research value is historical and contextual rather than doctrinal.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries agree closely on substance, with minor variation in emphasis. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier define farandman as a "traveler or merchant stranger," attributing the term to Skene. Bouvier adds the gloss "traveller" alongside "merchant-stranger," slightly broadening the concept beyond pure commercial actors. Burrill is the most substantive entry: it supplies the Latin equivalent (peregrinus mercator), cites Skene de Verb. Sign. with more precision, and — uniquely among the four — provides the comparative note connecting farandman to faramannus in the laws of the Burgundians (tit. 54, § 2) via Spelman, with the Saxon derivation from faran or færan. The Black's 2nd edition entry appears in a damaged or truncated form in the available source material, reading "eler or merchant stranger. Skene. A tray—" — evidently a typographical or transcription artifact of "traveler or merchant stranger." None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the legal consequences that attached to farandman status under Scots law — the rights, disabilities, or special treatment such a merchant might receive in burgh courts or at market. Researchers seeking that doctrinal depth will need to go beyond dictionary sources to Skene's primary works and the Acts of the Scottish Parliament.

Jurisdictional Note

Farandman is a term of Scots law specifically. It does not appear in English common law sources and has no direct counterpart in American legal tradition. Any research application is confined to Scottish legal history and comparative medieval commercial law.

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