Definition
A Scots law term meaning open, public, or notorious — that is, manifest and beyond reasonable dispute. Notour describes a fact or status so publicly established that it requires no further proof. The term appears almost exclusively in two compound phrases: notour bankrupt and notour adultery.
(1) Notour bankrupt: In Scots law, a debtor who has reached a legally defined threshold of public insolvency. A debtor became a notour bankrupt upon being subject to diligence by horning and caption (formal legal process compelling payment and authorizing arrest) and then retiring to sanctuary, absconding, or resisting by force — with subsequent insolvency found by the Court of Session. The status was significant because it triggered specific legal consequences under Scots bankruptcy law, including the right of creditors to challenge prior transactions as fraudulent preferences.
(2) Notour adultery: Adultery that is open and notorious — publicly known and established by repeated or flagrant conduct rather than merely alleged. Scots ecclesiastical and civil law treated notour adultery as a distinct and aggravated category.
Common Confusion
Notour should not be confused with mere accusation or allegation. The word carries a specific legal weight: the fact in question has crossed a threshold of public establishment. A debtor was not a notour bankrupt simply because creditors believed him insolvent; a precise sequence of formal events had to occur first. Similarly, notour adultery was not simply adultery that someone knew about — it required a degree of open, repeated public notoriety. Researchers importing the word's general meaning of "notorious" without accounting for these technical thresholds will misread Scots legal sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Notour is a term of pure Scots law with almost no footprint in English common law sources. Researchers encountering it in historical texts are almost certainly working with Scottish legal materials, Scottish ecclesiastical records, or comparative legal scholarship written with a Scottish audience in mind.
The principal research trap is treating notour as simple synonym for "notorious" in the common English sense. In Scots law, notour carried procedural weight — particularly in bankruptcy — where the sequence of horning, caption, absconding or sanctuary, and judicial finding of insolvency was a technical checklist, not a general description of a debtor's reputation. Missing any step meant the notour bankrupt status had not legally attached, which affected creditors' rights to challenge prior dispositions of property.
The diligence process referenced in the definition (horning and caption) is itself a Scots law term of art. Horning was a formal charge by royal messenger requiring payment on pain of being declared a rebel; caption was the warrant for arrest that followed non-compliance. Researchers unfamiliar with Scots diligence procedure will need to consult those terms before the notour bankrupt definition becomes fully intelligible.
Notour also appears in older Scots ecclesiastical court records in the context of adultery. Here the term interacted with canon law traditions around public versus occult sin — a distinction that determined whether ecclesiastical discipline was available and what form it took.
The term is almost entirely absent from post-19th-century legal sources, and modern Scots bankruptcy law has replaced the notour bankrupt framework with statutory insolvency regimes. Researchers should treat notour as a marker of historical Scots law and exercise caution applying it to any modern context.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree closely on the core meaning: open, public, notorious. Burrill's is the most expansive in listing applications, noting both notour adultery and notour bankruptcy as recognized compound terms. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's focus primarily on the notour bankrupt definition and quote Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland as their authority — an appropriate source given this is firmly Scots law territory.
The historical dictionaries provide a functional definition but do not fully illuminate the procedural mechanics underlying notour bankrupt status. The sequence of horning, caption, and the subsequent Court of Session finding is summarized but not explained, which can leave researchers without enough context to work effectively in primary Scots legal sources. Bell's Dictionary itself is the more complete reference for the bankruptcy mechanics. The historical dictionaries also do not address the ecclesiastical dimension of notour adultery beyond naming it.
None of the historical dictionaries signal the term's obsolescence or its replacement in modern Scots law — a gap researchers should keep in mind when dating the materials they are working with.
Jurisdictional Note
Notour is exclusively a term of Scots law. It has no recognized equivalent or application in English common law, American law, or other common law jurisdictions. Researchers working in any jurisdiction outside Scotland will encounter it only in comparative legal texts or in historical materials with a Scottish connection.