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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

PORTEOUS, n. Also -eus, -uous. Sc. Law forms and usages of Eng. †portas, a portable breviary or manual, in combs.

1. Porteous clerk, one of a number of legal officers whose function was to investigate the circumstances of crimes to be prosecuted in the circuit courts and to furnish the Justiciary Clerk with the information so gained for incorporation in the traistis roll, s.v. Traist n. 2. c. See also Stress; 2. Porteous Roll, portuous-, the official list of accused persons to be tried before the Circuit Courts of Justiciary, made up by the Justice Clerk with a general warrant to cite the persons named, orig. on the information of private persons in the various localities, after 1709 at the instance of the local Sheriff or Magistrates and abolished in 1828, the procedure being then altered to that of separate indictment conforming to the practice of the High Court in Edinburgh (Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 753, 1894 Barclay and Chisholm Justices' Digest 574). Now only hist. Also used as v.tr. = to put someone's name on the Porteous Roll, to accuse, arraign.1. Sc. 1708 D. Hume Trial for Crimes (1800) I. 29:
The Portuous Clerks, or Clerks of dittay, who were to travel into the several counties of the Kingdom; and by the issuing of precepts to the Sheriffs respectively, which enjoined them to cause summon a competent number of fit and habile persons, to appear before those Clerks at the several head burghs, there to be examined as of old, and give information upon oath, concerning such crimes of which they had cause of knowledge.Mry. 1709 W. Cramond Synod Records (1906) 196:
Ane account of the whole may be timeously given to the Porteous clerk.2. Sc. 1709 Acts 9 Anne c. 16 § 3. 4:
The old Method of taking Informations by the Porteous-roll, as it was grievous, so is now become unnecessary; and so utterly discharged and abolished.Kcd. 1709 C. Wright G. Guthrie (1900) 56:
Then the Presbyterie put me in the Porteous Roll, and summoned me to appear before a Criminal Court to be holden at Aberdeen in May, 1709.Inv. 1721 Steuart Letter-Bk. (S.H.S.) 169:
He is advised to porteus roll a great many of these plunderers.Abd. 1735 Monymusk Papers (S.H.S.) 128:
I remembered my predecessor was threatened to be porteous rolled for an illegal step in poinding.Sc. 1735 Scots Mag. App. 643, 645:
That Macilivoil was then a prisoner at Fort-William, and stood in the porteous-roll, in order to be tried the ensuing circuit for theft. . . . Still the prosecutors had it in their power to have given him notice of his trial, and time for his agent and lawyers to prepare for it, by bringing it on in the way of presentment, or what is commonly called the porteous-roll.Sc. 1808 Jam.:
The form of the Portuous roll anciently was this. On one column was the Indictment, etc., and in the opposite column were the names of the Assisers, or Jurymen and the witnesses. — This was not used in the stationary Justiciary court, which sits at Edinburgh, but only in the circuits. The name Porteous, as originally applied to a breviary or portable book of prayers might easily be transferred to a portable roll of indictments.Sc. 1822 Justiciary Reports (1819–31) 87:
In virtue of the warrant in the porteous-roll and the precept of the Sheriff thereon.Sc. 1826 Ib. 155:
The Porteous roll has been completed and transmitted to Perth.Sc. 1826 Scott Journal (Cent. ed.) 156:
I have attended these circuits with tolerable regularity since 1792 . . . yet I never remember before the Porteous roll being quite blank.