This piece of singular bad neighbourhood: the Mamlorn Forest Dispute, Scotland, c.1730-1744

A protracted legal dispute between two aristocrats in the Southern Highlands in the mid-18th century concerning access to seasonal grazing on a putative royal forest illustrates a clash between commercialising infuences, traditional hierarchies of kinship and obligation, and the consolidating period of a legal system that was beginning to replace more direct forms of confict. Land management and dispute resolution in Scotland evolved over the early modern period in response to a number of infuences, not least being increased pressure to extract monetary value from territory. Extensive archival evidence from the case provides frsthand witness testimony as to how these changes were experienced and to seasonal grazing and associated practices in the period. Theactions of the parties involved underline the infuence of lordship and social hierarchy on the actions of transhumant communities and the importance of the wider political and economic context in understanding territorial disputes and community responses to such conficts.