The Deemsters
- Item sets
- Institutions
Linked resources
- Name
- The Deemsters
- Description
- The judges of the Isle of Man — two of them, one for the north and one for the south. The office is ancient, appearing in records from the thirteenth century but clearly well-established by then. The name derives from the Norse dómr (judgment). Before 1417, the law existed primarily in the Deemsters themselves — 'breast law,' locked up in the Deemsters' breasts. The oath they swore was unlike anything in English jurisprudence: to execute the laws 'as indifferently as the herring's backbone doth lie in the midst of the fish.' The herring's backbone — a legal principle expressed in the idiom of a fishing people. After the Revestment, one Deemster was abolished around 1775. The judicial salary had not increased, but the cost of bringing a case multiplied sevenfold. The Deemster's oath is still sworn. The herring's backbone is still in it.
- Active Period
- c.1200–present
- Period
- Norse Kingdom
- Stanley Lordship
- Atholl Lordship
- Crown Administration
- Modern Era
- Type
- Judiciary
- Court
- Book Chapter
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 14