Why, among Border Reivers, Murder Was Less Serious Than Breaking Your Word

Jul 01, 2025

In the war-torn Scottish Borders of the 14th to 17th centuries, values were forged not in courts or churches, but in cattle raids, feuds, and firefights. In this rough frontier culture, a strange and shocking ethic prevailed: a man’s word was often worth more than a man’s life. Among Border Reivers, loyalty, honor, and reputation weren’t abstract virtues—they were survival tools. Breaking your word could mark you as untrustworthy and dangerous to everyone, while committing murder might be excused, or even expected.

This seemingly backward moral code wasn’t lawless chaos—it was its own coherent system, rooted in the unique pressures of Border life.

The Context: A Region in Constant Flux

The Anglo-Scottish Border was a unique no-man’s-land. It was simultaneously the frontline of two kingdoms and a zone both governments struggled to control. With frequent wars, shifting allegiances, and weak centralized power, local families—like the Kerrs, Maxwells, and Armstrongs—essentially ran their own fiefdoms. Law enforcement was patchy, and justice was often personal.

In this volatile setting, formal laws mattered less than reputation. Agreements, truces, and pacts held life together more securely than statutes or kings' decrees. And that’s where the sanctity of a man’s word became everything.

Murder as Expected Behavior

To understand why murder was seen as relatively minor, one must consider the sheer frequency of violent death in the Borderlands. Raiding (or "reiving") was a way of life. Families stole each other’s livestock, torched homes, and killed rivals. Children were raised to participate in feuds, and few people made it to old age without having seen blood spilled.

Killing someone in a raid, duel, or feud wasn’t automatically criminal—it could even be a badge of bravery or cleverness. So long as the violence was directed at enemies and conducted under expected social rules (like vengeance or defense), it wasn’t considered dishonorable. In fact, it was often seen as fulfilling a familial or social duty.

Breaking Your Word: The Ultimate Sin

While taking a life might be forgiven, betraying trust rarely was. Word-binding pacts—known as "bonds of man-rent"—formed the basis of alliances. These agreements tied men together through promises of mutual protection. In an area where official armies were small and unreliable, these promises were everything.

To go back on your word wasn’t just a personal failing—it undermined the fragile network of trust that kept the region functioning. If a man who had pledged loyalty or aid broke that bond, it could spark blood feuds, break alliances, and invite revenge from all quarters.

Betrayal poisoned the very glue that held the society together. And because so much of Border law relied on honor rather than evidence, a man known for breaking his word could quickly find himself socially exiled or physically targeted.

A Spy’s Guilty Conscience

One of the most revealing pieces of evidence for this cultural code comes from an English spy, Francis Haugh, who infiltrated Ferniehirst Castle in the late 1500s. Tasked with gathering intelligence and potentially betraying those who trusted him, Haugh confessed to feeling like Judas, stating:

“Sir, although this is a traitorous kind of service that I have waded in, to trap those who trust in me, as Judas did Christ, yet if it benefit the state, I am willing to continue.”

Even a hardened spy—trained in subterfuge—felt the cultural weight of breaking his word to those who had welcomed him as a guest. Haugh's guilt wasn’t rooted in Christian morality alone; it echoed the deep-seated Border code of honor.

A Functional Ethic for Dangerous Times

To modern readers, the Borderers’ value system might seem inverted: how could murder be less serious than lying? But in their context, it made perfect sense. A man’s capacity for violence was expected—often admired. But if you couldn’t be trusted, then no one could rely on you in a raid, alliance, or truce.

This ethic also served a practical role. With law so decentralized, reputational justice was all that stood between order and anarchy. If everyone knew that breaking a promise would follow you to your grave—and perhaps beyond—then promises became a powerful tool for stability.

The Legacy of an Unwritten Law

The Border Reivers and their turbulent society were eventually subdued in the early 1600s, after the Union of the Crowns brought both sides of the Border under one king. Yet the values of trust, loyalty, and word-as-bond endured in the region’s memory and folklore.

Even today, descendants of these rugged clans carry tales of fierce honor and family loyalty. And in an ironic twist, the phrase “a man’s word is his bond”—so often quoted in polite society—has its deepest roots not in courts or contracts, but in the windswept chaos of the Anglo-Scottish frontier.