The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) Glossary defines archaic words and phrases, mostly Scots law terminology, commonly found in documents and records in Scotland's archives. If you think a word or phrase should be added to the glossary, or an existing entry could be defined better, please contact us. Since the SCAN project ended, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has gone online at http://www.dsl.ac.uk/, and this should be consulted for Scots words and phrases (including legal terms).
another right like estover;
this one is the right to take turfs for roofing
or other purposes, which in England goes by
the name of "common of turbary"
one of the four conditions, or tenures, on
which lands could be granted by charter.
In this case, the superior received (usually
annually) a return ('feu duty') in agricultural
produce or money, rather than military service.
The 'fee' or 'feu' was also the name of the
piece of property so conveyed, and the 'feuar'
the vassal
who held the property by feu tenure.
feuar
see fee or feu above
feu disposition
in the nineteenth century the distinction
between the charter and the disposition was
that a charter was used to create a new feu,
and a disposition to carry an existing feu
forward to a new proprietor. A form of disposition
was also used for the former purpose, however,
and was known as a feu disposition
prices of grain which were fixed for each
county by its sheriff and a jury of locals every
February; a "fiar" could also be someone
who held lands in which someone else possessed
a
liferent
letters of. These were an order to a
sheriff to muster the assistance of the men
of his county to dispossess tenants who had
illegally retained possession of lands; on the
other hand, they could be issued against people
like the MacGregors on apparently any excuse
a Scottish measure which, like the rest, differed
from place to place and depended on what it
was being used to measure; as far as grain was
concerned, it was the fourth part of a bol
(and therefore anything from about nine-tenths
to one and a half Imperial bushels)
forestalling or regrating
forestalling was the crime of buying goods
on their way to a market with the intention
of selling them there at an inflated price
the loss of property following on the commission
of a crime or on the breaking of some condition
by which the property was held from a superior;
usually coupled with escheat
forisfamiliat,
forisfamiliate relating to a son or
daughter separated from the father's family
by marriage, living elsewhere, or by having
received a separate share of property before
the father's decease
this was one of the four conditions on which
lands could be granted by charter. In
the Middle Ages, it was a grant of property
made to a monastery or church in return for
prayers for the granter's soul and those of
his family; later, as the mortification it becomes
a grant to a university or other institution.
(The idea behind the name was that the grant
had not been made to a normal vassal
but to a group of people who went on and on,
the institution being 'deathless')
