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  The Glossary

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).

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K

kain or cain
could be poultry or animals paid by a vassal to a superior as part of a feu-duty, but was more often poultry, eggs, butter and such things (even goose-feathers) paid by a tenant to a landlord as rent

"kindly tenants"

were highly unusual.  They held their tenancies for a low or "favourable" rent (which included paying no rent at all), and it seems that, unlike normal tenants, it was understood that they could be succeeded in their holdings by their heirs. They were also called "rentallers".
 
kist
chest; trunk; packing case; coffin

knaveship
was a sequel; it was a quantity of grain due to the servants of a mill (who did the actual milling) by those who were bound to have their corn ground at that mill, but like all these sequels it varied according to the particular custom of the mill; see astriction, lock and gowpen, sucken, thirlage

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