Glossary of terms

An abstract or abridgment.

Scots Law: The legal seizure, or judicial conveyance of the debtor’s estate, for the creditor’s security and payment.

Scots Law: The calling of an action before a superior court, either for further procedure or that the judgment might be reviewed. Also, the right of presenting a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice.

Scots Law: A penalty or fine which a judge has power to impose on litigants in a civil cause.

To lose or relinquish rights on failure to meet obligations.

The first half-year’s income of a benefice legally due to the executors of ministers, over and above what was due to the minister himself for his incumbency.

Interest on money lent, chiefly (if not always) paid from the yearly rent out of land.

The seizure by legal authority, often of debts, or property in lieu of, via a third party.

Legal assignment, the conveyance to another of one’s rights in moveable property, or one’s claim for debts, or rights in leased land.

Discharge, to release, to absolve.

Scots Law: Consideration of a case out of court, prior to pronouncing a judgment.

Scots Law: A document acknowledging that the party receiving or holding title does so in trust for a specific purpose and must account to the grantee when the purpose is served. Also, a deed attaching a qualification or condition to the terms of a conveyance or other instrument.

A pauper or licensed beggar; one who prays for another, especially one receiving alms from the king to pray for his welfare; often an inmate of a hospital or almshouse.

The subsidiary buildings on an estate; a cluster of houses.

Guilt of, or liability to a penalty for, bloodshed; or an action against a person accused of bloodshed.

Scots Law: A legal writ, an official document.

A stretch of paving; the paved part of a street, usually cobbled.

To make void, render ineffective, annul or disable.

Scots Law: bail, security.

One who cedes or assigns property to another.

A measure of capacity for grain, coal, malt, etc. For example, a chalder of grain contained sixteen bolls.

A commissary; a delegate or representative, especially one having an official position.

To come to an agreement for something; to compound or settle a matter by making payment or otherwise.

To value, to appraise; also the seizure of goods of a debtor.

Scots Law: A compulsory instrument or act; something which compels.

To assemble; to call together.

A wicker or wooden enclosure placed across a river or tideway for catching salmon or other fish.

Scots Law: An administrator of another person’s affairs either nominated in a will or otherwise or appointed by court.

Scots Law: A judgment given in court at the instance of the pursuer for the declaration of some right or status.

The judgment or sentence of a court of law (notably the Privy Council) whereby the matter at issue is decided.

One who is dead; the deceased

Scots Law: A formal decision or judicial judgement.

To deprive oneself or another of some possession, property, office or right.

A legal contract where movables are entrusted to another.

A legal delay, especially in giving a legal decision.

The action of giving up or laying down an office, possession, etc. as in demit.

An indictment; a statement of the charge or charges against an accused person.

The receiver of a donation.

One sixteenth of an ounce, frequently used in reference to coinage.

To do away with, annul, to quash.

Severe or excessive damage or injury in respect of property or rights.

A balanced account; an acquittance, or receipt, from the phrase *et sic æque*, which was written at the foot of an account when it was settled.

An excuse, especially one offered as a legal defence; a pretext or representation.

Scots Law: A plea against a charge; a defence.

Scots Law: Instructions or legal authority for executing a sentence of court.

One empowered or appointed to act for another; an agent or steward who manages land or house property for its proprietor; one who has charge of the administration of an estate.

Of men, capable of bearing arms for the defence of the country; liable for such military service.

The tenure of land or other property in feu.

Scots Law: The ultimate and absolute possessor of a property as distinguished from a life-renter of it; one who has the reversion of property.

Custody; imprisonment.

The aftermath or second crop of grass after hay, winter grazing or grass; also the right to pasture on this.

Out of, from.

Leave given to vessels, especially in ports, to make use of ground on shore; the duty payable for this.

The crime of committing an assault upon someone in their own home

Scots Law: The process of putting a person, or the fact of being put, to the horn, i.e. being proclaimed an outlaw. See also letters of horning.

Scots Law: Disproof of the validity of a writ; an action brought to prove a document false or forged.

Scots Law: The investing of a new owner with a real right in or legal possession of land or heritage; a document specifying this.

Furniture, household goods.

Scots Law: To furnish (via a statement) with evidence or proof; to confirm by evidence, substantiate.

Scots Law: To have dealings or correspondence with proscribed persons or outlaws; to be under such a sentence of outlawry.

Scots Law: To handle or deal with funds or property, especially of another person living or dead, with or without legal authority.

Right or facility of exit or egress.

An order issued by a dean of guild, giving authority to repair or rebuild a ruinous house and to constitute the expense as a real burden on the property.

A portion of the produce of a tenancy payable as rent; a rent in kind; payments of this sort, collectively.

Scots Law: The legal security given by one person that he will keep the peace towards another who can show reason for apprehending violence or mischief at his hands. ‘Letters of lawburrows’, the warrant issued to the complainer by a court charging the person complained against to give such security.

The spreading of calumny against the sovereign likely to cause sedition or disaffection, particularly between the sovereign and the people.

Letters in the sovereign’s name charging persons named in them to make the payment or performance ordered under the penalty of being put to the horn for disobedience. See also horning.

Scots Law: A right to receive till death (or some other specified contingency) the revenue of a property without the right to dispose of the capital.

Rent, chiefly as paid in money as opposed to kind.

In currency, with the value of approximately two thirds of one pound scots or 13 shillings and 4 pence scots. A silver coin of this denomination was coined at intervals from the reign of James VI in 1578 to that of Charles II

A fine imposed for an offence; a penalty or punishment of any kind.

Cattle; oxen, bulls and cows, collectively.

A matter of common knowledge; well-known; evident; especially said of crimes, faults, guilt, discreditable circumstances.

A contractual promise or undertaking; also, describes one of several particular undertakings embodied in a single agreement.

Failure to perform some due action or obligation.

An agreement or understanding, specifically in Scots Law; also an unofficial agreement as distinct from a legally binding contract.

Scots Law: Any adjunct to, accessory or privilege pertaining to a piece of land or heritable property.

A small Scottish coin, issued by James III c.1470, and later monarchs till the Union of the Crowns in 1603. It was valued at four pennies Scots.

Scots Law: To seize and sell (the goods of a debtor), to impound, to distrain.

The established usage or normal practice of a body of persons or an institution or in some form of activity.

Scots Law: Of an action or the like: to become invalid through the passage of time, to lapse, lose validity; to be immune from prosecution through lapse of time.

To put forth or display, declare, offer as a reward, propose (for an answer), intend.

The stage of life at which one is a minor or below the age of legal puberty.

Express approval or confirmation; an instance of this. Also approval or sanction of a criminal act given in such a way that the giver may be charged with being accessory to the crime or its perpetrators.

To refute, disprove

The re-admission by a feudal superior of a vassal to land which the vassal has conveyed to a creditor in wadset as security for a debt and which he has managed to redeem.

To restore or reinstate

A return drawn up by a judge and assize and sent to the chancellery in response to a brieve requiring a verdict on certain matters pertaining to the ownership and value of land.

The right of a debtor who has borrowed money on security of land to redeem the land within a limited time by payment of a sum specified in the original contract or in a separate deed.

To sell or let by auction.

Scots Law: The act or procedure of giving possession of feudal property, anciently by the symbolical delivery of earth and stones or similar appropriate objects on the property itself.

A duty consisting of a small quantity of grain levied from each consignment ground at a mill, as a perquisite for the miller’s servants.

To cause a deliberative or judicial body to sit; to convene.

Scots Law: An injunction suspending legal proceedings.

A unit corresponding to the number of grazing animals, usually cows or sheep, which a certain area of pasture can support.

To ordain, decree, enact.

The valuation or assessment of property formerly made for purposes of taxation.

A subtenant holding a subordinate lease from a lease-holder.

Attendance by a tenant at the court of his lord, or by landowners at parliament; the obligation to give such attendance. Also the action of prosecuting a person in a court of law; legal action, litigation.

Surplus, excess; over and above

Scots Law: A bond or obligation entered into between parties that they will keep the peace and not assault or molest one another.

A lease, tenancy, particularly the leasehold tenure of a farm, mill, mining etc.; tax- or toll-collecting, etc.

Scots Law: To determine or tie up the succession to (an estate); to entail where the succession to property is determined beyond or despite the normal rules of heritage or to a specified line of heirs.

The tenth part of the produce of land or industry set apart by the state for the support of religion, equivalent to the English tithe.

One who makes a will. Also, a person who or that which testifies; a witness.

Astriction or thirlage to a mill, the obligation imposed on tenants of having the grain from their lands ground at a particular mill.

Marriage portion, dowry paid by a bride’s family, chiefly her father, to the groom or his family.

A meeting arranged for the purpose of negotiation towards the settlement of a dispute. The action of negotiating such a settlement; arbitration.

Scots Law: A person who is guardian and administrator of the estate of a pupil or child under the age of minority. In land, an administrator over such property on behalf of a minor. Differs from a [curator](https://www.rps.ac.uk/static/glossary.html#curator) by having responsibility for the child’s person in addition to their estate.

A fine, usually a financial penalty, exacted from one found guilty of a crime or misdemeanour.

A land valuation carried out in 1667, for the purpose of taxation and determining public expenditure, superseding old and new extent.

Scots Law: With reference to property, to ‘succeed in the vice’, to take over a tenancy by collusion and without the consent of the owner.

Scots Law: Faulty, defective, illegal. In the phrase ‘vitious intromission’ or ‘possession’, the unwarrantable interference with the moveable estate of a deceased without legal title, whereby liability for all the deceased’s debts may be incurred.

The conveyance of land in pledge for or in satisfaction of a debt or obligation, with a reserved power to the debtor to recover his lands on payment or performance.

Scots Law: The oldest form of feudal land tenure, by military service, with various attendant rights and obligations, especially that of the superior to uphold and draw the rents of the lands of a deceased vassal while the heir was uninfeft (see infeft) or remained a minor, as an equivalent for the loss of military services during such period, the usage being termed ‘simple ward’.

A feudal obligation owed by burgesses or freemen of a town to participate in the activities of the town guard, sometimes commuted to a payment.

A writing having legal force, usually as witnessed, signed or sealed, a deed, a formal written document.

An enclosure, usually of stones, in an estuary or bay on the sea-shore, to trap fish, especially salmon, in nets or by hand.