alba firme
The Latin term for blench ferme, whereby lands are held for a ‘peppercorn rent’, a nominal rent of small value such as a peppercorn or rose.
Your Scottish Archives Glossary
The Your Scottish Archives 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 at your@scottisharchives.org.uk.
You can also use the Dictionary of the Scots Language as a further resource at https://dsl.ac.uk/ for Scots words and phrases (including legal terminology).
To find a term within the glossary, click on the initial letter of the word you are looking for, then select the relevant syllable segment displayed below.
Example: to find the term “roup” select section “R” then sub-section “Ro”
alienate
sell or otherwise transfer the title to property.
aliment
a maintenance. This was not reserved for maintenance due to a wife by a husband but also for other forms of maintenance such as that provided by creditors for impoverished debtors in prison, under the Act anent aliment of poor prisoners, 1696 (also known as the Act of Mercy).
allenarly
only, solely or exclusively.
allodial
Non-feudal, as applied to the tenure of land, as in the case of udal tenure and church property.