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”

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Ba Be Bi Bl Bo Br Bu

blench ferme

or ‘blench holding’. One of the four conditions, or tenures, in Scots law on which lands could be granted; in this case, the lands were held for nominal payment, usually a ‘penny money’ or a peppercorn or a rose, which was only to be paid if it was asked for (“si tamen petatur” in Latin). This type of holdings was most common when lands had been bought by someone; the seller would be (in theory) the granter of the lands, but in practice would have not further rights in them. If the buyer held the lands from the seller alone, and not from the superior also, he would have a base right.