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”
this refers to a highly unusual form of tenancy, in which ‘kindly tenants’ held their tenancies for a low or ‘favourable’ rent (which included paying no rent at all). It seems that, unlike normal tenants, it was understood that that kindly tenants could be succeeded in their holdings by their heirs. They were also called ‘rentallers’.