a lease; in Scotland it had to be a formal written contract between landlord and tenant laying down the period of the lease and the payments to be made for it.

someone who holds a tack or lease of land.

a particular form of deed; for details, see entail.

also known as the Court of Teinds, this was a component of the Court of Session dealing with teinds (Scottish tithes). The Teind Court arose after the Reformation, when a great deal of the property of the medieval church fell into the hands of laymen meaning that the ministers of the reformed church received insufficient financial provision. In 1617 a committee of Parliament called the Commissioners of Teinds was appointed to settle suitable stipends for ministers and after 1707 its powers passed to the judges of the Court of Session who formed the Teind Court, with power to decide on such matters as the valuation and sales of teinds, the augmentation of stipends and the building of new churches, which had the advantage that the authority of the Court of Session could be annexed to their decisions. See also parsonage teinds.

the tenth part of the annual produce of a unit of land, which was payable to the Church, though ‘vicarage teinds’, the lesser teinds due from a parish and paid in kind, were due not by law, but by custom (known as tithes in England). See also Teind Court

the land and other properties belonging to the Church, except glebes, manses and teinds (which were spiritualities)

one who holds lands (generally for a fixed term) by tack.

a landowner in the feudal system who held his estates directly from the crown.

in legal terms, a landholding, usually (but not always) a piece of land which is built upon. A more modern, architectural meaning of ‘tenement’ is a type of domestic building, divided into separate dwellings (flats), each of which is separately rented or owned. This type of building became very common in industrial towns of Scotland in the late nineteenth century.

a widow’s legal entitlement to a liferent of one-third of her husband’s heritable property; her entitlement in respect of his moveable property being the jus relictae.   If a special, alternative provision had been made for her in her marriage contract (the jointure), she would, after 1681, have lost her right to a terce, unless it had been specified in the contract that she should have that as well.

when rents and feu-duties fell due to be paid, usually half at Pentecost or Whitsunday, and half at Martinmas (11 November)

a written deed appointing an executor to administer a person’s moveable property after his death.  If this is done by the person making the testament during his life-time, it is called a testament testamentar, if the person died without making a testament a court would appoint the executor, and the deed by which this was done was a testament dative. Testaments did not necessarily include a will. Until 1868 wills and testaments had no bearing on the disposal or administration of any heritable property the deceased might have had, and for that reason people with heritable property generally set up a trust disposition and settlement. For more detail see the Knowledge Base entry on Wills and Testaments

a written deed appointing an executor-dative, i.e. an executor appointed by the Commissary Court.

a written deed appointing an executor-nominate, i.e. an executor nominated by the deceased through a will or other testamentary writing.

halter or tie for animals.

or ‘thirds of benefices’.  When the property of the medieval Church was available to acquisitive laymen after the Reformation, the king took over one-third of the revenues of all church benefices to make sure that something would still be left for the ministers of the reformed church ; appropriate parts of these revenues were assigned to the ministers, and any surplus was retained by the Crown. This was not really sufficient, which is why the Teind Court came into being.

an alternative name for astriction; it was the servitude whereby the proprietors and tenants of lands were bound to take their grain to one particular mill only for grinding, for which they would have to pay multures and sequels; the lands they held which were bound to the mill, were the mill’s sucken, and those bound to use the mill were termed its ‘in-sucken multurers’.

measure of cut grain, straw, reeds or other thatching material, consisting of two stooks, usually with twelve sheaves each but varying locally.

the name for forfeiture of landed property caused not just by failure to pay feu-duty or render service to the superior, but by the commission of penal offence.

the dowry brought by a wife to her husband at the time of their marriage.