The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) 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. Since the SCAN project ended, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has gone online at http://www.dsl.ac.uk/, and this should be consulted for Scots words and phrases (including legal terms).
in the most usual Scottish sense, a formal
written document in a set form which gives the
terms of an agreement, contract or obligation;
for practical purposes, any document which isn't
a sasine
or concerned with the transfer of heritable
property
nomination of successors to a property in
a specific order; seeentail
diem
clausit extremum
" he has closed his last day"; the
name of a royal order sent to a sheriff to enquire
into the death of a debtor of the Crown, and
to ensure the Crown is satisfied for the debt
a legal action to compel a defaulting party
to an obligation to pay or perform what he had
undertaken in the obligation; it comes in various
forms, depending on whether action is taken
against the defaulter's moveable
or
heritable property. Horning
and poinding
are the usual ones applied to moveables, inhibition
to heritable subjects.
the extent of a bishop's jurisdiction.
They continued important for long after the
Reformation, because the area of jurisdiction
of each
commissary was determined by the bounds
of the earlier diocese
"the lordship by usage"; the interest
which a vassal
had in landed property, that is, the right
to direct usage and enjoyment of the income
from the land
a judgement or sentence. "Falsing
the doom" was to make a protest against
a judgement on the grounds that you didn't like
it, before taking the matter to a higher court
