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).
an agreement in two identical halves written
on one sheet which then usually has the word
"chirograph" written between the two
parts and is cut with a jagged line through
that word, each half then being given to a party
to the agreement, the principle being that the
two halves can authenticate each other when
matched up. But in practice in Scotland,
the word is almost entirely applied to a contract
in a normal form drawn up between a master and
an apprentice
another form of diligence,
this one being against heritable
property. It is the usual order in
the monarch's name under the signet,
prohibiting a debtor from running up any other
debt which might put a burden on his heritable
property to the disadvantage of his existing
creditor(s)
an enquiry made by a sheriff of a county and
a number of locals as jurymen into a point of
fact; it is usually held to establish who is
next heir to a piece of heritable
property (what can be called an "inquisition
post mortem"), but they could in theory
be about virtually anything, what to do with
a stranded whale, for instance
a formal document created by a notary-public
and authenticated by him; after the Reformation
they are generally instruments
of sasine,
which constituted the only legal evidence of
the giving of possession of a piece of heritable
property; before then, they could be about
anything that took the fancy of the clients
who paid for them practically
this is a type of restraint imposed by a court,
which usually takes the form of a bond;
it is imposed by a court on (or assumed voluntarily
by) a person who cannot handle his own affairs
and therefore might be taken unfair advantage
of, and its purpose is to prevent him from doing
anything which might affect his estate, without
the prior consent of those who are named in
the bond
taking up the possession and management of
property belonging to someone else; it can be
legal, when someone is designated as an "intromettor
with the goods and gear" of another, or
illegal, when it is called "vicious intromission"
in which case an heir intromits with the moveable
property of his ancestors without right
the time at which a lease expires; "ish
and entry" is a right given to someone
to go into and come out of ("ish fra")
lands, usually by specified entries and exits
