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).
sasine either the symbolic
act of giving legal possession of a piece of
heritable property, or the instrument by which
such an act was proved to have happened. The
origin of the term is the same as that for the
word 'seize' - meaning to take possession of
(in Scottish documents it is generally rendered
'seis'). Hence, for example in an abridgement
of sasine, someone who became the owner of a
property (by succession, gift, purchase or whatever)
is recorded as being 'seised' of that property.
see symbols.
the little payments made to the miller and
servants of a mill in meal, grain, or a money
equivalent by those having their corn ground
there; they depended on the particular custom
of the mil land were variously called "bannock,
knaveship
and lock
and gowpin"
the process by which an heir acquired the
right to an estate. It started with the
brieve ordering an inquest
to determine who was next heir to the estate,
followed by the retour of the inquest stating
the heir's right to succeed followed by his
entry, (his formal acceptance by the superior
of the estate). It was called a "special
service" when the heir's ancestor had been
formerly infeft
in the estate, that is, had had full legal possession
of it by virtue of a sasine;
if the heir's ancestor was not infeft, then
the process was called a "general service".
Until the process of serving the heir had been
gone through, he would be the apparent heir;
see also heirs
obligations which went with a property, or
which had to be performed to a particular person
"sheriffs in
that pairt"
Although ordinary mortals had baillies
in that part to represent them in carrying out
a particular function, usually the giving of
sasine, the
Crown's representatives on such occasions were
"promoted" to sheriffs
the signet was the smallest of the four royal
seals, and being smallest, was used for the
most routine business. The Great Seal
would be used for charters, treaties, grants
of land, commissions to high officers of the
Crown and other major state documents; the privy
or secret seal was originally used for royal
orders or brieves, but later came to be used
for such things as grants of moveable
property and grants of minor officer the
quarter seal was used for more routine administrative
documents and warrants for the use of the Great
Seal, in fact for much the same purposes as
the privy seal had been originally used, and
the signet was used simply for the private letters
and order by the king to his "sheriffs
in that pairt" ordering them to carry out
a specific function; it was thus used to authenticate
orders by the king's court to its functionaries
for the administration of the law, in summoning
people to court or in carrying out one of the
legal diligences
against them. Such letters were prepared
by writers
to the signet.
letters by the relations of a person who had
been killed, witnessing that they had received
compensation (assythement) for the death from
the killer, and applying to the Crown for a
pardon for him
an obsolete method of holding lands in return
for the performance of certain services to their
superior; a shade different from ward-holding
since the service to by returned could be just
about anything and was not (necessarily) of
a military nature. In Scotland, holding
in soccage seems to have been mostly in return
for agricultural services. In the case
of services performed to the king's person,
for example by his barber or by the keeper of
his falcons, it could be called "sergeanty"
instead of soccage
sorning
taking meat and drink by force or menaces,
and without paying
letters under the signet seal charging the
heir of someone who had died infeft
in lands, to enter as heir to them. The
word "special" is there because the
ancestor of the heir had been infeft in the
lands, as in a "special service",
which was the process by which the heir of someone
who had been infeft acquired right to his estate
the taking away of someone else's moveable
goods against their will or without the order
of the law; the "moveable counterpart"
of ejection, as it were
staff and baton
(fustum et baculum in Latin)
These were the symbols used to represent a
vassal's resignation of his lands into the lands
of his superior
steelbow goods
were corn, cattle, ploughs and similar implements
which might be given by a landlord to his tenant
farmer to enable him to stock and maintaining
the lands leased by him; for this, the tenant
was bound to return goods of equal quality and
quantity at the expiry of his lease
all the lands which were astricted
to a particular mill, in that their holders
were bound to have their grain ground there
and nowhere else, were called the mill's sucken;
the people bound to the mill were its "suckeners"
sunk
straw pad or cushion, used as a substitute for
a saddle, frequently in a pair slung on either
side of the horse; turf seat
the person who had made an original grant
of land in return for the payment of an annual
sum or feu,
or for the performance of certain services,
or both; the person receiving the grant who
was thereby bound to make the payment or do
the service which went with the lands, was the
superior's vassal
persons who were nominated every year in each
county, to levy the land-tax due from their
county, maintain roads and control the raising
of the militia, etc.
the giving of sasines was a ceremony deriving
from a time when few people were literate and
it was thus highly symbolic so that anyone could
see and recognise what was going on.
The grantee's baillie
would meet the granter's baillie
on the ground of the lands being granted, with
several witnesses and a notary, present the
grantee's title to the lands (his charter and
precept of sasine from the granter) and ask
that sasine by given; these would be passed
to the notary who would read them to the witnesses,
and then the granter's baillie would give sasine
by presenting the grantee's baillie with a symbol
appropriate to what was being granted, so that
the witnesses could understand that ownership
had been formally transferred. The most
common symbols were earth and stone used for
the giving of sasine in lands' if what was granted
was an annual rent from lands, these would be
passed over together with "a penny money".
If sasine was given in fishings the symbols
were a net and coble; if in the patronage of
a church, a psalm book and the church keys,
if in a mill, the clap and happer of the mill,
if in teinds, a sheaf of corn, if a jurisdiction,
the court book, if property in a burgh, a hasp
and staple, and combinations of these might
be used. Finally, if lands were resigned
to a superior, the symbol passed over were the
staff and baton. After all this was done,
the notary would go away and write it all up
in the form of an instrument
