Series 5 > Miscellany [of the Scottish History Society] XIII

FISCAL FEUDALISM IN EARLY
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SCOTLAND
edited by Julian Goodare
INTRODUCTION
In the early seventeenth century, Scotland’s feudal conveyancing system
was not just a technical matter for property lawyers. Fiscal feudalism was
of much interest to the crown as a source of revenue. The two documents
edited here, one written by an administrator and the other by a lobbyist,
go some way towards describing the system as it operated in practice and
offer comments on its advantages and disadvantages both for the crown
and for the subjects. The first is ‘Ane Breiff Information for the
Thesaurer’, written by Mr Alexander Colville in c.1616; the second is
‘Memoriall anent the Change of Holding of Lands whereof his Majestie
is Immediate Superior from Simple or Taxt Waird unto Few’, an
anonymous document datable to between 1641 and 1644.
Feudal tenure: reddendo, casualties and accidents
Leading Scottish landlords held their lands directly of the crown, though
they could sublet or grant out part of those lands to other landlords. Four
main forms of tenure from the crown were recognised in the early
seventeenth century.1 The most basic was ward and relief (which the
‘Memoriall’ called ‘simple waird’).2 Three further forms, all more or less
variants of it, existed: blench-ferme, taxed ward and feu-ferme.3 The
1 There are accessible accounts of the tenures in W. Rodger, The Feudal Forms of
Scotland Viewed Historically (Edinburgh, 1857), 28-38, and P. Gouldesbrough (ed.),
Formulary of Old Scots Legal Documents (Stair Society, 1985), chs. 11-13. J. Clerk & J.
Scrope, Historical View of the Forms and Powers of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1820), was written in the 1720s and has value as a near-contemporary
source.
2 Below, p. 198.
3 Blench-ferme and taxed ward had originated as variants of ward and relief, while feu-
ferme had originated as a perpetual lease that gradually approximated to the form of a
feudal tenure.