Series 3 > Ayr Burgh accounts, 1534-1624

INTRODUCTION xvii
collected by a receptor firmarum—villa existente in manu
regis.1
After 1357 recovery and greater regularity are to be
noted in the Exchequer payments, and feu-ferming went
on apace. Dundee, after paying 20 merks for a number
of years, achieved feu-ferme tenure in 1365 at a reddendo
of £20, and Montrose, after a five-year lease at 10 merks
per year, had its payment fixed at £16. Inverness was
raised, ex assedacione sibi facta in feodo, from £40 to 80
merks, Perth from a sum varying between £26 and £54
(instead of the earlier £160) to £80, and Banff to 50 merks
from slightly less.2 Ayr generally paid about £10 as
burgh-ferme in the late fourteenth century,3 and this was
the duty fixed by feu-charter in 1400 4; the addition
of £10 for the barony of Alloway5 brought the total
burgh-mail up to £20.6 The process of transforming short
leases into feu-fermes, normally 7 at a slightly enhanced
reddendo, went on continuously during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, with occasional remissions, partial8
or complete,9 and irregularities, like the leasing of mills
apart from ordinary fermes 10 or the payment of dues to
ballivi ad extra, nobles or other royal deputies.11 * * Eventually
1 Exch. Rolls, I, 473, 484-5, 518, 524.
2 Exch. Rolls, II, 154, 204, 391, 491, 495, 540. It was now ballivi, not
prepositi, who answered for the fermes : ib., I, 609-10, 618.
2 Ib., II, 486, 573, 590 ; III, 24, 129, 158, 306.
4 Ayr Charters, 25-6. 6 Ib., 9-10, 21-2.
0 Exch. Rolls, IV, 22.
7 But not always. Thus new charters eased the payments of Cupar
(1428) and Renfrew (1436, 1453). Ib., IV, 426, 487 ; V, 158-9, 563.
8 North Berwick, much raided, was let off in 1480 with £1 ex tolerancia
domini regis : ib., IX, 90.
9 Selkirk was long exempt, and when it resumed (1425) its mail was
based on the old burghal assessment (sd. per rood), then raised from
£i, ns. 8d. to £3, 6s. 8d., and finally to £5. Ib., IV, 419, 460, 520 ; VII,
515 ; VIII, 206 ; XI, 383-4. 19 Ib., IV, 27.
11 Ib., VI, 195, 347 (Wigtown and Kirkcudbright); VII, 517 (Elgin and
Forres) ; XII, 607, 609 (Lochmaben and Kintore).
b