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This glossary explains some of the words and terms used in the collection - Inverness Burgh Documents.

Acolyte - an altar attendant in public worship

Actor - a pursuer or plaintiff, a person who brings suit in a court (in Law)

Affix - assign or appoint

Aire - a circuit court held by itinerant judges or officers of justice; an itinerant court of justice

Alienate - to transfer or convey, as title, property, or other right, to another: to alienate lands

Allanerly, Allenarly - exclusively; solely; merely

Altarages - offerings made upon the alter of a church

Amerciate - to punish by a fine

Anent - concerning

Assedation - a lease; the act of letting in lease

Assignee - a person to whom a right or property is transferred

Assize - trial by jury

Astricted - bound legally or morally

Attour - in addition

Baxter - baker

Benefice - a position or post granted to an ecclesiastic that guarantees a fixed amount of property or income; the property or revenue attached to such an office

Bigged - built, constructed

Biggings - buildings

Blench-farm (also Blancheferme) - as applied to holding of land: free or involving payment of a merely nominal rent; a small or nominal quit-rent paid in money or otherwise

Bloodwit - a fine paid for shedding blood

Break Bulk - to discharge cargo

Brieve - an official document written by a judge or official

Brook - to enjoy the use or possession of

Burgess - citizen of a burgh

Calumny - to declare slanderously

Casualty - a payment due by a tenant

Cauillacioun, Cavillation - trickery or deception by quibbling

Clannit - belonging to a clan

Clare Constat - a deed executed by a subject superior, for the purpose of completing the title of his vassal's heir to the lands held by the deceased heir, under the granter of the precept, or writ

Claviger - one who carries the keys to a place

Cognomen - surname

Collation - the presentation of a member of the clergy to a benefice, esp. by a bishop who is the patron or has acquired the patron's rights

Commendator - an ecclesiastic who temporarily holds a position or post that guarantees a fixed amount of property or income

Commonty - a common possession; ground understood to belong to townships or communities,

Compear - to appear in court personally or by attorney

Conjunctly - jointly

Connex - an item of property connected with another. Always used in conjunction with annex.

Consistory - a council or court, specifically a bishop's court for ecclesiastical causes

Consuetude - general custom or habit

Cordiner - shoemaker

Couple - pair of sloping rafters in a building

Crowner - a district officer charged with maintaining certain rights of the crown; a colonel

Cruive - a wicker or wooden enclosure for catching salmon or other fish

Cure - care, charge, guidance or guardianship

De jure and de facto - in principle and in practice

Decern - prounounce judgement, decree

Decoring - decorating, embellishing

Decreet - decree

Delate - to accuse; to enlarge upon; to report

Demission - resignation, relinquishment

Derige - a funeral song or tune, or one expressing mourning in commemoration of the dead.

Derogate - diminish or impair by any encroachment or adverse action

Discommode - to cause inconvenience to; disturb, trouble, or bother

Discontiguous - not connected, adjacent, neighbouring

Dispone - to make over, or convey, legally (Scots Law)

Distrain - the legal seizure and detention of the goods of another as security or satisfaction for debt

Dittay - a statement of the charge or charges against an accused person; an indictment.

Doomster - the official, generally the hangman, who formerly pronounced sentence in Scots courts of law

Dotate - given as an endowment

Easement - a right held by one property owner to make use of the land of another for a limited purpose, as right of passage

Effeir - to concern

Emoluments - returns arising from office or employment usually in the form of compensation

Escheat - to take property, possessions, or goods from a person by forfeiture or confiscation

Evident - a document establishing a legal right or title to anything. In common use, 1400-1640

Executorials of horning - instructions or letters in the sovereign's name charging the persons named in them to make the payment or performance ordered under the penalty of being outlawed for disobedience.

Exeem - to free, relieve, exempt from some obligation, esp. a tax

Exoner - to relieve from a charge, obligation, duty,

Feal - turf, of greater thickness than a divot

Fence - to open the proceedings of a court or parliament with a formula forbidding disorderly interruption or obstructive behaviour

Ferm - rent from a farm

Feu - tenure of land in perpetuity in return for a continuing annual payment of a fixed sum of money to the owner of the land

Firlot - the fourth part of a boll of grain or meal. A boll varies according to locality but a boll of meal was approx. 140 pounds.

Firmance - imprisonment, custody

Fork - a pair of timbers supporting an end of a roof-tree

Fosse - canal, ditch, trench

Free ish and entry - the right to come and go

Fruits - produce of land as an item of revenue

Furth - forth, forward, onward

Gainsay - to oppose, dispute

Gresschip - district under the jurisdiction of the chief magistrate or provost of a burgh

Hearer - one who listens to the preaching of a certain minister, a church attender

Hership - the result of robbery or violence; loss, ruin, destitution, distress, famine

Horning - see under Executorials

Huckster - peddlar or hawker

Hungyn - append or attach one's seal to a document

Incumbent - a person who holds an ecclesiastical benefice

Indiction - a recurring fiscal period of 15 years, often used as a unit for dating events

Induction - a formal installation in an office, benefice, or the like

Indweller - a resident, inhabitant

Infangthief - the right of certain landowners to try and punish a thief taken within the area of their jurisdiction, abolished in 1748.

Infeft - to invest (a person) with heritable property

Instance - urgency, earnest pleading or appeal

Insucken - within the lands of an estate on which there was an obligation to grind corn at a certain mill, therefore liable to certain dues payable to the miller of that mill

Intromittor - a person who occupies himself, especially by interference or intrusion, with property or possessions belonging to another

Justice-aire - the circuit court of the sovereign's Justice, or of the Justice of a regality

Kist - a fish trap on the Lower Ness (see also Cruive)

Knaveship - a small due, in meal, established by usage, which is paid to the under miller

Lestande - continuing, perpetual

Liege - feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service

Litstar; Litster - a dyer

Litted - dyed

Lovite - beloved, dear

Macer - a mace-bearer, an officer who carried a ceremonial mace or ornamental wand as a symbol of authority or badge of office.

Maill - monetary payment or tribute, especially rent or tax

March - the border of land

Merk - a former silver coin of Scotland, equal to 13s. 4d.

Mess - mass

Multure - a toll or fee given to the proprietor of a mill for the grinding of grain, usually consisting of a fixed proportion of the grain brought or of the flour made (Scots Law)

Obits - memorial services

Orisons - pleas, prayers, orations

Outfangthief - the right of a landowner to pursue a thief outside his own jurisdiction in order to bring him to justice.

Outsucken - outside the lands of an estate on which there was an obligation to grind corn at a certain mill, therefore not liable to certain dues payable to the miller of that mill

Particate - a measure of land, the Latin particata, consisting of a Scots rood or 13,690 sq. ft., one quarter of a Scots acre

Patricius - nobleman

Patrimony - a property inherited by a person, institution or corporation from one's father, forbears or predecessors.

Peck - a measure of land

Peel - to unpack or unwrap (bulk goods); to separate into smaller packages for retailing.

Pendicle - a piece of land or other property regarded as subsidiary to a main estate

Peremptory - final, absolute

Pertinents - related items

Perturbation - being disturbed or harassed

Pickery - petty theft

Pit (as in Pit and Gallows) - a right of jurisdiction, conferred in grants of baronial rights, over criminals taken in the barony. In early use probably an 'ordeal pit' but later a pond or ditch in which a criminal might be executed by being drowned

Plaint - a statement of complaint, esp. one brought formally to a court or arbiter

Plenary - absolute, unqualified

Poind (v)- to take (property of a debtor) in execution or by way of distress (see distrain)

Poind (n) - an animal or a body of cattle or an article or a number of articles taken by distraint

Pontificate - the office or term of office of a pontiff (the Roman Catholic pope)

Portioner - the proprietor of a small estate or piece of land resulting from the division of an original forty-merk land among co-heirs or otherwise, a small land-owner

Prebendary - a canon or member of the clergy who is entitled to payment for special services at a cathedral or collegiate church.

Precentor - a person who leads a church choir or congregation in singing

Precept - a document instructing or conferring authority to take certain action; a warrant

Progenitor - ancestor or fore-father

Prolixity - lengthiness of discourse or written matter; excessive copiousness of words or matter.

Propone - put forth, display, declare

Quitclaim - the act of renouncing a claim

Reddendo - the duty, either in money, kind or service, to be paid by a vassal to a superior as set forth in a feu-charter, a feu-duty

Redding - the action of paying off debts

Remanent - remainder

Reset - to receive or handle goods knowing they have been stolen

Resign - to surrender a vassal's feu to the vassal's feudal superior

Resile - withtract or withdraw

Rogations - solemn supplication, esp. as chanted during procession on the three days (Rogation Days) before Ascension Day

Revocation - the action of recalling, rescinding or annulling a legal act previously performed; a deed, or article in a deed, cancelling an earlier deed.

Rodding - track, right of way

Rood - a measure of land equal to a quarter of an acre.

Sac - an act of destruction

Sasine - the granting of legal possession of feudal property (Scots Law)

Saule - soul

Saull Heill - salvation

Senescall, Seneschal - a steward or similar official charged with administering the estate or household of a king or magnate; The Steward of Scotland

Servitor - servant (in deferential usage)

Severally - individually

Simpliciter - simply, unconditionally, without further condition or reservation.

Skaith - physical damage to property

Sorning - the action or practice of extorting free quarters and provisions

Subchanter - a precentor's deputy

Succentor - a precentor's deputy

Sucken - the lands of an estate on which there was an obligation to grind corn at a certain mill

Suit - to ask for, claim, or crave, in a court of law

Surplice - a loose-fitting, broad-sleeved white vestment, worn over the cassock by clergy and choristers.

Sustentation - keeping up or maintaining

Teind - a tithe or tax, levy, or the like, esp. of one-tenth

Temporalities - revenue of the church or clergy

Tenandry - land or other property, etc. let for rent; those parts of an estate let out to tenants

Tenement - a holding of land; such a holding with a building or group of buildings occupying part or all of its area, usually within a burgh

Tenor - wording of a document

Them - a subject, a particular type of subject-matter; a proposition or topic for composition, discussion or elucidation

Thirlage - the obligation imposed on tenants of having the grain from their lands ground at a particular mill

Thol - to be subjected to or afflicted with (some evil); to be forced to undergo; to suffer

Titulo oneroso - supported by valuable consideration

Toft - the sight of a house or a building; a steading

Traist - faithful, trustworthy

Treiis - trees

Unlaw - a fine exacted from one found guilty of a crime or misdemeanour

Vassal - one who holds lands or entitlements from a superior

Vendition - the action of selling, the sale of goods; a document recording a sale

Vitiate - to make legally defective or invalid; invalidate

Wair - goods, etc. washed up by the sea

Waith - lost or stranded goods or animals, strayed animals for which no claim of ownership is made, and which are, in consequence, after due notice, escheat to the overlord or the crown.

Weal - welfare; well-being

Wrak - goods, material, the remnants of wrecked ships, etc. recovered from the sea

For a glossary of some of the terms used in the Inverness burgh documents click here.

To access 16th and 18th century maps of Inverness click here.

To access a detailed map of Inverness from 1869 click here.

If you would like to see the original item or require further information please see the archive's website for opening hours. The Highland Council Archive