These old Celtic tenures, however, became gradually more and more assimilated to feudal forms as the kingdom with its mixed population assumed more the aspect of a feudal monarchy, and its kings adapted the customs of their subjects of different race to the model of those of the feudal law. In this progress of adaptation we can trace two distinct stages,—one when the crown lands came to be considered as held upon a distinct tenure termed in England fee-farm, in Scotland feu-farm, and in Latin charters feodifirma; and again, when the War of Independence which followed on the death of the last of the kings of the race of Malcolm Ceannmor and the contest between the houses of Bruce and Baliol led to numerous confiscations of the land held by their partisans on both sides, and to the general conversion of the crown grants into feudal tenures for military service.
The tenure of crown lands in feodifirma, or feu-farm, appears in England as early as the reign of King John, and must have then been already well established, as one of the stipulations in the articles of the Barons which led to the great charter of liberties or Magna Charta, and repeated in the latter, is, that if any one holds of the king per feodifirmam, or on sokage or burgage tenure, and of another for military service, the king is not to have the custody of the heir or of his land who holds of another in fee by reason of his fee-farm, sokage, or burgage holding of the king, nor shall he have the custody of the latter unless the fee-farm owes military service;[299] and in Scotland it was evidently recognised as a tenure holding of the Crown in the reigns of William the Lion and of Alexander the Second. The tenure in feu-farm or feodifirma was in fact an intermediate tenure between those who had merely the usufruct of land the right of property in which still remained with the granter, and those who held land as his vassal by a formal feudal grant for military service. Of the two words of which the name is composed, Firma—derived from the Saxon feorm—was the share of the produce of the land paid by a tenant to his landlord by way of rent; and to hold land ad firmam or in firma was equivalent to the modern leasehold tenure: it was constituted by a lease and completed by possession, and the tenant was called firmarius; but feodum is the feudal fief granted by charter and completed by seisin or infeftment. The tenure in feodifirma, therefore, was a feudal grant of land, not for military service, but for a firma or permanent rent, and was equally constituted by charter and seisin. Such lands were held ad feodifirmam, the annual payment was the feodifirma, and the holder was called feodifirmarius. These grants were supposed to resemble the Roman Emphyteusis, and the form still exists in Scotland in our modern feu-charter, in which the same expressions are used. In these the land is conveyed ‘in feu-farm, to be held in feu-farm fee and heritage for ever,’ for payment of an annual ‘feu-duty,’ and the granter is called the ‘feuar.’ It is, however, essentially a feudal holding, and differs from a mere tenancy by lease in this—that in the former the dominium utile of the land is conveyed by charter to the vassal, while in the latter the usufruct of the land is solely given, and the property of the soil remains with the granter.[300]
When the thanage came to be considered as crown land it assumed an appearance, with its thane holding it under the Crown and paying a share of the produce as Cain, which was so analogous to that of the feu-farm holding, that when feudal forms became more generally adopted it almost unavoidably passed over into the latter; and it is at this stage of the history of the thanage, when it was universally recognised as a feu-farm holding, that the very important description of the tenure of crown lands given us by Fordun in his Chronicle, to which we have already adverted, more directly applies. We must now examine this description more in detail.
Fordun divides the possessors and occupiers of the crown lands into three classes, beginning his description with the lowest class, and proceeding through the different ranks till he reaches the Thane; but it will be more convenient for our purpose to invert the order in which he describes them. He introduces his description by stating that the kings were accustomed of old to give to their soldiers more or less of their lands in feu-farm a thanage or portion of some province, of which, however, he gave to each as it pleased him. Then follow the three classes. The highest he terms principes, thani, and milites. To these, who were few in number, he gave the land in perpetuity, but under the burden of a certain annual payment to the king. The word principes here, probably, means the earls of those ancient earldoms who represented the old Mormaers, and whose demesne was held to have been originally part of the crown land.[301] The thani represented the older Toschachs, and here we find the Toschachs or thanes holding the demesne of the thanage of the king in feu-farm, and paying an annual feu-duty, first in kind, and retaining its original name of Cain, but afterwards commuted to a money payment. Accordingly, in the laws of William the Lion and of Alexander the Second we find them in the position of crown vassals holding of the king in capite. Thus in an assize held at Perth by King William the Lion there were present the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, thanes, and whole community or estates of the kingdom. Again, a law passed in A.D. 1220, regarding persons absenting themselves from the king’s army, mentions those belonging to the lands of bishops, abbots, barons, knights, and thanes who hold of the king.[302] By milites, Fordun here means those who held a portion of the thanage termed a tenement or tenandry, either direct from the king, or, as was more usual, under the thane or lord as a sub-vassal, as distinguished from the demesne.[303] These formed the class termed freeholders or libere tenentes, and were bound to yield certain services as suit and service in the court of the overlord and Scottish service to the king. This class is frequently alluded to in the laws both of William the Lion and of Alexander the Second. Thus in a statute of King William the Lion in 1180, regarding the holding of barony courts, it is provided that neither bishops nor abbots, nor earls nor barons, nor any freeholders (libere tenentes) shall hold courts unless the king’s sheriff is summoned, etc. Again, in a statute regarding justice and sheriff moots, we have barons, knights (milites), and freeholders (libere tenentes) classed together; and a statute regarding the mode of citation refers to persons cited to attend the moots of the justiciary shiref, baron, vavasour (that is, of one holding of a baron), or of any freeholder (libere tenentis) that has a court. Then a declaration regarding the freedom of the Church is made by King William at Scone, with the common consent and deliberation of the prelates, earls, barons, and freeholders (libere tenentium); and finally there is a statute by the same king that the earls, barons, and freeholders (libere tenentes) of the realm shall keep peace and justice among their serfs, and that they shall live as lords from their lands, rents, and dues, and not as husbandmen or sheep-farmers, wasting their property and the country with a multitude of sheep and beasts, thereby troubling God’s people with penury, poverty, and destruction; this curious statute showing not only the position of the libere tenentes as proprietors, but that there was a tendency even at this early period to withdraw land from culture and convert it into pasture land.[304] Then in the Statutes of Alexander the Second there is one de modo duelli secundum conditionem personarum, in which reference is made to the miles or knight, or son of a knight, or any libere tenens or freeholder in feodo militari or knight’s fee. Again, in another law, the king statutes that if any miles or knight shall be indicted by inquest, he shall pass through an assize of good and leil knights, or of freeholders of heritage (libere tenentium hereditarie);[305] and their position is clearly indicated by a provision in the Quoniam attachiamenta, that any freeholder (libere tenens) whose tenement is by his infeftment free from all service, shall fall to a lady by reason of her terce, and unwittingly did service to her, shall not be liable in similar service to his superior.[306] This view of the position of the libere tenentes as freeholders holding land under the thane or baron as sub-vassals of the Crown, is corroborated by a few charters which may be noticed. Thus Robertus de Keth, lord of the same and of the barony of Troup and Marischall of Scotland, grants certain lands within the barony of Troup to his son John de Keth, with the bondmen, bondages, native-men, and their followers, but reserving to himself the superiority and service of the freeholders (libere tenentium) of the lands of Achorthi, Curvi, and Hayninghill, lying within the barony of Troup. Again, Morgund, son of Albe, grants to his son Michael one davach of his land of Carncors in Buchan, to be held of himself in fee and heritage for ever, as freely as any freeman (liber homo) can grant land; and Alexander Cumyn, Earl of Buchan, grants to Fergus, son of John de Fothes, the tenement of Fothes, with its bondmen, bondages, native-men, and their followers, to be held of himself and his heirs in fee and heritage for ever, as freely as any freeman (liber homo) can hold (tenet) any tenement of any earl or baron within the kingdom, rendering such form in service to the king as pertains to their lands, and a half-pound of wax to us and our heirs in lieu of all secular service or demand which we can exact in future.[307]. This class appears to be meant by the Ogethearn of the old laws, who ranked next after the thane.[308]
The second of Fordun’s groups consists of those whom he terms liberi et generosi, who held portions of land either for ten or for twenty years or during life, with remainder to one or two heirs. These were the tenants in the modern sense of the term. The former were the liberi firmarii of the statutes, or free farmers, and the latter the kindlie tenants or tacksmen, who were usually near relations of the lord of the land, and when they had a liferent possession of land, occupied an intermediate position between the libere tenentes or freeholders and the firmarii or farmers, and may in fact be classed with either.[309] We find in this group a resemblance to the Ceile or tenants of the Irish Laws in two respects. First, in the steelbow tenancy, by which many of these tenants held their land, and were sometimes called steelbow-men. By this tenure the landlord provided the stock and implements called steelbow goods, which were transferred to the tenant on valuation; and he was bound on the termination of his lease to return stock and implements to the same value, while the rent paid for the land was higher in proportion to the value of the steelbow goods. Secondly, the smallest possession held by a free farmer appears to have been two bovates or oxgangs of land, or the fourth of a ploughgate, called in some parts of the country a husband-land; and we find that in the north of Scotland the name of Rath was given to this portion of land, a name which in the Irish Laws signified the homestead, which formed the lowest single tenancy. Thus William, son of Bernard, grants to the monks of Arbroath ‘two‘two bovates of land, which are called Rath (que vocantur Rathe), of the territory of Katerlyn (in Kincardineshire), with the right to pasture twenty beasts and four horses on the common pasture of Katerlyn; and the same person grants to the monks two other bovates of land in the territory of Katerlyn, consisting of seven acres of land adjoining their land which is called Rathe, on the north, and nineteen acres of land adjoining these seven acres on the seaside towards the east, under that culture which is termed Treiglas, thus making up the twenty-six acres of which a husbandland consisted.’[310] The word Rath enters largely into the topography of Scotland, under the forms of Rait, as in Logierait; Ra, as in Ramorny; Rothy, as in Rothiemay and Rothiemurchus, anciently Rathmorchus.
The last of Fordun’s groups consists of those termed Agricolœ or husbandmen, holding land from year to year for rent (ad firmam). They are distinguished from the liberi or freemen, and belonged to the class of holders of servile tenements termed in the laws Rustici. This class of servile tenants seems to form the object of the first laws made by Alexander the Second on his accession in A.D. 1214. They are issued at Scone, with the common council of his earls, for the profit of the country, and provide that the ‘Rustici in those places and townships in which they were the previous year shall exercise their agriculture and not neglect their own profit, but shall begin to plough and sow their lands with all diligence fifteen days before the Feast of the Purification (second of February); and that those Agrestes who have more than four cows shall take land from their lord and plough and sow it, to provide sustenance for them and theirs; and those who have less than five cows may not use them in ploughing, but shall labour the land with hands and feet, trenching and sowing as much as is necessary for the sustenance of them and theirs. Those that have oxen shall sell them to those that have land to plough and sow. Earls not allowing those who have such lands on their earldoms to do so shall forfeit eight cows to the king; and if any one holding of the king shall neglect to do so, he shall forfeit eight cows to the king. If he hold of an earl, he shall give the earl eight cows. If he be a serf, his lord shall take from him one cow and one sheep, and thenceforth shall force him who will not do it of free will; and the king adds the following warning to them to take heed that that does not happen to them which is taught in parables. He who will not plough in winter owing to severe cold shall beg in summer, and it shall not be given him, but rather according to the judgment of the apostle—Let them labour with their hands, working what is good, that they may have to give to those who are in necessity.’[311]
The thanage then consisted, like all baronies, of two parts, demesne and that part given off as freeholds (libera tenementa) or tenandries. The demesne was held by the Thane of the king in feu-farm, and cultivated by the servile class, the bondmen and native-men, and the tenandries were either held of him in fee and heritage by the sub-vassals called freeholders or libere tenentes, or occupied by the kindlie tenants and free farmers.
Such was their position prior to the death of Alexander the Third, the last king of the old dynasty, and a similar description would apply to those thanages which did not form part of the crown lands, but were held under earls of the ancient earldoms north of the Forth as part of their demesne,[312] or of the Church.
241. Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. c. 21.
242. Strabo, lib. iv.
243. Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, v. 12.
244. Solinus, c. 22.
245. Xifiline, lib. lxxvi. s. 12-16.
246. These passages are taken from the edition of the Amra Choluim Chilli, with a translation by Mr. O’Beirne Crowe.
247. Miscellany of the Celtic Society, p. 61.
248. The word Gialla means a hostage, and the Irish district is said to have been so named because the hostages of the conquered people were fettered with golden fetters.
249. Chronicles of Picts and Scots, pp. 308-314. The numbers are given as stated in the tract, but seem not quite correct. Thus there is an enumeration of the houses of the Cinel Angusa in connection with the lands occupied by them, which amount to 330 in place of 430, and the armed muster is not in proportion to the size of the tribe as shown by the number of houses. It is probable those of the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Angusa have been transposed, and that the 500 belongs to the former, the 300 to the latter.
250. Hist. MSS. Rep. v., p. 613; Robertson’s Index, pp. 39, 57.
251. ‘Taisius (Toisech) apud nos idem est sensu literali ac Capitaneus seu precipuus dux.’—O’Flaherty, Ogygia.
252. ‘Thanus apud priscos Scotos sive Hybernos dicitur Tosche.’—Regiam Majestatem, B. iv. c. 31; note by Sir John Skene.
253. Domania regis et Thanagia regis idem significant. Ass. reg. Da. c. Statuit Dominus, 38.—Skene, De Verborum Significatione.
Si vero in dominicis vel Thanagiis domini regis, etc. Stat. Alex. II.—Acts of Parliament, i. 399.
254. Acts of Parliament, i. p. 375.
255. ‘Abstractione sanguinis que dicitur Bludwytys.’—Chart. of Lennox, p. 44. ‘Bludwytys que Scotice dicitur fuilrath.’—Ib. p. 45.
256. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 663.
257. Thus the son of an Aire forgall was an Aire ard.—Brehon Laws, vol. i. p. 77.
258. Brehon Laws, vol. i. p. 49; Petrie’s Antiquities of Tarahill, p. 199; Chron. of Picts and Scots, p. 319.
259. Acts of Parl., vol. i. p. 640.
260. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 398.
261. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 655.
262. Liber de Scon, p. 24.
263. Chart. Dunf., pp. 6, 17. The two classes are mentioned in a charter by Thomas, Earl of Mar, in 1359, of the lands of Rotheneyk, ‘cum nativis et fugitivis dictarum terrarum.’—Ant. Aberd. and Banff, vol. iv. p. 716.
264. These names seem to be derived from the verb Cum, tene, retine; and in the one case forba or orba, terra, and in the other lamh, manus, with or without the preposition ar, upon. The word Cum is no doubt the root of the Irish Cumal, the primary meaning of which was a female slave.
265. Acts of Parl., vol. i. p. 381.
266. The word Davach has been supposed to be derived from Damh an ox, and Achadh or Ach a field, and thus to mean oxgang; but the Book of Deer shows this to be false etymology. The word there in its oldest form is Dabach, and the last syllable is inflected (forming in gen. pl. acc, dual Dabeg), which it could not be if it meant Ach a field. The word is also applied in Ireland to the largest liquid measure, and appears in this sense in the old Irish Glosses, ‘Caba, i.e. Cavea, Dabhach, genitive Dabhca’ (p. 63).
267. Dasent’s Saga of Burnt Njal.
268. Chart. of Lennox, pp. 34, 36, 38. Mr. W. Fraser, in his first report on the Montrose papers, notes a charter by Alexander of Dunhon to Sir Patrick of Graham of three quarters of a carucate of land of Akeacloy nether, which in Scotch is called Arachor (Hist. MSS. Rep. I. 166); but in his second report quotes two charters by the Earl of Lennox confirming to Sir David of Graham the half-carucate of land of Strathblahane, where the church called Arathor in the one charter and Letharathor in the other was built, but these charters have obviously been misread. It was not the church but the land conveyed that was called Arathor or Letharathor, that is, carucate or half-carucate (ib. iv. 386).
269. Antiq. Aberdeen and Banff, vol. iv. p. 690, where a dimidia carucata, or half-ploughgate, is said to contain ‘quater xx acras cum crofto habiente vii acras et communi pastura.’ In the Chartulary of Arbroath we have ‘una carrucata terræ mensurata et arabilis cum commune pastura,’ p. 7.
270. Charters of Holyrood, p. 44.
271. Chart. of St. Andrews, p. 114.
272. ‘The tenants, particularly of arable farms, have but small possessions, only the fourth part of a farm, or what is called here a Horsegang’ (Stat. Acc. of Kilmartin, viii. 97). In the Craignish papers it is termed a quarter or Horsegang, and an eight shilling and eight-penny land.
273. Scotch Legal Antiquities, by Cosmo Innes, p. 270. Mr. Innes was the first to discover this important analogy.
274. Origines Parochiales, vol. ii. part i. pp. 177, 191. Appendix III.
275. Information derived from the late Colonel Macdonell of Glengarry, who had an accurate knowledge of Highland traditions. In the Stat. Acc. of Saddel it is stated that the average stock of a merk land is 4 horses, 12 milch cows with their followers, and 40 sheep with theirs (vol. xii. p. 477).
276. Reg. Mag. Sig., lib. xiv. No. 389.
277. Chart. of St. Andrews, p. 45.
278. Chartulary of Dunfermline.
279. Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banff, vol. ii. p. 273.
280. Chartulary of Moray, p. 8.
281. Ib. p. 83.
282. Antiq. of Aberdeen and Banff, vol. ii. pp. 17, 22.
283. Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banff, vol. i. p. 174.
284. Chartulary of St. Andrews, p. 238.
285. Chartulary of Arbroath, pp. 12, 35.
286. Chartulary of Glasgow, p. 12.
287. Chartulary of Holyrood, p. 61.
288. Acts of Parl., vol. i. p. 378.
289. Chart. of Moray, pp. 23, 76, 80.
290. Craig arrives at the true meaning when he says, ‘Meo quidem judicio melius a canone deducetur, cum idem prope significet. Canon enim in jure præstationem annuam sive pensitationem innuit, unde canon frumentarius et canon metallicus.... Est itaque Cana idem quod Canica, sive Canon, sive certa præstatio annua, quæ nunquam naturam feudi per se, neque speciem tenendriæ immutat, ut nulla alia præstatio annua, nisi exprimatur tenenda in feudifirma.’—Jus feudale, pp. 79, 28.
291. Liber Ecclesie de Scon, p. 7.
292. Chamberlain Rolls, pp. 6, 50. There is a blank in the record.
293. Appendix III., Athole Papers. Collect. de Rebus Albanicis, p. 16.
294. Innes’s Legal Antiquities, p. 70; Ware’s Antiquitates Hibernicæ, p. 209; O’Curry, Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol. iii. p. 495, note; Ulster Archæol. Journal, vol. iv. p. 241. Mr. Innes’s attempt to explain these terms will show how essential an acquaintance with the ancient Irish laws is to the interpretation of our ancient Scotch customs.
295. Chart. of St. Andrews, p. 277.
296. Faciendo forinsecum servitium tantum quod pertinet ad quinque davachas terræ, servitium vero pertinens ad sextam davacham de Blar dictis canonicis remisimus.—Liber Ecclesie de Scon, p. 42.
297. Aliquod servitium nisi forinsecum servitium Scoticanum domini regis.—Chart. of Moray, p. 470.
298. Faciendo forinsecum servitium in exercitu quod pertinet ad predictas terras.—Chart. of Arb., p. 74.
299. Stubbs’s Select Charters, pp. 284, 293.
300. This more detailed explanation seems necessary, as the term is often used loosely, as if the feu-farm holding was a mere tenancy. See the author’s edition of Fordun, vol. ii. p. 415, for a fuller discussion of this.
301. The seven earls appear, according to Fordun, at the coronation of King Alexander the Second, and in the same year he passes some laws, apparently with consent of these earls, regarding the land. In the first the expression is, ‘Rex cum communi consilio comitum suorum.’ In the second, ‘Rex et principes ejus.’ By Fordun they are usually called magnates et proceres.
302. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 377. Two popular errors have prevailed with regard to the true character and position of the thanes. By the oldest of these they were regarded as the governors of provinces, having over them an abthane or chief governor. Fordun seems the inventor of this, and to it belongs his mythic character Macduff, thane of Fife; but it is inconsistent with the account he subsequently gives of the tenure of the crown lands, and although it has received the sanction of Mr. Hill Burton, it has been justly discarded by such historians as George Chalmers, Joseph Robertson, Cosmo Innes, and John Stuart. The later theory, that the thanes were something entirely different from the English thane, and were merely crown officers or stewards appointed to levy the crown dues, has unfortunately received the powerful sanction of these writers, but the author has never been able to accept the theory. It appears to him a partial and incomplete view, and inconsistent with the facts recorded regarding them. Sir John Skene states his position correctly when he says, ‘Thanus was ane freeholder holding his lands of the king.’—De Verborum Sig., sub voce. The reader is referred to the author’s edition of Fordun, vol. ii. p. 414, for a discussion on this point.
303. ‘Milites, Leg. Malc. Mab., c. 2, and generalie in the auld lawes of this realme, are called freehalders, haldand their landes of barons in chief.’—Skene, De Verborum Sig., sub voce.
304. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. pp. 375, 377, 380, 382.
305. Ib. vol. i. pp. 400, 403.
306. Ib. p. 652.
307. Ant. Ab. and Banff, s. 492, iii. 112, iv. 116. The same loose notions have prevailed of the position of the libere tenentes as of the thanes, and therefore it has been necessary to treat of both somewhat at length. Libere tenentes are usually translated ‘free tenants,’ just as tenant du Roi, in Ragman Roll, is usually translated ‘king’s tenant,’ as if they were tenants in the modern sense of the term, from the unfortunate propensity to render a word in one language by its phonetic equivalent in another, though the meaning may be different; but the true rendering of the one is ‘freeholders,’ and of the other, ‘holding of the king in capite.’ Ware defines the libere tenentes in Ireland as those qui prædia habebunt, ad hæredes transmittenda (Ant. Hib., 209); and Craig gives a very clear account of these in Scotland (Jus feudale, 87. 6; 248. 28; 362. 42). According to Cowell, ‘Freehold frank tenement, liberum tenementum, is that land or tenement which a man holdeth in fee, feetail, or at least for term of life.’ Freeholders in the ancient law of Scotland were called milites; and tenement or tenementum, he says, ‘signifies, most properly, a house or homestall, but more largely either for a house or land that a man holdeth of another, and joined with the adjective Frank, it contains lands, houses, and offices, wherein we have estate for term of life or in fee.’
308. Ochiern, ‘Ogitharius,’ is ane name of dignitie and of ane freehalder.—Skene, De Verborum Sig.
309. See Erskine’s Institutes, vol. i. p. 370, for a good account of the rentallers or kindlie tenants.
310. Chart. of Arbroath, pp. 44, 88. The word terra, here translated land, means usually arable land only. Treiglas is probably Traighghlais or sea-shore, from Traigh, strand; and Glas, an old word for the sea.
311. Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 397.
312. Quod rex debet habere forisfactum comitum si thani eorum remanserunt ab exercitu, etc.—Acts of Parliament, vol. vi. p. 398.
Such being the process by which the ancient tribe in the eastern districts passed into the thanage, the events which followed the death of Alexander the Third produced a change which entirely altered this position, so that the thanage in its original form may be said to have ceased with the dynasty of kings of which he was the last. The war with England which followed, the conflict between two families of Norman descent for the succession to the crown, the numerous confiscations of their respective partisans which accompaniedaccompanied it and led to their possessions falling to the Crown and the final establishment of a Norman dynasty of kings, naturally created a great revolution in the land-tenure of Scotland; the extension of the feudal holding of ward and relief became the established policy of the Crown, and the ancient Celtic tenures gradually gave way before the advancing feudalism, and eventually disappeared under its influence.
After the wars of independence and succession we find most of the thanages had reverted to the Crown, and they were usually re-granted to Norman barons on a feudal tenure for military service. This will be illustrated by three charters of David the Second, all granted in the same year. By the first he infefts his cousin, Walter de Lesly, knight, heritably in the thanage of Aberkerdor and its pertinents in the county of Banff, and in the thanages of Kyncardyn; and then follows this instructive clause:—‘Yet because perchance the heirs of the thanes who anciently held these thanages in feu-farm might recover these thanages to be held in future as their predecessors held them, we grant to our said cousin, that if these heirs, or any of them, recover these thanages, or any of them, our said cousin and his heirs shall hold and possess the services of the heirs or heir of the said thanes or thane, and the feu-duties or feu-duty anciently due from the thanages or thanage.’ This clause seems to have interposed no obstacle to the feudal tenure of the thanages being completed, for it is followed by two charters to Walter de Lesly,—one of the fee of the thanages of Kyncardin, Aberluthnot, and Fettercairn, with their bondmen, bondages, and followers, and erecting the same into a feudal barony, with the usual jurisdiction, and under the obligation of rendering military service; and another of the thanage of Aberkerdor, likewise erected into a barony in similar terms.[313]
A review of the thanages still existing at this time, with such information as the records afford us, will complete this view of their position.