Canna
Principal Sources
RMS VIII (1197) 1628 on original of 1627
RMS XI (541) 1663, (930) 1666
Historical Manuscripts Commission 4th Report p 480 No 127 (1627) & 128 (1672)
CRA p 2 1561
RH4/90/12 1595
Argyll Valuation Roll 1751 (Mitchell Library, Glasgow – Reference TD 363)
GD201/1/362/28/41 1680
GD201/2/53 1781
GD23/8/10 1797
E744/1/1 & 2 D Bruce rental 1748
GD201/5/1257/4 Rental 1718
GD128/49/3/1 p 38ff Rental 1798
Inverness Retours (51) 1633
APS VII p 403 1662
RHP 8731 Plan of the Harbour of Canna, G Langlands, 1788
RHP 8738 Written description to go with RHP 8731
W Bald, Map of Canna, 1805 (copy held by RCAHMS)
Macfarlane’s Geographical Collections II pp 177, 529
WF Skene, Celtic Scotland III, p 434
T Pennant, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides 1772, (republished Edinburgh, 1998) – pp 270-276
C Fraser-Mackintosh, Antiquarian Notes (1913) p 17, Bond of 1745
JL Campbell, Canna (3rd edition), Edinburgh, 1994
J Munby, Lost Ancestors – Island families in 1765 on Eigg, Muck, Rum & Canna, Oxford, 2007.
Canna was originally the property of Iona. It is listed among the possessions of the abbey in a papal protection dated 1203.
Canna and Sanday were 50d or 2½ ouncelands. On the assumption that the same exchange ratio between ouncelands and merklands applied in all the Small Isles we would expect Canna & Sanday to be worth £10 or 15 merks. This is the figure given in RMS VIII (1197) of 1628 & GD201/1/362/28/41 of 1680. Skene’s source gives Canna as 6m but Skene’s source was also wrong for Rum and Muck. The rental of the Bishopric of the Isles and Abbey of Iona in CRA p2 gives Canna at £20 in 1561. This is probably intended as a valuation.
JL Campbell (Canna p 215) thought that Canna contained mail-lands. I can find no evidence for them. The document he quotes is supposed to be a certified extract from the Argyll Valuation Roll of 1751. However the copy of the AVR in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, makes it clear that the unit of assessment in Canna was pennylands.
The 1798 rental states that there was a dispute over the number of pennylands in Sanday. The proprietor obviously claimed there were 9 but the tenants only paid rent for 8. It is probably the case that 9 was correct. 50d (2½ ouncelands) seems a more likely total valuation for Canna and Sanday than 49d. Moreover Canna’s Scots valuation was £10 or 15m which would exactly equal 2½ ouncelands at the exchange rate of 1 ounceland to 6 merks found in the Small Isles, the Uists and Barra.
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