Land-assessment
This overview was written to accompany the section of the blog dealing with Renfrewshire. For a fuller development of the issues see file called ‘Towards a General theory of land-assessment in Scotland’ within the General Summaries section.
Land-assessment is how we describe valuations put on pieces of land. These valuations allow land to be taxed in proportion to its value. If land worth X raises Y in terms of cash or grain or animals, or whatever is the prevailing local medium of exchange, then land valued at 2X will, other things being equal, raise 2Y. By its very nature it also acts as a register allowing comparisons between different pieces of land.
Over time, and between areas, these relative proportions may become completely out of kilter. Weather, climate change, erosion, deforestation, drainage and a myriad other factors may affect the productivity of a piece of land, or of a whole area. Over centuries, some areas may decline or advance in economic terms, relative to others. In addition, there is the human impact to take into account. Perhaps enterprising farmers have drained bogs or manured their fields; in other areas farming populations may have been ravaged by war or disease. Land-valuations became deep-rooted in the conservative rural psyche. As a result, valuations may not have changed as much, or as often, as, in economic terms, they should have done. Some land valuations appear anomalous in later times. Land-assessment provides us with an index of land-values at a particular point in time, even if they became distorted with the passage of further time.
It appears then, that land-assessment is as boring a subject as taxation? Against this we might argue that land-assessment provides economic data for all of Britain from early historic times, times when we have precious little other data. This data has been preserved for many hundreds of years, sometimes for more than a millennium. It takes us past the actions of kings and queens and nobles to point to the underlying economic structures which these self-same families harnessed and depended upon. It points us to wealth and resource, the economic components which sustained, or drove, all political and cultural activity. It is an index to the wealth of the land and whilst wealth does not dictate precise political actions it helps determine trends and sequences.
Scotland
Scotland’s history shows several types of land-assessment at work. For this study I am going to ignore modern systems with their assessments of rateable value and measurement by area. Although formal measurement in Scotland is recorded from at least the twelfth century there is only one ancient land-assessment system which depended upon measurements of area. That is the system of ploughgates and oxgates.
I am also going to ignore local systems or descriptions that did not have national significance. These include cowlands from Islay, horsegangs from Kerrera, quarters and fearanns in Easter Ross. Also ignored are all terms for small areas of land such as butts, sheds, wards, rooms, dales, rigs and crofts, which may, in some cases, have once designated a precise area. Such terms are usually too vague and uncertain for us to put any weight on them. They usually define quite small areas of land and may well have varied across space and time.
After making these exclusions the various systems at work in Scotland may be characterised as follows:
Firstly, a currency-based system based on merklands (with sub-units of shillinglands and pennylands). A merk was 160d and was the cornerstone of the Scottish currency system with the first Scottish coins minted about 1136. A piece of land might therefore be termed a 40s (£2 or 3 merkland) or 20s (£1 or 1½m), or 13s 4d (1 merk or £⅔ land) land. (A pound was 240d so a merk at 160d was £⅔). Because there was constant communication between the great Norman families on both sides of the border with England, between 1066 and the Wars of Independence, these two methods of reckoning (poundlands and merklands) worked completely in tandem. An estate might be referred to, indiscriminately, as £20 land or 30m land. Contemporaries were completely at ease moving between these two systems.
Merklands are not found uniformly across Scotland. Some areas are saturated with merklands, others, such as the far north, including Sutherland, Caithness and Easter Ross, remained relatively untouched. However, the sheer number of documents in mediaeval Scotland which mention merklands is overwhelming.
Another currency-based system founded on pennylands is to be seen in those parts of Scotland colonised by the Norse and other Scandinavians. It is important to distinguish between the pennylands established under the Norse system and the pennylands which featured as a sub-unit under the Scottish system of merklands. A pennyland Scots would be far less important than a pennyland Norse but we do have references to 5 pennyland or 10 pennyland or 40 pennyland units which are Scots rather than Norse. These tend to refer to small units of grazing.
The currency on which this pennyland system was based was the Hiberno-Norse currency which started in Dublin c. 995 AD. Essentially, these Hiberno-Norse coins were copies of Anglo-Saxon coins. The currency has been analysed (for instance in the work of Michael Dolley) as having a number of distinct phases. Over a period of time these phases indicate a deterioration in the quality of the coins and a degradation of their silver content. For our purposes, coins produced during Phases I-III (c. 995- c. 1065) are the most significant. Despite a relative falling away between Phases I and III the coins are still of an acceptable standard and an adequate silver content to provide a robust trading currency. After c. 1065 there is progressive degradation until the coins are quite literally shadows of their former selves. We do not have any concrete information as to how this affected their use as a currency, but at any place, and in any time, the fortunes of a currency depend upon the confidence which traders place in it. If traders do not trust it as a reliable medium of exchange they either discount it in their exchanges (effectively devaluing it), or refuse to accept it, or use an alternative currency.
On the basis of the above it is reasonable to assume that the period during which Hiberno-Norse pennies had their strongest influence, and became fossilized into landscapes as pennylands, was during the period c. 995- c. 1065. It also seems reasonable to assume that a pennyland was that portion of land which returned a penny, whether that was articulated as a real cash rent, or as a nominal value for taxation purposes. In the latter scenario it may be that to designate a piece of land as a pennyland, served to establish a fixed standard rent, perhaps in produce, cash, or services, or a mixture of all three.
Roughly during the second half of this period there was a subset of the Hiberno-Norse currency which has been christened Hiberno-Manx. These coins survive in much smaller quantities and were minted on the Isle of Man rather than in Dublin.
This relatively narrow dating-window (995-1065) is a great help in giving us a background chronology for dating the large numbers of pennyland names in the former Norse colonies of Scotland. The evidence from pennyland place-names is also supported by evidence from other Norse place-names, as well as some documentary evidence. We know a fair bit about the Kingdom of Man and the Isles before 1266. We also know something about the bishopric of Sodor or the Isles.
In broad terms we can bracket the documentary evidence with the evidence of Norse place-names, and the distribution of pennyland names. These feature from the Kyle of Sutherland northwards around the north of Scotland, through the Hebrides, down the west coast mainland to Kintyre and Cowal; then across the Clyde through Renfrew and Ayrshire to Galloway. The pennyland distribution pattern for most of the northern and Hebridean section of this enormous area has been mapped out elsewhere in this blog. That for the areas of Ayrshire and Galloway remains to be done.
Some qualifications are necessary to this broad-brush picture. Firstly, some parts of Wester Ross, and some islands such as Islay and Raasay are empty of pennylands. There are several possible reasons for this. Islay may have been part of the royal estate of the Kings of Man and the Isles. As such it may not have been assessed for taxation. The difficulty with this claim is that Glenelg on the mainland was also part of the royal estate and is full of pennylands. One counter-argument might be that the royal estate may have been built up over a long period of time, with Islay and Glenelg being acquired at different periods.
There is an apparent gap in pennylands in Wester Ross. They are thick to the north, thick to the south and west. What is the explanation? It is difficult to believe the Norse did not visit and settle. Were there actually no pennylands here, or have they been more completely eroded here for entirely local reasons. Specific explanations might be that Applecross, for example, was, for centuries, a recognised religious sanctuary and estate. The absence of old pennylands in Raasay may have something to do with the fact that it was a possession of the bishopric of the Isles. (I have excluded a couple of modern pennyland names). The bishopric wasn’t established until after the creation of the Hiberno-Norse currency but Raasay may have been part of an ancient religious estate which was subsequently annexed to the new bishopric.
We also have to account for the differing distribution patterns for pennyland names. In Sutherland and Caithness we have plenty of farms which were designated as so many pennylands, but few places were actually named ‘pennyland’. Trotternish in Skye was probably 400 pennylands in total and settlement after settlement is called ‘Pen-this’ or ‘Pen-that’ (with the prefix deriving from the Gaelic for ‘penny’). We should recognise that pennyland valuations lasted for many centuries as part of the agrarian mental map. In Skye, the Small Isles, and parts of Lochaber, the concept of pennylands was still an active and meaningful notion as late as the eighteenth century. It is entirely possible that when the larger units of 5 and 10 pennylands gradually disintegrated, so the local population referred to their components as pennylands, even centuries after all memories of Norse usage had faded.
In other areas we can point to historical events which put an abrupt end to naming-practices which used Norse fiscal units. There are pennyland names surviving in Renfrew. They were probably created in the period c. 995 – c. 1065. From about 1160 the Normans arrived in Renfrew in force. They would not have continued the taxation system favoured by previous colonists. They had a new currency and new fiscal arrangements. Some of the old names such as Dippany, Middle Penny and Pennuld, survived, telling us that Gaelic-Norse overlords formerly had pennyland farms in Renfrew. But we only have documentary evidence of one pennyland in Renfrew which is the church at Innerkip, on the western seaboard. The memory of this valuation probably survived because it was a former church endowment.
Another major qualification is that it is possible that the pennylands in the far north of Scotland owe their origin to a different currency, although also consisting of pennies, to those on the west coast. It is perfectly understandable that the settlements on the west coast and Hebrides looked to Man and Dublin as the regional power-bases. It is equally comprehensible that colonies in Sutherland, Caithness and Easter Ross would look to Orkney as their regional and political centre. Many years ago Gareth Williams proposed that we should be looking at the Cologne penny as the model for this northern set of pennylands.
I haven’t looked at the data sufficiently closely to come to a decision on the matter; but it is entirely feasible. The pennylands in the far north are structured in a different way. Firstly there were 18d to an ounceland, which is here not called a ‘tirung’ (land-ounce) as it was on the west coast. The farm-names do not, generally, embody a description of their valuation. There are exceptions, but few enough to prove the rule.
Off the north-west coast a davach and a tirung (ounceland) were regarded as equivalent. We have lots of documentary evidence to support this. Most west-coast tirungs appear to have been composed of 20 pennylands. By way of contrast, in the far north there appear to have been 3 davachs to the ounceland and each davach was worth 6d. We have lots of evidence to support this, and none to the contrary.
The last system to be described is of a completely different nature, being based not on currencies, but on areas of arable land. This system originated outside Scotland, but travelled up into SE Scotland, connected to the North Anglian presence in Lothian and along the East Coast. This is a system of ploughgates and oxgates, where a ploughgate was the area of arable land that could be ploughed by an ox-team of 8 oxen in one year. This was, theoretically at least, an area that could be measured. In practice, of course, much would depend on the slope of the land, the heaviness of the soil, the drainage, the efficacy of the plough, the size and strength of the oxen etc.
Notwithstanding these qualifications, at some relatively early stage there was an agreed standard that a ploughgate was equivalent to 104 acres (the Scottish acre being slightly bigger than the English). Since this was a large area there was a derivative, a smaller area consisting of one-eighth of a ploughgate. This was known as an oxgate since 1 ox was one-eighth of the 8-ox standard plough-team. Given that the Scottish ploughgate was 104 acres this meant that the Scottish oxgate was 13 acres (=104/8). In SE Scotland we also have to deal with another derivative unit called the husbandland which consisted of 2 oxgates.
This system seems to have been well-established in SE Scotland by the twelfth century, possibly much earlier. It also spread to other parts of Scotland, particularly up the arable-rich East Coast. There is still a great deal of work to do in establishing a chronology for this. There is some very scanty documentary evidence for oxgates and ploughgates in Renfrew but I think these have to be regarded as intrusive. The system of ploughgates and oxgates did not establish itself in Renfrew in early times, or indeed for much of the medieval period. This is a useful reflection on any Anglian presence in the area. If any Anglians settled in what became Renfrew, they did not establish ploughgates and oxgates here. However, this became one of the most widespread and pervasive types of land-assessment, gradually permeating huge areas in Eastern and Northern Scotland. We should list the various forms:
Ploughgates could also be referred to as ploughgaits, ploughgangs, ploughlands, ploughs, plows or carucates (Latin for ploughland). Oxgates could be oxgaits, oxgangs, oxingaits, oxingangs or bovates (Latin for oxgate). One constant was the ratio between ploughgates and oxgates which was always 1:8.
Davachs
The last system to be described is both the oldest and the one with the greatest claim to be completely indigenous. That is the system of davachs. Our first documentary evidence for davachs is from some marginal notes in the Book of Deer dating to the eleventh century. The evidence from place-names suggests its roots may stretch back many centuries earlier.
Davachs are widespread throughout eastern and northern Scotland. They are almost completely absent from Argyllshire and the southern Hebrides which might suggest that they were displaced by the invading Dalriadic Scots from the fifth century. We also find them in parts of Caithness where they must predate pennylands and should not be regarded as any sort of post-Norse Gaelic resurgence.
Davachs appear to be absent from SE Scotland and in SW Scotland the only evidence we have of them comes from the place-name record. However, since all the other land-assessment systems at work in Scotland left their mark on place-names there is no reason to discount this evidence for davachs. It may simply mean they were once the recognised land-assessment unit but were then swept away by Norse pennylands and Scottish merklands, before we have documentary evidence.
Arachors
One other system needs to be mentioned though I shall not be discussing it further here. (See under Lennox in the accompanying blog files). That is the system of arachors which is (almost completely) confined to Lennox. Arachors may be the Gaelic equivalent for the Latin term aratrum (a plough and, by extension, a ploughland). Another Latin word caruca/carruca also meant a plough and gave carucata/carrucata (a ploughland) which was Englished as carucate.
From the twelfth century we have documentary evidence of arachors, half-arachors etc in Lennox. What are we seeing here? Were arachors just the functional equivalents of what was being described in SE Scotland as ploughgates, or, alternatively, of what was being described in NE Scotland as davachs? There is only one documentary record to go on which is a ratification by James VI, dated 1609, (RMS VII (190)) of a number of earlier charters concerning Dumbarton. It appears to be quoting from an original charter of Alexander II given in 1223. This may indicate that the prevailing land-assessment unit in Lennox was then the davach. I have argued that arachors were probably the same as davachs.
At this point it is useful to remind ourselves that all local terms, whether in Gaelic, Pictish or Anglo-Saxon have generally been transmitted to us via scribes who wrote predominantly in Latin. They would have been comfortable with terms in the prevailing vernacular, but transmitted these through a Latin prism. That determines how we see them, so it is helpful to rehearse these forms:
Marca/merca (in Scotland generally the latter) is a mark/merk.
Libra is a pound
Solidus is a shilling
Denarius is a penny
Nummus is a small sum of money, a coin
Aratrum is a plough
Caruca/carruca is a plough
Bos is an ox
Vacca is a cow
Davach is a unit of land-assessment particularly associated with the Pictish heartland.
These words are all transformed into land assessment terms in the same way. Mercas gives mercatas terrarum (merks of land or merklands). The same process gives solidatas terrarum (shillinglands), denariatas terrarum (pennylands), nummatas terrarum (pennylands), carucatas/carrucatas (carucates or ploughgates), bovatas (bovates or oxgates), vaccatas (cowlands – Islay only), davatas (davachs). The only term which doesn’t convert quite so consistently is obolus (halfpenny). I have yet to see the word nummatas used in connexion with the Scottish system of merklands. All the nummatas I know describe pennylands within the Norse system. The only exception I have come across (so far) is RRAN II (1196) 1107-1118, referring to lands in Norfolk.
Some of these terms appear in a Gaelic context – for instance arachor, dabhach (davach), peighinn (penny or pennyland), leth-pheighinn (halfpenny or halfpennyland), feòirling (farthing or farthingland). Although we tend to treat dabhach as a Gaelic word it may also have a Brythonic context and not just a Goidelic one. We often use place-name elements like ‘aber’ (river mouth) to point out what Scottish toponymy derives from Brythonic and shares with Wales rather than Ireland. The Gaelic word for a river is amhainn, which still features in the modern English landscape as the (River) Avon. Some of the terms used to describe landscape features may have become place-names long before the arrival of the Dalriadic Scots. To add to the linguistic mix, in SW Scotland we also encounter words like farden which is Scots for farthing or farthing-land.
Souming
A few words should also be said about souming. Souming represents an assessment of the carrying capacity of the land in terms of livestock, particularly cattle. The calculation of soums appears to have been a widespread practice in early times, and was of especial significance in upland Scotland, whether in the Southern Uplands or the Highlands. By the eighteenth century it was claimed to be the most significant way of assessing land in parts of the Highlands. I don’t think this was ever true but the claim demonstrates its local significance. On his travels Pennant certainly gave it due attention.
The base standard of a soum was the grazing required for one cow. However, a cow was held to come with ‘followers’, or calves, so the soum might also include 1, 2 and even 3 year-old calves. Other animals were treated in terms of multiples or divisions of a soum. Horses, which were heavier graziers, might be reckoned at half-a-horse to a soum, i.e. one horse’s grazing equalled that for 2 cows. Smaller animals, like sheep and goats, were apportioned at lesser ratios, e.g. 5 sheep to a soum. The process was entirely arithmetic, one soum, or notional area of grazing, might support 1 cow, or 5 sheep or 10 goats etc. The stock held might never quite match with these neat numbers, but the relative proportions could always be worked out in arithmetic terms. Of course there were often disputes and the regulation or policing of soums could be locally important.
We also have to allow for numerous local variations. The ratio of sheep to cattle might differ. Sometimes 4 sheep were regarded as equivalent to a cow’s soum, or 5, or 6, even 10. Equally the age at which animals would cease to be regarded as ‘followers’ might vary. (A ‘follower’ [i.e. calf, foal etc] would not be counted in the souming calculations). Souming embedded itself into the pastoral economy, and into place-names. We have several examples of ‘one-sheep-islands’ in the Hebrides and nice traditions that (X) animals would thrive on an island but that (X+1) would starve.
It would be wrong to think of souming as only a Highland practice. We have documentary records of its importance in Ayrshire and Renfrew from the twelfth century.
Despite this, souming was never a truly national system of land-assessment like ploughgates and davachs. It only concerned itself with grazing arrangements. The basis of all the major land-assessment systems which flourished in Scotland was assessment of arable capacity. This is as true of the tiny patches of tillable soil found in every bay on the west coast as it is in the fertile plains of the East Coast. The assessment systems embedded in the rural economy of Scotland always reflected the available arable land.
However, since so much of Scotland consists of upland grazing, souming deserves a book to itself.
Interrelationships
Any study of the various land-assessment systems of Scotland should avoid viewing them in isolation. Yes, we can do that when we conjure with them as abstract concepts. But the history of Scotland is one of the blending of each of these systems into its predecessors, over time and space. They overlap, they exist together, they assimilate, they gradually replace each other. Contemporaries were wholly comfortable with this. A good example is a grant of Lochiel (Lochaber) referred to in RMS I (520) and dated 1346 x 1372-3:
sexaginta marcatis terre in partibus de Lochabre videlicet de decem et septem denariatis terre de Loche de dimidia davata terre de Kylmalde et de una davata cum dimidia de Locharkage
(60 merklands in Lochaber viz. 17 pennylands of Loche, half a davach of Kilmallie and 1½ davachs of Loch Arkaig)
The writer was quite happy bracketing three different land assessment systems into one statement. The total grant was for 60 merklands (Scottish system) which consisted of 17 pennylands (Norse system) and 2 davachs (Pictish system). We can surmise that davachs were the original local system, that pennylands were brought by the Norse in the period between c. 995 and c. 1065, and that merklands were introduced by the Scottish realm, possibly in the latter half of the twelfth century, more likely a century later.
We can also make some generalisations about the prevalence of the different systems in different areas. Merklands were supposed to be the Scottish national system, but are very sparse in the far north. (Sparse in Ross, sparser still in Sutherland and Caithness). Pennylands are largely confined to the areas of the former Norse colonies. On the east coast they are not found south of the Kyle of Sutherland which suggests that Norse political control did not reach south of the Kyle when pennylands were imposed. (This is in contrast to the occurrence of Norse place-names which stretch well into Ross-shire). They are found most of the way down the west coast and into SW Scotland. They stretch inland up the seaways such as Loch Linnhe and even into the southern section of the Great Glen. Rosneath was their eastern limit on the north side of the Clyde.
Ploughgates and oxgates have their heartland in SE Scotland but gradually became embedded in many other counties, particularly on the more fertile eastern side of Scotland. I have not attempted to map this process of expansion but suspect it is an important, if subliminal, factor in the development of the agrarian economy in those areas of the country with the richest soils.
Davachs may once have been Scotland-wide, with the possible exception of SE Scotland. In some areas they were still being mapped on eighteenth-century estate maps. In others they seem to have been wiped from the landscape, save for the odd place-name. Their antiquity makes them particularly interesting. Were they in Argyll before the invasions of the Dalriadic Scots from the fifth century?
As each of these systems was laid down on top of a previous one so arithmetic relationships between them were established. New sovereign bodies did not necessarily sweep the landscape clean of old inhabitants and old farming practices. They were much more likely to leave things in place if that could be turned to their benefit. Where they imposed new fiscal structures it was simpler just to continue old forms and gear them to whatever was the new system by establishing arithmetic ratios between them. So, under a new Norse landowner a davach in Skye might be classed as equivalent to a tirung or 20 pennylands. When the Isles fell to Scotland it appears that a davach or tirung or 20 pennylands in Lewis became the equivalent of 4 merklands.
The problem for us is establishing and mapping these conversion ratios, particularly when the evidence is sparse. Worse still, they can vary from one part of the country to another. Scotland before about 1266 was still a country in formation. In some respects it is useful to think of it as a series of provinces which had both to be unified politically and also to adhere to national standards and practices. Adopting a single national land-assessment system of merklands was part of that process of unification. That process took centuries to accomplish and was not immediately achieved by some central bureaucratic fiat, but by a myriad of slow local adjustments. If we take this as our premise it enables us to better comprehend some of what appear to be anomalies. For instance:
How do we explain that a davach in Lewis is equivalent to 4 merklands, whereas a davach in Uist is worth 6 merklands; but both are 20 pennylands. Or that a davach in the Hebrides is the same as 20 pennylands, but in Caithness only 6 pennylands. Or that a davach which is worth 20 pennylands in the Northern Hebrides may only be worth 1 pennyland in Kintyre. Or that the Ross of Mull seems to behave differently to the rest of Mull. The only way that these apparent anomalies can be explained is to look at the creation of a Scottish system of merklands as a long historical process, enacted on a provincial or local basis, by which a variety of earlier systems became connected and geared to a single national system.
Perhaps the most helpful analogy is to compare this process with modern exchange rate mechanisms. Today, our currency floats against those of other countries in an open market. On any one day you can look at the tables and see how much sterling can be exchanged for against other currencies throughout the world. This is very similar to what happened between the different land-assessment systems in Scotland – except that the currency exchanges seem to be fixed at specific points in time.
We can speculate that this may have taken place in stages as the Scottish state gradually expanded its fiscal grip. We can envision concentric circles of power, radiating out from Edinburgh, absorbing Renfrew, Ayrshire, Galloway, from the twelfth century; Kintyre from the 1220s, the Hebrides from the 1260s; similarly through Moray, Ross, Sutherland and Caithness. With each province absorbed, whatever local systems prevailed had then to be accommodated to central requirements. At each accommodation there was probably a conversion, or a series of conversions. Can we establish a sequence for this spreading of central control? If we had a fuller understanding of the process it might help us to explain the apparent anomalies. There may be a perfectly straightforward explanation why there is a broad swathe of Hebridean islands, (roughly the Macruari estate), which was reckoned at 6 merklands to the davach, whilst another broad swathe of Hebridean islands, (basically the northernmost or ex-Kingdom of Man estate), was only reckoned at 4 merklands to a davach. The latter were regarded as less valuable. But what was the reason for this? Were they assessed at different times? Was it something to do with ownership?
And of course these conversions were not just carried out by the Scots. The Norse colonists probably did something very similar when they asserted control over the western seaboard hundreds of years earlier. One particular anomaly which may be down to them is the differing relationships between pennylands and davachs in different parts of the west coast and Hebrides. In the Northern Hebrides an ounceland of 20 pennylands was equivalent to a davach. In Argyllshire we have almost no evidence of davachs but it is entirely possible that Argyll was just wiped clean of them by the Dalriadic Scots. It is feasible that in Kintyre, and other parts of south Argyllshire, a pennyland was equivalent to a davach.
Now Kintyre was always regarded by the Norse as a rich province, but, if this reckoning is true, it appears to have been classed as 20 times richer than the Northern Hebrides. This requires an explanation. Was it a reflection of market values? We can see that possibly 20 times as much render could be secured from Kintyre as from Lewis. But 20 times what could be obtained from Trotternish in Skye? Or is something else going on here? Was there something punitive about this fiscal assessment?
Further, what happens in Kintyre seems slightly different to what happened in the Clyde islands. If one pennyland in Kintyre was classed as 4 merklands then why do they seem to have been classed as 6 merklands in Bute, Arran and the Cumbraes? And why do we have other areas where davachs seem to have been 10 merklands. There is still a great deal of work to be done in illuminating this process. The advantage would be that we could map part of the expansion of the Scottish realm at times when written records are scarce.
There are further complications. In some areas merklands just sat on top of carucates or davachs, so that there is only one exchange rate to study. In other areas merklands sat on top of pennylands which, in turn, may have sat on top of davachs. Worse still, in the latter case it sometimes looks (as in parts of Mull) as if the pennyland layer was regarded as transparent and that what actually took place was a conversion from davachs to merklands – even where we lack concrete evidence of the former. In some islands, such as Islay, we have clear indications of a former large unit, which, unfortunately, is never named. We can speculate it was a tirung, possibly a davach, but it remains elusive.
Auld Extent and New Extent
There is another issue that we have to grapple with which specifically affects the Scottish system of merklands. That is the description, against a great many merkland valuations, that they are ‘Auld (old) extent’; conversely, alongside some later valuations, that they are ‘New Extent’. We also have a great many valuations where the type of extent is not specifically mentioned although it is probable that the overwhelming majority of these are ‘Auld Extent’.
What is meant by these terms? The word extent carries the meaning of a valuation so we can infer an old valuation and one or more newer valuations. This takes us to the heart of a paradox about the merkland valuation system. Land valuations, like absolutely everything else for which there is a market, could rise or fall. In feudal times it was common to take a valuation after the death of someone possessing wealth, even if the succession was not in doubt. If that person was of significance then an inquest might be summoned with local worthies acting as jurors. The resources of the dead person would be assessed and the most important resource was almost always the land they possessed. Land could increase in value if it produced more, or if the prices of what it produced rose because of market conditions, or if land was more in demand.
In Scotland there was a growing divide between the abstract valuation of land in merkland terms, and what it might produce in terms of merks of rent. At the time of origin it may have been the case that 1 merkland produced 1 merk of rent. As time progressed the two might diverge significantly. Usually the trend was inflationary, but in some scenarios, such as during war or plague, that might be reversed for some years. We might then see comments to the effect that the Auld Extent valuation was greater than the ‘verus valor’ (true value). We have good examples of this in the fourteenth century. (See under 1366 below).
Today, subject to the market-place at all times, we only think of value in terms of what can be achieved in the market-place. No house or farm has an absolute value, they just have an estimated value depending upon how much they are expected to fetch in a sale. From the twelfth century Scots attached the notion of an absolute value to all existing farms. They were reckoned in terms of merklands of Auld Extent. This then became fossilized into the mental and cultural landscape. Whatever their actual value in the marketplace they were classified, or indexed, as so many merklands of Auld Extent. An estate of 30 merklands Auld Extent might raise far more than 30 merks per annum. It might sell for ten times as much. But it became known as a 30-merkland estate. That became part of its definition. The abstract definition of value at a particular point of time became a permanent and fixed definition for the future.
The divergence between nominal value and market-place value caused concerns. What was the point of calling something 30 merklands when it was patently worth so much more than that? That must have been a reason behind the concept of New Extent, a new valuation system that theoretically overcame the growing disjunction between Auld Extent and current market value. The problem is that you then need to have a perpetual cycle of New Extents because market values keep changing. We have a similar situation today with the assessments of commercial properties. Each new building that is constructed will be given a ‘Rateable Value’ by the local assessors. That is an abstract ‘Rates’ or tax valuation which is subject to periodic revaluation. A business is then taxed at so many pence in the pound of each pound of its ‘Rateable Value’. Auld Extent was rather like a form of Rateable Value.
New Extent introduces a whole range of new complications and for the purposes of this blog I have largely ignored it. The evidence for New Extent is much more limited than that for ‘Auld Extent’ and is more difficult to make sense of. It often seems to be factored in as a simple multiple of ‘Auld Extent’, as for instance in the printed Retours.
When did Auld Extent first apply? We first come across it in the Records of the Parliament of Scotland (15/7/1326, appearing under 28/2/1328) when a subsidy was granted to maintain King Robert the Bruce. Those assembled:
granted and gave to their abovesaid lord king … a tenth penny of all money from their fermes and rents, … according to the old extent of lands [Latin: iuxta antiquam extentam terrarum] and rents in the time of the lord Alexander [III] by the grace of God illustrious king of Scots of good memory who died most recently
Unfortunately this description may be misleading because it inclines us to date ‘Auld Extent’ to the period 1249-1286 (the dates of King Alexander III). The difficulty is that ‘Auld Extent’ only ever earned that name retrospectively. It was certainly never entitled ‘Auld Extent’ when it started. So, although Alexander III gets the credit in this document it is more probable that it long predated him. The most logical assumption is that it dates from the period after 1136 when the first Scottish coins were being minted and the first assessments were being made under the new Scottish system of merklands.
(It has to be acknowledged that Scotland could, theoretically, have had merklands before it had its own currency. However, this seems inherently unlikely. Merklands could have been copied from England but it is much more likely that they were bracketed with the introduction of a new currency).
The concept of ‘Auld Extent’ is really an attempt to look back to when the system was first founded. Another way of doing this was to use the stock phrase ‘in tempore pacis’ (in time of peace) which was long held to be a reference to the peaceful reign of Alexander III. But, as was pointed out by Thomas Thomson at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this was also a phrase used in contemporary English documents to indicate a ‘time of peace’ as a period when valuations could be relied upon. During the ravages of war, or plague, land might be worth next to nothing. To use the phrase ‘in time of peace’ was effectively like saying ‘the last time we could have a proper valuation’.
Although I earlier stated that ‘Auld Extent’ really only applied to merklands it has to be acknowledged that the phrase became a catch-all to represent other forms of early assessment. So pennylands and davachs could also be described as of ‘Auld Extent’. Strictly speaking this seems nonsensical but what was probably happening here was that the phrase ‘Auld Extent’ was being used to imply antiquity.
Inflation touched everything. Rents, wages, values, all tended to increase in peaceful years. This process always threatened definitions of extent. Abstract valuations could still stand, but they became stripped of some of their meaning when they no longer reflected actual values. The only thing that didn’t register the same loss from inflation was produce such as stock or victual. Stirks, or sheep, or geese, or hens were not affected by inflation if the numbers rendered stayed the same. We have a good example from Renfrewshire in 1574 of how an annual return of 24 bolls of oatmeal was unaffected by time and inflation. Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok, Vol I, No 155 1574 refers to £5 AE Manis (Mains) in the lordship of Darnelie. There was a 24 boll annual revenue of ‘farrine avenatice’ (oatmeal) based on these lands:
Et quod dictus annuus redditus cum pertinentiis valet nunc per annum 24 bollas farrine avenatice; et similiter valebat tempore pacis.
(And that this annual return, with pertinents, is now worth 24 bolls oatmeal per year, and was worth as much in time of peace).
In other words this render of foodstuffs is unaffected by price inflation. The quantity remains the same.
1366
Although we have many thousands of documents that define farms and estates in terms of merklands of old extent we have very little by way of summary valuations for larger areas. This blog attempts to map out the valuations by parish so that, over time, we can eventually see the bigger picture. We do have a few references which give us a chance to see the wood despite the trees. We have whole-island valuations for some islands, similarly for some parishes. One large district which has a valuation is Badenoch which was given as 60 davachs in 1371.
Perhaps the most important summary of values is that produced for the Scottish Parliament in 1366. It is impressive not just for the raw data but also because it shows what information was available to the national authorities about the values then obtaining in Scotland. The context was raising money for the king’s ransom and we have two sets of figures for many of the sheriffdoms and bishoprics of Scotland, in terms of Auld Extent and then of ‘verus valor’ (true value). The latter set of figures is below, sometimes drastically below, ‘Auld Extent’ so we should remember the period this assessment was made. The first half of the fourteenth century saw long spells of warfare with England. In 1349 Scotland was visited by the Black Death. It is no wonder that the Scottish agrarian economy was severely affected.
Not all parts of Scotland are represented but some areas may be concealed within others. The sheriffdom of Inverness then contained not only what is now Inverness-shire but also Ross-shire, Sutherland and Caithness. On the basis of the valuation for Inverness we can doubt that all the lands of these 4 counties were included but unfortunately it is difficult to prove either way. Since merklands were not much used in the northernmost counties we cannot make a comparison by simply adding up the merkland figures for the parishes and comparing them to the sheriffdom total. It is unlikely the Northern Hebrides are included and we may be missing some or all of Moray and Elgin. For Renfrew we are missing the Auld Extent valuation but have that for its ‘true value’. Within the bishoprics, Sodor, or the Isles, is also missing. The total Auld Extent valuation for all the sheriffdoms is £48249 7s 8d or 76.28% of the total valuation for Scotland. The total valuation for the bishoprics is £15002 16s 0d or 23.72% of the total. A further complication is that bishoprics might hold land in more than one county. Orkney and Shetland are not included because they were not yet part of Scotland. The bishop of Orkney also held lands in Caithness but I have no idea whether these were included in the Scottish total. Anomalies like this means that we have to be cautious with our conclusions.
Because what is preserved of this table of values is not quite complete, and assembled in a rather idiosyncratic manner, there is a limit to the comparisons we can draw – particularly with the areas covered so far in this blog. Argyllshire, for example, is not given as a county total but in terms of the portions held by the biggest landowners. However, it is the only pan-Scotland early view of Auld Extent and so is of enormous value to the historian. If, in the future, we complete land-assessment tables for all the other counties in Scotland then we shall be better positioned to assess the veracity of the data in this table.
(See Table and text file within 1366 folder under ‘General Summaries’ section of this blog).

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