skill in everything that related to the cultivation of the soil, and were therefore both wealthier and better informed than the military retainers of the restless chiefs and nobles in their neighbourhood.
The residence of these church vassals was usually in a small village or hamlet, where, for the sake of mutual aid and protection, some thirty or forty families dwelt together. This was called the town, and the land belonging to the various families by whom the town was inhabited was called the township. They usually possessed the land in common, though in various proportions, according to their several grants. The part of the township properly arable, and kept as such continually under the plough, was called in-field. Here the use of quantities of manure supplied in some degree the exhaustion of the soil, and the feuars raised tolerable oats and bear,[1] usually sowed on-alternate ridges, on which the labour of the whole community was bestowed without distinction, the produce being divided after harvest, agreeably to their respective interests.
There was, besides, out-field land, from which it was thought possible to extract a crop now and then, after which it was abandoned to the 'skiey influences', until the exhausted powers of vegetation were restored. These outfield spots were selected by any feuar at his own choice, amongst the sheep-walks and hills which were always annexed to the Township, to serve as pasturage to the community. The trouble of cultivating these patches of out-field, and the precarious chance that the crop would pay the labour, were considered as giving a right to any feuar, who chose to undertake the adventure, to the produce which might result from it.
There remained the pasturage of extensive moors, where the valleys often afforded good grass, and upon which the whole cattle belonging to the community fed indiscriminately during the summer under the charge of the townherd, who regularly drove them out to pasture in the
- ↑ Or bigg, a kind of coarse barley.
a small quit-rent, or a moderate proportion of the produce. This was a favourite manner, by which the churchmen peopled the patrimony of their convents; and many descendants of such feuars, as they are called, are still to be found in possession of their family inheritances in the neighbourhood of the great monasteries of Scotland.
