Old Land Measures © Andrew McKerral 1876-1967
In modern times we are accustomed to describe an estate or a farm as consisting of a certain number of acres, but this usage is of quite recent origin and does not date any further back than the close of the eighteenth century. The use of the acre in Scotland was known from the twelfth century, but was applied only to small areas of land. Thus we read of village acres, town acres, vicar's acres, baillie's acres, these being what we would nowadays call small holdings. The reason why large farms were not described in acres was that the art of surveying large acres of land was not known, and therefore could not be practised.
Hence in all rentals prior to the early nineteenth century we find an older nomenclature of pennylands and merklands, and their multiples and fractions, and their occurence is apt to prove a stumbling block to the proper understanding of rural conditions in days gone by. We therefore propose to explain very shortly the meaning of these old terms, and their relations to modern conditions. The names employed are derived from the languages spoken by the various peoples who have occupied our country, and may be classified in three groups in historical sequence as (1) Celtic, (2) Norse, and (3) English or Scottish.
In purely Celtic times the people lived in groups of about 20 houses each, which in Ireland and Dalriada were known as "ballys." This word still persists in place-names such as Ballymenach, Ballygreggan, and others. Each of these ballys consisted of a piece of land which probably belonged to a leading man or chief, and which, as time went on, became divided up among his family. The usual division was into quarters, eights, and smaller fractions, for which the Gaelic words were ceathramh, ochdamd, etc. This system had ceased to be used in Kintyre before our historical record begins, but the existence of the ceathramh or quarterland is commemorated in place-names like Keromenach (middle quarter) and Kerafuar (cold quarter). In Islay and the Isle of Man the ceathramh or quarter land was in practical use as a land name down to the early nineteenth century.
Norse names were introduced during the occupation of Kintyre by the Norsemen from approximately A.D.800 to 1100. The Norse overlords did not make any attempt to change the Celtic system, but apparently made use of it, and imposed a tax or scat of one ounce of silver on each of the Celtic ballys or townships. These therefore became known as Ouncelands, or in Gaelic, Tirungas, sometimes written Terungs or Tirungs. The Gaelic word is from tir, land, and unga, an ounce. The ounce was the English ounce of 20 pennyweights. and as there were usually about twenty houses in each bally the share of the individual house was one penny. It should be remembered that this was not a copper coin as it is today, but the old silver penny which was the only coin in circulation in Scotland down to the time of King David II (1329-1370). Hence the land pertaining to the individual house became known as the pennyland. The halfpenny, or leth-pheighinn in Gaelic, and the quarter penny or farthing, in Gaelic feorlin, are also found as elements in our place names.
There is only one authentic instance of the use of the pennyland as a practical measure of land in Kintyre. It occurs in a charter of King Robert the Bruce granting the lands of Ugadale to Gilchrist Mackay, in the year 1329. The grant was for four pennylands, which must have been individual forms, for they are detailed under individual names, which do not occur in any map of Kintyre, and must now be obsolete. In other parts of Argyllshire, and in the Island of Mull and other isles, the pennyland was, however, in use down to the eighteenth century. In Kintyre its former use is now commemorated in place-names such as Pennygown, or Smith's pennyland, Peninver, or Ivar's pennyland, Lephenstrath, or the strath of the half-pennyland, and Feorlin, or the quarter penny - or farthing land.
We now come to the Merkland, which is the denomination by which land in Kintyre is described in all extant rentals down to the late eighteenth century. A mark or merk was eight ounces of standard silver, which was coined into 160 silver pennies, or 13 shillings and 4 pence. The merkland was most probably introduced into Kintyre during the century 1200-1300, and was certainly in use in 1329 when Mackay of Ugadale got his charter from Bruce; but, as it was deemed necessary in that charter to specify the extent of the grant in both merklands and pennylands, it is clear that the newer denomination of the merkland was just supplanting the older pennylands at that date, and we do not hear any more of the latter in Kintyre.
The merkland was probably introduced as a result of the feudal system whereby proprietors held their land in return for providing armed knights or other forms of military aid to the Crown, or in lieu of these, a sum of money, usually assessed in merks. Hence a valuation in merks of all the land under the authority of the Crown had to be made by the sheriffs or other officers of the Crown, and this is known as the Old Extent, or old valuation. In Kintyre it was probably made between 1222 and 1264, and there the valuation appears to have been, in some cases at least, at the rate of 10 merks to the ounceland or bally, that being the yearly rent to be paid therefrom. In other parts of the West Highlands the rate was as low as 4 merks to the ounceland. A merkland was therefore a piece of land which had been assessed as paying an annual rental of one merk or 13 shillings and 4 pence at the time when the Old Extent was made, and so is usually referred to as a merkland of old extent.
Clearly the merkland was a money valuation only, and therefore did not denote a fixed number of acres, for the richer the land the smaller would be the area of the merkland. In Kintyre, about the time that it was supplanted by the acre valuation, it appears to have been a one-plough farm. In our old rentals the extent in merklands of any particular holding, of which the boundaries had not been altered, remains constant throughout the centuries, but the actual rents paid show a constant increase. This was due to various causes, one of which was the great deterioration of the Scottish currency. In the reign of Alexander III, English and Scottish currencies were at par, but at the date of the Union of the Crowns in 1603 a Scottish shilling was only worth an English penny. This represented a 36-fold depreciation. Hence, if no other causes had been at work, a merkland of Old Extent would have been paying a rent of 36 merks in 1603. In Kintyre, in 1678, some merkland farms were actually paying as much as £80 rent. Some of this increase must have been due to increased agricultural production as well as to depreciation of the currency.
In the late eighteenth century the Duke of Argyll employed an English surveyor, Lieut. Langlands, to survey his estates in acres, after which the merkland passed out of use, and is now practically forgotten except by students of history and antiquities.