Social Structure

The social structure of the world of the North East was similar to most of rural Scotland at the time.  At the beginning of the 1600’s, different to England and Wales, the structure of society in Scotland was still founded on a type of feudalism. The breakdown of the system of lairdship and the way in which it was replaced by, what we currently understand as the economic nature of labour, was the basis for the improvements that were seen in 18th century

The nature of this feudalism gradually changed through the 14th and 15th centuries with a key element being the development of the feuferme system of tenure. This was based on the awarding of the heritable tenancy of land, not for feudal services rendered, but for payment of money –  essentially rent.

This changed the landownership of the country. Initially the king feued land to people, courtiers, friends relations or those to who the crown was indebted and to those in favour or a service rendered. Furthermore in the 16th century the church, which controlled a third of the agricultural land in Scotland, feued a considerable part of its lands to raise money to pay taxes and for the repair of its property after damage caused during the Reformation. Much of the land went to large and prominent secular owners but there was some that went to sitting tenant farmers. In theory this meant a potential for more but smaller farms.  In practice however the economic horizon did not change dramatically – a large proportion of the land was still in the hands of very few people(¹).  The possibility to progress for the common tenant was still extremely limited, especially advancing within a lifetime.
It was up to landowners to reshape the local economy and so affect changes in social structure.  Unless they specifically gave opportunities for tenant farmers to be able to determine their own destiny and incentive them to invest in their “own” land the modernisation of the Scottish agrarian economy was stymied.

Strata
Society was drawn up into three distinct strata⁠(²)

Landowners

• Nobility
• Highland Chiefs
• Barons
• Lairds – holders of land from the king
• Wadsetters – semi owner / occupiers holding the deed to the land used against a debt
• Portioners – heirs and daughters that inherited land jointly

Non Landowners

• Tacksmen – lease holders a term more used in the Highlands
• Bailies – agents of land owners
• Factors – attorneys or educated men to manage the land of the landowners
• Tenants
  • Kindly Tenants – the kindly refers to the word kin implying rightness to possession through inheritance.  The word Kindly can be applied to almost all of the terms Kindly Tacksman
  • Sub TenantsCrofters
  • CottarsGrassmen / Grasswomen

Landless

• Taskers –  people that carried out tasks primarily but not exclusively harvesting
• Journeymen – workers for others often lan¡bourers but mostly sem-skilled
• Landless labourers
• Indoor farm servants
• Vagabonds
• Beggars

To this list we need to add Ministers or Priests that lie about the same level as Wadsetters. Teachers, often the local minister, were prior to the improvements about the same social standing as Sub Tenants.

The likelihood is that the Loggie family were tenants to the Earl of Gordon or Innes during theses times. Latterly several parts of the family are identified as tenants and became important part for he overall estate management albeit in the 18th century.

The tenant generally had a lease on the land for about 1 – 6 years.  Alternative names were Husbandman or Gudemen (landowner). They would often be employers of sub tenants or cottars.  A single tenant farmer could hold sufficient land for several families to community farm – this would become the fermtoun.

In the case of a single tenant there was the possibility of accumulation of wealth, albeit in years of a good harvest, but more importantly with just some profit there was a possibility to invest in the future.  However this model would only be viable if there was enough land to build an economic inertia. If the farm were too small the profit would not be sufficient to accumulate to invest.

In other cases two or three tenant farmers joining together could manage the feufarm.  A joint-tenant farm was one where the tenants held a single lease for the farm, farming it jointly with their resources, be they material or labour as well as their own efforts and subsequently sharing the profit (or loss) of the subsequent crop.  Equally they paid the rent jointly. The earliest mention is of the Loggies is at Crofts of Dipple which in itself is probably a FeuFarm. Certainly Dipple was a fermtoun in its own right.

In another model the tenants leased separate and specific parts of the land and as a result they each paid their corresponding rent. In these cases the rigs, a narrow strip of ploughed, cultivated land, were often intermixed and there could contiguous plots that belonged to different tenants with subsequent disputes and logistical inefficiencies.  In theory the division was made in the spirit of fairness, taking into account sun, shade and drainage.  Whyte has put forward that this type of holding simply led to further the subsistence farming that had taken place before for the same reasons as the small single tenant farm.

Progression was therefore a delicate balance of economic viability.  Certainly this was not in the forefront of the mind of the landowners when they were portioning up their land.

Tenants in North East Scotland had a small piece of land adjoining or close to their dwelling and would probably own a few animals. They would also have had the Kailyard a major source of food.

Cottars would have much smaller dwellings with fewer possessions but probably have a cow.

Grassmen were basically herders or shepherds without owning the livestock they cared for.  In Aberdeenshire there are mentions of Grasswomen, which might infer that widows took over their husbands role upon his death.  Dependent on the area this group would be better or worse off.  The crofter could have a kailyard.  A kailyard was a small plot of land or kitchen-garden where cabbage (also known as kail) and other vegetables could be grown.  This group had the right to graze their animals on the moorland surrounding their local area.

Land ownership in Speymouth was limited to a very small number of people. In the Hearth Tax returns for 1692 there were only two landowners in Essil (Archibald Geddes and Cumming of Inchbare), in the hearth tax for Dipple in 1645 there was only Innes.  In the parish little or no distribution of land had taken place certainly at the taxable level.
There are some references to role of women in this rural environment.  For example a 1656 document⁠⁠(Scotland and the Protectorate (³) outlines that the Cottar’s wife was expected to harvest for as long as necessary, help her husband during hay time, winning the peats, tending the limekiln, carting and mucking, tending the byre, carrying the stacks from the barnyard to the barns for  threshing and winnowing.

Glendraw feufarm – a typical 17th century picture.

The normal farming unit therefore was not a single economically viable farm run by a single family but a community farm run by a group of people of different social levels.  In the Lowlands, as is the case of Speymouth this type of farm was the Fermtoun (also written as Ferm Toun and Ferm-toun).  A fermtoun therefore was a small cluster of houses and outbuildings occupied by tenants who together worked the land – as seen above often with results that led to subsistence farming.

If the fermtoun grew sufficiently and included a church it might be named ‘Kirktoun ’.  Similarly if there was a mill it might be named ‘Milltoun’.  Another name that is found is Cottoun, which refers to a settlement of cottars.  Hearth Tax returns have been used to provide a late 17th century distribution of settlement (RCAHMS 1997, 224-6), which shows that the majority of touns had between one and five households. The buildings within a typical fermtoun would vary dependent on the owner.

The husbandman (tenant) house was home to the tenant farmer and although they rarely had a chimney they would have either wooden or stone floors.  If there were windows they would not have glass but possibly waxed paper to allow in light.  The tenant and his wife would have a box bed while the children and any servants would be on straw pallets around a central hearth where they would use their plaid for warmth. They would have had very few possessions: a kettle, pots of metal and ceramic and plates cups and spoons of wood.  Their animals would be in the byre and not in the main house.

The lowest strata of society were the beggars.  The Scottish Parliament in 1579 passed an “Act For Punischment of Strang and Idle Beggars, and Reliefe of the Pure and Impotent” which followed earlier legislation in England (by Henry VIII).  The law meant that able-bodied beggars had to be branded on the ear. All the parishes had to list those that had been living there fore more than 7 years and provision had to made for them. The children of beggars (18 for girls and 24 for boys) could be taken into service without pay by the Parish landowners.   The provision included the requirement they participated in common work in the Parish.

Money for poor relief provision was a major burden on society and was raised in a number of ways (the example comes from the burgh of Aberdeen where there would have been a richer middle class):

• Church collections
• Church donations
• Hiring out a hearse
• Interest on loans
• Rental income
• Fees from baptisms, marriages, and burials

Rents were hard – it is estimated that between two-thirds to the entire rent was paid in kind. This was mainly paid in the form of grain and could be put to one-third of the whole crop. This gave rise to the saying:

“Ane to saw, and ane to gnaw and ane to pay the laird witha”⁠ (⁴)

In the bad years of famine or crop failure there would no be enough to pay the rent and keep the third for the following year’s sowing. This led to difficulties in the following years and there often years of double famine caused by the lack of seed. The kailyard in these times was the mainstay.

1. A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830 by T. C. Smout ↩
2. Enemies of God: The Witch Hunt in Scotland 1981 – Christina Larner ↩
3. Scotland and the Protectorate (ed CH Firth, Scottish History Society, 1899), pp 405 – 411 ↩
4. “Maw v.1, n.1”. Dictionary of the Scots Language. 2004. Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd. <http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/mawv1n1>Sc. 1706  Charitable Observations on Forbes’ Treatise on Tithes 99:By the old Scots way of calculating the proportion of the growth of the land, which ought to be payed yearly to the Heretor, they make a Tripartit division, by three Words Somewhat Barbarous, Sawing, Gnawing, Mawing: the first Imports, that the 3d part of the Cropt should be laid aside for Sowing the land the next year: the 2d Implies that another 3d part should be allowed to the Farmer for Maintenance of his Family and beasts necessary for his Labour: the last 3d being due to the Land-lord. ↩