In message <008101c40a4f$baedfe70$53f0a1cd@preferred>, Gordon Barlow <barlow@candw.ky> writes >According to a book I am reading on Scottish history, the basis of land tenure >in the 17th Century for junior branches of "the chiefly houses" in the clan >territories of the Highlands, was "usually either a tack, wadset or a feu. A >tack was a lease. A wadset was the Scots term for a mortgage. It was often >converted into a feu, which meant virtual ownership in exchange for a lump sum >annual payment to a feudal superior who retained certain powers of control..." >""... the clan gentry, often known generically as tacksmen..." > >I found that very interesting, because I had never heard the term "tacksmen" >before. It seems reasonable enough to presume that the words "feudal" and "fee" >came from "feu", and I also wonder if our word "tax" might conceivably have come >from "tacks", It is tempting, isn't it? 'tak' in Scots = take, and that is exactly what the income tax men do. But the word tack (or intake in Lancashire) for a piece of property usually means it was land cleared and cultivated, taken (in) from the surrounding forest or moor and very often enclosed or fenced against other further encroachments. Tax is directly from taxare, Latin, meaning to value, charge and handle. >? > >Also, is there any modern cognate of "wadset"? > Something you put down as a pledge. The only very remote thing I can thing of is 'wedge' used as Cockney slang for a fist full of notes (or cash) put down as a bet. But somehow, you can't see Arfur Daley seeking for a word from Scots law terms to express his meaning. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society