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", in the same general sense of payments for an income-producing area of land. What does the Team think? Also, is there any modern cognate of "wadset"? Gordon