Note 307 — Chapter VI · THE TRIBE IN SCOTLAND.

Ant. Ab. and Banff, s. 492, iii. 112, iv. 116. The same loose notions have prevailed of the position of the libere tenentes as of the thanes, and therefore it has been necessary to treat of both somewhat at length. Libere tenentes are usually translated ‘free tenants,’ just as tenant du Roi, in Ragman Roll, is usually translated ‘king’s tenant,’ as if they were tenants in the modern sense of the term, from the unfortunate propensity to render a word in one language by its phonetic equivalent in another, though the meaning may be different; but the true rendering of the one is ‘freeholders,’ and of the other, ‘holding of the king in capite.’ Ware defines the libere tenentes in Ireland as those qui prædia habebunt, ad hæredes transmittenda (Ant. Hib., 209); and Craig gives a very clear account of these in Scotland (Jus feudale, 87. 6; 248. 28; 362. 42). According to Cowell, ‘Freehold frank tenement, liberum tenementum, is that land or tenement which a man holdeth in fee, feetail, or at least for term of life.’ Freeholders in the ancient law of Scotland were called milites; and tenement or tenementum, he says, ‘signifies, most properly, a house or homestall, but more largely either for a house or land that a man holdeth of another, and joined with the adjective Frank, it contains lands, houses, and offices, wherein we have estate for term of life or in fee.’