34G Royalty of the Burgh of Dumfries. 



One is doing no injustice to the Town Clerks of former 

 days, who, though enjoying this valuable monopoly, were free 

 to practise, and as a matter of fact did practise as convey- 

 ancers in feudal as well as in burgage subjects, to assume 

 that the temptation must sometimes have beset them to com- 

 plete the investiture of a client more burgi to a subject which 

 had hitherto been held by feudal tenure. They ran the risk, of 

 course, of such a title being objected to as inept if challenged 

 within the prescriptive period ; but it was a risk that was worth 

 running, if, as in the case of the £$ land of Moat, the result 

 was to enfranchise a tenement within the royalty, and, after 

 the lapse of 40 years, to render -it immune from the com- 

 position that the proper feudal superior might have exacted 

 on the death of each last entered vassal. 



A misconception, which it is one of the objects of this 

 paper to explain, is the idea hitherto prevalent amongst local 

 conveyancers that the existence of burgage titles in Maxwell- 

 town had its origin in the successful scheming of Town Clerks 

 of bygone times to extend the sphere within which they exer- 

 cised their privileged monopoly. The idea is possibly not 

 unwarrantable, but it may be suggested with some confidence 

 that it is mistaken or, at all events, only partially true. The 

 researches of Mr Shirley, following on those of Mr Moir Bryce, 

 have clearly established that the Friars Minor at one time 

 owned several disjoined pieces of land on the east side of 

 Corbelly Hill, within a tract of territory which was part of 

 the temporality of Lincluden Abbey, and which was ulti- 

 mately formed into the Barony of Drumsleet. They were 

 doubtless mortifications or gifts to the Friary made at different 

 times from motives of pious bounty in consideration of masses 

 to be said for the souls of the benefactors ; and in the period 

 of uncertainty that immediately preceded the great ecclesias- 

 tical upheaval the majority of them had been feued by the 

 Friars for a substantial grassum with an illusory feu duty. In 

 such cases, however, the right of superiority still remained a 

 part of the benefice, and so also, of course, did the dominium 

 utile or fee simple in possession of such of the mortified lands 

 as remained in the hands of the Friars or their yearly tenants. 

 At the time of the Reformation, therefore, the temporality of 



