CHARTER, in the law of Scotland, is the written evidence of a grant of heritable property, under the conditions imposed by the feudal law—viz., that the grantee, or person obtaining, shall pay at stated periods a sum of money, or perform certain services to the granter, or person conferring the property. A C. must be in the form of a written deed. The granter of a C., in virtue of the power which he thus retains over the property and its proprietor, is called the superior; and the grantee, in consequence of the services which he undertakes to render, the vassal; whilst the stipulated sum to be paid or service to be rendered, is called the duty.
Charters are either blench or feu, from the nature of the service stipulated—a me or de me, from the kind of holding or relation between the granter and grantee; and original or by progress, from being first, or renewed, grants of the subjects in question.
Blench and Feu duty which the superior required of his vassal in former times was almost always military service, and the vassal was then technically said " to hold ward "—to hold on condition of warding or defending his superior. But
subsequent to the rebellion of 1745, in which the dangerous tendencies of the feudal relation were experienced, this holding was abolished (20 Geo. III. c. 50), and the only duties which it has since been lawful to insert in C. are blench and fcu duties. The former is a merely nominal payment—a penny Scots, a red rose, or the like, si petatur tan tuna (should it be asked); the latter is a consideration of some real value. Original blench C. having lost all object, and having no other effect but that of subjecting superiors to considerable expense in keeping up their titles, have become rare in modern practice. The forms of charters varying according to the circumstances in which they are granted, and the relations established between the granter and grantee, are of too technical a to admit of explanation in this work. They will be found very clearly and shortly stated in Bell's Law Dictionary, voce " Charter."