ARRIAGE AND CARRIAGE

Definition

A historical term from English and Scotch feudal law referring to indefinite or unspecified services that landlords could demand from their tenants. The term describes a class of feudal obligations that were not fixed in advance—meaning the lord could call upon the tenant for an indeterminate amount of labor or service, including but not limited to transport and carrying duties. These services were abolished as unlawfully burdensome by statute (20 Geo. II, c. 50, §§ 21–22), which prohibited their exaction in Scotland and northern England. The term appears in historical sources as a paired phrase, with "arriage" and "carriage" functioning together to describe the range of unquantified services owed: roughly, personal attendance and labor on one hand, and haulage or transport duties on the other. The pairing was a common legal formula of the period, capturing both aspects of undefined tenant obligation in a single expression.

Common Confusion

"Arriage and carriage" should not be confused with the ordinary law of carriage—i.e., the body of law governing carriers, freight, bills of lading, and transport contracts. The two share superficial vocabulary but belong to entirely different legal regimes. "Carriage" in the feudal context means an obligatory service rendered to a lord; "carriage" in modern commercial and admiralty law means the conveyance of goods or passengers for hire under contract. Researchers encountering the term in a historical document about land tenure should not import commercial carriage law concepts into that context.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is essentially extinct in modern legal usage and appears almost exclusively in historical materials relating to Scottish and northern English feudal tenure. Researchers are most likely to encounter it when tracing the history of land obligations, the abolition of feudal incidents, or the conditions attached to copyhold and similar tenures. The key research trap is the phrase itself. "Carriage" in the context of feudal tenure research does not signal transport law; it signals an archaic service obligation. Failure to recognize the feudal meaning can cause a researcher to mismatch the term with the wrong body of doctrine or index it under the wrong subject heading. The prohibiting statute—20 Geo. II, c. 50—is a real and identifiable text in the context of the Tenures Abolition Acts and related Scottish land reform legislation of the eighteenth century. Researchers working with Scottish feudal records from before the mid-eighteenth century may encounter claims or disputes about arriage and carriage as live obligations; after the statute, the term appears primarily in retrospective legal commentary and institutional writings. Erskine's Institutes (Book II, Title 6, § 42) is the standard Scottish institutional source for this doctrine and should be consulted for the Scottish common law context. Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland is the other principal reference cited across the historical sources. Because this obligation was by definition indefinite in quantity, disputes about it tended to focus not on breach of a specific duty but on whether the obligation existed at all and whether the statute had extinguished it. Historical pleadings and conveyancing documents may include the phrase as a recital of burdens being released or reserved.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on this term. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Burrill's all define arriage and carriage as indefinite services formerly exacted from tenants, all cite the same statutory source (20 Geo. II, c. 50), and all point to Erskine's Institutes and Bell's Dictionary as the underlying authorities. There is no meaningful divergence among them. What the historical sources do not clarify is the precise content of the distinction between "arriage" and "carriage" as separate components of the phrase—whether one referred to personal labor and the other to transport specifically, or whether the pairing was a legal doublet of the kind common in feudal drafting (where two near-synonyms were joined for emphasis and comprehensiveness). Burrill's entry is the most expansive, but it does not resolve this question. Researchers needing the finer doctrinal distinction should go directly to Erskine and Bell rather than relying on the dictionary definitions alone.

Jurisdictional Note

This term is specific to Scottish law and, to a lesser extent, the law of northern England. It has no counterpart in the general common law of England proper, where feudal service obligations took different forms and were subject to different abolitionist legislation. It is not a term of American law.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia — Bills of Lading: Document of Title, Receipt, and Contract of Carriage (for the modern law of carriage, which is the context this term should not be confused with)

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