(210) albi; in contradistinction to rents reserved certain place where the trespass was comin work, grain, or baser money, which were mitted; otherwise called common bar. Cro. called redditus nigri, or black-mail. 2 Bl. Jac. 594. Blount. It was chiefly used by Com. 42. 2 Inst. 44. Lord Bacon calls the practisers in the Common Bench. Id. them blanch rents. Works, iv. 132. See BLANK INDORSEMENT. The inAlba firma, Farm. dorsement of a bill of exchange or promissory note, by merely writing the name of the indorser, without mentioning any person to whom the bill or note is to be paid; called blank, because a blank or space is left over it for the insertion of the name of the indorsec, or of any subsequent holder. Otherwise called an indorsement in blank. 3 Kent's Com. 89. Story on Prom. Notes, § 138. Lord Mansfield, 1 W. Bl. 297. See Indorsement. BLANCH (or BLENCH) HOLDING. In Scotch law. A kind of tenure in which the vassal paid a small duty to the superior in full of all services, as an acknowledgment of his right, either in money, or in some other substance; as a penny money, a pair of gilt spurs, a pound of wax, or of pepper, &c., nomine alba firma (in the name of white farm.) Ersk. Inst. b. 2, tit. 4, § 7. Bell's Dict. voc. Holdings. Considered by Blackstone the same with the blanch farms of the English law. 2 Bl. Com. 42, note (d). See Blanch ferme. BLANC, Blank. [L. Lat. blanca.] In old English law. A silver coin, of the value of 8d. coined in France by Henry V. in the eighth year of his reign; called blanc (white,) to distinguish it from a gold coin called a salut, or salus, struck about the same time. Spelman. Stow's Annals, 586. Money paid by weight, and not by tale. Spelman. See Blancus.