Definition
In Scots law, a feuar is the tenant or vassal who holds land under a feu — the distinctive Scottish form of land tenure in which the holder pays a perpetual annual duty (feu duty) to a superior in exchange for the right to use and possess the land. The feuar stands on the vassal's side of the feudal relationship, owing obligations to the superior (the granter of the feu) while holding heritable title to the land subject to those conditions.
The feuar's position was substantially stronger than that of an ordinary tenant: a feu granted heritable, perpetual possession of land rather than a time-limited lease, and the feuar's title could be transferred and inherited. The relationship was governed by the terms of the feu charter and, latterly, by the general law of the Scottish feudal system.
Why It Matters in Research
FEUAR is a term of specifically Scottish legal significance. Researchers working in English legal sources will not encounter it; its appearance in a document is itself a jurisdictional marker pointing to Scottish law or to materials written with reference to Scottish practice.
The term matters historically because the feu tenure system was the dominant form of Scottish land holding for centuries, and feuars appear throughout Scottish title deeds, conveyancing records, estate papers, and court records well into the twentieth century. The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 formally abolished the feudal system in Scotland, converting feuars into outright owners of their land as of 28 November 2004. Sources written before that date — including the historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — describe a living legal relationship; post-2000 sources treat the feuar as a historical category.
Researchers consulting older Scots legal materials should note that feu duty obligations and the superior-vassal relationship created a web of real conditions and burdens running with the land. Understanding the feuar's obligations requires attention not just to the definition of the term but to the specific terms of the feu charter and to Scots feudal law more broadly. Black's, Burrill's, and Bouvier's each define the term only at its most skeletal level; researchers needing substantive doctrine must proceed to Scots law sources.
Burrill's entry is notable for placing the definition of FEUAR immediately adjacent to an entry for FEUD (in the sense of a kindred vendetta), which is an unrelated term. The proximity in alphabetical arrangement creates no legal connection — these are entirely distinct concepts, and the juxtaposition is a byproduct of alphabetical ordering, not doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical dictionaries agree precisely: a feuar is the tenant or vassal of a feu. Each cites Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland as the authority, reflecting that this is a term of Scots law for which Bell was the standard reference. The entries are definitionally complete for their purpose but offer no elaboration on the feuar's rights, duties, or the practical operation of feu tenure. Bouvier's inclusion of the term is notable given that Bouvier's is primarily an American law dictionary; its presence signals that American legal compilers of the nineteenth century found the term sufficiently encountered in legal literature — likely through Scottish immigrants' land records and the influence of Scots law on some American legal writing — to warrant inclusion.
None of the three dictionaries address the abolition of feu tenure or signal any temporal limitation on the definition, which is expected given their dates of compilation. Modern researchers should treat all three entries as describing a historical state of Scots law.
Jurisdictional Note
FEUAR is exclusively a term of Scots law. It has no counterpart in English, Irish, or American common law systems. Researchers working in Scottish historical records, Scottish conveyancing, or comparative land tenure will encounter it regularly; those working in other common law jurisdictions will not.