Definition
Garbales decime (also rendered garbales decimae) is a term from Scots law denoting tithes — specifically the tenth part of the grain or corn harvest owed as a religious or ecclesiastical levy. The phrase is the Latin form, with "garbales" derived from the Latin garba (a sheaf of grain) and "decime" being the plural of decima (a tenth). In practice, garbales decime referred to the portion of a crop, measured in sheaves, that was due to the church or a titular holder of tithes under Scotland's ecclesiastical property system.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to the specialized vocabulary of Scottish ecclesiastical and agricultural law, particularly relevant to research on teinds — the Scottish equivalent of English tithes. Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century Scottish legal records, kirk session papers, or teind court materials may encounter this phrase in Latin or Scots-Latin form. The distinction between garbales decime (grain tithes) and other categories of tithe — such as personal tithes on labor income or mixed tithes on produce requiring animal or human effort — was practically significant in teind disputes, where the type of tithe affected valuation, collection method, and the applicable rules of commutation. The Teind Court, which operated in Scotland and was eventually absorbed into the Court of Session, generated a body of case law in which precise identification of the tithe category was necessary. Researchers should be aware that Scottish teind law underwent substantial statutory reform in the seventeenth century, most significantly through the Acts of the Scottish Parliament of 1633, which established a framework for the commutation and standardization of teinds. After commutation, references to garbales decime in their original, in-kind sense became less common in litigation, though the terminology persisted in conveyancing instruments and historical title examinations. The term will not appear in English tithes literature in this form; English sources use their own taxonomies (predial, personal, mixed), and while predial tithes in England encompass grain tithes, the specific label garbales decime is a Scots-Latin usage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje and Lawrence's entry is brief: "In the Scotch law, tithes of corn.—Bell Dict." The attribution to Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland is significant, as George Joseph Bell's dictionary is one of the primary reference works for Scots legal terminology. Bell's treatment, consistent with broader Scots law usage, situates garbales decime within the teind framework as the grain component of ecclesiastical levy. The entry in Rapalje and Lawrence adds nothing beyond Bell's formulation, and no elaboration appears in the standard English legal dictionaries of the period (Bouvier, Black, or Burrill), which is expected: this is a term of purely Scots provenance with no functional equivalent requiring separate treatment in English-law sources. Researchers should consult Bell directly, as well as Erskine's Institute of the Law of Scotland and Stair's Institutions, for fuller treatment of teind categories and the substantive law governing their collection and commutation.
Jurisdictional Note
Garbales decime is a term specific to Scots law. It has no direct application in English law or in the legal systems derived from English common law. Researchers working on Irish or colonial ecclesiastical tithe questions will not encounter this usage.