Definition
In Scots law, a lot; a method of determining rights or shares by chance. The term refers both to the act of casting lots and to the lot itself. Historically, kavil denoted the physical object used in the casting — a stick or rune-staff — but in legal usage the word extended to mean the process and outcome of lot-drawing as a means of allocating property, rights, or obligations among parties with equal or competing claims. Also written cavel.
Common Confusion
KAVIL / CAVEL: These are variant spellings of the same term, not distinct legal concepts. Bouvier notes both forms. Researchers encountering either spelling in Scots law sources should treat them as identical. Neither form should be confused with the English term "cavil," meaning a petty objection, which is an entirely separate word with no connection to lot-casting.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow term of Scots law with no surviving common law equivalent in English or American legal usage. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in historical Scottish legal materials — property divisions, mining rights allocations, and inheritance disputes where shares were distributed by lot rather than by partition in kind. The practical context in which kavil most frequently appeared was the division of mineral workings, particularly coal seams, among co-proprietors who could not otherwise agree on boundaries; lot-drawing resolved the allocation without requiring a physical survey that might favor one party. A researcher working backward from a modern property dispute with Scottish origins may find kavil buried in older title documentation or in the Erskine treatise cited by Bouvier. The term does not appear in English equity or common law digests under this spelling, so keyword searches must account for variant forms. Because the word derives from material culture — a runic casting-staff — its earliest appearances in records may be descriptive rather than technical, and the shift to purely legal usage is not precisely dateable in accessible sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the only entry among standard legal dictionaries. Bouvier defines kavil concisely as a lot under Scots law, notes the original referent (the stick or rune-staff used in casting), identifies the spelling variant cavel, and directs readers to Erskine's Principles of the Law of Scotland (cited as Erskine, Prin. 220) and the Century Dictionary. The entry is brief and does not address the procedural context in which kavil operated, the types of rights it was used to allocate, or how Scots courts treated disputes arising from a kavil once cast. No other major historical legal dictionary — not Black's, not Wharton's, not Burrill's — carries an independent entry for this term, which underscores its status as a term of art confined to Scots law sources. Researchers should consult Erskine directly for substantive treatment; Bouvier's role here is essentially as a pointer rather than an authority.
Jurisdictional Note
Kavil is a term of Scots law exclusively. It has no recognized counterpart in English common law, and American legal sources do not employ it. Research involving this term is confined to Scottish legal history and materials derived from it.