Definition
A toll or fee paid to the owner or operator of a mill in exchange for grinding grain. The payment was typically made in kind — that is, in a portion of the grain or meal produced — rather than in money. The term carries two related but distinct senses:
1. The act or instance of grinding grain at a mill; the grain itself that is ground (the grist).
2. The toll, duty, or fee due for that grinding service, ordinarily rendered as a fixed quantity or proportion of the grain brought to the mill.
In Scottish law specifically, multure referred to the quantity of grain or meal payable to the proprietor of a mill, or to the multurer (the mill tenant or tacksman), as compensation for manufacturing the corns — that is, for processing the grain. The obligation to grind at a particular mill and pay multure there was connected to the feudal institution of thirlage, under which tenants on certain lands were bound to use a designated mill. The multure rate owed under thirlage could be a significant proprietary right capable of legal enforcement.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A grinding of grain, or the grain that is ground; also a toll paid to a miller, mill-owner, or similar party, generally in kind, for grinding corn or pulverizing ore.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The toll for grinding grain; a grist or grinding; the grain ground.
Editorial note: The common and legal meanings are unusually close here, but the legal context adds a layer of enforceable feudal obligation that the common definitions do not capture. In legal usage, multure was not merely a customary payment voluntarily made to a miller — it was a duty that could be owed as a matter of right under the law of thirlage, enforceable against tenants who attempted to grind their grain elsewhere.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Insucken multure: The toll paid by those tenants who were thirled (bound by obligation) to a particular mill. These sucken tenants owed multure as a legal duty.
Outsucken multure: A higher toll charged to persons not bound by thirlage who nonetheless chose to use the mill. Because they had no compelled obligation, their use was voluntary, and the mill owner charged a premium rate accordingly.
Why It Matters in Research
Multure is largely a historical and Scottish legal term, and researchers encountering it in English-language legal sources should be alert to context. In old English sources, the term describes a milling toll in broad strokes; in Scottish legal sources, it is embedded in the sophisticated feudal framework of thirlage, which governed the compulsory use of particular mills. These are not interchangeable.
Researchers working with Scottish estate records, feudal grants, rentals, and court proceedings from the medieval through early modern period will encounter multure frequently. The distinction between insucken and outsucken multure matters for understanding what a landowner or mill proprietor could legally claim and from whom. Claims of multure could generate litigation over the boundaries of the sucken — the territory whose inhabitants were thirled to a given mill.
The term virtually disappears from active legal usage after the abolition of thirlage in Scotland by the Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) Act 1880 and related reform legislation, which dismantled the feudal underpinnings that gave multure its legal force. Post-nineteenth-century sources using the term are almost certainly writing in a historical or comparative context.
English legal sources use the term sparingly and without the Scottish doctrinal architecture. Burrill notes its appearance in a 28 Henry IV award under the variant spelling multer, a reminder that spelling variation is common in early records.
Historical Dictionary Support
The dictionary sources converge on the two core meanings — the act/product of grinding and the toll for grinding — but vary in emphasis and depth. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier focus on the Scottish law definition and cite Erskine's Institutes (Book 2, Title 9, Section 19) as the authority, reflecting that multure's most doctrinally developed form was Scottish. Rapalje & Lawrence provide the most compact and English-oriented summary, treating the term as covering both the grist and the toll without the Scottish feudal context.
Burrill is the most historically thorough of the shelf sources. He traces the Latin roots (multura, molitura, from molere, to grind), cites old English sources including Cowell and Monasticon Anglicanum, and separately identifies the Scottish law meaning with a citation to Forbes' Institutes. His entry is useful for researchers needing to trace the term's appearance in pre-modern English records, where it functions as a straightforward milling toll rather than a feudal duty.
None of the historical dictionaries fully explains thirlage or the insucken/outsucken distinction in connection with multure, which means researchers relying solely on these definitions may miss the enforcement dimension that makes the term legally significant in Scottish sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Multure as an enforceable legal right was primarily a feature of Scottish law, developed within the feudal system of thirlage. In England, milling tolls existed but were governed by different frameworks and the term multure, while known, lacked the same doctrinal elaboration. The term has no meaningful modern application in either jurisdiction.