Definition
A term of Scots law with two related but distinct senses:
1. (As a verb) To return a writ or brieve to the Chancery office from which it issued. In Scots practice, this was the act by which the inquest or jury formally transmitted its verdict back to Chancery following a proceeding to establish an heir's right to succeed.
2. (As a noun) The extract or certified document issued by Chancery recording the service of an heir to his ancestor. This document served as formal evidence that the heir had been lawfully served — that is, recognized by inquest — as the rightful successor to the deceased. The retour was the operative instrument through which heritable title passed in the Scots feudal system of succession.
The two senses are functionally connected: the verb describes the procedural act of returning the verdict, and the noun describes the resulting document produced from that act.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "A returning" — and separately, "an extract from chancery of the service of an heir to his ancestor."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as a common English word; the term is a borrowing from Scots legal practice with no established general English meaning.
The Wiktionary entries, while accurate, obscure the procedural weight of the term. In legal usage, a retour was not merely a document of administrative record but the instrument that completed heritable succession under Scots law — without it, an heir's right to the ancestor's land remained unconfirmed regardless of any inquest proceeding.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Retour of Service: The full phrase designating the certified extract from Chancery confirming an heir's service. Burrill specifically cross-references this form. It is the noun sense of retour in its most practically significant application, and historical sources treating Scots succession law will typically use this full phrase rather than retour alone.
Why It Matters in Research
Retour is a term narrowly confined to Scots law and Scots legal history. Researchers encountering it in primary sources should understand that it belongs to the feudal framework of heritable succession that operated in Scotland prior to and through the period of land law reform in the nineteenth century. The Service of Heirs procedure — of which the retour was the culminating document — was eventually replaced by more streamlined procedures under Scots reform legislation, so the term appears predominantly in sources predating the mid-nineteenth century or in historical treatises on Scots feudal tenure.
The term does not appear in English common law sources in any equivalent procedural sense, and researchers working across Anglo-American and Scots materials should not assume equivalence with English writs or common law heirship documents. The brieve from Chancery, the inquest verdict, and the retour together formed a distinctive procedural sequence with no direct English analog.
When searching historical Scots legal materials, the full phrase "retour of service" will return more results than the bare term. Hubback's Evidence of Succession, cited by Burrill, is a period treatise that provides useful context for understanding how retours functioned as evidence in succession disputes.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries converge on the same core definition, though they emphasize different aspects. Black's (both editions) treats retour primarily as the verbal act — returning a writ to Chancery — while Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill more usefully emphasize the noun sense: the extract document produced by that act. Rapalje & Lawrence, drawing on Bell's Dictionary, offers the cleaner practical definition by focusing on what the retour was rather than what the officer did.
Burrill is the most complete entry, combining both senses and providing a treatise citation, and is the best starting point among the shelf sources for understanding the term in context. None of the four dictionaries situate the retour within the broader Service of Heirs procedure in sufficient depth for a researcher unfamiliar with Scots feudal practice — for that, the entry functions as a pointer to more specialized Scots legal history sources rather than a self-contained explanation.
Jurisdictional Note
Retour is exclusively a term of Scots law. It has no application in English common law, Welsh, Irish, or American jurisdictions. Researchers working in comparative inheritance law or Anglo-Scottish legal history should treat it as a Scots-specific technical term without assuming cross-jurisdictional meaning.