Definition
A term from Scots law referring to the process by which the number of cattle that each person may graze on a common is calculated and apportioned in proportion to that person's rights of pasturage. Where multiple parties hold a servitude of pasturage over the same common land, sowming and rowming provided the operative mechanism for determining the stocking rate each party was entitled to exercise — preventing any one rights-holder from overloading the common to the detriment of others.
The term functions as a compound: "sowming" generally refers to the assessment or reckoning of grazing entitlements, while "rowming" refers to the allocation or assignment of those entitlements to specific rights-holders. In practice, the two are almost always used together and treated as a single process.
Common Confusion
Researchers should distinguish sowming and rowming from the broader concept of stinting, the English common law mechanism serving the same practical function. The two arise from distinct legal traditions — sowming and rowming is a Scots law doctrine grounded in the law of servitudes, while stinting operates within the English framework of common rights. The terms are not interchangeable in a research context, and sources addressing one tradition will typically not address the other. Additionally, Burrill's entry records the old English Exchequer term "to sowne," meaning to be leviable (applied to sheriff's returns in the context of estreats). This is an entirely separate term that happens to share a spelling variant. Researchers encountering "sowne" in English exchequer records should not conflate it with the Scots pasturage doctrine.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in sources treating Scots law, and researchers will find little useful material outside that tradition. The primary reference across all five source dictionaries is Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland, which functions as the authoritative secondary source for this doctrine. Any researcher pursuing the substantive law behind the term should treat Bell as the essential starting point rather than the English-language dictionaries that merely summarize his entry.
The term is essentially obsolete in contemporary legal usage, meaning it will surface almost entirely in historical Scots legal materials — records involving commonty disputes, sasine registers, and servitude litigation from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researchers working in Scottish property law history should be alert to the fact that the mechanics of sowming and rowming were tied to the broader Scots law of commonty, which was progressively dissolved through division of commonties, particularly following the Division of Commonties Act 1695. After widespread commonty division, sowming and rowming became a largely academic doctrine, though it retained theoretical relevance for commons that survived intact.
The corpus researcher should also note the Rapalje & Lawrence entry, which contains a textual corruption — the definition of sowming and rowming is run together mid-sentence with an unrelated entry on parliamentary procedure, and the entry is incomplete. This reflects a typesetting or transcription error in that edition. Burrill's entry is the most informative of the five, because it separately identifies the distinct English "to sowne" term and flags the risk of confusion, providing a useful editorial warning that the other dictionaries omit.
Historical Dictionary Support
All five source dictionaries agree on the core definition: sowming and rowming is the apportionment of grazing rights on a common among multiple holders of pasturage servitudes. The phrasing across Black's (both editions) and Burrill tracks closely, suggesting shared derivation from Bell's Dictionary. Bouvier and Rapalje & Lawrence offer marginally more compressed formulations but reach the same substantive point.
None of the five dictionaries elaborates on the procedural mechanics — how the assessment was actually conducted, what units of measurement were used, or how disputes over the apportionment were resolved. Bell's Dictionary is the source they all defer to, and researchers needing more than a definitional reference will need to go there directly. The historical dictionaries are in agreement and do not diverge, but their agreement reflects a shared reliance on a single upstream source rather than independent corroboration. This limits their collective authority somewhat — they amplify Bell rather than supplement him.
Jurisdictional Note
Sowming and rowming is a Scots law doctrine with no direct English law equivalent. It has no application in the common law jurisdictions of England and Wales, the United States, or other jurisdictions outside Scotland. Researchers working in any non-Scottish context who encounter the term are almost certainly dealing with a source that has borrowed it descriptively from Scots law.