Definition
An action in Scots law to recover multures — the tolls or dues owed by tenure to a particular mill for grinding grain — that have been abstracted, meaning withheld or diverted by tenants who ground their grain elsewhere or otherwise failed to pay what was owed. The action of tures is the legal mechanism by which a mill proprietor or right-holder enforced the thirlage obligation, compelling payment of unpaid multures from those bound by tenure to use the mill.
Why It Matters in Research
Tures is a highly specialized term of Scots feudal law, virtually confined to the historical literature on thirlage — the system by which tenants were bound to a particular mill. Researchers encountering this term in historical Scottish legal records, conveyances, or feudal tenure documents should immediately connect it to the broader thirlage framework; the action of tures is unintelligible without understanding multure and thirlage as its context.
The term appears in older Scots institutional writers and is unlikely to surface in modern legal materials. Its presence in a document is a reliable signal that the researcher is dealing with pre-reform Scots feudal property law, likely pre-nineteenth century. Thirlage as a practical system was largely dismantled by the Thirlage Act 1799 (39 Geo. III c. 55), so live litigation under this doctrine is historical. Researchers working in Scottish estate records, baron court proceedings, or heritable property disputes of the seventeenth or eighteenth century are most likely to encounter tures.
Because the term is narrow and archaic, it will not appear in most general legal dictionaries. Burrill preserves it as a passing entry, and the citation to Forbes' Institutes directs researchers to one of the few detailed institutional treatments. Gap awareness matters here: standard English common law dictionaries will not contain this term, and researchers who approach Scottish feudal sources with only English-law references will find no guidance.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole entry among standard reference works, defining tures as the Scots law action to recover multures abstracted by tenants. Burrill's definition is lean but accurate, and he correctly cross-references Multure and cites Forbes' Institutes (part 2, book 2, chapter 4, title 3, section 1) as authority. The entry is essentially a pointer term — Burrill treats tures as derivative, with the substantive doctrine residing under the entries for multure and thirlage.
No equivalent entry appears in standard English law dictionaries of the period, which reflects the action's confinement to Scots feudal practice. The institutional writers of Scots law — Forbes, Erskine, and Stair — are the primary sources for the doctrine underlying this action, and researchers needing depth beyond Burrill's brief definition must consult those works directly.
Jurisdictional Note
Tures is exclusively a term of Scots law with no counterpart in English common law or the law of other jurisdictions. It arose from Scotland's distinct feudal tenure system and the institution of thirlage, which had no direct English equivalent.