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FIARS PRICES

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 309 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FIARS PRICES , in the See also:

law of See also:Scotland, the See also:average prices of each of the different sorts of See also:grain grown in each See also:county, as fixed annually by the See also:sheriff, usually after the See also:verdict of a See also:jury; they serve as a See also:rule for ascertaining the value of the grain due to feudal superiors, to the See also:clergy or to See also:lay proprietors of teinds, to landlords as a See also:part or the whole of their rents and in all cases where the See also:price of grain has not been fixed by the parties. It is not known when or how the practice of " striking the fiars," as it is called, originated. It probably was first used to determine the value of the grain rents and duties payable to the See also:crown. In See also:confirmation of this view it seems that at first the See also:duty of the sheriffs was merely to make a return to the See also:court of See also:exchequer of the prices of grain within their counties, the court itself striking the fiars; and from an old See also:case it appears that the fiars were struck above the true prices, being regarded rather as punishments to force the See also:king's tenants to pay their rents than as the proper See also:equivalent of the grain they had to pay. Co-existent, however, with these fiars, which were termed sheriffs' fiars, there was at an See also:early See also:period another class called commissaries' fiars, by which the values of teinds were regulated. They have been traced back to the See also:Reformation, and were under the management of the See also:commissary or consistorial courts, which then took the See also:place of the bishops and their officials. They have now been See also:long out of use, but they were perhaps of greater antiquity than the sheriffs' fiars, and the See also:model upon which these were instituted. In 1723 the court of session passed an See also:Act of See also:Sederunt for the purpose of regulating the See also:procedure in fiars courts. Down to that date the practice of striking the fiars was by no means universal over Scotland; and even in those counties into which it had been introduced, there was, as the See also:preamble of the act puts it, " a See also:general complaint that the said fiars are struck and given out by the sheriffs without due care and inquiry into the current and just prices." The act in consequence provided that all sheriffs should summon annually, between the 4th and the lothof See also:February, a competent number of persons, living in the See also:shire, of experience in the prices of grain within its See also:bounds, and that from these they should choose a jury of fifteen, of whom at least eight were to be heritors; that witnesses and other See also:evidence as to the price of grain grown in the county, especially since the 1st of See also:November preceding until the See also:day of inquiry, were to be brought before the jury, who might also proceed on " their own proper knowledge "; that the verdict was to be returned and the See also:sentence of the sheriff pronounced by the 1st of See also:March; and further, where See also:custom or expediency recommended it, the sheriff was empowered to See also:fix fiars of different values according to the different qualities of the grain. It cannot be said that this act has remedied all the evils of which it complained. The propriety of some of its provisions has been questioned, and the competency of the court to pass it has been doubted, even by the court itself. Its authority has been entirely disregarded in one county—Iladdingtonshire—where the fiars are struck by the sheriff alone, without a jury; and when this practice was called in question the court declined to interfere, observing that the fiars were better struck in See also:Haddingtonshire than anywhere else.

The other sheriffs have in the See also:

main followed the act, but with much variety of detail, and in many instances on principles the least calculated to reach the true average prices. Thus in some counties the averages are taken on the number of transactions, without regard to the quantities sold. In one case, in 1838, the evidence was so carelessly collected that the second or inferior See also:barley fiars were 2S. 4d. higher than the first. Formerly the price was struck by the See also:boll, commonly the See also:Linlithgowshire boll; now the imperial See also:quarter is always used. The origin of the plural word fiars (feors, feers, fiers) is uncertain. See also:Jamieson, in his See also:Dictionary, says that it comes from the Icelandic fe, See also:wealth; See also:Paterson derives it from an old See also:French word feur, an average; others connect it with the Latin See also:forum (i.e. See also:market). The New See also:English Dictionary accepts the two latter connexions. On the general subject of fiars prices see Paterson's See also:Historical See also:Account of the Fiars in Scotland (Edin., 1852) ; Connell, On See also:Tithes; See also:Hunter's Landlord and See also:Tenant.

End of Article: FIARS PRICES

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