Burgh Muir - James IV's Charter of 1508

James IV's Charter of 1508

The land outwith the exempted portions began to be feued in the early 16th century. The Burgh Records record that in 1490 "...all the haill counsale, deikynis, and community consentit to the assedatioun of the space of the burrowmuir", but it was not until 1508 that a Royal Charter issued by James IV gave the Council licence to feu, stipulating that "the foresaid lands shall be leased in feu-farm as aforesaid, and their heirs and all dwellers on the same lands be subject to the jurisdiction of our foresaid Burgh, the Provost, Baillies and Officers thereof, present and to come, and that they repair every week with their victuals and other goods to the market of our said Burgh..." A Council enactment of 30 April 1510 obliged the feuars "to build upon the said acres dwelling-houses, malt-barns, and cowbills, and to have servants for the making of malt betwixt and Michaelmas 1512; and failing their doing so, to pay £40 to the common works of the town, and also to pay £5 for every acre of three acres of the Common Muir set to them". The Scottish lawyer and antiquarian William Moir Bryce (whose exhaustive researches inform much of this article), writing in an age influenced by the Temperance Movement, thought this a "strange obligation", but it made sense at a time before piped urban water supplies, when beer was the common drink in preference to water drawn from lochs and wells which often proved injurious to health.