A markland or merkland () is an old

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

unit of land measurement. There was some local variation in the equivalences; for example, in some places eight ouncelands were equal to one markland, but in others, such as

Islay Islay ( ; , ) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll and Bute just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's cap ...

, a markland was twelve ouncelands. The markland derived its name from the old coin, the Merk Scots (cognate with

German mark The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was typically c ...

and various other European coinages, see

Mark (money) The mark was a currency or unit of account in many states. It is named for the mark unit of weight. The word ''mark'' comes from a merging of three Germanic words, Latinised in 9th-century post-classical Latin as ', ', ' or '. It was a measure ...

), which was the annual rent paid on it. It was based on this, rather than its actual area. Originally a Scots mark or merk was 13s 4d (160 pence), but the Scottish coinage depreciated against the English, and by the 18th century a Scots merk was worth only 13¹/₃d sterling – one-twelfth of its original value. Although such coins were abolished by the

Acts of Union 1707 The Acts of Union refer to two acts of Parliament, one by the Parliament of Scotland in March 1707, followed shortly thereafter by an equivalent act of the Parliament of England. They put into effect the international Treaty of Union agree ...

, some stayed in circulation for decades, and the names themselves remained in common use for centuries.

References

* ((Dabhach, Peighinn, Unga) with corrections and additions). Obsolete Scottish units of measurement Units of area {{realestate-stub

See also

References