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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Heriot

Heriot \Her"i*ot\, n. [AS. heregeatu military equipment, heriot; here army + geatwe, pl., arms, equipments.] (Eng. Law) Formerly, a payment or tribute of arms or military accouterments, or the best beast, or chattel, due to the lord on the death of a tenant; in modern use, a customary tribute of goods or chattels to the lord of the fee, paid on the decease of a tenant.
--Blackstone. Bouvier.

Heriot custom, a heriot depending on usage.

Heriot service (Law), a heriot due by reservation in a grant or lease of lands.
--Spelman. Blackstone.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
heriot

Old English here-geatwe (plural) "military equipment, army-gear," from here "army" (see harry). An Anglo-Saxon service of weapons, loaned by the lord to his retainer and repayable to him upon the retainer's death; transferred by 13c. to a feudal due upon the death of a tenant, payable to his lord in beasts.

Wiktionary
heriot

n. 1 (context obsolete English) the return of military equipment 2 (context archaic English) a payment made to a lord on the death of a tenant 3 (context dated English) a tribute

Wikipedia
Heriot

Heriot, from Old English heregeat ("war-gear"), was originally a death-duty in late Anglo-Saxon England, which required that at death, a nobleman provided to his king a given set of military equipment, often including horses, swords, shields, spears and helmets. It later developed into a kind of tenurial feudal relief due from villeins. The equivalent term in French was le droit du meilleur catel.

Heriot (disambiguation)

Heriot or Heriots may refer to:

  • Old English for "war-gear", see Anglo-Saxon weaponry
  • Heriot, the English term used for the tenurial relief in feudal Europe, in French known as le droit du meilleur catel
  • Heriot, Scottish Borders, a town in the Scottish Borders
  • Heriot, New Zealand, a township in the South Island of New Zealand
  • George Heriot (1563–1624), a Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist
  • George Heriot (artist) (1759 – 22 July 1839), a Scottish-Canadian artist
  • George Heriot's School, a school he founded in Edinburgh
  • Heriot's Rugby Club, originally for former pupils of the school
  • Heriot-Watt University, also named for George Heriot
  • Heryot, an unidentified poet attested in William Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris

Usage examples of "heriot".

To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man had become transfigured: the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden like a brilliant and powerful personality.

The door leading into the sitting room was ajar, and they could hear Heriot and his friends making merry irruption into the place.

They could also hear Heriot calling to Rondeau to bring bottles and glasses, and vaguely they marveled what Rondeau's attitude might be like at this moment.

Sir Percy, placing a warning finger upon his lips, quickly divested himself of his own coat, slipped that of Heriot on, twisted the muffler round his neck, hunched up his shoulders, and murmuring: "Now for a bit of luck!

In less time then it had taken to bind and gag Heriot, his henchman was laid out on the floor, his coat had been taken off him, and he was tied into a mummy-like bundle with Sir Andrew Ffoulkes elegant coat fastened securely round his arms and chest.

I have not forgotten Hume and Heriot nor has Lennox, I imagine~ dismissed the events at Dumbarton.

If Lord Grey indeed failed to pay him in whatever coin had been agreed for his betrayal at Heriot, it was inevitable, surely, that such a man should bite the hand which failed to feed him.

It does not alter the fact that the message inviting Sir Wat and Lord Culter to Heriot was sent off before his encounter with Lord Grey, and therefore before he could have known that Lord Grey was not keeping his side of the bargain.

Two, by failing to keep his part of the bargain at Heriot, Lord Grey had clearly no plans for collaborating with me in the future.

And lastly, Sir George Douglas, who was detained by Lord Grey during one of his embassies to England at that time, was present at Heriot, and if he will do so, can vouch for the fact that the only bait in the trap was myself.

At Heriot he played a dangerous game-again for his own ends-in which his own brother and the Buccleuch family were pawns though it appears, generous ones, in the way they have spoken for him.

We know now that we owe to you other gifts of money and of secrets over the years, and that we have had ignorantly the use of your talents and your abilities at Hume and at Heriot, at Carlisle and Dumbarton.