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Run rig, or runrig, also known as rig-a-rendal, was a system of
land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...
practised in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, particularly in the
Highlands Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau. Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to: Places Albania * Dukagjin Highlands Armenia * Armenian Highlands Australia *Sou ...
and
Islands An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
. It was used on open fields for arable farming. Its origins are not clear, but it is possible that the practice was adopted in the late medieval period, supplanting earlier enclosed fields which were associated with a more dispersed pattern of settlement. It fell into decline mainly over the last quarter of the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th century. The land was divided into towns or townships, comprising an area of cultivable "in-bye" land and a larger area of
pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...
and
rough grazing Rough pasture is non-intensive grazing pasture, commonly found on poor soils, especially in hilly areas, throughout the world. External linksHill Plan Examples
Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland Livestock {{agri-stub ...
. The in-bye was divided into strips – rigs – which were periodically reassigned among the tenants of the township so that no individual had continuous use of the best land. This periodical reassignment can be considered a defining feature of run rig. The majority of townships were rented by a
tacksman A tacksman ( gd, Fear-Taic, meaning "supporting man"; most common Scots spelling: ''takisman'') was a landholder of intermediate legal and social status in Scottish Highland society. Tenant and landlord Although a tacksman generally paid a yea ...
and sublet to the actual farming tenants. Some tacksmen would have leases on several townships. The detailed working of run rig differed from place to place. The degree of co-operation in these communal farms was one of these aspects. In some instances, where ploughing was carried out by horse gangs, the responsibility for this was shared among the tenants – so providing an obvious communal activity. The Breadalbane estate was an example of this. However, there is no evidence for this sort of organisation on
Tiree Tiree (; gd, Tiriodh, ) is the most westerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The low-lying island, southwest of Coll, has an area of and a population of around 650. The land is highly fertile, and crofting, alongside tourism, and ...
, where the arable lands were almost entirely ploughed. A further complication was that many parts of the West Highlands used the to work arable, especially in the
Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrid ...
, so there was no need for a shared plough team. Two documented methods of working run rig demonstrate the relatively limited level of co-operative working. The first is found in a 1785 survey of Netherlorne on the Breadalbane estate. Here the typical township had eight tenants who would plough all the arable land, then divide it into parts judged to be of equal quality and draw lots, for each crop, as to who would occupy each part. The tenant of each part would then prepare his own section for sowing, broadcast his seed and then finally harvest. The second example is on
North Uist North Uist ( gd, Uibhist a Tuath; sco, North Uise) is an island and community in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Etymology In Donald Munro's ''A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland Called Hybrides'' of 1549, North Uist, Benbecula and ...
, where spade and caschrom working was used. Here the land was divided before any working of the soil – each lot was worked entirely individually by the occupier. Dodgshon discusses the misconception that communal working was the main characteristic of run rig. Instead a key defining feature was the holding of intermixed strips of land on the arable area. His conclusion is that run rig was not an archaic system of management based on communal ownership; rather it was a system that valued private property and employed communal activity only when necessary. From the mid-18th century the system was steadily supplanted in Scotland as the in-bye was divided into crofts under fixed tenancy, but run rig survived into the 20th century in some parts of the Hebrides. In Ireland, a similar system was called
rundale The rundale system (apparently from the Irish Gaelic words "Roinn" which refers to the division of something and "Dáil", usually meaning meeting or assembly) was a form of occupation of land in Ireland, somewhat resembling the English common fiel ...
. The run rig system of tenure should not be confused with the agricultural practice known as
rig and furrow Rig may refer to: Objects and structures * Rig (fishing), an arrangement of items used for fishing * Drilling rig, a structure housing equipment used to drill or extract oil from underground * Rig (stage lighting) * rig, a horse-drawn carriage ...
, which produced permanent ridges in arable fields. This resulted from the horsedrawn plough being worked in a clockwise direction, with the mould board turning the furrow to the right, thereby creating these ridges ("rigs") in the fields over time. A run rig system of agriculture may or may not produce a rig and furrow landscape, depending on the method of cultivation used.


See also

*
Open-field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acre ...
*
Lazy bed Lazy bed ( ga, ainneor or , gd, feannagan ) is a traditional method of arable cultivation. Rather like cord rig cultivation, parallel banks of ridge and furrow are dug by spade although lazy beds have banks that are bigger, up to in width, ...


References


External links


Malcolm Bangor-Jones - 'Understanding Runrig in the Northern Highlands'
- A lecture on run rig by Dr. Malcolm Bangor-Jones for the University of the Highlands and Islands. {{DEFAULTSORT:Run Rig History of agriculture in Scotland Scots property law Land tenure