The dataset is in the form of a series of 32 Microsoft Excel workbooks. It comprises a transcript of a single manuscript volume, the Teind Court Register of Fiars’ Prices , held by the National Records of Scotland. Entries from the original Register have been transcribed into a series of Excel spreadsheets, independently checked and then verified against the original. For each Scottish county there is a single Excel workbook. The filename of the workbook identifies the county. Each workbook consists of two sheets, named “£sd” and “Decimal”. The sheet named “£sd” shows prices as they appear in the manuscript Register, namely in pre-decimal currency of pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d) for 1826–1969, and in decimal currency of pounds and pence (p) for 1970–1974. The sheet named “Decimal” shows, instead, decimal equivalents rounded to 4 decimal places. For example £1 7s 3¾d converts to £1.3656. The period covered runs from 1826 to 1974 – from the general introduction of Imperial weights and measures to the abolition of fiars courts. Each worksheet shows annual prices by crop (wheat, peas, potatoes etc) for a single county. The only crop recorded as being priced at some point during the period of study in every county was oat meal . In the majority of counties more than one price was recorded for barley, oats and wheat. These prices reflected either different qualities of grain – generally ‘first’ and ‘second’ quality, and in the richer farming areas of the south east of Scotland ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’ quality – or different local varieties . The Register generally adopted the Imperial system of weights and measures, but different measures were used for different crops and by different counties . The Imperial Quarter, a unit of dry volume equal to 64 Imperial Gallons, was deployed extensively. Being a unit of dry volume its weight varied between grains and across years reflecting both grain density and climatic conditions prevailing during a growing season. The ‘Boll’ was also widely used being the primary unit of volume for barley, oats and wheat in some counties, but of weight (140 Imperial Pounds) for oat meal. More straightforwardly the weights of some grains were expressed in Imperial Pounds (lb) or Hundredweights (cwt) .
Historically, the Sheriff of each Scottish county convened a meeting of that county's Fiars Court on an annual basis. The court met to determine the prices of agricultural crops (wheat, peas, potatoes etc) grown in the county in that year. Under an Act of Sederunt of the Court of Session dated 5 July 1809, the clerks to the county Fiars Courts were required to send a summary of the prices set on an annual basis to the Clerk of Teinds in the Teind Office in Edinburgh. These prices were recorded in the Teind Court Register of Fiars' Prices, the manuscript version of which is held by the National Records of Scotland (Ref TE 18/11). This dataset comprises a transcript of that volume, with separate Excel Workbooks for each county.
