Above, a mill complete with storage.

Above, a millstone.

One of the oldest privileges granted to a landowner was the right to erect a mill, and most especially, the ability to bind (thirl) all the tenants on the baron’s or laird’s land to use only that mill to grind their grain. This obligation imposed on the tenants was known as the mill sucken. The mill to which the tenants were thirled (restricted) was not necessarily the nearest mill to their farms. Indeed, instances were known of a man having to pass not one, but two mills before he reached the one at which it was permissible for him to have his corn ground. But he had no choice in the matter. Moreover, each tenant had to pay mill multures, and to perform certain services for the miller, such as helping him to bring home a new millstone when required, or aiding in the more frequent operation of clearing out the mill lead.

Millstones had to be transported to the mills from local quarries. In the time when there were neither properly made roads nor wheeled vehicles capable of bearing so heavy a load, it is not difficult to believe that the bringing home a millstone from a distance of perhaps half-a-dozen miles or more was an onerous business.

The mode adopted was simply that of trundling it on its edge all the way by the most direct route available. They firmly wedged a long and stout stick through the eye of the millstone with two to three feet projecting on one side, and perhaps fifteen feet, or more, on the other. The long lever served to keep the stone on its edge with the short end used to guide the stone onward. Over the millstone was fixed a rough wooden frame with four, or perhaps six horses yoked to the front of this frame. One experienced man steered; another stayed by the short end of the spar; while the rest of the tenants managed the long end, or held on behind by ropes attached to the frame, to prevent the millstone from running off on the downward gradients. Despite every precaution, it would occasionally get too much way on a declivity and overpower all concerned, creating dire confusion; or by some unhappy chance it would have its equilibrium so disturbed as to get suddenly upset on the short end of the spar, throwing the hapless tenants, who hung grimly on at the other end hither and thither, or tilting them up in the air.

The mill services and the obligations of multure (price of grinding) seem to have caused the miller to be universally detested. For example, tenants, in some cases, paid their seventeenth peck in thirlage (servitude to the baron). Then they often paid multure on the thirty-second peck. They also had to pay bannock (flour) to the miller as a measure of good will. When all these were added together, they amounted at some mills to a twelfth or eleventh part of the whole corn carried to the mill.

But, the miller got other benefits as well. He was the one who made/mended the device that measured the flour/meal and if its measurement was wrong, the error would probably be to the advantage of the miller. Moreover, the tenant was bound to grind not only the meal to be used in his own family at the mill, but also all the other grain reared on his farm. The millers even insisted on payment for the corn that might have grown on fields that had been laid down to grass. Moreover, tenants were generally obliged to clear out and repair the mill lead, which is often half-a-mile in length, and the edges of it, for the most part, served as a road for the miller’s cattle. Since tenants were obligated to come to the miller for his services, and there being no other alternative, the miller was in position to treat them in whatever fashion he wished.

Sources

Various web sites, including:

Northern Rural Life in the 18th Century: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/rural_life19.htm