The book Arran; - Cook Clan

40 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
The number of marts is proportional to the money rent,
one for every five marks (13s. 4d.)
'' the computation for
Bute,' For comparison the rents of that island may sum-
marily be set down at £141, 18s, 6d, money, 11 chalders
15 bolls barley, and 40 marts. Barley and marts are
grassums, payable at Martinmas, that is, payments indicating
the renewal of the yearly lease. Converting the barley and
marts into terms of money at the fixed ratio, given here and
there, of 4 marks a chalder and 5s. a mart, we work out the
total year's rent of these lands at £69, 10s. 8d. These do
not exhaust the lands of Arran, for the FuUarton holdings
are, of course, excluded, while the Stewarts of Bute held the
whole south end from Knockankelly (Cnocan a Choilich) to
the Feorlines ; Corriegills pertained to the sheriff ; Sannox
was owned by a Montgomery, and Shisken by the Abbey
of Saddell, while there were other ecclesiastical lands.
The money is on the Scots standard, and therefore during
the fifteenth century but a third of sterling or English money :
to translate this into modern values is more difficult. The
relative price of barley then and now may be taken as a
standard of comparison, but, again, the figure here given is
a conventional one and does not represent the actual market
price at any particular period. These ' conversion ' prices
are, indeed, normally much below those current at any time.
The price of cattle would be quite misleading, for the same
reason, and, further, because the animals were of the old
little, black breed, at best not much higher than a year old
calf.
Another product of Arran, in the royal accounts, was
' muUones,' apparently cod or whiting, ^ which were bought
in 1444 at 2s. the dozen, and salted before conveyance to
Stirling or Edinburgh. One way was to bring them to
1 The editor of the Exchequer Rolls ' does not pretend to identify ' them, vol. vi.
p. cii. I suggest cod. Cf. 'There is a great fishing of cod and whiting in and about
this bay' (Lamlash).—Martin's Western Isles, p. 221. The prevalence of whiting may
account for ' Whiting Bay/ just round from Lamlash, to the south.
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