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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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SUPERIORITY, n. Also †-ie. Sc. Law:

1. The position or right of a Superior, q.v., the feu rights which attach to a piece of land.Sc. 1710 R. Sibbald Hist. Fife 242:
Their jurisdictions and superiorities, and of the lands contained in their golden charter.Sc. 1723 Mun. Univ. Gsw. (M.C.) I. 485:
He had purchased the few males and superioritie of the tenement of land.Sc. 1754 Erskine Principles iii. viii. § 5:
Where the superiorities yield a constant yearly rent, e.g. a yearly feu-duty.Sc. 1762 Earls Crm. (Fraser 1876) II. 255:
My brother Roderick has assigned to my eldest son the superiority which I gave him in Ross shire. . . . The valuation of this superiority amounts to 670 pounds Scots.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 956:
The superiority, or dominium directum, is the right which the Crown, as overlord of all Scotland, or subject superiors as intermediate overlords, enjoy in the land held by their vassals. It is not a right of use of the lands, but only a right to the civil rights of feu-duty, &c. and to the casualties.Sc. 1883 F. H. Groome Gazetteer Scot. IV. 402:
Under the superiority of the Baillies of Dochfour, Kingussie is a police burgh.Sc. 1912 H. W. Meikle Scot. & Fr. Revol. 9:
The abuses which had crept into this system were due to the fact that the franchise was vested, not in the land, but in the superiority. The property was separated from the superiority, and the superiority of portions of land valued at £400 Scots was conveyed as before to confidants, either in naked superiority, wadset, or liferent, care being taken to reserve to the disponer of the superiority, the right of revoking the grant at pleasure.Sc. 1966 Scotsman (21 Dec.) 9:
Paramount superiority is vested in the Crown, but as a result of grants and transfers, heritable properties are now generally held by their owners as vassals of the Crown or of subject superiors whose rights derive ultimately from the Crown.

2. Specif. A feu-title held direct of the Crown, orig. of forty-shilling land of Old Extent or later of £400 Scots of valued rent, which conferred the county franchise on its holder before the Reform Act of 1832. In the 18th c. such superiorities were often created and granted severally to nominal holders whose votes were then assured for the political party favoured by the original granter (see 1912 quot. above).Ags. 1820 Montrose Chron. (21 July) 279:
If desired there will be added as much more Superiority as will complete five Freehold Qualifications.Sc. 1830 Scott Diary (23 May):
Some superiority which my father had lent to the laird to make up a qualification[for a parliamentary vote.]Sc. 1846 J. R. McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) II. 212:
These fictitious votes, or 'superiorities', as they were called, soon became matter of traffic . . . about half these freeholders possessed merely the superiority — the parchment franchise — without having any right to an acre of the ground!Sc. 1910 W. L. Mathieson Awakening Scot. 19:
"Naked superiorities," worth a penny or sixpence a year, continued to be a perfectly legal qualification.Sc. 1931 H. Furber Henry Dundas 178:
In the eighteenth century qualifications to vote in Scottish counties are spoken of as "superiorities".