to the landlord. Of the former all trace has been lost, but there have apparently been two mills in the parish from time immemorial. One near to Magdalene Bridge - now called Brunstane Mill - served the people of Easter Duddingston, the other for Wester Duddingston, on the Figgate Burn, is still in active operation. Both mills have been much enlarged, and now do more than a merely parochial business.
With regard to the condition of the cultivators of the soil, the free farmers or tenants enjoyed the right of settling in any part of the kingdom, and these, upon the whole, were generally in pretty comfortable circumstances. It was very different with the hinds, bondsmen, or villagers, who were the absolute property of the lord of the soil, and were sold along with the land. This unhappy class, whose existence in Scotland can be traced to the reign of Malcolm Canmore, was composed chiefly of the original Celtic inhabitants of the country, partly of prisoners taken in war, and partly of those who, in times of famine and distress, had sold themselves into slavery to escape starvation.
The condition of these bondsmen must have been very wretched. They were bought and sold like cattle. They had no property of their own, and were entirely under the arbitrary control of their master or purchaser: they could not remove from the estate without his permission, and when oppression drove them, as it often did, to seek safety in flight, their master could "take them by the nose” and reclaim them to their former servitude. He could punish them at pleasure, and was responsible to no court or authority for his treatment of them.
The chartularies of the period abound with references to these serfs, and to the wretched condition in which they were placed. Men and women, with their families and property, are thus formally assigned along with lands as so much property of the superior, whether he were baron, abbot, or king. This state of slavery was abolished only by slow degrees, but we have evidence of its existence in the district, more especially among the mining population, till the end of last century.
At Pinkie coal works, which are perhaps the oldest in the country, slavery of a kind still existed till about 1780. And the same state of matters was to be found at the collieries and salt works of Easter Duddingston and Joppa till the year 1799.
