Fisc, fisk

Also 7 fisque. [a. Fr. fisc, or independently ad. L. fiscus rush-basket, purse, treasury. The current spelling in Sc. Law is fisk, in other uses fisc.]

  1.  Antiq. The public treasury of Rome; under the Empire, the imperial treasury or privy purse of the Emperor.

1598.  Grenewey, Tacitus’ Ann., II. xi. (1603), 49. Cæsar did with no lesse gratefull bountie, shew his liberalitie when he bestowed the goods of Aemilia Musa, a rich woman, fallen to the fisque; upon Aemilius Lepidus, of whose house she seemed to have been.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 463. The Fisque or city chamber by that means was soone acquit of all debts.

1679.  Burnet, Hist. Ref., I. 274. The endowments of the heathenish temples were, upon a full debate, whether they should return to the right heirs or be confiscated? in the end adjudged to the fisc, or the Emperor’s exchequer.

1865.  Merivale, Rom. Emp., VIII. lxiii. 55. The endowment of the professors of learning by Vespasian seems to have been made from the fisc.

  b.  Any royal or state treasury; an exchequer. Now rare (Hist. or with allusion to ‘confiscation’). Also attrib. in fisc-lands (Hist.) = fiscal lands.

1599.  Broughton’s Lett., iii. 11. As if your inuentions were all Treasure trouue, fiske royal, mines vnheard of.

1606.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. II., Magnificence, 608.

1697.  Evelyn, Numismata, vii. 233. The Fisque and publick Treasure supplied by the People suffers in all its Branches and Relations, as the most flourishing Tree does from its wither’d and dried up Roots.

1788.  Priestley, Lect. Hist., V. xlviii. 360. A fine must therefore be paid to the fisc, over and above what the persons injured had a right to claim.

1801.  A. Ranken, Hist. France, I. 251. Some writers are of opinion that there were public or fisc lands, which formed the revenue of the government.

1854.  Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), I. III. ii. 366. King Chlotaire demanded for the fisc the third part of the revenue of the churches; some bishops yeilded; one, Injuriosus, disdainfully refused, and Chlotaire withdrew his demands.

1868.  Mill, in Star, 13 March. How can that be confiscation by which the fisc is not to receive anything.

  c.  jocosely. A man’s purse or ‘exchequer.’

1820.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. Two Races of Men. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc.

  2.  Scots Law. The public treasury or ‘Crown,’ to which estates lapse by escheat: in the phrase ‘as to the fisc’ (translating quoad fiscum), i.e., so far as the Crown rights of escheat are concerned. † Hence incorrectly used for: The right of the Crown to the estate of a rebel.

[1641.  Sc. Acts Chas. I. (1870), V. 415 § 107. Provyding allwayes that … the bandis or contractes heirby ordeened to perteene to be neerest of kine … shall not fall wnder þe compas of escheat nor ȝit any pairt therof perteene to þe relict jure relictæ Bot shall remaine in þe owne nature quoad fiscum et relictam as they wer befor þe making of this acte].

1680.  in Fountainhall’s Hist. Notices (1848), I. 269. The King … was sending … a letter converting the sentence to banishment, and confiscating his ship and all his goods, but preferring his creditors theirin to his fisk.

1754.  Erskine, Princ. Sc. Law, II. ii. § 11. Personal bonds are now moveable in respect of succession, but heritable as to the fisk, and husband and wife. Ibid. (1773), Instit. Law Scot., II. ii. § 10, heading. By the word fisk in this statute [see quot. 1641] is meant the crown’s right to the moveable estate of persons denounced rebels.

  3.  = FISCAL sb. † a. Sc. Law (obs.). b. Used by Browning after It. fisco.

1752.  J. Louthian, Form of Process (ed. 2), 23–4. Every Sheriff or Fisk of Court, to whom the Execution of the Warrant is committed, orders a Party, attended by the common Officers of the County, for the Prisoner’s safe Transportation, as directed by the Warrant, and gives Receipt to the Fisk of the County he receives him from.

1868.  Browning, Ring & Bk., IX. 13.