Welsh Hist. Also 4 tung, 7–8 tuncke. [ad. Welsh twng, twnc (pl. ty(n)geu); perh. connected with tyng-u to swear.] A kind of customary rent or payment (analogous to the ‘chief-rents’ or ‘quit-rents’ of English Real Property Law), issuing out of certain lands in North Wales, and still payable in respect of Crown Lands.
Commonly explained as the money-commutation paid in lieu of the gwestva (in Latin cena), an entertainment due or tribute-in-kind rendered to the lord of the cymwd or prince, in respect of the free maenols of the cymwds (see COMMOT). Hence translated by Seebohm as ‘food-rent.’ As to the derivation, the conjecture has been offered that an oath was originally required of inability to render the gwestva in kind, before the tunc-pound was accepted instead.
1311. Inq. P. M. (C.) Edw. II., File 22. m. 23 (P.R.O.). Idem Comes … habuit lx. s., tam de liberis quam de natiuis, pro quadam custuma que vocatur Tung.
1334. in Vinogradoff, Survey of Denbigh (1914), 7. Quelibet istarum xj. gavellarum reddit de Tung’ per annum xij d. et pro pastu familie Principis per annum ij. s. v. d. q.
1658. in W. M. Myddelton, Chirk Castle Acc. (1908), 73. Tuncke rent for the same lands for yeare ended at Michelmas 1657.
1793. Jrnls. Ho. Comm., 28 March, 558/2. The Sheriffs of the County of Flint … are charged with an Annual Rent called The Tuncke Rent, payable in small Sums, or Rents, for divers Tenures … in the said County. Ibid., 560/1. The Nature and Original of the Tunck Rent, called also Porthan Keys, cannot now be traced or explained.
1895. Seebohm, Tribal Syst. Wales, vi. § 4 (1904), 154. In the Extents the food-rents of the free tribesmen were found to be commuted into definite money payments made under the name of tunc.
1914. Miss M. Neilson, in Vinogradoff, Survey of Denbigh, Introd. 59. The tunk-pound in the Venedotian code is due from the maenol. Ibid. In the Denbigh Survey the tunk is a definite money charge on all Welsh customary tenants, free and nativi.
