BLACK-Mail, a certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other matter, anciently paid by the inhabitants of towns in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, and Durham, to divers persons inhabiting on or near the borders, being men of name, and allied with others in those parts, known to be great robbers and spoil-takers; in order to be by them freed and protected from any pillage. Prohibited by 43 Eliz. c. 13. The origin of this word is much contested, yet there is ground to hold the word black to be here a corruption of blank or white, and consequently to signify a rent paid in a small copper coin called blanks. This may receive some light from a phrase still used in Picardy, where speaking of a person who has not a single halfpenny, they say, il n'a pas une blanche maille.