Definition of "lawing"

And in this distresse and necessitie it had beene verie requisit and needfull that the souldiers should haue taken vp their weapons , serued against the enimie , and haue defended Lawing woorse the common state

1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison

A shilling for breakfast, three shillings for dinner, including a pint of old port, eighteen-pence for a snug supper — such were the charges of the inn of Saint Ronan's under this landlady of the olden world, even after the nineteenth century had commenced ; and they were ever tendered with the pious recollection, that her good father never charged half so much, but these weary times rendered it impossible for her to make the lawing less.

1824, Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well, page 9

Late at e'en, drinking the wine, And ere they paid the lawing, They set a combat them between, To fight it in the dawing.

1925, George Wharton Edwards, The Book of Old English Ballads

A Spanish legend has it, that there was a cave at Salamanca, where he constantly maintained seven scholars, on condition that when they had finished their studies, the seventh should pay the lawing.

2012, Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, page 1024