Читать книгу A Great Grievance - Laurence A.B. Whitley - Страница 10

Religious issues in Scotland have frequently been the cause of strong emotions. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that, of all the impassioned controversies since the Reformation, the most enduring concerned something as seemingly unexceptionable as the admission of approved candidates to parish churches. Disturbance, intimidation and even violence repeatedly accompanied this event from early in the eighteenth century until 1843, when the national church experienced its final and most spectacular split as a result of the accumulated bitterness. Clearly then, it was an issue which stirred up intense feelings, yet what prompted them? How could mere concern over the identity of a parochial appointee give rise to so much anger, litigation and expense?

As will be seen, a wide variety of factors played their part. These would include different viewpoints over the relationship between church and state, between church and people, between landowner and people, and between those who held opposing theological or political convictions, to list but a few. Fundamental to countless controversies, however, was one issue: property ownership, or, to be specific, ownership of land, the fruits arising from it and the rights attaching to it. From the moment that the first Christian congregations moved out of makeshift accommodation into purpose-built buildings, these became matters of inescapable importance. This was because virtually all churches had to be built on land that ultimately belonged to someone, and whatever may have been an owner’s goodwill at the time of construction, it was always likely that the attitude of his successors might change, particularly if in the selection of an incumbent, the congregation seemed to acquire a disagreeable degree of autonomy. Either way, from the earliest centuries, church and patrons can frequently be found wrestling and bargaining with each other to maximize whatever of income or influence each could claim as theirs.

It is this tension between sacred and secular interests which gives lay patronage its particular fascination as a subject for study. In the selection of an entrant to a territorial ministry, territorially financed, the question remained: which interest, landed or ecclesiastical, should have what privileges, and, no less importantly, who should determine how those privileges should be apportioned, the state or the church? By the eighteenth century in Scotland, church and society had failed to find a satisfactory resolution to this conundrum, and so paid the price in the disputes which followed.

This study will look at the controversies surrounding patronage in Scotland during the first half of the eighteenth century. In order to do so, however, it is necessary to look back to the first appearance of patrons, and from there observe how their role and status evolved.

The Beginning of Lay Patronage

The origins of patronage are not especially clear. However, it would seem that, after the official legalization of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in 313, property–owning Christians came forward to aid the Church’s building programme either by giving money to endow a church, by personally erecting it or by donating the ground for one. In so doing, they received the title of that church’s patronus, that is, its protector, defender or advocate. This general principle endured through the following centuries, summarized in the maxim incorporated in canon law: Patronum faciunt, dos, aedificatio, fundus (gift, building, land make the patron).

Naturally, the patron was not always above looking for something in return for his generosity, and this usually took the form of certain privileges. At first, they were in effect, simply marks of respect, as in the honor processionis (place of honor in religious processions), the honor precum (special place in the prayers), the honor sedis (privileged seat) and the honor sepulturae (privilege of burial within the church’s precincts). However, with the fifth century, an entirely different opportunity presented itself. From this time onwards, the stability of the Roman empire weakened and bishops increasingly found themselves unable to ensure that their congregations were adequately protected and cared for. It became obvious that more reliance upon the protective role of patrons was necessary, and, as an incentive for defending existing foundations and erecting new ones, the right to choose the church’s incumbent was allowed. Dating is difficult, but it would seem that, by the close of the sixth century, the practice was well established.1

Other honorary rights gradually followed. Having established their right of selection, it was then a short step for landowners to think about their financial privileges. It seemed to them that their position was straightforward: they owned the land on which the church stood, they, or their forebears, had erected the building, its funding came from their produce — even the priest was now theirs to appoint, remove, and generally “use (and abuse) . . . like any other serf serving on their estates.”2 It therefore appeared logical that when the living was vacant, they should receive back the revenues that had been set aside for it. With the Empire continuing to collapse, the Church was not in a position to resist, and a further swing in favor of a patron’s privileges unfolded. Indeed, by the eleventh century, there was little to prevent him not only regarding his church as his private property, but, with suitable management, a source of income little different from that of his bake house or mill.

As might be expected, when the early Middle Ages gave way to the comparative stability of the new millennium, the Church began to turn its attention to the task of regaining some of the initiative it had surrendered into lay hands. Probably the most effective counter-measures were achieved under the pontificate of Alexander III (1159–81), who adopted a two-pronged approach to clawing back some of the advantage patrons now held. The first element of his strategy was to introduce a spiritual dimension into the right of patronage. Up until then, its basis and character had been entirely temporal - that is to say, a patron’s ecclesiastical rights simply derived from his holding of property. Alexander now insisted that these were only legitimate if a patron exercised them along with the Church as part of a joint responsibility for the management of the benefice, and thus designated in the papal decretals as a jus temporale spirituali annexum (a temporal right, tacked on to the spiritual). In other words, patronage was now defined as having an identity of which there were two necessary parts, a temporal and a spiritual. The effect of the latter’s introduction was, naturally, to place the Church in a far stronger position for regulating both the exercise of the jus patronatus (right of patronage) and its passage from one holder to another. Thus, for example, although it could be inherited or bought as part of a property, its spiritual component made its sale as a separate entity theoretically impossible, “both because it was a right the value of which was inestimable, and therefore irreconcilable with the contract of sale, and also because such a transaction was simoniacal.”3

Alexander’s other important achievement was to establish the issue of whose privileges ultimately took precedence, was it the Church’s or the patron’s? He did this by reaffirming the jus patronatus to be a jus temporale spirituali annexum, so that the right of patronage becomes explicitly subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and assessment. The practical implications of this were that a patron still had the right of selection in a vacancy, but he had to “present” his choice to the bishop for scrutiny and admission. Thus the right of presentation (jus praesentandi) meant the right of proposing, not simply a right to nominate or impose a candidate. The patron’s role was now auxiliary to the bishop’s, so that it was, for example, possible for a bishop to plant a church without a lay presentation,4 but no presentee could be installed without episcopal collation.5 With this development, an important landmark had been reached in clergy–laity relations. However much a proprietor might dominate the residents on his estates, the priest was no longer “his” in the way he had been previously. Whoever might initiate the steps to a settlement, in vetting candidates and giving them legal title to their livings, as far as the Church was concerned, its position as ultimate authority was considered to be settled. Theoretically, this reflected the outcome of the Investiture Controversy of the Western Church. In time however, property rights, civil law, and “state building” were to have their effect.

Moreover, as will be seen below in a Scottish context, for the Church to declare an issue settled, was not necessarily to render it non–negotiable for everyone concerned.

Scotland

For the medieval Scottish Church, the marriage of King Malcolm III to the Anglo–Saxon princess, Margaret, in 1069, was a momentous landmark. From then on, the influence and institutions of the Roman Church began increasingly to permeate and dominate the Scottish ecclesiastical landscape. One result was that, early in the twelfth century, a Roman civil parish structure began to emerge, and laymen who had provided churches within their areas of territorial authority, equated themselves with the role of patron of that church and its evolving parish. The foundation of the church at Ednam, in the borders, is an example of how, around 1100, such a relationship developed. The charter describes how a Saxon named Thor Longus, was granted some moor-land near Kelso, by King Edgar (1097–1107). After cultivating the land and erecting a church, dedicated to St Cuthbert, he established the material needs of the foundation by giving the priest a ploughgate of land [c.104 acres] and, afterwards, the tithes of his manor [i.e., the tenth part of its fruits and profits].6

By such means,7 Scots landowners came to have the same proprietorial attitude towards the places wherein they worshipped as their Continental counterparts. Both considered the churches on their land to be “owned”, that is, everything about them—the patronage, the building, the income from the glebe, tithes and offerings—was to be as much at their disposal as any other asset. However, as shown above, change was in the air and, in Scotland, the bishops were well aware of the patronage reforms taking place on the continent, having been represented at Pope Alexander’s ground-breaking Lateran Council of 1179.8 They too began to establish the principle of the Church’s joint role in vacancy-filling, and reinforced it by making a valid transfer of the spiritualities conditional upon their consent.9

At this point, an important development unfolded which was particularly to affect the history of lay patronage in Scotland. This was that, from the twelfth century, a remarkable proportion of the nation’s parish churches came to be appropriated by religious houses as a result of gifts by the Crown and other laymen. The process itself was not new, but rather something which, as Ian Cowan remarks, “had already developed elsewhere and was now to be speeded up in England and Scotland by the advent of the Normans.”10 The commonest motives for such conferments were piety (for the health of one’s soul), convenience (divesting liability for upkeep) or generosity (to assist the finances of the monastery). Whatever the reason, however, by the mid-thirteenth century, larger abbeys like Kelso had 37 annexed churches, Holyrood 27, Paisley 29 and Arbroath 33.11 As time went by, parochial benefices were also annexed to cathedrals and collegiate churches to found or finance prebends [pensions granted to canons or chapter members].12 All in all, the tide of change was such that, by the eve of the Reformation in 1560, only 14 percent of all parochial benefices remained outwith ecclesiastical control. The magnitude of the trend becomes apparent when compared with England: by this date, 86 percent of Scotland’s 1028 parishes had seen their revenues appropriated in some way. In England, the corresponding figure was 37 percent.13

Although the Church continued to hold the greater amount of parochial patronage up until the Reformation, this fact does not appear to have been the cause of particular concern among royal or noble circles. Matters were about to change, however, and the catalyst was the contentious issue of papal provisions.

Papal provisions were instances where the pontiff reserved the right to intervene in a vacancy and appoint an incumbent directly from Rome. Initially, these special reservations simply targeted individual benefices which he had earmarked for attention. Beginning with Clement IV in 1265, however, successive popes used general reservations to award themselves the right to nominate to an entire category of benefices which had become vacant in particular circumstances. Thus, for example, Rome could intervene in vacancies where the occupant had died at, or near, the Holy See, or where the cleric had resigned to take up a higher appointment, or even where he had died in any month other than March, July, September or December14. One way or another, the Holy See increasingly sought to bring appointments within its direct control, desiring both to increase papal income and particularly to make the Church’s authority more centralized. The result, according to Innes,15 was that every year, thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of benefices across Europe were affected.

In Scotland, the business of papal provisions was to sow the seeds of opposition but not, surprisingly, because the pope’s nominees threatened to supplant local preferences: the distance between Scotland and Rome was enough to ensure that papal fiat without indigenous consent was simply not enough for the pontiff to make his appointments prevail. Rather, it was for two other reasons that provisions engendered annoyance.

The first reason was that they led to a constant stream of litigation by rival claimants for benefices coming before the court at Rome, as well as a procession of hopefuls seeking to purchase pensions and preferments.16 This inevitably occasioned a steady drain of currency out of the country. To counteract it, James I passed a series of acts in 1424, 1427 and 1428, the last of which specifically condemned “thaim that dois barratry” —barratry being unauthorized dealing at Rome17—but the problem would not go away, and James III felt compelled to renew the legislation in 1482 and 1484.18

Secondly, and more importantly, as Rome became increasingly inclined to reserve to itself appointments to the “greater benefices”, or bishoprics, successive kings grew deeply uncomfortable. Since their predecessors had been generous founders of monastic houses, they had felt justified in looking upon these with the same proprietorial eye as that with which parochial lay patrons regarded the churches on their estates. Papal interference was unwelcome, and since senior clerics sat in Parliament or council, the king could ill-afford to see these preferments going to men who were unacceptable to him. The result was a battle of wills, from which the Crown eventually emerged the winner. In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII issued an Indult, conceding the right of James III to nominate, within eight months, to such benefices belonging to monasteries and cathedrals, which were worth more than 200 florins, gold of the camera.

This was not the only success to come the Crown’s way. Earlier, it had decided that, by long-standing tradition, the monarch had the right, while an episcopal see was vacant, to present to any of the benefices for which the bishop had collation.19 It was a claim that was to provoke friction between Crown and Pope throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and into the sixteenth. However, while the papacy challenged the king’s “pretended custom”, by various deeds and statements, as in 1323, 1337 and 1440, the Crown was able to hold onto its position, thanks to supportive declarations from the Scottish Church (1450, 1457 and 1459) and Parliament (1462, 1481, 1482 and 1485)20.

With the 1487 indult, it might have appeared that at last a settled arrangement in Scottish relations with Rome over vacancies had arrived. However, instead of satisfying royal hunger, such concessions merely whetted the appetite. With monasteries and episcopal dioceses now firmly within its sphere of influence, from this point down to the Reformation in 1560, the Crown slowly pushed against limitations as to its power of nomination. A typical example of its mounting assertiveness can be seen in the Act of 1526, which bluntly claimed that the nomination to all vacant bishoprics or abbacies pertained solely to the king, and anyone entering such positions by other means “sall incur the cryme of tresone and leise majestie.”21

So then, thanks to royal resistance, the initiative in the nomination of higher clergy in particular that had been moving in the Church’s favor, flowed in the other direction and into royal hands. Thus Cowan suggests that, by the sixteenth century, the Crown may not have made all the gains it might have liked, but, “it possessed a far greater degree of patronage....than it had ever previously commanded.”22

As the continuing secularization of church property gained momentum in the century before the Reformation, the Crown was not of course the only interested party. Lay families made sure they did not miss out on what they could gain.23 However, their primary concern was income, and any right of patronage that was not subsumed into the Crown’s growing acquisitions, usually stayed within the Church’s hands. It was to be later, when a different ecclesiastical structure was in place, that a desire to consolidate every aspect of their acquisitions prompted a return of lay patrons’ attentions to this feature of property ownership.

After the Scottish Reformation of 1560

The dawn of the Reformation brought the opportunity to extend the royal stock of patronages even further. In this, the crucial contribution was the allowance made to the non-conforming clergy of the old faith to remain in their benefices during their lifetime and retain at least two thirds of the parochial teinds or tithes, while the remaining third was earmarked for the reformed ministers. While this situation obtained, it seemed logical to the reformers to allow much of the revenue system of the pre-Reformation Church to remain undismantled. However, this presented the Crown with the golden opportunity to step in and portray itself as the proper heir to the property of the bishoprics and religious institutions. The assets to be gained from such a claim were very considerable, since centuries of appropriation by religious houses and cathedrals had placed by far the greatest number of parish churches in the Church’s hands. Accordingly, the Crown wasted no time in asserting its claims, first with the benefices attached to religious houses, then with the bishoprics. Along with them came their presentation rights.

All this put the new, reformed Church in a difficult position. As a counter to the clericalism of the old faith, they saw a minister’s authority as something that came upwards from the parishioners, as opposed to coming down from a higher source. Thus, in their 1560 blueprint for reform, the (first) Book of Discipline, they declared that “election of Ministers in this cursed Papistrie hath altogether bene abused”, and, following Luther and Calvin, ordained instead that “It appertaineth to the people and to every severall Congregation to elect their minister.”24 However, although the Acts of the August Parliament of 1560 had swept away the Mass and the authority of the Pope, until its legislation was ratified by the monarch, doubts would always remain as to the legitimacy of the new order, and when Catholic Queen Mary arrived in 1561, she showed no inclination to do so. This obstacle, coupled with the Crown’s growing interest in adding to its rights and privileges, did not make it a favorable opportunity for the reformers to insist on their demands regarding patronage.

The situation was made worse by worry over the desperate financial straits of the ministers. Accordingly, on the 24 June 1565, the General Assembly sent Queen Mary a plea to grant legislation on its main claims and desires, prominent among which (Article Two of six) was the request that “sure provision” be made for sustaining the ministry, especially access to the “thirds.” The way the reformers saw urgent provision being achieved was by Parliament regularizing the position of the reform clergy already in livings, and by its disponing, one by one, any vacant charges to those approved by the new Church. Presentations are not condemned, yet noticeably, there is no suggestion that either action should be accompanied by one.25 The queen, however, decided that if she let this wording pass, it would set a precedent which had financial implications. In her reply, she said she considered “it no ways reasonable that she should defraud herself of so great a part of the patrimony of the Crown, as to put the Patronage of Benefices forth of ther own hands; for her own necessity in bearing of her port [living and retinue] and common charges will require the retention thereof’.”26

Accordingly, when the next Assembly met, at Edinburgh, on the 25 December 1565, it had much on its mind. Not only was it unhappy with the queen’s answers to its six Articles, but it beheld a ministry now so starved of income, that it was “like to decay and fail.”27 Agreeing it could not be fully satisfied with the former, and having appointed John Row, minister of Perth and former canon lawyer, to draw up answers, it proceeded to approve a supplication to the Crown for an urgent remedy of the stipend problem. It must be guessed whether desperation was responsible for the tone of the entreaty, but it was certainly polite to the point of being conciliatory.

Moreover, a softer note also appeared in Row’s responses to the queen’s letter, to which the Assembly returned the following day. In the first Article, the Mass was firmly repudiated, but not discourteously. Then, in the second, the Book of Discipline’s scruples on presentations were discretely ignored: “[our mind is not] that her Majesty or any other patron of this realm should be defrauded of their just patronages. But we mean, whenever her Majesty or any other patron does present any person to a benefice, that the person presented should be tried and examined by the judgement of learned men of the Kirk.....and as the presentation of benefices pertains to the patron, so ought the collation thereof, be law and reason, pertaining to the Kirk.”28 Thus Row, as an ex–canonist, was able to echo the aspirations articulated by Pope Alexander.

Clearly, the Assembly judged it expedient to compromise on the issue of patronage. However, such forced civility was motivated not only by financial considerations. The Assembly’s reply reveals yet another cause of alarm to the new Church. Since 1560, it had become obvious that the Crown was increasingly returning to the practice of the early medieval period, namely, the filling up of benefices purely on the authority of the patron’s gift, without due deference to the Church’s rights of collation.29 This was not just in respect of abbeys and priories and the lesser benefices that went with them, but even parish churches. Moreover, the appointment would often be merely that of a lay titular.30 For the sake of its authority, this was not something that the Church could ignore, and it is highly likely that it prompted the conclusion that it was better to negotiate a modified system of presentations, than stage an attempt at abolition and subsequently fail on all counts. In addition, if, as would be likely, the new Church’s own landowning supporters were lukewarm about dismantling a system that had much to offer them, the Assembly probably felt that, overall, it was no time to be over-ambitious.

In the event, the queen’s response to the Assembly was her customary one of delay and prevarication, which left the Assembly’s commissioners no option but to return home “waiting upon the good providence of God.”31 Nonetheless, the events of 1566 brought an unexpected change in the Church’s bargaining position.

Following the murder, in March, of her secretary, David Riccio, Queen Mary’s political strength had started to ebb away, and by the autumn, it obviously occurred to her to use concessions as a means of winning favor from the Church. As a result, the reformers at last won access to the lesser benefices—those worth 300 merks’ yearly rental or less—when they became vacant. It was a major breakthrough in securing the new Church’s future, but there was a sting in the tail. The benefices would be disponed only to those whom the Church had examined and deemed suitable, but such candidates were then to be “nominat and present to thair Majesteis,” whereupon “thair Hienesses sall admit thame, and be thair autoritie caus thame be answerit of the frutis and dewiteis of the saidis benefices.”32 In other words, although only approved candidates would be admitted, the Crown was in effect reserving to itself the right of collation and admission. It was a shift of authority the Church could hardly accept.

Mary continued to make other concessions that were two-edged.33 However, 1567 brought dramatic developments in the political situation. Darnley, the queen’s husband, was murdered in Edinburgh on 9 February, and a mere three months later, Mary married the Earl of Bothwell. The general scandal surrounding both events was enough to make it impossible for the queen to continue in the eyes of some. An armed confrontation took place at Carberry, East Lothian, between rebel lords and Bothwell and Mary. While Bothwell departed eventually into exile, Mary was taken to Edinburgh and then to imprisonment in Loch Leven Castle. On 24–25 July, she signed documents giving the crown to her infant son, James, and naming her half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent. The following May, Mary escaped and raised an army, only to see it defeated at Langside. She fled south of the border, where she remained in Queen Elizabeth’s custody until her execution for treason on 8 February 1587.

Meanwhile, in December 1567, the first Parliament of the new era secured royal assent for the legislation of the Reformation Parliament of 1560, and thereby established the legality of the Reformation and the reformed Church. Thereupon the Scots Confession of Faith (1560) was incorporated into the published Acts of Parliament (but not the Book of Discipline).

The December Parliament also went on to legislate on other ecclesiastical matters, including the question of ministerial admission: “It is statute and ordained....that the examination and admission of Ministers, within this Realme, be only in the power of the Kirk, now openlie and publickly professed within the samin. The presentation of laick Patronages alwaies reserved to the Just and auncient Patrones. And that the Patroun present ane qualified persoun, within sex monethes...to the Superintendent of thay partis, quhar the Benefice lyes, or uthers havand commission of the Kirk to that effect; utherwise the Kirk to have power to dispone the samin to ane qualifyed person for that time.”34

The Book of Discipline’s aversion to presentations had been ignored. On the other hand, the Kirk would certainly have been relieved to see two vital points established. The first was that only the Church possessed the right to examine and admit candidates, and the second was that, in the event of any dispute, appeals could only be heard by the Kirk’s courts, whose decision would be final. On balance, there was justification for the Kirk to consider it had done well out of the 1567 settlement. Indeed, within a few months, Regent Moray was politely writing to the Assembly, enquiring how best to use the King’s right of presentation to some chaplaincies, “that ignorantly we doe nothing wherewith the Kirk may justly find fault hereafter.”35 There were, however, other loose ends, which would not be so harmoniously resolved.

The most significant of these concerned the fate of the abbacies and the bishoprics. The Assembly’s wish was to have both dissolved, but Parliament balked at the idea. The Crown’s lack of enthusiasm was also understandable, since, on account of its traditional claim on the finances and patronage of vacant prelacies, it had most to lose. The Church could not, however, remain passive if the state used the grey area of appointments to greater benefices to flaunt the rights agreed with the Kirk regarding the lesser ones. Thus when, in 1571, the state appointed John Douglas to the archbishopric of St Andrews, John Porterfield to the see of Glasgow, and James Paton to the see of Dunkeld, all without deference to the Kirk’s processes of trial and qualification, strenuous protests were made. It became obvious that a meeting was necessary in order to clear the air, and as a result, the Convention of Leith met in January 1572.

The crucial agreement reached at the Leith meeting was over what to do with the bishoprics. The Church agreed to accept the nomination of bishops by the Crown, but on condition that candidates would have to be subject to the approval of their fellow ministers, and after their installation, accept the authority of the Assembly in spiritual matters. As for the priories and abbacies, the Kirk would recognize the Crown’s interests in disposing of their patrimony as vacancies arose. Patronage would continue unchallenged. Despite the spirit of compromise evident in the concordat, it did not turn out to be a success. Ignoring the Kirk, James, fourth Earl of Morton, who was Regent between 1572 and 1578, continued to allow the diversion of ecclesiastical property and money into secular hands, while at the same time showing scant sensitivity in his appointment of bishops.

By 1576, a clear note of unease with episcopacy was showing itself in the Assembly registers,36 coming to a head with the petulant behavior of Patrick Adamson, archbishop of St Andrews, whose defiance of Assembly authority appeared to have Morton’s countenance, if not encouragement. Morton’s view in reply was that, if the Church could not be happy with the Leith agreement, it should draw up a statement, clearly re-defining its position on all such matters. The Church duly responded and the result was The heads and conclusions of the policy of the Kirk, or, the second Book of Discipline, which was completed, and accepted by the Assembly, in 1578.

In it, patronage is not only disapproved, but replaced a by a mode of election that was now refined into consent by the congregation, after nomination by the eldership.37 This was a distinct advance on the first book’s rather vague axiom of election by the people.38 It should at once be said, however, that caution should be exercised as to the meaning of “eldership,” when used in the book. Rather than meaning individual kirk sessions, the reference here is most likely to groups of neighboring ministers, doctors [i.e., teachers] and elders. Although only three or four parishes might have been involved, these groups were probably (along with the exegetical “exercise” meetings) the prototype for presbyteries, which start to be mentioned in the 1580s. As for the rest of the book, the subject of patronage is raised again, in a section entitled, Certain special Heids of Reformation quhilk we crave. What is noteworthy is that, in comparison with the first book’s comments on the issue, the language has become markedly more uncompromising:

9. The libertie of the election of persons callit to the ecclesiastical functions....we desyre to be restorit and reteinit within this realm. Swa that nane be intrusit upon ony congregation, either be the prince or ony inferior person, without lawfull election and the assent of the people owir quham the person is placit; as the practise of the apostolical and primitive kirk, and gude order craves.

10. And because this order, quhilk Gods word craves, cannot stand with patronages and presentation to benefices usit in the Paipes kirk: we desyre all them that trewlie feir God earnestly to consider, that for swa meikle as the names of patronages and benefices, togethir with the effect thairof have flowit fra the Paip and corruption of the canon law only...... And for swa meikle as that manner of proceeding hes na ground in the word of God, but is contrar to the same.....they aucht not now to have place in this licht of reformation.39

Burleigh’s opinion that the whole book “was in short a demand for a complete reversal of the ecclesiastical policy pursued by Morton since 1572,”40certainly seems to be confirmed by the tenor of the passages on patronage. Their tone conveys an anxiety which would have derived not only from unease at the regent’s attempts to extend state authority over the Church,41 but especially from the authors’ realizing that the Leith concordat had merely facilitated further secularization of church lands. Yet, for all the defiance of these paragraphs, the upholders of the second Book of Discipline well knew that their wishes on patronage would be received with as little enthusiasm as their claims for the old Church’s patrimony. In all their deliberations, there would have been an inescapable tension between what they believed ought to happen, and what was realistically possible.

A typical example of the struggle between conscience and political reality can be seen in the writings of one of the book’s authors, John Erskine of Dun. During the course of the same year (1571), he writes on one occasion to scorn the fact that, according to human laws, the patron can nominate a pastor to his office even though, “we haif it be the Scriptouris and consuetud of the primitive kirk that the congregatione namit the persone.” Against that, however, he writes in another letter: “I mean not the hurt of the King, or others in their patronage, but that they have their privileges of presentation according to the lawes, providing alwise that the examination and admission pertean only to the Kirk, of all benefices having cure of souls.”42

As for the new king (who had in 1567 succeeded his mother as James VI and whose minority lasted until 1584), the response of his government to the book’s passages on patronage, was to act as if they did not exist. Thus, his receipt of a copy of the book in the spring of 1578, did not distract the government from passing an Act a few weeks later, stating that all rights of presentation, previously belonging to abbots, bishops and priors, should now be regarded as the monarch’s. A year later, another Act was passed, ratifying all the legislation of 1567, which, of course, included the December Act defending the rights of “the Just and auncient Patrones.” Again, in 1581, an Act was passed bluntly reaffirming the presentation rights of both the Crown and “the lawit [legal] Patronis.”43

Given government reaction, which was wholly shared by James on attaining his personal rule, it is unsurprising that the second Book of Discipline never received official recognition by the state. This meant that the most status the Assembly could give it was simply a formal recording among its register of Acts, on 24 April 1581.44 This setback was not without significance, since, as Shaw points out in his work on the first General Assemblies, the second Book could not then be considered part of the Church’s constitution: “It did, however, represent within the General Assemblies of the period the majority opinion of what the constitution of the church ought to be, but because of the lack of approval by the state, the Assembly did not consider itself competent to go further.”45 As with Erskine’s letters, this diffidence led to curious contradictions. Thus, despite the Assembly’s approval of the second Book, its registers still continued to imply that patronage was as acceptable as before: “[it is ordained] that presentationes of benefices be direct to Commissioners of Countries” (24 October 1578); “That no presentatione of benefice be directit to any persones but sic as beirs commissione” (12 July 1580); “And alwayes the Laik Patronages to remaine haill and unjoynit or provydit, except it be with consent of the patrons’ (24 April 1581); “The advyse of the Kirk concerning the direction of Presentations, that they be directit to the presbytries’ (24 April 1581).46

The situation, then, at the start of the 1580s, was that if the Church had any hopes of relieving itself of the perceived burden of presentations, it knew these would be firmly obstructed by a Crown that now held the vast majority of benefices in its gift. On the other hand, there was still the matter of the nobility and gentry. Although they had been glad to follow the Crown’s lead in the plunder of ecclesiastical properties, they had not, as mentioned above, shown the same interest in acquiring the rights of presentation that went with them. It was not inconceivable that they might be sympathetic to the Church’s desire.47 However, if the Church harbored hopes in that direction, the possibility of their being realized, ebbed away with the measures James was about to take over the medieval Church’s temporality.

As an introduction to that crucial legislation, however, it is necessary first to recall in more detail how the Scottish Church came to be funded, and how secular predations left the Crown in the favorable position it eventually found itself.

The Church’s Property

It will be remembered that, originally, when a church was founded, it was customary for the patron to ensure its upkeep by a grant both of land and a proportion of all the parochial produce. This proportion, normally a tenth, came to be known as the parish tithes or teinds. Although they began as an act of generosity, by the time of King William the Lion (1165–1214), the state had made them into a compulsory levy.48

As already mentioned, there was a continuous process, in the era before the Reformation, of appropriation of parish churches by religious houses, cathedral chapters and bishoprics.49 This meant that the incumbent no longer received all the teinds directly as the titular parson, or rector. The religious house, chapter or bishop, in effect, became the titular parson, and on their behalf a vicar usually served the church, receiving only a share, or stipend, out of the teinds. Such a charge is called a patrimonial (as opposed to patronate) benefice.50

Despite the attempt by the third Lateran Council (1179) to restrict the alienation of tithes, by making it conditional on papal consent, the feuing out of lands and teinds was commonplace in Scotland by the sixteenth century. In this process of secularization, the Crown led the way, and the tactic it employed was to wrest concessions from the Church, and then simply to stretch and expand these as far as possible. Thus, although James II undertook, in 1450, to restrict his claims, in vacant dioceses, to the temporality and patronage of its livings, by 1515, the spirituality was being uplifted by the Crown as well.51 Again, as seen above, when the Indult of 1487 granted James III privileges regarding certain benefices attached to monasteries as well as cathedrals, the Crown did not hesitate to use this as another avenue for extending its advance into the wealth and patronage of the prelacies.

The monarch could not only garner income during vacancies, but use his power of appointment to provide for friends and their dependents, who could return the favor through a lease on the revenues. In this regard, access to the patrimony of a monastery was frequently gained by appointing a commendator to the abbacy. This would be someone who, not being entitled to the office, held it in commendam (in trust) and acted as steward of its resources. By 1560, two thirds of Scottish monasteries had commendators52. One particular abuse of religious houses, oft-quoted, took place in 1533, when, exploiting papal anxieties over the Reformation in England, James V asked Clement VII to grant his three illegitimate sons: “any church dignities whatsoever either secular or regular of any order, in title or commend.”53 As a result, they received St Andrews priory, Holyrood, Kelso, Melrose, and Coldingham abbeys. Then, ten years later, the revenues which were surplus to the boys’ requirements, were simply annexed by the Crown.54 As for the thirteen bishoprics, a practice equivalent to that of installing commendators was to make a nomination, while at the same time reserving a generous portion out of the episcopal income.

Turning to the nobility and lairds, these followed the Crown’s example in encroaching on the Church’s wealth and privileges even to the extent that, for some families, the headship of a particular abbey or priory became their own, private preserve.55 However, as already mentioned, for all their dilapidation of the religious houses’ patrimony, comparatively few laymen by the end of the 1570s had also troubled to take over their right of presentation to parochial charges. In the 1580s, the situation began to change.

Temporal Lordships

The lynchpin of the change was James’s Act of Annexation of the Temporalities of Benefices to the Crown 1587,56 and it was certain consequences of this measure that were to have a profound effect on the identity of those who were to hold the majority of patronages throughout the following centuries. Instead of the Crown possessing all but a handful, such was the reversal that, by the time of the Patronage Act of 1712, private rights of presentation outnumbered the Crown’s by two to one.

The 1587 Act laid down that all the Roman Church’s temporality, that is its lands and their rents, were to be appropriated by the Crown, although various exceptions were made. Manses and glebes were to be exempted, as were the mansions of the bishops, the latter probably being kept by James in preparation for a full restoration of episcopacy later. Teinds were also largely exempted from annexation, which may have provided the Kirk with some small comfort, given that the temporality was now beyond their grasp, but financing the Church through the teinds remained far from satisfactory until the issue was set on a firmer footing by the Revocation scheme of Charles I.

There were other exemptions, and it was these which were to affect the issue of lay patronage thereafter. The first was those church lands already held through lay commendators or erected as temporal lordships.57, This meant that the noble families to whom this applied now had the security of a heritable right to these assets. Through a judicious beneficence, James continued to create these “lords of erection” to such an extent that, “At James’s death in 1625, 21 abbeys, 11 priories, six nunneries and one preceptory, either separately or conjointly, had been erected into temporal lordships. Indeed, of the 54 major ecclesiastical foundations in Scotland, only one—Dunfermline Abbey—had been retained, but not wholly preserved, by the Crown.”58 It was, however, the final exemption within the 1587 Act that was to prove crucial: namely, that all lands and rents of any benefice in the gift of a lay patron were to be excluded as well. Suddenly, the issue of patronage, previously of little particular concern to landed families, was of real significance. As they consolidated their lands as a heritable possession, they also took steps to assert the heritable rights that went with them—of which patronage was one. The newer temporal lords decided it was only wise to follow their example. Some idea of the number of benefices recorded as being in the gift of landed families from this time, can be derived from Kirk’s investigations: “The patronage of 29 churches annexed to Paisley, for example, fell to Claud Hamilton by 1592; Kelso with the right to present to more than 40 churches became the heritable property of Francis Stewart in 1588; Kilwinning, with 16 annexed churches, was assigned to William Melville in 1592; Arbroath, with 37 specified churches, was bestowed in 1608 on the Marquis of Hamilton ; and Alexander Lyndsay, created Lord Spynie with the erection of the lordship out of the temporality of the bishopric of Moray, came to possess the patronage of some 40 churches.”59

The General Assembly’s reaction was one of alarm, and the following year, petitioned the king to cease bestowing patronages, since it was “to the evident hurt of the haill Kirk.” The plea was repeated in 1591 with equal lack of success.60 It is possible that these displays of anxiety on the Assembly’s part, were not altogether justified by its experiences of patronage from the Reformation up to this time. Indeed, there is little evidence to contradict the impression that presentations had, on the whole, been exercised with sensitivity.61

On the other hand, it must be admitted that the Crown had been the main source of presentations before 1587, and, after such consistency, there may have been nervousness that nomination was now in the hands of a heterogeneous collection of “Earles, Lords, Barrones, and uthers.”62 More importantly, the Kirk would hardly have been reassured to witness the ways in which grantees could manipulate the law in order to give themselves a patronal status to which they were not entitled. Thus, instead of simply gifting land and its patronage, the Crown might award someone the right to all the parochial teinds. The result of this was, in effect, to transform the grantee into a benefice holder, and any minister admitted to the charge could therefore only be his vicar, not his presentee. In this instance, as with any of the vicarages which the king chose to erect into benefices, the favored grantee simply awarded himself the title of patron, whether merited or not.63 Such a practice predictably left the Assembly with a strong sense of unease, and in 1593, they were expressly asking “That his Majestie will consider the great prejudice done to the haill Kirk by erecting of the teynds of diverse prelacies in temporalitie . . . be the quhilks the planting of Kirks is greatly prejudged.”64

All was not gloom for the Church, however. An historic upturn in fortunes had undoubtedly come the previous year, when Parliament with James’s assent passed its famous “Golden Act” which finally recognized and established the presbyterian system of government through kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and assemblies. The limitation was that the Black Act (1584) asserting the Crown’s authority in matters spiritual and temporal was not cancelled; and, crucially, the king retained his right to convene, and to determine the meeting place of General Assemblies. Not unexpectedly, patronage was also retained, but presbytery was unequivocally recognized as the appropriate body to which all presentations were to be directed. If the patron did not present within six months, the jus devolutum [devolved right] was to come to the presbytery. If the presbytery did not induct a properly qualified presentee, the patron was allowed to keep all the teinds.65

Summary

It is perhaps ironic that the Early Church saw lay patrons as ideal agents for the work of expansion and consolidation: everywhere, patrons would provide, build and endow, then, having done so, exert themselves to protect their investment. The problem for the Church was that succeeding generations inherited the land, but not necessarily their forebears’ piety or generous instincts towards the faith. They were prepared to continue a paternal custody over the churches on their property, but increasingly, it took the form of a guardianship that threatened to marginalize ecclesiastical authority, rather than serve it. The Church’s ultimate response was Pope Alexander’s judicious portrayal of admission to benefices as a joint venture, valid if both church and layman recognized and respected each other’s role. For all the merits of such an arrangement, however, the large–scale appropriation of parish churches by religious institutions, and the anxiety of the Crown to defend and expand its rights, were sufficient, in Scotland, to upset the balance necessary for this to survive in credible form. The classical question of who, then, should have the greater say in appointments to the nation’s ecclesiastical benefices, Crown or papacy, also colored Scottish relations with Rome down to the Reformation. In this, the papal concessions of the Indult of 1487 were crucial in settling who emerged the stronger, although, as can be gleaned from Vatican archives, in reality, the Crown had gained the advantage long before: “on the basis of the supplications . . . it may be concluded that by the reign of James I, if not earlier, there can be little doubt that benefice appointment was effectively controlled in Scotland.”66 Where the king led, individual lay patrons followed. Nobility and royal favorites manipulated the system to advance their confederates and pillage the Church’s assets. It was not, however, until the aftermath of the Reformation itself, that laymen came out from the shadow of the Crown and, through the temporal lordships, were able to amass personal collections of patronages. Not surprisingly, James VI later came to regret what he had done to allow such a stockpiling to happen,67 but by then it was too late. His generosity had more than turned the clock back four centuries, it had laid in place “the untrammelled exercise of a far greater degree of individual lay patronage than had ever been possible in pre-Reformation Scotland.”68

1. It should also be mentioned that, where founding families were perhaps not available to protect religious establishments, the Church also had a policy, during the early Middle Ages, of appointing local magnates as advocati, or defenders of churches. Their use faded from the thirteenth century onwards. Although the reward for their protection was originally pecuniary, it is possible their identity, and hence their privileges, often became fused with that of hereditary patrons.

The term advowson, more commonly used in England to describe the right of presenting to a benefice, derives from advocatio.

See Alexander Dunlop, Parochial Law (Edinburgh: 1841), 187; John M. Duncan, Treatise on the parochial ecclesiastical law of Scotland, (Edinburgh: 1869), 77–79; T.B. Scannell, Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary (London: 1928), 13.

2. Peter M. Smith, “The advowson: the history and development of a most peculiar property.” Ecclesiastical Law Journal 26 (2000), 321.

3. Duncan, Treatise, 81. simony: see glossary.

4. The patronage could already belong to the Church (jus patronatus ecclesiasticum); alternatively, if a patron did not present within a certain period, the right fell to the bishop. The time allowed could vary. In medieval Europe, including Scotland, the time generally allowed was four months for lay presentations, and six for ecclesiastical ones. For the wealthier benefices belonging to monasteries and cathedrals, Pope Innocent VIII’s Indult of 1487 allowed the Crown eight months to make nominations. This was later extended to twelve. In 1567 the period in all cases was fixed at six months. [Acts of the Parliament of Scotland c.7. hereinafter cited as APS].

5. Collation can be used exclusively to describe institution to a living where the bishop is himself the patron, thus presentation and institution are the same act. Here it will be applied, however, simply to episcopal institution in general.

6. Registrum de Kelso, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh: 1846, 5; John Cunningham, “Freewill offerings, tithes and other means of supporting religious services, historically considered”, in The Church and the People (St Giles Lectures) (Edinburgh: 1886), 91; Cormack, Teinds, 19.

7. Although Ednam was eventually given over to the monks of Durham.

8. The Scottish representative was Bishop Gregory of Ross, see Cormack, Teinds, 57

9. George P. Innes, “Ecclesiastical patronage in Scotland in the 12th. and 13th. Centuries”, Records of the Scottish Church History Society (cited hereinafter as RSCHS), XII, part 1, (1954), 69.

The spiritualities of a benefice were its revenues and offerings, as well as the manse and glebe, held or received in return for spiritual services. The temporality referred to the land and the profit pertaining to its jurisdiction. Thus, in the case of Ednam, the ploughgate was the temporality, and the tithes the spirituality.

10. Ian B. Cowan, “Some aspects of the appropriation of parish churches in medieval Scotland”, RSCHS, vol. xiii, (1959), 206. Cowan cites the example of Scoonie and Markinch churches, which were granted, c. 1055, to the Culdees of Loch Leven.

11. J.H.S. Burleigh, A church history of Scotland, (London: 1960), 52.

12. Benefactors often appeared to be more concerned about retaining the patronage to prebends, and similar benefices, than to their parish churches. Thus by 1560, only around 80 parish churches out of the total of 1028 remained in the gift of individual lay patrons [see, Ian B. Cowan, “Patronage, provision and reservation, pre-Reformation appointments to Scottish benefices”, in Ian B. Cowan, and D. Shaw, (eds), The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland, (Edinburgh: 1983), 90; James Kirk, “The exercise of ecclesiastical patronage by the crown, 1560–1572”, in Cowan and Shaw, Renaissance and Reformation, 94]. The reason for their interest in prebends was because they provided a means of increasing the income of clerical relatives or friends without transgressing the canon law which disallowed the tenure of more than one office involving the cure of souls.

13. Ian B. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland, (Edinburgh: 1967), v; Cowan, “Some aspects of appropriation, etc,” 205.

14. Cowan, “Patronage, provision and reservation,” 82.

15. George P. Innes, “Ecclesiastical patronage . . . in Scotland in the later middle ages”, RSCHS, xiii (1957–59), 73.

16. See the series, Calendar of Scottish supplications to Rome, published by the Scottish History Society (hereinafter cited as SHS): 1418–1422, eds. E.R. Lindsay, and Annie I. Cameron, (3rd series, vol. 23, 1934); 1423–1428, ed. Annie I. Dunlop, (vol. 48, 1956); 1428–1432, eds. Annie I. Dunlop, and Ian B. Cowan, (4th series, vol. 7, 1970), xx.

17. APS. ii, 5; ii, 14; ii, 16.

18. APS., ii, 144; ii, 166.

19. Gordon Donaldson, “The rights of the Scottish crown in episcopal vacancies” Scottish Historical Review (cited hereinafter as SHR), xlv (1966), 34, where it is argued that collation, here, refers only to those livings of which the bishop was actually patron, and not to all ecclesiastical benefices in the diocese. Cowan’s point is that, even if this were so, the king lost no time in extending his privilege. The royal expansionism did not, however, go on to include parish churches with known lay patrons. These were left alone. Ibid., 90.

20. Donaldson, “Rights,” 34.

21. APS., ii, 309–10.

22. Cowan, “Patronage, provisions etc,” 91.

23. See Gordon Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, (Cambridge: 1960), 36.

24. The First Book of Discipline, ed. James K. Cameron, (Edinburgh: 1972), The fourth head: “Concerning ministers and their lawful election,” 96 & n.3. The fourth head several times uses the word “present.” However, as Cameron points out, 99 n.16, this was designed to mean either, a congregation presenting a candidate to the church council of the principal town for examination, or, a church council presenting a qualified examinee to a parish for assessment and election. The congregation had the right to reject such a candidate, but not for ”unreasonable” causes. In such a way, the attempt was made “to exercise a balance between the rights of the people and the rights of ministers and councils of the Church.”

25. John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland (hereinafter cited as Knox’s history), ed. William Croft Dickinson, (Edinburgh: 1949), ii, 149.

26. Ibid., 152. Knox says the reply was issued on the 21 August 1565; Dickinson suggests it may have been the 29 July. See n.4 there.

27. Ibid., 175.

28. The booke of the universall kirk of Scotland: (hereinafter cited as BUK), ed., Alexander Peterkin, (Edinburgh: 1839). 36.

29. For examples, see Kirk, “The exercise of ecclesiastical patronage etc.” 104; see also memo by Archibald Johnston of Wariston, in The letters and journals of Robert Baillie, AM, 1637–62, ed., David Laing, (Edinburgh: 1841), ii, 455.

30. Donaldson, Scottish Reformation, 150.

31. Knox’s History, 177.

32. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (hereinafter cited as RPCS.), P. Hume Brown, (ed.), i, (Edinburgh: 1899), 487–78.

33. One example was that although the impoverished ministers were now to receive assistance, it appeared to the Assembly of 26 December, to have been offered in the form of simply a pension of money and food. This triggered much heart-searching among the members, on the grounds that if they accepted the offer, they might prejudice their continuing claim to all of what they considered the Kirk’s just patrimony. In the event, material need triumphed over principle, and the funding was accepted.

34. APS, iii, 23.

35. BUK, 103; for a description of how the non-parochial benefices were made available to the new church, see Donaldson, Scottish Reformation, 154–55.

36. BUK, 154.

37. see James Kirk, The Second Book of Discipline (Edinburgh: 1980), 102.

38. “As to the mode of appointment, the practice varied. On some occasions the congregation presented a minister to the superintendent, either chosen by themselves directly, or by commissioners appointed by them; while in others the superintendent and his council suggested or proposed a minister to the congregation”: Report from select committee on church patronage, (Scotland;) with the minutes of evidence, appendix and index. House of Commons, 23 July, 1834 (hereinafter cited as Patronage report, 1834), 6.

39. Second book of discipline, iii, 4; xii, 9–10.

40. Burleigh, Church history, 201.

41. Ibid., 197; Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (hereinafter cited as DSCHT), ed., Cameron, Nigel M. de S., (Edinburgh: 1993), 254.

42. John Erskine of Dun, superintendent of Angus and Mearns, Miscellany of the Spalding Club. (Aberdeen: 1849), iv, 99–100; Erskine to Earl of Mar, 10 November 1571, see Violet Jacob, The lairds of Dun. (London: 1931), 302.

43. APS, iii, 106; iii, 137; iii, 212.

44. BUK., 219.

45. Duncan Shaw, The general assemblies of the church of Scotland 1560–1600. (Edinburgh: 1964), 58.

46. BUK, 182; 200; 213; 220.

47. See James Kirk, Patterns of reform: continuity and change in the Reformation Kirk (hereinafter cited as Kirk, Patterns) (Edinburgh: 1989), 371.

48. APS, i, 90.

49. According to Cowan, only 148 parishes out of 1028 were unappropriated by 1560. See Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland , v. 226.

50. A bishop was in an interesting position as a patron. To his patrimonial, or mensal, churches, he simply appointed stipendaries, but where he had actually acquired the patronage of churches within his diocese, his practice could only be to confer and collate the parson, since he could not present to himself. See, James, Viscount of Stair, Institutions of the law of Scotland, ii, 487. (Edinburgh: 1981).

51. Donaldson, “Crown rights, etc,” 33.

52. DSCHT, 198; William Forbes, A treatise of church lands and tithes in two parts (hereinafter cited as Forbes, Tithes. (Edinburgh: 1703).

53. SRO., Caprington Letter Book, fo. 6.

54. APS., 11, 424.

55. “Thus Dryburgh tended to be at the disposal of the Erskines, Paisley and Kilwinning of the Hamiltons, Whithorn of the Flemings, Crossraguel of the Kennedys, Culross of the Colvilles and Jedburgh of the Humes.” Cf., Donaldson, Scottish Reformation, 39.

56. APS, iii, 433.

57. These lordships simply evolved, thus, for example, the commendator, Robert Keith, who was infeft of the lands of the Abbey of Deer, became Lord Altrie, and Lord Claud Hamilton, infeft of Paisley Abbey, later became Lord Paisley. Cf., Cormack, Teinds, 81.

58. Alan I. MacInnes, Charles I and the Making of the Covenanting Movement, 1625–1641. (Edinburgh: 1991), 4.

59. Kirk, Patterns of Reform, 425.

60. BUK, 335, 357.

61. See Kirk, Patterns of Reform, 416–17.

62. BUK, 335.

63. Alexander Dunlop, Parochial law. (Edinburgh: 1841), 194.

64. BUK, 382.

65. APS, iii, 541–52.

66. Calendar of Scottish supplications, 4th series, vol. 7, xx.

67. In the Basilikon Doron, he counselled his son to annul “that vile Act of Annexation,” see A source book of Scottish history, eds. William Croft Dickinson, and Gordon Donaldson, vol. iii, 51.

68. Cowan, “Patronage, provision, etc.,” 92.