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.
