Chapter IV

_Social Condition of the Nation in the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries._

THIS chapter will present an account of the social state of the kingdom. The government, introduction of charters, the powers granted to the nobles, and an explication of feudalism; customary law in a transitional stage, forms of trial and punishment, and the privileges associated with sanctuaries, will be treated. Royal burghs, church burghs, and burghs of regality, the coinage and the commerce of the kingdom, the organisation and the possessions of the Church, schools, literature, and architecture, will be dealt with. Agriculture and the state of the occupiers and toilers of the land will be detailed.

At the end of the eleventh century the people and the government were Celtic; although the Angles had long been settled in the south-eastern quarter of the kingdom, the Norsemen still held sway in Caithness and the islands. The proceedings connected with the introduction of Norman feudalism for some time seriously interrupted the continuity of the progressive movement of the kingdom, as the people in some quarters of the country were bitterly opposed to it; but it was fostered and supported by the kings, and had spread over the Lowlands before the close of the thirteenth century.

The king stood at the head of the feudal organisation, as the leader of the army, the fountain of honour, the dispenser of titles; and nominally the prime administrator of justice, and the chief landholder in the kingdom. His revenue was mainly derived from the rents of the crown lands, the feudal casualties of ward, marriage, relief, and non-entry, the rents of the royal burghs, and the customs on merchandise, and the fines imposed in the king’s courts. Public taxes were assessed on all lands, and levied according to the exigences of the nation. From these sources the feudal kings of this period raised a considerable revenue. The king had his Justiciary, Chamberlain, Chancellor, Constable, Steward, and other Crown officials; and before the end of the thirteenth century the offices of Steward and Constable had become hereditary in the families of Stewart and Morevil. In the thirteenth century the Chamberlain was the collector and also the disburser of the Crown revenues, and in virtue of these functions he was the most important of the great officers of the Crown. Out of the revenues in his hands he had to provide for all the branches of public expenditure, including the charges of the royal household, and all extra military expenses. He also had a complete jurisdiction over all the burghs. The immediate receivers of the royal revenues were the sheriffs and bailies, who collected the rents of the crown lands, the feudal casualties, and the fines imposed by themselves, by the Justiciaries, and by the Chamberlain himself at his annual circuit courts in the burghs, and by the magistrates and the custom officials, who accounted for the burgh rents and the customs. The Chamberlain and other officers intrusted with public money, had their accounts audited in exchequer usually once a year; and the more important of these audited accounts were then engrossed for preservation on parchment rolls.¹

¹ _The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I., A.D. 1264‒1359.
1878.

Meetings of the kings with their chief men and the clergy for the transaction of important affairs occurred at an early period, as we have seen in preceding pages. According to the feudal principle all the Crown vassals should have attended the king’s great council or court; as a matter of historic fact, only the chief officers of the Crown, a few of the churchmen and nobles, usually attended the meetings of the council; and further, it must be observed that the legislative functions of the king’s council were not clearly distinguished from the function of counselling the king in judicial proceedings: in other words, the legislative and the executive departments of Government were not as yet distinctly discriminated in Scotland. Alexander I. held a council in 1107, in which Turgot was chosen Bishop of St. Andrews by the king, the clergy, and the people; and in 1114, when he refounded the Abbey of Scone, the council consisted of the king and queen, two bishops, six earls, and some other persons, “witnessing and consenting.” Sometimes the laws were enacted and issued in the name of the king and his judges. The laws of David I. run in the form of an order or a declaration of enacting power, thus: “The King David has statuted,” “the King David has ordained,” “the King has decreed and delivered.” Some of David’s charters, granted with the consent of the council, assumed a rather imperative style, such as his foundation charter of Holyrood:――“I David, by the grace of God, King of the Scots, of my royal authority, and with the assent of Henry, my son, and the bishops of my kingdom, and with the confirmation and testimony of the earls and barons, the clergy also assenting and the people, of divine prompting, grant all the things under written to the church of the Holyrood of Edinburgh.” Malcolm IV., in royal grants of great importance, adopted the style of his grandfather, David I. In 1184 William the Lion held a council at Perth, in which the members present were described as bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and all the good men of the land, and this meeting passed a number of acts. Alexander II. assembled a council at Stirling, in 1236, in which the Bishop of St. Andrews, the prior of Coldingham, the Earls of Fife and Buchan, the Steward of Scotland, the Justiciary of Lothian, John de Maxwell, and others, were present, and the record says that they passed the acts, nine in number, with the assent of the whole community. Alexander III. held a number of councils similar to the preceding ones, but there was no regular Parliament in Scotland, as now understood, during this period.¹ Although it is obvious that the kings did not assume to act in important matters solely in virtue of their royal authority, they usually sought and obtained the assent of the chief men of the kingdom.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.; _National
Manuscripts of Scotland_, Part I., Number 16.

The Justiciary was a high legal functionary, and first appeared in the reign of Alexander I. In the reign of William the Lion there were two Justiciaries, one for Lothian, and the other for the country on the north of the Forth; and in the reign of Alexander III. there were four of these functionaries――one for Lothian, another for Galloway, and two for the country to the northward of the Forth. These judges usually went through their districts on circuits twice a year. Sheriffs were gradually introduced, and by the middle of the thirteenth century a considerable part of Scotland had been divided into sheriffdoms. The sheriff was intrusted with a wide jurisdiction, both in criminal and in civil cases, and also in fiscal matters. William the Lion enacted that each sheriff should hold his court at intervals of forty days, and in the latter part of the thirteenth century there were upwards of thirty sheriffdoms.¹ It will, however, shortly appear that there was not a regular code of laws, and that the judicial processes then in operation presented a curious jumble.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 55,
57, _et seq._; _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.

In connection with the introduction of feudalism, and an extraneous aristocracy, the kings ♦adopted the expedient of granting lands by charter to their new nobles. A specimen of one of the earliest of these charters may be quoted:――“David, King of the Scots, to all good men of his whole land, greeting. Know that I have given and granted to Robert of Bruce, in fee and heritage, to him and his heirs, the valley of Annan, in forest, on both sides of the water of Annan, as the marches are from the forest of Selkirk as far as his land extends towards Strandnith and towards the Clyde, freely and quietly as any other forest of his is best and most freely held. Wherefore I forbid that any one hunt in the aforesaid forest, unless by his authority, on pain of forfeiture of ten pounds, or that any one go through the aforesaid forest unless by a straight road appointed.” How is this charter to be interpreted? Must I suppose that this fine valley of Annandale was then uninhabited? The charter tells nothing, save that Bruce is to possess it as a free forest exclusively for his own use. Fortunately, in this instance, the grant was confirmed by another charter in the reign of William the Lion, which will enable us to understand in some degree the former grant of “free forest”:――“William, King of the Scots, to the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, sheriffs, and other good men of his whole land, greeting. Be it known to all present and to come, that I have given and granted, and by this, my charter, confirmed, to Robert of Bruce and his heirs, all the land which his father and himself have held in the valley of Annan, by the same marches by which his father held it, and he after his father. To be held to himself and his heirs of me and of my heirs in fee and heritage, in wood and plain, in meadows and pastures, in moors and marches, in waters, stanks, and mills, in forests and trysts, in hills and harbours, in ways and paths, in ♦fishings, and in all other just appurtenances, as freely, quietly, and fully as ever his father or he himself most freely held that land of King David, my grandfather, or of King Malcolm, my brother.” Thus the second charter renders the meaning of the first one intelligible, as we see that under the first grant of free forest there was also conveyed a grant of “free barony,” or the grant of “free barony” had been conferred some time before the free forest grant, which was the usual mode of procedure.¹

♦ “adapted” replaced with “adopted”

♦ “fistings” replaced with “fishings”

¹ _National Manuscripts of Scotland_, Part I., Numbers 20,
39, 19.

The above may be fairly taken as genuine historic example of a large number of similar ones. The Norman nobles obtained charters granting to them lands, and sometimes extensive tracts of territories. But it occasionally happened that the territory granted by the charter could not be made available to the holder of the charter, owing to the opposition of the real owners and occupiers of the territory in question; and there were instances of royal charters granting lands which never became operative. In order to overcome this opposition of the people, and to dispossess them of the land, so that the Norman nobles might be amply accommodated, various expedients were resorted to. David I., in reference to the rights and claims of the people in the possession of the land, had recourse to the following expedient: ――Those who were bold enough to oppose the schemes of the king were permitted to appear before his court, or a jury selected or controlled by him: then every one who held land had to prove that he and his lineal ancestors had continuously held the land in question for four generations, and every one that failed to prove this was told that he had no right to the land, and that the king would dispose of it as he thought fit. In the reign of William the Lion it appears that charters had become a requisite of the right to hold land; and in 1248, at a council held in Stirling, it was enacted “that from this time henceforth no oath should be taken touching the life or limb of any man holding land, except by those men who were freeholders by charter.” Thus the charter was made a test of freedom and of civil rights, as well as the requisite condition of holding land: and further, the Norman nobles in Scotland enjoyed the invidious privilege of sending substitutes or champions to fight for them instead of appearing in person when challenged to single combat by any Scotsman. Yet in 1230 it was enacted that every petty knight, or any man who held land by charter, if challenged to single combat at the Bridge of Stirling or anywhere else, could appoint substitutes to fight for them. By these processes and the means briefly indicated, from the accession of David I. to the throne, onward to the death of the Maid of Norway in 1290, a period of one hundred and sixty-six years, many thousands of the people of Scotland were deprived of their natural and just rights in connection with the ownership and the occupancy of the land of the kingdom. Many of them were then reduced to a state of extreme privation, and a considerable number of them fell into the condition of serfdom. When thus rendered landless, David I. enacted “If any man be found in the king’s land that has not a proper lord, after the king’s writ has been read in the courts, he shall have the space of fifteen days to find a lord. And if within that term he does not find a lord, then the king’s justiciary shall take from him five cows for the king’s use, and keep his body to the king’s behalf until he get him a lord.”¹ This act was expressly drawn with the object of compelling the people to yield and place themselves under the Norman nobles.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 9,
51, 70, 74, _et seq._

With the support and assistance of David I., and some of his successors, the Normans shortly obtained possession of extensive territories held under feudal tenure. In some instances the rights and privileges of regality were granted along with the territory, though the title of Earl was withheld, and a right of regality meant an almost absolute jurisdiction over the whole inhabitants of the district included in the charter. The lower form of feudal tenure, called “free barony,” also embraced a pretty complete jurisdiction over all the people within its bounds. As a specimen, a portion of a Crown charter of the Earldom of Fife may be quoted:――“Alexander, by the grace of God, King of the Scots, to all good men of his land, greeting: Be it known to all present and to come that we have granted, and by this our charter have confirmed to Earl Malcolm of Fife, son of Earl Duncan, the Earldom of Fife, as Earl Duncan, his father, held it. To hold to him and his heirs of us and our heirs in fee and heritage, in wood and plain, in lands and waters, in meadows and pastures, in moors and marshes, in stanks and mills, in fish ponds and fishings, in ways and paths, with soc and sac, with gallows and pit, with toll and them, and ♦infangthief, ... with all things to that Earldom justly pertaining.”¹ Thus an Earl had a right not only to the land, but also to everything else within the borders of the Earldom. Even the natural elements, such as water, were appropriated by the feudal lords. There was a collection of Forest Laws, but they were not nearly so savage as the forest laws of England; and the penalties in connection with infringement of these laws were pecuniary fines.

♦ “infangthef” replaced with “infangthief”

¹ _National Manuscripts of Scotland_, Part I., Number 50.

The privileges of an Earldom embraced an authoritative jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases of every description; in a word, the Earl had the lives and the property of the people within the limits of his territories in his hands. He had the power of executing any one of his vassals; cases of assault, theft, and all the disputes which arose amongst the people of the territory came under the jurisdiction of the earl; and the fees, fines, and escheats of goods, which arose from the numerous feudal relations of the several ranks of his vassals. Further, an earl, or a baron, holding under free barony, was empowered to enforce ward, relief, merchant, and many other feudal services. If there were villages and towns in the earldom, the earl was the superior of these also, and might treat the inhabitants as he thought fit.¹

¹ _Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff_, Volume
II., page 109; Volumes III. and IV., _in loc._: “All feudal
lords through feudal Europe were equally fond and proud of
the right of executing those whom they had first convicted
and sentenced to death. The Gallowhill is still an object of
interest, and, I fear, of some pride, near our old baronial
mansions; and I know somewhere the surrounding ground is
full of the remains of the poor wretches who died by the
barons’ law. Perhaps the pit was for the female thief, for
women sentenced to death, were, for the most part, drowned.”
Innes’ _Legal Antiquities_, pages 58, 59.

An earldom or a great barony presented in miniature all the characteristics of a feudal kingdom. Like the king, the earl was the supreme ruler within his territories; he had his own courts, and appointed his own sheriffs and bailies, his chamberlain, constable, and other officials. Then portions of his lands, with its castles, formed his special personal domain for the accommodation of his family, his officials, and his personal retinue. But the far greater portion of the lands of the earldom were held by the vassals of the earl. These feudal vassals were of different ranks, consisting in some earldoms of thanes, knights, free tenants, tenants-at-will, down to bondmen and serfs. Tenants-at-will merely held land from year to year, and they, with the bondmen and the serfs, were the toilers of the lands of the earldom. The ranks above the toilers of the soil, formed the military force of the earldom, with the earl as their leader. All the ranks above the servile classes, were under feudal allegiance to the earl and bound to follow him in all his causes and quarrels against any person or party in the kingdom, save the king. Then the earl, or a baron with the rights of an earl, could grant lands to his vassals under various conditions, and so thanes and knights were frequently the vassals of a feudal earl. These thanes and knights in turn could re-let to the class below them; and these also might sub-let. In this way many of the small gentry ultimately became proprietors of land; but the greater number of them remained as the feudal vassals of their lords till quite recent times.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 60,
68, _et seq._; Innes’ _Legal Antiquities_; _Antiquities of
the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff_.

An important part of Feudalism as it was introduced and developed in Scotland, was directly associated with the Church. It appears that monks and churchmen were amongst the first who obtained regal jurisdiction over the inhabitants of the lands which the kings granted to them by charter. Alexander I. refounded the monastery of Scone and empowered the abbot and monks to hold their own court, this was confirmed by Malcolm IV. and by William the Lion, and the latter charter ran thus――“William King of the Scots, ... know that I have granted, and by this my charter confirm, ... to the church of Scone and the abbot and canons serving God there, all the liberties as the charter of King Malcolm my brother witnesses: to wit, their court to be held with full jurisdiction, in battle, in iron, and in water, with all the liberties pertaining to a court, with liberty of answering to no one outside their own court. Let no one therefore of my subjects attempt to break this liberty of theirs under the pain of my forfeiture.” The abbots of Dunfermline, Kelso, Holyrood, Jedburgh, and other great monasteries, had their own courts; and the Bishop of St. Andrews had his own court. In the reign of Alexander III., at least one third of the best land in the kingdom was held by the Church. These lands were held under the most favourable feudal tenures, as the numerous Crown charters to churches, monasteries, and bishoprics amply testify. On these extensive church lands there were various ranks of vassals and tenants, bondmen and serfs. The highest class of church vassals were almost of equal rank with the lesser barons and freeholders of the Crown; they usually held their lands by charter, free of all services, and only paid a nominal rent. From an examination of many circumstances, it seems almost certain that the greater part of the lands which David I. and his two grandsons, Malcolm and William, granted to the Church, were the very lands of which the real owners and occupiers had been dispossessed. This accounts for the great numbers of bondmen and serfs which were attached to the church lands in the thirteenth century.¹

¹ _National Manuscripts of Scotland_, Part I., Numbers 16,
30, 36, 37, 54; _Register of Dunfermline_, pages 220‒222;
_Register of Kelso_; _Charters of Holyrood_; _Acts of the
Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.

If none of the real owners and occupiers of the land were deprived of it by the expedients and the processes associated with the introduction of charters in relation to the rights of holding land, then how is it possible that David I. and his two grandsons could have been in possession of all these fine tracts of land which they gave to the Church within so short a period? Is there any other historic interpretation which will meet the known conditions and the circumstances connected with this important social phenomena? There is no difficulty in understanding how it occurred that David I. was represented as a saint by certain chroniclers, who also looked upon the Norman nobles and their Feudalism as the real originators of civilisation in Scotland.

One striking characteristic of Norman Feudalism as manifested in Scotland, was its tendency to assume hereditary forms. The great officers of State; sheriffs, bailies, stewards, keepers of castles, forests, and parks, became hereditary; and indeed all titles and offices from the throne downward to the common occupations associated with the brewhouse and the smithy, assumed the hereditary form. Politically and socially, feudal organisation as developed in Scotland, contained within itself the very elements of anarchy; associated with extremely few of the agencies and influences which tend to promote order and advance civilisation.

The prevailing forms of trial by custom or law, and the modes of punishing crime, are important in all stages of society. It is interesting to note that the earliest fragments of the statute law of Scotland contain references to a still earlier common usage: “The assize of the country,” “As law will and custom is,” “According to assize of the land,” these expressions occur in the laws of David I.; and in one of David’s statutes a direct reference was made to a law of Malcolm Canmore, “as it was established in his father’s days.” These phrases meant that the matters in question were to be settled according to the local customs of the people, and present an illustration of custom or usage in the process of passing into written law.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 8,
9, 11‒13, _et seq._

The earliest laws of Scotland were full of regulations concerning the punishment of murder and theft. When the thief was caught with the stolen goods in his hands, he was at once tried and punished. It was only when the crime in question was not evident that the peculiarities of the early laws appeared. In the reign of David I., a man accused of theft might have attempted to clear himself in two ways, by battle, or the purgation of twelve leal men; there was nothing adduced on either side by witnesses who were cognisant ♦of the facts, for evidence of that kind was not then deemed necessary. When the accused denied the charge, he had to find twelve compurgators, men of the neighbourhood, who knew the character of the parties, and these men swore that they believed the accused to be innocent. But the number of the compurgators varied from one to thirty, according to the rank of the parties and the nature of the crime: thus, two men were considered sufficient to prove that a person had violated the King’s peace, and accordingly punishment followed; but twenty-four men were requisite to acquit a man for an offence against the majesty of the King. In the reign of William the Lion, when a habit-and-repute thief was pursued by the suit of one or more baronies and could find no one to become bail for him, he was then seized and hanged without any trial.

♦ duplicate word “of” removed

When there was no evidence admitted by witnesses, if the accused person failed to bring the requisite number of compurgators, his last resource was to appeal to the wager of battle. There were definite and minute rules for its procedure, and during the combat the strictest silence was observed. The judges of Galloway decreed that any one who spoke in the place where the battle was being waged, after silence had been proclaimed, should forfeit ten cows to the king; and if any one interfered with his hand, or even made a signal in any way, his life and limb should be in the king’s power.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 5‒8,
55, 56.

During this period several restrictions were introduced in the application of the trial by battle. Churchmen were exempted from appearing in single combat; men past sixty years of age could decline it; and widows who could not fight, were to be protected in their just rights. Burgesses had privileges in connection with it; as the citizens of the royal burgh might claim combat against those who depended upon subjects, but in turn they were not obliged to grant it unless they thought fit; and the burgess might decline the challenge of an upland man. The thief’s lord might fight an accuser of his own rank if he thought proper, but the poor man could only challenge his fellow; the barons, knights, and freeholders, could also fight by proxy, appoint a champion to fight for them; while the body of the people were bound to fight in person. After the order for trial by battle, by hot iron, or by water, had been given, it was no longer open to the parties to compromise the case for a penalty; and any lord who promoted such a thing forfeited his court. There is ample evidence of the prevalence of the ordeals of hot iron and water in Scotland, but no detailed account of the forms of the process have been preserved in any of the early records. As mentioned in a preceding page, the right of trial by battle, iron, and water, was granted to a number of monasteries; but it appears that this privilege was open to endless abuses. David I. in one instance provided that his own judge should always be present at the court of the Abbot of Dunfermline, to see if justice was rightly administered. In 1180 William the Lion enacted: “That neither bishops, abbots, nor yet earls, barons, nor any freeholders, should hold their courts unless the king’s sheriff or his sergeant be there, or summoned to be there, to see that the court be rightly led.... That no baron have leave to hold a court of life and limb as of judgment by battle, or water, or hot iron, unless the king’s sheriff or his sergeant be there to see if justice be truly kept as it ought to be.” In the same reign it was enacted, that when any one was accused of theft by the magistrate and three leal men, he should underlie the law of water; if in addition to these accusers, three witnesses knowing the facts were found, he was not to be put through any of the ordeals, but immediately to be hanged.

Toward the end of this period ordeals were falling into disrepute, though there is no direct evidence as to when they were abolished, or when jury trial was introduced. One form of ordeal, the battle, later the judicial combat, afterwards called the duel, lingered on amongst a class of madcaps until recent times. The people of Galloway retained the modes of ordeals long after the other quarters of the kingdom had discarded them. In the reign of Robert Bruce they still continued to be governed by their own local laws, and had not obtained nor apparently desired trial by jury; and even down to 1385 Douglas, Lord of Galloway, while undertaking in Parliament to promote the execution of justice in his territory, protested for the liberty of the law of Galloway in all points.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages
69‒71, 49, 55, 53, 122, 187; _Register of Dunfermline_, page
12; _Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland_,
pages 8, 11, 163. The best account of the process of trial
by the ordeals of iron and water that I have seen is in
Pike’s _History of Crime in England_, Volume I., pages 207,
208; there is also a mass of matter touching the subject in
Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_.

In Scotland civil cases were tried by jury earlier than criminal ones. But throughout this period there was no jury trial in the modern sense, that is, a judge who finds the law, and a number of citizens who find the fact from the evidence placed before them; it was long ere this stage was reached. There were both civil and criminal cases reported as having been tried by jury, during the thirteenth century in Scotland, but then the jurymen were also witnesses in these cases: in England, about the same time, this prevailed in jury trials. The later history of trial by jury mainly consisted of the steps by which the jurors were changed from witnesses into judges of the facts stated by others to them. As yet the ideal of law was only dimly conceived and vaguely comprehended. Public justice was hardly at all discriminated in the minds of the people from the natural feeling of revenge. It seems strange that the crime of murder could be commuted by a fine; but in an age of fierce strife this may have been the most effective punishment. It appears to have rested with the family of the murdered man to abstain from prosecuting to the utmost, when their feeling of revenge could be appeased by a fine. Indeed, there was another penalty due to the king or the lord for the shedding of blood, if their peace was violated, in addition to the compensation paid to the kin of the slaughtered man.

The country for a limited distance around the king’s court and person, and the public highways, were in the king’s peace, under his immediate protection, and a breach of the peace within this area was severely punished. The king further extended his peace to pilgrims during their journeys to and from the tombs of the holy saints.

Amid all the rudeness of the society of the period there were indications of improvement and feelings of humanity. The poor and the weak were placed under the king’s protection; and in the ancient laws the widow and the fatherless children were not forgotten. Women in Scotland held a high position, a fact which was well understood and fully appreciated by the Norman nobles. If a criminal, doomed to the gallows, escaped with his life after the first attempt to hang him, then he was freed from punishment for his past offence; but the party who bungled the execution was subjected to a heavy fine. In connection with the stealing of cattle and sheep, the chief crimes of the period, it was enacted that no one should be hanged simply for taking as much as he could carry, unless it amounted to the value of two sheep; thus a distinction was drawn between the masterful rifler who drove off the cattle and sheep, and the needy thief who merely seized what he could carry. A severe punishment was inflicted on any one who intentionally killed a watch-dog.¹

¹ _Ancient Laws of the Burghs of Scotland_, pages 4, 53; _Acts
of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.

In an age when moral power was comparatively weak, the passions little restrained, and the inflamed feeling of revenge pursued its victims, it was a humane measure to make the church a place of refuge. By the canon law all churches were to afford protection to the criminal for a limited time, to allow the first burst of passion to assuage, before the injured party could claim redress. So in the early statutes of the Scotch Church it was enacted that every consecrated church, with a right of baptism and burial, should have the privilege of sanctuary, which extended for thirty paces round the graveyard. In early times the boundaries of sanctuaries were sometimes marked off by stone crosses, such as those at the monastery of Dull, in Athole; but the great sanctity of some places of worship arose from the extreme veneration for their patron saints, and the significance and virtue attached to the relics which were preserved in them; and yet the church and even the holy altar were not always safe from violence. The church of Wedale, now called Stow, was one of the most famous of Scottish sanctuaries. About the year 1166 William the Lion issued a precept to the ministers of the church of Wedale, intimating to them not to detain the men of the abbot of Kelso, who had taken refuge there, nor their goods, as the abbot himself was willing to give them full justice. David I. granted the church of Lesmahagow to the monastery of Kelso, and also confirmed its privilege of sanctuary in the following terms:――“Whosoever for escaping peril of life and limb flees to this church, or comes within the four crosses that stand around it, out of reverence to God and St. Machutus, I grant him my firm peace.” Tyninghame in Lothian, and Inverlethan in Tweeddale, were also noted sanctuaries in their day.¹

¹ _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, Volume II., pages 18,
19, 37, 46; _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume II.,
Appendix to Preface, page 66, Notices of Plates, page 11;
_Register of Kelso_, Volume I., pages 9, 10, 22, Volume II.,
page 317.

The law of sanctuary in Scotland was defined and regulated in the reign of Alexander II. Careful rules were stated to guard against the danger of encouraging crime by offering an easy escape and immunity to fugitive vagabonds, thieves, and homicides.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., page 71.

In the introduction many references were made to the localities and the positions where the people fixed their habitations, and erected defensive dwellings and structures of various kinds for their security and protection. Further, it was shown that there were towns and villages from an early period. The people who lived in these towns were, no doubt, in a limited sense the vassals of the king or of the local chiefs, but it does not follow that these townsfolk had no proprietary rights or customary rights of trade before the era of granting charters. On the contrary, as there were rights of property in land centuries before charters came into use, so the townsfolk had their recognised customary rights in Scotland and elsewhere for ages before the period of charters. In accordance with this, the earliest charters of the royal burghs always implied the previous existence of an organised community; thus the royal charter simply recognised organised communities already existing. Dundee, Berwick, Inverness, Aberdeen, and other towns on the coasts, were places of foreign trade before the charter period; but the king’s charter, which placed the burgh communities under the special protection of the Crown, and also conferred on the burgesses privileges of trade, were great advantages, which tended to promote order and industry, and to advance civilisation. Although, when the kings granted charters to the burghs, they had their own interest in view, for originally each burgess was a Crown vassal, and paid a fixed yearly rent for his separate tenement. The Crown appointed officers to collect these rents, who accounted for them; the king also claimed the fines imposed in the courts of the royal burghs, and certain customs which were collected by the Crown officers. These arrangements continued in operation till about the end of the thirteenth century; and subsequently another arrangement came into practice by which the burgesses obtained short leases from the chamberlain, on the condition of paying a specific sum to the king, thus they acquired a right to the rents, the issues of their courts, and the petty customs. These leases were granted on comparatively easy terms, but sometimes a grassum was paid on their renewal. From this practice another arrangement gradually came into operation, by which the burgesses obtained from the Crown charters of feu-farm, converting their lease into a perpetual right. Aberdeen and Edinburgh were the first burghs which obtained these feu charters; the former in 1319, for a yearly rent of £213 6s. 8d.; and the latter in 1329, for a rent of 52 marks.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.; _Acts of the
Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., page 118; _Charters of
Edinburgh, Burgh Records Society_, page 16.

Berwick, Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, and Roxburgh, were among the first burghs which received royal charters, but the greater number of the royal burghs in the kingdom were constituted before the close of the thirteenth century. At the same period the Church had its burghs; the nobles also had their burghs of regality and barony. The higher nobles imitated the king, and often granted exclusive rights and privileges to the inhabitants of the towns within their earldoms and baronies; sometimes the Crown attempted to assert its prerogative by extinguishing the privileges of such burghs, but it rarely succeeded.

There were associated trading communities on the north side of the Grampians in the reign of David I. As we learn from a charter of William the Lion, granted to the burgesses of Aberdeen and the north in the year 1196, in these terms:――“William, by the grace of God, King of the Scots, to all good men of his whole land, greeting. Know all men present and to come, that I have granted, and by this my charter have confirmed to my burgesses of Aberdeen, and to all the burgesses of Moray, and to all my burgesses dwelling to the north of the Munth (the Grampian mountains) their free hanse, to be held where they will and when they will, as freely and peacefully, fully and honourably, as their ancestors, in the time of King David, my grandfather, had their hanse freely and honourably. Wherefore I strictly forbid anyone to trouble or disturb them therein, on pain of my full forfeiture.”¹ The hanse meant the privilege of trade and association, but to what importance these burgesses of the north attained cannot be ascertained, further than that the hanse did not survive the War of Independence.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., Appendix
to Preface, page 77.

In the south of the kingdom the burgh communities had reached the stage of united action at the opening of the twelfth century; their union consisted of the towns of Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling. Their meetings were held under the presidency of the king’s chamberlain, and called the “Court of the Four Burghs.” Like other early assemblies, the proceedings of this body of burgesses presented a commingle of the legislative and judicial functions, and their court occasionally extended its operation beyond municipal organisation, and established rules on matters of private right and obligation. The members of this burghal court framed the code called “The Laws and Constitutions of the Four Burghs,” which is the earliest body of Scotch laws extant. This code was sanctioned by the Government in the reign of David I., and many of the early charters of the royal burghs contain internal evidence of having been drawn from it. These burgh laws have sometimes been attributed to the wisdom of David I., but they embodied the practical experience of several generations before his time, and some additions were made to them after his day. A portion of these laws were drawn from the customary usage of the Saxons in the south of Scotland. The Burgh Laws are the most complete of the early fragments of Scotch legislation, and their last editor declared that no such ancient and well-authenticated code of burgh laws exists in the world.¹

¹ _Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland._
Edited by C. Innes. Preface page 21; _Report on Municipal
Corporations of Scotland_, page 15. 1835.

The union of the Four Burghs gradually developed, and in 1405 delegates from all the royal burghs on the south of the river Spey were ordered to assemble once a year to deliberate upon their common affairs; and in 1454 its place of meeting was fixed at Edinburgh by royal charter. Under the name of the Convention of Royal Burghs it continued its annual meetings, and treated on matters relating to the burghs; and, although the Convention still meets, since 1835 most of its powers and functions have departed.¹

¹ “The towns of England, neither by themselves nor in
conjunction with the shires, ever attempted before the
seventeenth century to act alone in convention like the
Scotch burghs, nor in confederation like the German League.”
Stubb’s _Constitutional History of England_, Volume II.,
page 220.

The local rulers of the burgh community were elected by the whole body of the burgesses once a year. The newly elected alderman (chief magistrate) and the bailies then swore fealty to the king and to the burgesses――“That they should not punish any man or woman except with the sanction of the ordinary council and the judgment of the good men of the burgh. That neither for fear, nor for love, nor for hatred, nor for kinship, nor for loss of their silver, should they spare to do right to all men.” It seems that the distinction between skilled craftsmen and the men of commerce or merchants did not emerge in an acute form for a considerable time after the institution of the royal burghs. But the increase of trade and wealth, and a more minute division of labour among hand-craftsmen, tended in the direction of such a distinction. A few clauses of charters, and a statute of William the Lion, gives a general liberty to the merchants of the realm to buy and to sell, meaning that the merchant guild should have a ♦monopoly of buying and selling within the limits of the burghs. A short code, entitled the Statutes of the Guild, originated in Berwick about the middle of the thirteenth century, and was at first intended for the government of the guild merchants of that town. This code contains fifty-one statutes, all of which were framed before the end of the thirteenth century.

♦ “monoply” replaced with “monopoly”

The preamble of these statutes suppresses all other trading associations. The first statute enacted that all particular guilds previously acting in any burgh, should be extinguished, and that their goods and chattels ought and should be given to this guild, except the members form a union and come to an understanding to act together in all good deeds in fellowship, secure and faithful friendship without deceit. The regulations and binding clauses of these statutes are very definite and minute; and they were soon generally adopted in all the royal burghs of Scotland. The payment for entrants into the merchant guild was fixed at forty shillings, unless they were sons or daughters of the guild brethren. No one was permitted to deal in hides, wool, wool skins, nor cut cloth within the burgh, unless he was a guild brother. It was enacted “that no butcher, so long as he choose to practise his trade, should buy wool or hides, unless he will abjure his axe and swear that he will not lay his hand upon beasts.” In the Laws of the Burghs, an earlier code already noticed, it was enacted “that no dyer, flesher, shoemaker, or fisherman, can be allowed to entre the guild till he swear not to exercise his craft with his own hands, but only by ♦servants under him.”¹ At a later period a severe and long struggle ensued between the merchant guilds and the craftsmen, touching the privilege of trading and other municipal rights.

♦ “servands” replaced with “servants”

¹ _Ancient Laws of the Burghs of Scotland_, pages 34, 35, 60,
64, 69, _et seq._

It has sometimes been stated that there was no trace of thraldom in the Scotch royal burghs. This, however, is not historically accurate, for in the burgh laws the following occurs:――“If any wool-comber leaves the burgh to dwell with upland men, while he had sufficient work to occupy him within the burgh, then he ought to be taken and imprisoned.” There is another law in the same code which has often been misinterpreted: it runs thus:――“If any man’s thrall, baron’s or knight’s, comes to a burgh and buys a burgage, and dwells in his burgage for a twelvemonth and a day without challenge of his lord or his bailie, he shall be for evermore free as a burgess within that royal burgh, and enjoy the freedom of that burgh.”¹ Thus we see that before a serf could become free, he had to purchase a house――a burgage tenement in the burgh, and dwell in it for a year. But in those times wherewithal could a serf purchase a house? At the present time, how many day-labourers could purchase a house in a town?

¹ _Ibid._, page 9; _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_,
Volume I., pages 23, 41.

Every royal burgh had right to hold markets. The market day was an occasion of unusual freedom, only the traitor, the outlaw, and the malefactor, could be arrested in the open market. Runaway serfs, debtors, and small offenders of every description, were at liberty unless they broke the peace of the market, and those who were guilty of this, were tried by a special court, known under the name of Dustyfeet. In this court the peace-breakers were tried by their peers――the community of the market. The Dustyfeet were the travelling pedlars, the real forerunners of the modern haberdashers; and these and other extraneous traders, who sold their goods from a stall, could claim cut and lot, that is, share and share of the market ground with the burgesses. Thus, in the market, all were placed on an equality, a characteristic which accords well with the origin of markets, indicated in a preceding page.¹

¹ _Ancient Laws of the Burghs of Scotland._

Although the government and organisation of the royal burgh communities seemed to be democratic, the guild brethren manifested strong aristocratic leanings. For instance, they enacted――“that every burgess having ten pounds worth of goods shall have in his stable a seemly horse, worth at least forty shillings. And if he be deprived of his horse by any chance, death, sale, gift, or in any other way, he shall within forty days provide another. If not, he shall be fined eight shillings to the guild.” Still these burgh communities were the only classes among the people, who possessed wealth and a measure of freedom, associated with some culture and intelligence. They were usually loyal and faithful supporters of the king, and contributed a considerable part of the gross revenue of the kingdom. Their organisations encouraged habits of industry, tended to promote order and security, and to advance civilisation.

In a preceding page reference was made to burghs under earls and barons, and church burghs. Thus there were three classes of burghs besides the royal ones. A burgh of regality held its privileges of some earl or lord; a burgh of barony was of lower rank, and also held its rights from its local lord; and from the earliest times the constitutions of both these classes of towns varied. In some burghs of regality the inhabitants had the right of electing the magistrates and officers of the town; in others, the superior or lord of the regality retained all these appointments in his own hands. Usually the superior of a burgh of regality took special care to hold the control of its inhabitants well within his own grasp. The rights and privileges of such burghs were――a right to hold markets, and the exclusive right of trade and manufacture within the town; and some burghs of regality had power to form bodies of craftsmen somewhat analogous to those of the royal burghs. Among burghs of regality may be mentioned Dunbar, which belonged to the Earl of Dunbar; Wick, to the Earl of Caithness; Inveraray and Campbeltown to the Argyle family. Burghs of barony became numerous, but at this period most of them were villages and small hamlets. The principal church burghs were St. Andrews, Glasgow, Brechin, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, which belonged respectively to the bishops of these sees; and Dunfermline, Paisley, Jedburgh, Kelso, the Canongate, Selkirk, and Arbroath, belonged to the abbots and canons of the respective monasteries of these towns. These religious corporations seemed as eager to obtain trading rights and exclusive privileges as any other organised class in the kingdom.

The early records of the Scottish mints were lost, and little information of the coinage of this period can be obtained, except what may be drawn from the coins which still remain. The earliest of these are the silver pennies of Alexander I.; there was no gold coinage in this period. From the reign of Alexander I. to the War of Independence there was a regular coinage of silver coins; and throughout this period the standard of fineness was at least equal to the current money of England. The money was then coined in many different burghs, in Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dunbar, and in other towns. The workmanship of these coins is rather rough, but not much inferior to the English coins of the same period.

It was already mentioned, that gold and silver were found in Scotland, plenty of iron and coal, and some lead. Few or no materials exist for tracing the rise and development of the use of iron and coal in Scotland. It was reported that iron was worked in the forests of Moray in the thirteenth century; and in 1265 sea coal was mentioned in connection with the castle of Berwick. The monks of Newbottle digged coal from rude surface pits about the middle of the thirteenth century; the Abbey of Dunfermline had a special grant from David I. of the gold produced in Fife; and it was reported that David had a silver mine in Cumberland.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I.; _Acts of the
Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 45, 48; Innes’
_Legal Antiquities_, page 168.

The weights and measures in use were various; the old Scotch pound consisted of fifteen ounces. David I. enacted that the Caithness pound should be the standard weight throughout the kingdom. The people of the Orkney and the Shetland islands used the Norwegian weights and measures till a recent period. Grain was measured by the chalder, which contained sixteen bolls, the boll four firlots or six bushels; this Scotch firlot was equal to a bushel and a half of English standard measure. A skep of meal was a measure which appeared early in the records of the monasteries, and it contained twelve bolls. The ♦lagon was an old measure of wine, ale, and oil, which was well-known among the religious houses of the period. Wool was sold by the sack of twenty-six stones; and hides by the last = twelve dozen.

♦ “lagen” replaced with “lagon”

The internal trade and the external commerce of the kingdom had developed considerably during this period. Fish was a staple article of commerce from very early times, stretching back beyond the period of the national records. The herring fishing was extensively engaged in during the twelfth century and succeeding centuries. There were customs payable on the export of herrings, keeling, ling, haddocks, whitings, cod, and oysters. In the reign of William the Lion, the Abbot of Holyrood sent his own men to fish for him off the Isle of May. The charters and the laws of the period clearly show that the fishing formed an important part of the economy and trade of the kingdom.¹ The rich religious houses entered freely into commerce, and the Abbot of Scone had a ship of his own; and Alexander I. granted to this monastery the custom of all the ships which landed their cargoes there. Scone had some foreign trade from an early period; but it was soon outstripped by Dundee and Perth, as the latter burgh obtained the exclusive right of trading over the whole of Perthshire. Stirling, St. Andrews, and Aberdeen, had commercial relations with the Continent; but Berwick appears to have been the great mart of traffic in Scotland throughout this period.

¹ _Ibid._

The exports mostly consisted of the raw products of the country. The furs entered for export duty, were fox, cat, marten, beaver, otter, and hare; and wool skins, deer and hog skins, lamb and goat skins; oxen, cows, and horse hides; salt, corn, meal, and malt, were among the articles taxed for export. The imports consisted of iron, lead, pots, pans, locks, knives, and other hardware articles; wax, pepper, alum, ginger, almonds, figs, raisins, rice, and very large quantities of wines. Attention had been directed to shipbuilding at a very early period, and the herring fishing trade must have employed a large number of small vessels. Ships were built at Inverness and other ports, and Alexander III. had a number of ships built at Ayr. Shortly before the outbreak of the long war, the merchants of Berwick were numerous, rich, and enterprising. Letters of safe conduct were granted to many of them by the king of England, to pass and re-pass through his dominions in pursuit of their commercial business; a burgess of Perth also received a passport to trade in England, and by its coasts. This friendly state of relations was by the subsequent current of events suddenly changed, and then we hear of the arrest of the ships which belonged to the merchants of Berwick by the English Government, and the keen remonstrances of the enterprising traders.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 6, 34,
_et seq._; _Book of Scone_; _Historical Documents of
Scotland_, Volume I., pages 216‒221, 423‒426.

In 1293, the Court of Flanders granted letters of protection to the people of Scotland to trade in that country, upon the condition of their rendering and paying the usual customs and duties. As documents of a commercial and peaceful character were rare at this period, the main points of these letters may be quoted:――“Be it known to all that we, of our own good will and for our own pleasure, by the advice of the good men and wise people, grant and promise to all those persons of the realm of Scotland, who are alive at present, and who shall be hereafter, that they may visit and come to tarry in, and return from, our country of Flanders, frankly and freely, upon payment and rendering of the rights, customs and taxes of our country of Flanders: and that we will not arrest nor cause to be arrested, by ourselves or others, them or any of them, nor their goods of any description, nor their households, for debt, nor in consequence or through the actions of another person, in which they shall not be indebted, nor security, nor answerable; unless it so be that the present King of Scotland, or those who shall be kings hereafter, or who have been previously, was or were bound or under security to us, or our heirs, or our people therein; then we and our heirs shall be able to arrest, or cause to be arrested, the people of Scotland, their goods and households, and to detain them until justice be done therein to us, our heirs, and our people.

“And in like manner, as is above said, we promise to observe this well and faithfully for ourselves and our heirs, Counts of Flanders, in regard to the most excellent Lord John, by the grace of God, King of Scotland, and to all his countrymen, in such manner and on such conditions as that the most high lord the King above named, shall observe such similar arrangements to my people of Flanders, and to my country. And this agreement shall continue from the Feast of St. Peter at the beginning of August next for three years.”¹ There is some scant indications that a few emigrants from Flanders occasionally settled in the Scotch royal burghs; and there appears to have been a number of them in Berwick.

¹ _Historical Documents of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 399‒401.

The chief home manufacture in the textile department was a rough woollen cloth made of native wool, which afforded apparel for the people. Other branches of manufactures were not as yet in an advanced stage, though handcraft arts had made some progress. There were goldsmiths, armourers, smiths, tanners, shoemakers, weavers, fullers, dyers, tailors, carpenters, and other craftsmen in every royal burgh. The monasteries had craftsmen of their own connected with their great organisations; and a charter of Alexander I. authorised the Abbot of Scone to have one tanner, a smith, and a shoemaker. In relation to these matters, and, as illustrative of the armour and dress of the period, something may be learned from the Seals then used in Scotland.

The seal of Alexander I. represents the king on horseback, wearing a hauberk of flat rings fitted close to the body with a skirt, below which the quilted tunic appears. The hood was attached to the hauberk, and thrown back from the face; the sleeves were wide and left the hands uncovered; and the legs and feet were protected by ring mail, and from the heel the simple prick-spur projected. The breast-leather which secured the saddle was more ornamented than that on the seal of King Duncan. On the counter seal the king was sitting on a chair of state, and vested in royal robes. A richly embroidered cloak was thrown over his shoulders and fastened on the breast; both arms were extended, his right hand holding a sword, and the left a globe surmounted by a cross: he does not appear to have a crown upon his head. Only fragments of the seal of David I. remain, but the design seems to be similar to that of Alexander’s, and the seal of Malcolm IV. was also of the same design.

The seal of William the Lion remains intact, but its design and execution shows no advance in art. He was represented on horseback at gallop, with a lance and pennon of three points in his right hand, and in his left a shield. The shield was heater-shaped and plain; the sheath of the sword appears hanging from the left side of the saddle, but the breast-leather and saddle have no ornament. The seal of Alexander II. showed a marked advance in art. He was represented on horseback with a drawn sword in his right hand, and a shield suspended in front of the body, on which was boldly depicted the lion rampant; and he was armed in mail armour, with surcoat, a helmet square at the top, and with the aventaile for protecting the face. The breast-leather of the horse was decorated with tassels, and on the back part of the saddle the lion rampant was emblazoned. Some of the seals of Alexander III. were richly designed, and executed with spirit and taste in all their details. On one of them the King was represented on horseback at full speed, completely armed in chain mail which encircled the limbs and feet, and over it a surcoat; on his head a square-topped helmet with horizontal opening; in his right hand a sword, and in front a shield suspended by the guige, and ornamented with the arms of Scotland, which were repeated on the long flowing caparison of the horse. The girths which secure the saddle first appeared on this seal, and the horse’s head was decorated with a plume of feathers. The background was enlivened with trefoils. On the counter seal Alexander was represented after a design resembling those of the preceding kings, but much improved in style and enriched with ornament.¹

¹ H. Laing’s _Ancient Scottish Seals_, pages 2‒4.

The seals of the nobles were circular in form; and those of ecclesiastics were usually oval shaped. The most common design of the former class was a man on horseback, associated with the figures of animals and other objects. The lion rampant, one, two, or three were frequently depicted on their seals. The boar’s head, and the stag’s head, the boar’s head coupled, the fox, and the dog, often appeared; the hunter on horseback with spear, horn, and dog, and the falconer also on horseback, with his arm extended and holding a falcon by the jess, were represented. The eagle seems to have been the favourite bird, and he was displayed in various attitudes, sometimes his breast was charged with barbs, under his head an ornament, and at the back of his head a cross; or he was represented as alighting. The cock crowing, the raven, and other birds occur; and serpents, lizards, and fish, were figured on these ancient seals. In 1292, on the seal of the Earl of Caithness, there were two figures sitting in a galley without sails, the mast terminated in a cross, and the prow and the stern in the heads of dragons, and the whole within a double tressure, flowered and counter-flowered; there was a hare above the shield, and on each side of it a lizard. At the same period Alexander of Argyle had a representation of a galley on his seal, somewhat resembling the above. On a seal bearing the date of 1176, there was a full-length figure of a female dressed in long and flowing drapery, with both arms extended, and a falcon resting on her left hand. On an oval shaped seal of 1181 there was a figure of a monkey, clothed and kneeling on one knee upon the back of an animal resembling a lion, and there seemed to be the head of an animal in front of the lion; the background of the seal consisted of a series of crosses.

On the seals of the bishops and the monasteries the figures and objects were usually of a religious character. On those of the higher churchmen the most common figure was a bishop in pontifical vestments. In 1203, on a seal of the bishop of Glasgow there was the figure of a young man seated before a lectern, on which there was a book; in his left hand he held a rod of office, while his right hand was a little raised and the forefinger extended, as if he were discoursing from the volume before him.¹

¹ Laing’s _Ancient Scottish Seals_, pages 28, 29, _et seq._

Many of the symbols and figures on the seals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were similar to those which appear on the sculptured stones of Scotland. Thus a relation between the symbols and the art of the stone crosses and those exhibited on the seals may be considered as established; and this relation shows the continuity of the art.¹

¹ _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, II., page 31, and Appendix
to Preface pages 14‒18.

In the early part of this period the Church of Scotland was brought into accord with the prevailing form of Christendom. David I. refounded or organised most of the bishoprics and the monasteries, and endowed them very liberally. He was the first king in Scotland who enforced the payment of tithes. David and his successors introduced various orders of regular monks to supersede the Culdees; and in a comparatively short time most of the reorganised monasteries became very rich. The division of parishes and the parochial system began to assume form; but the monastic ideal and spirit was still strong, and cramped the development of the parochial organisation from its birth.¹ Many churches were conferred upon the great monasteries as property, and in this way it became the right and the function of the abbots of the monasteries to appoint many of the vicars of the parish churches; the result was that parochial duties and work were much neglected, and rarely became effectual in any quarter of the kingdom as a means of religious and moral instruction.

¹ “The term parish, meaning any district, was at first
appropriated to the diocese of a bishop. In 1179 it is used
as synonymous with diocese, and applied to the bishopric
of Glasgow. In some instances it would seem to mean the
jurisdiction rather than the district. The word shire, so
common in our old records, is often equivalent to parish,
but sometimes applied to other divisions of church territory,
which cannot now be defined.” _Origines Parochiales Scotiæ_,
Volume I., Preface, page 20.

The diocesan form of church polity, which scarcely existed at the close of the eleventh century, was almost completed before the end of David’s reign. He restored nunneries, and founded one at Berwick-on-Tweed; this nunnery was richly endowed, and had several small dependencies. It has been stated that “the principle of celibacy was effectively established among the Scotch clergy by David, along with his other reforms;”¹ but this seems doubtful. For there is ample evidence that celibacy never was effectually established among the clergy in Scotland, as their own records testify. Thus, “one great evil, it will be seen, the incontinence of the priesthood, stands confessed, deplored, and condemned through all the three centuries of Scottish ecclesiastical legislation. Here, as elsewhere throughout Christendom, every code of provincial, every code of synodical canons, calls, but calls in vain, upon the clergy to ♦separate themselves from their concubines as they were styled――their wives, rather, as we may charitably hope that in most cases they should have been, but for the law which forbade the churchman to marry.”² Listen to another great writer, well entitled to speak on the subject.――“The historian must not shrink from the truth, however repulsive. Celibacy, which was the vital energy of the clergy, was at the same time their fatal irremediable weakness. The universal voice, which arraigns the state of morals, as regards sexual intercourse among the clergy, is not that of their enemies only――it is their own. Century after century we have heard throughout our history the eternal protest of the severer churchmen, of popes, of legates, and of councils.”³

¹ Innes, _Sketches of Early Scotch History_, page 187.

♦ “seperate” replaced with “separate”

² _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, Volume I., Preface, page 205;
_Register of Kelso_, Volume I., pages 77, 131, 132, 136,
_et seq._

³ Dean Milman’s _History of Latin Christianity_, Volume VI.,