medieval-atlas/the-church/341

Transcription

Monastic orders In another innovatory move, the Trinitarians (sometimes misleadingly described as Red friars) were placed ( 1240-8) at Berwick and Dunbar. By this period, however, the age of major monastic foundations was almost over and effectively ended with the endowment in 1273 of the abbey at Sweetheart by Dervorguilla Balliol. If the Carthusians do not appear until 1429, only one ortwo smaller houses were otherwise still to be founded. The geographical distribution of these monasteries was uneven. Although they spread into the Hebrides, the great majority were situated in central and southern Scotland. Of the larger houses a number were located in Lothian and the proximity of the border, which was advantageous for economic development in time of peace, but precarious in days of war and invasion. These hazards were however surmountable, and the religious houses remained in reasonable shape until the end of the fifteenth century. By then, however, other forces were at work: for headships were increasingly bestowed upon members of the secular clergy who only entered the order after appointment; even this formality was widely ignored, and the opportunities for appointing secular commendators for life was facilitated by the indult of 1487 which allowed the crown within a period ofeight months to recommend candidates for papal provision, a faculty which was formally recognised as nomination. Thereafter, secularisation of monastic revenues continued apace; even without the Reformation many religious houses, of which only a handful retained their choir monks at their head, might have followed the small number which had been dissolved in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and eventually disappeared. The events of 155960 not only hastened this process, but ensured its completeness. When the Reformation came, the commendators remained, but any pretensions to monastic status mattered little; and their virtual possession of monastic property counted for much as religious communities slowly died out. The annexation of the monasteries to the Crown in 1587, a quarter of a century after they had ceased to function , came as a belated measure, and its effect was restricted by the fact that by this date most of the monastic possessions had been alienated beyond recall. Only the formal erection of the monasteries in to temporal lordships remained to be achieved. ~MOnymUSk \ ~ -~Aberdeen ~~a;Yculter '\.:::1 ~LochTa ~ J J-j/ Scone Dundee E erth ~ Inchaffray . EIChO~A d ~Abernethy t n rews Inchmahome,,--Loch Leveno . Portmoak • . • " IS!Scotlandwell Ittenweem Cambuskenneth ---. ••• Aberdour~North Berwick 'rn~hDunbar !