medieval-atlas/the-church/363

Transcription

A rental drawn up for an Abbot Richard is usually ascribed to the abbot of that name who held office in the 1280s and I 290s. By then the abbey seems largely to have given up direct exploitation, preferring cash to labour services. A problem posed by the rental is that it apparently does not include all the abbey's lands. The group of properties in Lanarkshire, plus Kilmaurs and Auchinleck in Ayrshire, may have been administered by Lesmahagow Priory and there may have been some rationalisation, because many of the places omitted had only one piece of land belonging to the abbey. It is difficult, however, to explain the omission of Innerwick with its revenue, two pastures and two other pieces of land, or of Bothwell (Lothian) where Kelso still held land in the early fourteenth century. The rental survives only in a copy which contains lacunae, and so it is possible that some properties have been omitted. km. 0 25 50 75 100 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 there were two main foci -Kelso itself and its dependent priory of Lesmahagow. More remote holdings are to be explained by the position of the lands of the donor -e.g. a toft in Inverkeithing from Malcolm IV and one in Renfrew from Waiter, son of Alan, the Steward. Besides arable and pasture, there were shielings in the Lammermuirs, granges, fishing rights (e.g. on the Tweed), a salt-pan at New Abbey, peataries, mills and brewhouses. The abbey's lands produced rents and services. The surviving records provide little evidence of Kelso's part in the wool trade, apart from references to sheep, but Berwick must have been the main port of export for the abbey's wool, at least until its sack in 1296; the abbey had properties and revenues in Berwick, and the husband men of Redden did carting service to it. Kelso had the distinction of holding the largest number of appropriated churches in Scotland. They lay mainly in the dioceses of St Andrews and Glasgow, but also in those of Aberdeen and Moray. The twofoci ofKelso and Lesmahagow, though less obvious Auchinleck Staplegordon Dumgree Trai I flat Dumfries New Abbey Closebum Morton lnverkeithing Stirling Carse of Stirling Perth Peterculter Birnie Antermony Places in italic type are mentioned in the rental of about 1300. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 o Churches, chapels, hospitals miles NFS o Other rights Kelso Abbey: distant lands and churches ? Site uncertain 363