medieval-atlas/the-church/336

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Ecclesiastical organisation about 1300 The date about 1300 has been chosen for this general map and for the maps showing the parishes of each diocese because as a result of the collection of taxes from the clergy ordered by popes in 1274 and 1291 records survive which provide the earliest known (if incomplete) description of the divisions of the Scottish church. Since the twelfth century a continuous series of bishops can be traced in the thirteen dioceses which by then had come to be permanently established within the area covered by modem Scotland. Ten of these on the mainland formed what was recognised by the papacy as the ecclesia Scoricana, forming a distinct unit directly under Rome, the equivalent for most purposes of an ecclesiastical province , but most unusually without anyone of the ten bishops recognised as the superior of the others as archbishop and metropolitan. The three outlying dioceses each had a different status. Galloway was part of the lcingdom of Scotland and was treated as part of the Scottish church for papal taxation purposes; but its bishops at this date recognised the superior metropolitan authority of the archbishop of York, and were to do so untjJ 1355. Sodor had been part of the lcingdom of Norway until 1266, and had since the mid-twelfth century recogrused the archbishop ofTrondheim as metropolitan. It now lay within the lcingdom of Scotland, and like Galloway was taxed with the Scottish church, though its bishops still took some part in Norwegian affairs. Orkney was quite different. It was in no sense part of Scotland; it was still part of the Norwegian kingdom and of the Trondheim church province. The boundaries of all these dioceses had become clear-cut and unchanging in the course of the twelfth century. This had necessarily followed the enforcement by royal authority of the payment of teind, which had led fLrst to the definition of parish boundaries and then to diocesan boundaries. But no contemporary evidence survives which makes it possible to map these boundaries with exactitude. No doubt many boundaries followed obvious natural features on the ground, and very many of them remained the same throughout the centuries, so that a large proportion of postReformation boundaries indicated in maps of later date below may well have been the same as they had been about 1300. But here the boundaries are only roughly delineated for lack ofspecific evidence. Rather more exactitude is found in the detailed maps of each diocese at this date which follow. Unlike England where dioceses were invariably named after the place where the bishop had his seat (that is his see), more than half of these dioceses were usually named after a pre-existent secular unit of lordship or provincial government. This applied to Orkney and Sodor in the Norwegian lcingdom, to Caithness, Ross, Moray, Argyll and Galloway (though in the last two cases the names of the cathedral sites Lismore and Whithorn were sometimes applied to the dioceses also). In the northern dioceses at any rate bishops had found it useful or necessary to move their sees within their dioceses. The see of Orkney was moved from Birsay to Kirkwall in the mid-twelfth century. About the same time the see of Caithness was being established probably at HaJkjrk irutially; but it was moved south to Dornoch in the 1230s as part of a deliberate policy of associating this diocese more with Scotland than with Orkney. In the early twelfth century too the see at Mortlach which had apparently served much of the area to the south of the Moray Firth was moved to a site near the new royal castle and administrative centre at Aberdeen. The bishopric of Moray emerges about the same time, but had no settled see for perhaps a hundred years; instead the bishop resided at any of Birnie, Kinneddar or Spynie at his choice, and only in the I 220s did royal endowment make possible the building of a cathedral at the royal administrative centre at Elgin. The move of the see of Ross from Rosemarkie to Fortrose in the early thirteenth century was simply to a new site within the same parish. The old episcopal seats of Glasgow, St Andrews, Dunblane, Dunkeld and Brechin had retained respect and authority. The first two were the centres of the wealthiest and most influential of the Scottish bishops, with their dioceses in each case by this date were sub-divided into two archdeaconries. (Orkney was probably similarly divided, but all the other bishoprics supported only one archdeacon.) While the diocese of Glasgow was a coherent geographical area with a simple boundary, the other four in this group were notable for the complexity of their inter-relationships. Probably as a result of centuries-old loyalties dating back to missionary days, each of these bishops retained authority over parishes which were geographically detached from the main area of the diocese -indeed in the case of Brechin the whole diocese comprised parishes scattered throughout St Andrews diocese. The details can be studied in the parish maps which follow; here only the rough boundary between St Andrews on the one hand and Dunblane and Dunkeld on the other is shown. No attempt is made to delineate the boundaries of the Brechin parishes; but the convenient heading ' St Andrews with Brechin' must not be taken to suggest that the bishop of Brechin was in any way subordinate to the bishop of St Andrews. Administratively and juridically (if not economically) they were equals. Ecclesiastical organisation about 1520 The lcingdom of Scotland had by 1520 been consolidated within its modem boundaries, with Orkney and Shetland ceded by Norway in 1469 and Berwick finally lost to England and to Durham diocese in 1482. There had been changes in the three outlying dioceses. No bishop of Galloway after 1355 tendered his obedience to the archbishop of York, except during the Great Schism ofthe Papacy (13781419) when rival popes supported by Scotland and England respectively appointed rival bishops. In 1430 James I ordered that Galloway was to be regarded as a Scottish diocese. The effect of the Schism on Sodor diocese was more drastic; from 1387 onwards Peel cathedral and the Isle of Man were occupied by a series of bishops of Man loyal to England, while the northern part of this scattered diocese came to be permanently separated as the distinct Scottish diocese of The Isles, with the see certainly in the mid-fifteenth century at the old centre at Snizort on Skye (though it is not clear it ~asstill there about 1520). These two dioceses ofGalloway and The Isles gradually detached themselves under papal protection from meaningful obedience to York or Trondheim. Then came the association of Orkney with Scotland and a time for formal changes. In 1472 the bishop of St Andrews was promoted archbishop with metropolitan authority over the other twelve bishops of the Scottish kingdom of that date. Political unity now matched ecclesiastical unity. But this clear-cut situation did not last long. Some bishops were restive about it from the start. Then in 1492 the bishop ofGlasgow was also raised to the rank ofarchbishop with metropolitan status (though not with the extra status ofprimate which had been granted in 1487 to St Andrews). At first Glasgow was given four subordinate dioceses (Argyll, Galloway, Dunblane and Dunkeld) while St Andrews retained the rest; but Dunblane was transferred back to St Andrews in 1500 and Dunkeld likewise by 1515. This therefore was the situation in about 1520. The two archbishops were constantly jockeying for position, so providing a basic disunity in the Scottish church. Nonetheless between 1536 and 1559 the archbishop ofSt Andrews was to be able to use his powers as primate to assemble a number of provincial councils at which all thirteen dioceses of the kingdom were represented. The Scottish church was in a real sense still one despite its appearance on the map. DERW 336

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