medieval-atlas/the-church/368

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Appropriations ofsome parish churches by 1560 The creation of a parochial organisation during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries provided the means of maintaining an endowed priest in every parish, but this was never intended to be its sole purpose. Others had equal claim to the teinds, and from their inception these revenues were regarded as a means of endowing other religious institutions besides the parish. Initially it was religious houses founded after the twelfth-century reforms that received churches; and eventually by 1560 no Scottish religious house of consequence (with the exception of friaries) lacked such an endowment, although the number of annexed parishes varied considerably. The Cistercians, who initially resisted the holding of parochial revenues, totalled only thirty-seven churches between their eleven houses. The largest single holders of parish churches were the Tironensian royal foundations such as Arbroath with thirty-four churches, closely followed by the Cluniac house at Paisley which owed most of its twenty-eight churches to the generosity of its founder, Walter Fitzalan. The holdings of these two houses, with the almost as large endowments of the Augustinian abbey of Holyrood which held twenty-five churches, illustrate the geographically compactness of most annexations. However distance in itself was no barrier to appropriation, although inaccessibility involved difficulty in the collection ofteinds -a factor which Holyrood, with its remote churches in Galloway, seems to have partially solved by serving such churches by its own canons. Parochial revenues were also used to support cathedral churches: At St Andrews and Whithorn there were communities of regular clergy supported by parish churches in the same way as the abbeys. In the other dioceses, commencing at Glasgow in the midtwelfth century, it became common for the cathedral chapters to be made up of secular clergy. These bodies of ecclesiastics, known individually as canons, were assigned separate prebendal allowances, the revenues of which were normally derived from appropriated parish churches, which in turn gave their names to the prebends which they supported. New churches were constantly being added over the centuries, and by the Reformation Glasgow cathedral, closely followed by Aberdeen, possessed thirty-one and thirty prebends endowed with churches respectively, while Dunkeld with twenty such prebends came not far behind. Other cathedral chapters were much smaller; the chapter at Dornoch for example possessed only twelve such prebends. Not all appropriated churches were, however, allocated to individual canons, for others formed the basis ofa common fund, the revenues of which were allocated among members of the chapter as a means of encouraging residence. The basis of funding remained parochial revenues. This precedent in monasteries and cathedrals was followed in the erection of collegiate church and academic colleges from the mid-fourteenth century to the Reformation, by which period 86% of the parish churches of Scotland had been appropriated, bringing problems of service which were only partly assuaged by vicarage settlements, which sought to provide tenure and with less success an adequate stipend for the parochial incumbent who consequently was often unfitted for his duties. If laxity of service, rather than appropriation, was the principal canker within the medieval church, the system undoubtedly played a significant part in the deterioration of the structural organisation of the Scottish church. Arbroath Abbey Paisley Abbey Holyrood Abbey Aberchirder Auchinleck Airth Abernethy Carrnunnock Balmaghie Arbirlot Cathcart Bara Banchory-Ternan Craigie Bolton Banff Cumbrae Canongate Bethelnie Dundonald Carriden Coull Eastwood Corstorphine Dunbog Houston Crawford (-Douglas) Dunnichen Innerwick Dalgarnock Ethie Inverkip Dunrod Fetterangus Kilbarchan Falkirk Forgue Kilcalmonell Kelton Fyvie Kilfinan Kinghorn Easter Garnrie Killallan (now Kinghorn) Garvock Kilmacolm Kinneil Glamis Kilpatrick Kirkcormack Inverboyndie Largs Kirkcudbright Inverkeilor Legerwood Liberton Inverness Lochwinnoch Livingston Inverugie Mearns Melginch (now St. Fergus) Monkton (now St. Martins) Kinnernie Neilston Mount Lothian Kingoldrum Paisley St. Cuthbert under Kirriemuir Prestwick the Castle Lunan Riccarton Tranent Mains Rosneath Twynholm Monifieth Rutherglen Urr Monikie St. Quivox Hamer(now Murroes Whitekirk) Newtyle Nigg Panbride Ruthven St. Vigeans Tarves Appropriations of parish churches by 1560: abbeys of Arbroath, Paisley and Holyrood 368

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