medieval-atlas/the-church/381

Transcription

Courts spiritual The abolition of the jurisdiction of the church courts by the Scottish parliament on 24 August 1560 created a judicial vacuum. For over three years the citizens did not know to which court to apply for the remedies which had formerly been sought in the courts spiritual. There is evidence of resort being made to kirk sessions, sheriff courts, the lords ofcouncil and session, and the privy council. Partly to alleviate. this and partly to obtain revenue from the "quot silver" (the fee exacted for the confirmation of executors of deceased persons) so that the salaries of the lords of council and session might be augmented, a new system of spiritual courts, known as the commissary courts, was established in 1564. Inferior commissary courts were set up throughout the country to deal with spiritual cases, mainly the confirmation of executors, and the exaction of quots, and the commissary court of Edinburgh was given in addition to this ordinary jurisdiction within its area exclusive jurisdiction over the whole of Scotland in cases of divorce and nullity of marriage. The Edinburgh court, which was manned by four commissaries, was given the right to determine not only appeals from the inferior commissaries, but also from the decisions of pre-Reformation ecclesiastical judges; and it had the exclusive right to confirm the executors of Scots citizens who died abroad. The records as to inferior commissaries are far from complete: it is difficult to determine the date at which the various commissariats were erected, and it appears that some pre-Reformation commissaries remained in, or were continued in, office. It will be seen from the maps that the new commissariats were generally set up in places where either an official or commissary had sat before the Reformation. The last commissariat to be established was Peebles in 1609. In the period between 1564 and 1609 there are references to commissariats such as Jedburgh, Melrose and Stobo, but none of these survived into the seventeenth century. By 1609 there were twenty-one inferior courts and the commissary court of Edinburgh. All of these continued until their jurisdiction was transferred to the Court of Session and the sheriff courts in the course of the nineteenth century. ~

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