medieval-atlas/the-church/382

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Ecclesiastical organisation: early post-Reformation The reformers' resolution in 1560 to discard the entire edifice of medieval ecclesiastical organisation by substituting a new mode of government through councils, modelled on the early church, was effected with remarkable promptitude. The fust Book of Discipline spoke eloquently of the spiritual, educational and social needs of congregations made up of the inhabitants of each parish, of which there were about one thousand in the country. Yet this emphasis was never pennitted to obscure the needs of the wider church or negate the advice forthcoming from neighbouring ministers; and by 1560 direction from the centre was forthcoming in the general assembly which linked the network of local congregations. Regional reorganisation followed when the authors of the Book of Discipline put their proposals fust to a general assembly in December 1560 and then to the secular authorities in January and February 1561. Supervision of congregations and ministers was entrusted to superintendent ministers, charged essentially with the task of caring for Christian communities and extending the work ofevangelism throughout the districts assigned to their charge. They were expected to work along with a court made up of the kirk session of their main town of residence, and they remained responsible to a provincial synod meeting twice a year. Their ten provinces were given boundaries drawn on a basis at variance with the thirteen old pre-Reformation dioceses whose uneven size and erratic boundaries were rejected by the reformers as a hindrance to effective supervision. The curious mixture of place-names and territorial names allocated as titles to the new provinces may reflect discrepancies in the composition of the Book of Discipline as it underwent revision and expansion during 1560. There was nothing indeterminate, however, about the towns which were to be the new regional centres for the kirk-except in Argyll, where no decision was forthcoming. Only six of the former diocesan seats were to be used, and reliance was placed elsewhere on burghs more closely associated with the main routes of communication. Singularly scant regard was paid to the interests of the three bishops who conformed to the Reformation and undertook service-Gordon of Galloway, Stewart of Caithness, and Bothwell of Orkney. From 1561 onwards elections for the superintendents were held. Spottiswoode was appointed to Edinburgh in March, and Winram to St Andrews in April. Willock was chosen for Glasgow by September, Erskine of Dun was formally admitted to Brechin early in 1567 and Carswell was subsequently found at work as superintendent in Argyll. Spottiswoode remained parish minister of Mid Calder, and shared his time between there and Edinburgh where he had his court. Erskine seems to have found his home at Dun a convenient base for his work, though no doubt he was expected to work with the kirk session at Brechin on any disciplinary cases affecting his province. Cars well made Camassarie Castle his centre ofadministration, but was presumably obliged to act with some kirk session in his province when holding court. Shortage of finance and a lack of political initiative effectively ended the prospect of further appointment beyond these five. The general assembly therefore resorted to its own strategy of appointing ministers to act as commissioners of provinces. They held office for short, if renewable, terms before returning to their parish ministries. The three conforming bishops received commissions, as did other ministers selected by the assembly, to act as temporary overseers. The provincial boundaries were frequently adjusted during the 1560s to take account of local needs, especially from 1567 when superintendents and commissioners became the recognised agents for receiving presentations to benefices. By about that date this system of supervision by nine commissioners and five superintendents extended over most of the country, with only parts of the border country deprived of regular visitations. The financial compromise worked out between Crown and kirk at Leith in 1572 introduced a novel dimension, in that ministers appointed to bishoprics (as a means of gaining access to the revenues) were expected at least to share the duties of oversight with the existing superintendents and commissioners, even if they never wholly superseded their work. The old diocesan organisation was now revived, with all the handicaps that this implied, and the assorted supervisors were expected to act within it. In the end the difficulties experienced in trying to revitalise this ancient machinery were resolved in 1576 with the eclipse of the bishops from any distinctive role in ecclesiastical administration. This followed the assembly's decision to scrap the old dioceses and substitute in their place two dozen or so smaller, more manageable districts (not mapped), each entrusted to a commissioner or visitor answerable to the assembly. This renewed emphasis on smaller districts received a further stimulus with the assembly's approval of the Second Book of Discipline's programme. It decided in 1581 to establish thirteen model presbyteries in the main towns of the lowlands. These were clusters of neighbouring churches to form a common eldershi p with responsibility for supervising the welfare of congregations in the district. They were built on groupings of rural parishes around a nearby town which was the centre for meetings of ministers for the exercise of interpreting the scripture. Such occasions naturally led to the exchange of news and views, and had already been used sometimes for the transaction of administrative business. Now the two activities of prophesying and attending to the shared business of neighbouring kirks coalesced in the 'eldership' or presbytery. Both privy council and assembly worked together in 1581 to dismantle the old dioceses in favour of a scheme for eighteen new dioceses or provinces, excluding Argyll and the Isles, which were intended to contain over fifty presbyteries within them. As the plans took effect some modifications ensued (as for example in the case ofStirling presbytery). But the experiment was soon eclipsed in 1584 when a government under the earl ofArran with more conservative instincts outlawed presbyteries in favour of a return to episcopal oversight. After Arran's fall from power, the assembly in 1586 assented to a scheme designed to reconcile King James' preference for bishops with the kirk's attachment to presbyteries. The king retained his right to appoint ministers to bishoprics but the duty of visitation was not to lie with them, but rather with ministers who had obtained from the assembly temporary commissions to act as visitors of provinces which were not co-terminous with the old dioceses. No less than 985 churches (excluding Argyll and the Isles) were listed and arranged in twenty-two new provinces so that presbyteries could be re-established. These provinces were: Shetland (32 churches), Orkney (39), Caithness (13), Sutherland (9), Ross (63) Moray (52), Banff (35), Aberdeen (70), Angus and Meams (88), Perth (36), Dunkeld (30), Dunblane (20), Stirling (23), Fife (62), West Lothian (16), Edinburgh (34), Haddington (54), Merse, Teviotdale and Tweeddale (74), Clydesdale, Renfrew and Lennox (76), Cunninghame, Kyle and Carrick (46), Galloway (45), and Dumfries (68). The assembly did its best to undermine any role for the bishops in ecclesiastical administration and as a consequence an essentially presbyterian system prevailed in the years between 1586 and 1592, when parliament affirmed the role and jurisdiction of presbyteries and other courts of the church. The general assembly had its origin in a gathering of Protestants who convened in the capital in July 1560. The occasion was a service of worship and thanksgiving in St Giles kirk for the recent Protestant victory and the treaty of Edinburgh, sealed on 8 July. After worship some business was transacted, to arrange for the approval of some appointments to the reformed ministry. The 'Reformation parliament' opened on 10 July, and it was to be a characteristic of some future assemblies also that a meeting was arranged so that parliament might conveniently be lobbied on the kirk's behalf. Some assemblies were called at other times and in other places from those to which parliament was called. They tended to meet twice-yearly, which was more frequently than parliaments or even conventions of estates. They claimed to meet by Christ's authority and retained until 1584 the right to appoint their own meeting place and time for convening, though from 1586 onward they were usually summoned by royal proclamation. The great majority of meetings were held in Edinburgh; but warfare or other considerations might force a venue elsewhere as at Stirling, Leith, St Andrews and Perth in 1571-2. King James' determination to manipulate the assembly to his own advantage led him to assert a right to . determine where and when it was to meet. In later years he exploited this tactical advantage to the full. He favoured less militant northern towns as meeting-places, and was ready at short notice to prorogue or change its meeting-place. Such were the strenuous efforts at managing his later assemblies summoned between 1605 and 1618 that the opposition considered the meetings 'unfree' and 'pretended', and so declined to recognise them as valid assemblies. After 1618 J ames refused to summon further general assemblies and Charles I followed his father's action. Only with the covenanting crisis was it possible to hold assemblies again. The Glasgow assembly of 1638 met with the king's assent, but continued its sitting in defiance of the king's commissioner. Aberdeen was selected by Charles for the assembly that met in 1640 in the forlorn hope that royalism in the area would influence the assembly's proceedings. Though assemblies were held atStAndrews in 1641, 1642 and 1651, most assemblies between 1643 and 1653 were located in Edinburgh. This was the pattern that was to be re-established in 1690 after the Revoiution when general assemblies, placed in abeyance since 1653 (when Cromwell prevented further meetings), were permitted to reconvene. 382 JK

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