medieval-atlas/the-church/408

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Roman Catholic recusancy The prospects for Catholicism as a living faith within Scottish communities were transformed radically, if gradually, following the reinvigoration of the Scottish mission from the second decade of the seventeenth century. The ground rules for the work of conversion in the Lowlands were laid down from 1617 by the Jesuits who targeted landed families, particularly those with heritable jurisdictions able to protect pnests and encourage apostasy within their territorial spheres of influence. Leading catholic families were encouraged to intermarry both to consolidate their faith and bridge their geographic isolation. From 1622 oversight of all regular and secular clergy on the Scottish mission was exercised by the Sacred College of Propaganda at Rome. Despite chronic underfunding by Propaganda and rivalries among the clergy, recusancy thrived within geographic pockets in the south-west as well as the north-east, continuing on an upward spiral until 1685. By then Catholicism in the Lowlands though still based on households where mass was celebrated privately and irregularly had spread from the country seats of nobles to those of gentry, and from their town-houses to the tenements of burgesses. Clan Territories sustained recusancy unsustained recusancy Lowland landed households sustained recusancy unsustained recusancy • Towns continuous recusancy Boundary between Gaeldom and In the Highlands and Islands the neglect of organised religion allied to relative spiritual depnvation since the Reformation had offered the greatest prospects for the entrenchment of Catholicism as the faith of whole communities. Although Jesuits and secular priests made strenuous efforts to maintain a minimal presence, the dearth of native Gaelic speakers led to Irish priests providing the main impetus for the work of conversion -most notably the Franciscans, whose pioneering mission from 1619 was resumed after a gap of twenty-two years in 1668. In the meantime the Vincentian mission which commenced in 1651 and occasional sorties by Dominicans helped ensure that Catholicism was revived within whole communities. Unlike the Lowlands, recusancy within the Highland and Islands can be identified with clan affiliations, not just landed households. Ho~everthe optimistic accounting of thousands of conversions in the course of these Irish missionary endeavours cannot be dissociated from their desperate need to attract funding from Propaganda. In fact priests serving in the Highlands and Islands at anyone time rarely numbered more than six; and the numbers serving together on the Scottish Mission as a whole prior to 1685 usually fluctuated between twelve and twenty. 111 iT Glasgow 112 123 125. 127 + 1~4 126+~129 131 .. 133128+130 132+t.+ +136 134 135 +137 123 +138 + 139 Edinburgh 114~ +118 ~115 + ~17 113 116 119 + 121+ " " +140 " +141..142 144 145 D f' + " + 143~146 um nes 149,/ 153;0~ 1Jt~;163 +148 r' 160 .T",".·+165~~51 155+.15~ +\ 164 C '.../ ~+ 1561t716~68 166 . 150 '\ 1~~ 157 J59 ) Lowlands Roman Catholic recusancy 1603 to 1685 AIM 408

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