4. G. N. M. Collins, The Heritage of our Fathers (Edinburgh: Knox Press, 1974), 40.
5. Patronage, Presbyterian Union and Home Work of the Church of Scotland: A Chronicle of the General Assembly of 1870 (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1870). Speech by Dr Smith of Leith, 163.
Chapter One
Religious issues in Scotland have frequently been the cause of strong emotions. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that, of all the impassioned controversies since the Reformation, the most enduring concerned something as seemingly unexceptionable as the admission of approved candidates to parish churches. Disturbance, intimidation and even violence repeatedly accompanied this event from early in the eighteenth century until 1843, when the national church experienced its final and most spectacular split as a result of the accumulated bitterness. Clearly then, it was an issue which stirred up intense feelings, yet what prompted them? How could mere concern over the identity of a parochial appointee give rise to so much anger, litigation and expense?
As will be seen, a wide variety of factors played their part. These would include different viewpoints over the relationship between church and state, between church and people, between landowner and people, and between those who held opposing theological or political convictions, to list but a few. Fundamental to countless controversies, however, was one issue: property ownership, or, to be specific, ownership of land, the fruits arising from it and the rights attaching to it. From the moment that the first Christian congregations moved out of makeshift accommodation into purpose-built buildings, these became matters of inescapable importance. This was because virtually all churches had to be built on land that ultimately belonged to someone, and whatever may have been an owner’s goodwill at the time of construction, it was always likely that the attitude of his successors might change, particularly if in the selection of an incumbent, the congregation seemed to acquire a disagreeable degree of autonomy. Either way, from the earliest centuries, church and patrons can frequently be found wrestling and bargaining with each other to maximize whatever of income or influence each could claim as theirs.
It is this tension between sacred and secular interests which gives lay patronage its particular fascination as a subject for study. In the selection of an entrant to a territorial ministry, territorially financed, the question remained: which interest, landed or ecclesiastical, should have what privileges, and, no less importantly, who should determine how those privileges should be apportioned, the state or the church? By the eighteenth century in Scotland, church and society had failed to find a satisfactory resolution to this conundrum, and so paid the price in the disputes which followed.
This study will look at the controversies surrounding patronage in Scotland during the first half of the eighteenth century. In order to do so, however, it is necessary to look back to the first appearance of patrons, and from there observe how their role and status evolved.
The Beginning of Lay Patronage
The origins of patronage are not especially clear. However, it would seem that, after the official legalization of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in 313, property–owning Christians came forward to aid the Church’s building programme either by giving money to endow a church, by personally erecting it or by donating the ground for one. In so doing, they received the title of that church’s patronus, that is, its protector, defender or advocate. This general principle endured through the following centuries, summarized in the maxim incorporated in canon law: Patronum faciunt, dos, aedificatio, fundus (gift, building, land make the patron).
Naturally, the patron was not always above looking for something in return for his generosity, and this usually took the form of certain privileges. At first, they were in effect, simply marks of respect, as in the honor processionis (place of honor in religious processions), the honor precum (special place in the prayers), the honor sedis (privileged seat) and the honor sepulturae (privilege of burial within the church’s precincts). However, with the fifth century, an entirely different opportunity presented itself. From this time onwards, the stability of the Roman empire weakened and bishops increasingly found themselves unable to ensure that their congregations were adequately protected and cared for. It became obvious that more reliance upon the protective role of patrons was necessary, and, as an incentive for defending existing foundations and erecting new ones, the right to choose the church’s incumbent was allowed. Dating is difficult, but it would seem that, by the close of the sixth century, the practice was well established.1
Other honorary rights gradually followed. Having established their right of selection, it was then a short step for landowners to think about their financial privileges. It seemed to them that their position was straightforward: they owned the land on which the church stood, they, or their forebears, had erected the building, its funding came from their produce — even the priest was now theirs to appoint, remove, and generally “use (and abuse) . . . like any other serf serving on their estates.”2 It therefore appeared logical that when the living was vacant, they should receive back the revenues that had been set aside for it. With the Empire continuing to collapse, the Church was not in a position to resist, and a further swing in favor of a patron’s privileges unfolded. Indeed, by the eleventh century, there was little to prevent him not only regarding his church as his private property, but, with suitable management, a source of income little different from that of his bake house or mill.
As might be expected, when the early Middle Ages gave way to the comparative stability of the new millennium, the Church began to turn its attention to the task of regaining some of the initiative it had surrendered into lay hands. Probably the most effective counter-measures were achieved under the pontificate of Alexander III (1159–81), who adopted a two-pronged approach to clawing back some of the advantage patrons now held. The first element of his strategy was to introduce a spiritual dimension into the right of patronage. Up until then, its basis and character had been entirely temporal - that is to say, a patron’s ecclesiastical rights simply derived from his holding of property. Alexander now insisted that these were only legitimate if a patron exercised them along with the Church as part of a joint responsibility for the management of the benefice, and thus designated in the papal decretals as a jus temporale spirituali annexum (a temporal right, tacked on to the spiritual). In other words, patronage was now defined as having an identity of which there were two necessary parts, a temporal and a spiritual. The effect of the latter’s introduction was, naturally, to place the Church in a far stronger position for regulating both the exercise of the jus patronatus (right of patronage) and its passage from one holder to another. Thus, for example, although it could be inherited or bought as part of a property, its spiritual component made its sale as a separate entity theoretically impossible, “both because it was a right the value of which was inestimable, and therefore irreconcilable with the contract of sale, and also because such a transaction was simoniacal.”3
Alexander’s other important achievement was to establish the issue of whose privileges ultimately took precedence, was it the Church’s or the patron’s? He did this by reaffirming the jus patronatus to be a jus temporale spirituali annexum, so that the right of patronage becomes explicitly subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and assessment. The practical implications of this were that a patron still had the right of selection in a vacancy, but he had to “present” his choice to the bishop for scrutiny and admission. Thus the right of presentation (jus praesentandi) meant the right of proposing, not simply a right to nominate or impose a candidate. The patron’s role was now auxiliary to the bishop’s, so that it was, for example, possible for a bishop to plant a church without a lay presentation,