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A -H ScS.SHS iV3 ! SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY FOURTH SERIES VOLUME 7 Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome CALENDAR OF Scottish Supplications to Rome 1428—1432 edited by Annie I. Dunlop, o.b.e., ll.d., d.litt. and Ian B. Cowan, m.a., ph.d. ★ EDINBURGH printed for the Scottish History Society by T. AND A. CONSTABLE LTD 1970 © Scottish History Society 1970 -b'-\ b, .y'' O'4 ISBN 9500260 2 6 Printed in Great Britain PREFACE This volume, the third of a series of Scottish Supplications to Rome published by the Scottish History Society, was originally to have had Dr Annie I. Dunlop as its sole editor. However, ill health prevented this, and in the cir- cumstances it was agreed that the volume should be edited jointly by Dr Dunlop and myself. Prior to this decision Dr Dunlop had already calendared the material which she had so industriously collected in the Vatican Archives, and it was the editing of this material which was initially undertaken con- jointly. In the latter stages this co-operation unformnately proved more difficult, and the final text, index and introduction have been my responsi- bility. My own labours would, however, have been impossible without those of Dr Dunlop, and the encouragement which she subsequently gave to me. The immense debt of gratitude which I personally, and all Scottish historians in general, owe to her must here be placed upon record, as must also her generosity in establishing a special fund which has partially subsidised the publication of this volume. Nor indeed does the debt stop there, for although there are no immediate plans for the publication of further volumes of supplications, Dr Dunlop has most generously placed her manuscript calendar of Scottish entries from the Registers of Supplications, 1433-1479, in the Department of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow, where they now form an important and integral part of a vast collection of pre-Reforma- tion Scottish material derived from the Vatican Archives by the Ross Fund of that university.1 With help in the preparation of this volume, the editors would like to express their grateful appreciation to the staff of the Vatican Archives and to the British School at Rome. We also owe our thanks to the Rev. Charles Bums, archivist in the Vatican, and Thomas Graham of Glasgow University Library both of whom willingly gave assistance and advice, and to Miss Elenor Morrison who helped compile the index. If faults remain, the responsibility is mine. University of Glasgow ianb.cowan December, 1970 1 Full details about this material, and means of access to it, will be found in I. B. Cowan, ‘The Vatican Archives-a report on pre-Reformation Scottish material’ published in Scottish Historical Review, xlviii, pp 227-42. A generous contribution from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland towards the cost of producing this volume is gratefully acknowledged by the Council of the Society CONTENTS Preface v Introduction ix Table of Abbreviations xxiii Table of Referendaries xxv CALENDAR OF SCOTTISH SUPPLICATIONS TO ROME I Addenda, 1423-1424, 269 Index 273 INTRODUCTION in format the supplications in this volume do not vary from those previously published in this series.1 As petitions to the Pope requesting grace or justice, they continue to appear in a fairly stereotyped form according to their respective categories, signed either by the Pope or the Vice-Chancellor, and bearing the date of the particular concession. The information which can be derived from these petitions is multifarious and includes material relevant to genealogy, church dedications and local history in general. For the genealogist, marriage dispensations are the most fruitful source, and one at least reveals a previously unknown marriage (p 136). Dedications will be found for many of the churches in the dioceses of Argyll and Sodor, and while many of these churches are readily identifiable the location of the parish churches of St Lawrence (p 21) and St Thewn (p 22) remains elusive. Local historians will find information covering the length and breadth of Scotland, most of it only relevant to ecclesias- tical affairs, but occasionally yielding information of wider interest concerning items such as land holdings and the owners thereof (pp 68, 177). This wider range of material also possesses a national interest, and in this respect the petition relating to the marriage of Louis, eldest son of Charles vm, king of the French, and Margaret, eldest daughter of James 1, king of Scots, is of special significance (p 119). But undoubtedly the overriding interest is ecclesiastical; by a perusal of the following petitions an overall picture can be established of the state of the Scottish church in this period, and, more important still, 1 Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1418—22, edd. E. R. Lindsay and A. I. A.Cameron I. Dunlop (SHS, (SHS, 1934) 1956). and The Calendar introductions of Scottish to these Supplications two volumes to shouldRome 1423—28,be consulted ed. for information relating to the Registers of Supplications, and to the nature and format of the supplications themselves. An addenda to this volume supplies six petitions dated 1423—1424 which were inadvertently omitted from the second of these volumes. SCOTTISH SUPPLICATIONS TO ROME an evaluation can be made of papal relations with Scotland at a juncture immediately prior to the struggles between the crown and the papacy which were to dominate the rest of the fifteenth century. As to the state of the Church in general, in one respect it was flourishing, and the growing importance of collegiate churches, which are indicative of this, is reflected in these petitions. Bothwell, Dunbar and St Mary on the Rock, St Andrews, all figure prominently; their provostships and prebends proving attractive to pluralists who were anxious to acquire such benefices, which as they did not entail the cure of souls were free from the restriction placed by canon law on the hold- ing of only one benefice to which the cure of souls was attached. If the growth of pluralism augured ill for the Church, this in no way deterred prospective founders of collegiate churches from their purpose. Moreover, it must be admitted that the constitutions of most such foundations made an attempt, albeit an unsuccessful one, to prevent pluralism by stipulating fixed periods of residence. The great spate of such foundations was not to come until later in the fifteenth century, but in these petitions the king, James i, is to be found as a leader of fashion in proposing on 7 October, 1430, to erect a new collegiate church in the burgh of Linlithgow. The vicar of the parish church was to become the college’s first provost, and twelve chaplains, as a later petition reveals, were to form its remaining complement (pp 140,176). Finance for the new institution was to be forthcoming from the revenues of the parish churches of Calder- Comitis and Strathbrock, and these endowments were to be further augmented by the king. Despite these pious intentions, however, the foundation was never completed. The reason is not clear, but the death of the king in 1437 is the most likely, although the failure to find further adequate endowments may have contributed to this end, which left Linlithgow as an important burgh church containing many chaplains, but bereft of the constitution which would have made it fully collegiate.1 1 If Linlithgow never became fully cohegiate, at least an attempt was made in that direction. The cohegiate church of St Nicholas of Stronsay (p 52), on the other hand, owes its existence to an error of transcription. The canonry and prebend of ecclesie collegiate sancti Nicolai de Stronsay is in fact a canonry and prebend of Orkney, the Thisendowment is clearly of revealed which was in a derivedsubsequent from petition the revenues (p 55) inof which St Nicholas it is described of Stronsay. as the ‘canonry and prebend of church of St Nicholas de Stronsay in the church of Orkney’. INTRODUCTION xi The erection of Linlithgow to collegiate status was to have been accompanied by the re-building of the parish church on a new site and the erection of the college itself. This reminder that this was a great period in the re-building of Scottish burgh churches is also demonstrated in the appeal of the aldermen, burgesses and com- munity of the burgh of Cupar in Fife for the ratification of the erection of their parish church within the burgh, in place of the old one which had lain outside the town. The consent of the vicar and the bishop of St Andrews had been obtained, but opposition had materialised from the holder of the rectorial rights-the priory of St Andrews, who no doubt feared that their financial interests might be jeopardised (p 27 j.1 The re-building of burgh churches might be taken as another sign of vitality, and so too, the increasing provision for cathedral churches, at which residence by canons was to be encouraged by increasing the fruits of the common fund from which, in theory at least, only canons who had fulfilled their residential commitments should derive benefit. The grant in 1430 of the parish church of Cortachy to the chapter of Brechin (p 87), and that of the parish church of Libberton to the chapter of Glasgow (p 8 8) both appear to have been motivated by this desire, although the latter proved to be ineffective. The fifteenth century also saw the erection of many new cathedral pre- bends, although once again the only example of this evident in the succeeding supplications, the erection of the hospital of Strathblane into a prebend of Glasgow cathedral (p 60), proved to be short- lived.2 Nevertheless, while the erection of collegiate churches and the foundation of cathedral prebends signifies liveliness in the Church and is indicative of a movement in favour of the secular clergy, these developments also had their darker side.

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