The Church in Shetland During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,And Especially Is This True of This Particular Period
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The Church in Shetland During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, By W.Wallis B.D; Lond; A Thesis Presented for the Ph.DjDegree of the University of Edinburgh, 1940. Foreword. The subject of this thesis was first suggested to the writer by the late Dr W.P.Paterson,who was deeply interested in the Church in Shetland,and anxious that some attempt should be made to preserve an account of her history. This thesis attempts to deal with the period embracing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period beginning with the pre-Reformation Church,and ending -:ith the final establishment of a Presbyterial form of church government. The difficulty was to find the material for such a work. The writer was a minister in Shetland for seven years, and for five years was Clerk of the Presbytery,and during that time was unable to discover a single Synod,Presbytery,or Kirk- Session record belonging to this period. The earliest Presbytery record is dated 1830, and there are no ICirk-Session records till the beginning of the eighteenth century. The records of the Church in Orkney have fared no better as far as this period is concerned,for according to the Reports on the r.ecords of the Church of Scotland given in to the .general Assembly in 1889 the Synod minute book does not begin till 1853,and the earliest Presbytery record is dated 1701.Even the Presbytery records of Orkney available to Dr Hew Scott in 1870(vide Hew Scott:Fasti Hcclesiae Scoticanae Vol. 111.Part 1. p.373.) have disappeared. T7hile compelled to rely to a considerable extent on the data given in the old and new editions of the i'asti,the writer, wherever possible, has gone to primary sources for his facts, and in additiont has been fortunate enough in the course of his research, to discover some old church papers in the Library of the Church of Scotland,which give a considerable amount of firsthand information of the affairs of the Church in Shetland at the close of the seventeenth century. With these and other data he has been able to collect from every available source, he has endeavoured to give,as far as possible, a continuous and consistent account of the Church in Shetland in general, and of the parishes in particular, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,and to show her relationship to the Church in Scotland during that period. m Contents, Chapter 1. Introduction. page 1, Chapter 11, The Pre-Heformation Church in Shetland 1500-1560.7. Chapter 111. The Reformation in Shetland 1560-1605, 39, Chapter IV, Episcopacy in Shetland 1605-1638, 80, Chapter V, Presbyterianism and Episcopacy in Shetland 1638-1688. 120. Chapter VI. Presbyterial Form of Church Government Re-established in Shetland 1688-1702. 157. Note. 206. Appendices. 207,. Bibliography 249, Introduction. Chapter 1. The Shetland Islands are the most northerly of the British Isles,and lie on the parallel of latitude that runs through Bergen in Norway and Cape Farewell in Greenland,but the climate is much milder than might "be expected,owing to the proximity of the Gulf Stream. Shetland consists of an archipelago of one hundred islands of which about twenty-three are inhabited. The largest island,the Mainland,is fifty-four miles from north to south,and twenty-one miles,at its widest,from east to west. The scenery is wild and rugged,and has a beauty of its own,but the land has a lean and barren appearance,and this is accentuated by the absence of trees. There are fertile spots here and there,like that of the Tingwall Valley,but the soil for the most part offers little encouragement to the crofter. The Shetlander,therefore,has to look to the sea for the most of his living,and either enters the mercantile marine service,or goes to the fishing,while his family looks after the croft in his absence. The Shetland women also help to keep the home going by the proceeds of their knitting. Shetland is famous for its hosiery,and this home industry brings in annually some £80,000. The history of Shetland from the time it was pawned to the Scottish Crown by King Christian 1 of Norway in 1468,down to the Crofters 1 Commission in 1889 is,for the most part, a record of oppression and victimisation by which the people were practically reduced to a state of serfdom. Little is known,however,of these islands before the coming to Shetland of Harl Robert Stewart. Prior 8. to this the glimpses we get are rare and fleeting. The earliest reference to Shetland is to be found in the Agricola of Tacitus, where it is statad that the Roman fleet in its circumnavigation of the northern portion of Great Britain after the "battle of Mons Graupius(A.D. 84) discovered and subdued the Orkneys and that in the course of this expedition Thule was seen(dispecta a est et Thule) ,*n<l there is every reason to believe that by Thule was meant the island of Foula. After that there is nothing but the faguest references to Shetland till we come to the ninth century. Archeological discoveries in the islands have proved beyond doubt that the early inhabitants of Shetland, if not the earliest, were the Picts f who probably came from the northern part of the mainland of Scotland. Scattered throughout the islands are to be found the remains of seventy-five Pictish brochs or fortresses, the most perfectly preserved one being that of the island of Mousaf There is also the famous Ogham stone found in the island of Bressay, and other Ogham stones and ecclesiastical relics, not so well known, which bear silent testimony to the fact that Christianity had reached this land in the pre-Norse period. How far the Picts in Shetland were christianised it is impossible to say, nor is there any definite knowledge of the way in which the Gospel first came to these northern isles. Such place-names as Papa Stour,Papil, are evidence of the Irish missionaries or Papae( priests) having settled and worked in these districts. The name of St Ninian also a. Tacitus, Agricola, Chapter X. 3. crossed over to Shetland,where St Slogan's Isle preserves his memory to this day. It is also probable that the disciples of St Columba found their way to Shetland from Orkney,and had a share in christianising the people. In the ninth century many of the chiefs and principal men in Norway migrated to Shetland,Orkney and the Hebrides,to escape the burdens that were being imposed upon*a them by Harald Haarfagre,the founder of the kingdom of Norway. It is not likely that these Horsemen exterminated the Picts,as is sometimes asserted- They simply subjugated and absorbed them,and it is more reasonable to trace the un-Norse looking people in some of the secluded parts of the Islands back to the Plots rather than to Spaniards wrecked b in the time of the Armada. Y/hatever Christianity there was in the Islands disappeared before this invasion of pagan Horsemen,and did not reappear until the close of the tenth century. In order to put a stop to the raids on his coasts by the Horsemen who had settled in Shetland and elsewhere,Harald Haarfagre in 874 A.D. collected a great fleet and subdued the Shetlands,the Orkneys,the Hebrides and the Isle of I£an. Shetland and Orkney were annexed to Uorway,and Sigurd the brother of F.ognv aid, Earl of Mo ere, became the first ruler of the new c provinces. The rule of the Horse earls was unbroken until 1231 A.D. a. Wllsoni History of the Church and State in Norway pp 12 & 18. "b. Jakobson: Shetland Dialect and Place Names pp 1-4. c.Gjerset: History of the Norwegian People.p.130. In that year the last of the Norwegian earls, Jarl John,son of Jarl Harald Madaddson died,and the earldom passed successively into the hands of the Earls of the Angus,Stratherne and St Glair lines. They recognised the sovereignty both of Norway and Scotland, while the lordship of Shetland was resumed by the Norwegian Crown and its affairs administered directly by governors or fouds appointed by and responsible to the Scandinavian monarch. Olaf Tryggvison king of Norway,who had been busy converting his people to Christianity,turned his attention about the year 1000 A,D. to his subjects in Orkney and Shetland,and by a stratagem forced the Jarl Sigurd Lodvesson to accept Christianity for himself and for the people of his earldom. Soon after,the Church was established there by the Norwegian ecclesiastical authorities,and the islands were divided into parishes. Priests were settled in these parishes,and churches were erected. The parochial system then inaugurated has,with little alteration,remained to this day, although almost everything else connected with that early Norse Church has perished. The restored Faith,however, made slow progress, and it was not till 1102 A.D. that the first bishop of Orkney and Shetland was appointed. He was known as V/illiam the Old,and ruled the diocese for sixty-six years. It was during this period also that the native system of law and justice,and of local government, founded on Norwegian models grew into a well established and a carefully administered polity. In 1468 A.D. first Orkney and then Shetland,was pawned to Scotland as a pledge for the unpaid dowry of Llargaret daughter of a. Goudie: T;.ie Celtic and Scandinavian Antiquities of Shetland.