Patronage, Provision and Reservation'. Scotland And
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PATRONAGE, PROVISION AND RESERVATION'. SCOTLAND AND THE PAPACY DURING. THE PONTIFICATE OF PAUL III THOMAS WATSON GRAHAM Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D University of Glasgow Department of Scottish History A p ril 1992 £cT\ Thomas W.Graham, 1992 ProQuest Number: 13834111 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13834111 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 7Tuzscs 9 4 4 -0 C o p u l GLASGOW UNIVERSITY l ib r a r y i i . CONTENTS Acknowledgements ......... iii Sum m ary . iv Abbreviations ......... v Introduction: the sources ....... 1 Chapter 1 Provision and reservation . .6 Chapter 2 The Bishoprics . .29 Chapter 3 The Monastic Houses . .56 Chapter 4 The Cathedral Dignities ...... 100 Chapter 5 The Cathedral Prebends ...... 161 Chapter 6 The Parish Churches . 214 Chapter 7 The Collegiate Churches . .331 Chapter 8 Conclusion . 379 Bibliography ......... 392 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The initial examination of the manuscript source materials for this study was carried out when I was Ross Fund Scholar in Rome during the academic year 1968-69. I am indebted to the trustees of the Ross Fund of the University of Glasgow who provided generous financial support throughout that year. It is with great pleasure that I record my thanks to the staff of the Archivio Segreto Vaticano in Rome. They brought a steady stream of heavy volumes to me, always with unfailing courtesy, and made special arrangements at various stages which greatly helped to extend the coverage of the work. Special thanks must go to Monsignor Charles Burns, who eased my way into the vagaries of the Archives, as he has done for many British scholars. I would also thank the staff of the British School at Rome which provided a most congenial environment for study during my stay. My greatest debt of gratitude is to a number of individuals. Firstly, to Margaret Elliott, my former secretary at the University of Hull, who typed and word-processed various drafts of this thesis over several years with composure and good humour; she now copes with Scottish place names with vastly greater skill than did the sixteenth- century Vatican scriptors. Secondly and vitally, my wife, Moira, and two sons have put up with a great deal while this work has been in progress and have provided much-needed practical support throughout that period. Finally, I wish to record my thanks to Professor A.A.M.Duncan, who applied the critical final push to ensure the completion of the thesis, and to the late Dr. Annie I.Dunlop who first taught me Vatican palaeography and diplomatic, and worked with me on some of the relevant materials on her last visit to the Vatican. Most of all, I owe a great debt to my initial supervisor, the late Professor Ian B.Cowan, who first guided me towards this topic, commented valuably on drafts of the work, and gently but firmly pushed me towards progressing the thesis. SUMMARY This is a study of relations between Scotland and the papacy during the pontificate of Paul III (1534-49) in the area of ecclesiastical appointments. It deals with the interplay of the various rights of the patrons in Scotland on the one hand and those of the papacy on the other. The system of papal provision and reservation is examined generally and the history of its operation within Scotland is then outlined. The core of the study is an examination of the working of both local patronage and these papal rights throughout the church. This deals initially with the elective benefices which are considered within the framework of the 1487 Indult and subsequent modifications to that agreement. Subsequently, the non-elective benefices, which were subject to a different range of crown, lay and ecclesiastical rights and to the system of papal reservation, are analyzed in detail. The picture presented is one in which effective power in appointments largely lay in Scotland. The crown exercised a major influence throughout the whole church, and was extending this through its powers sede vacante. Other patrons in Scotland are also found exercising their powers extensively through the system of reservation and provision. Various devices for securing peaceful transfers of possession and for retaining benefices within the hold of particular families are illustrated. At the same time, the system generated litigation at the curia on a large scale, and provided considerable opportunities for challengers, including the Scottish procurators at Rome, to intervene in their own interests in benefice appointments. Despite its growing power, the crown was unable to stem either the traffic in benefices to Rome or the litigation which flowed from that traffic. Patrons in Scotland had to work hard to maintain their rights against challenges made through the system. On the whole however, and w ith some exceptions, th e y did so successfully. ABBREVIATIONS - 1. Unpublished Sources Brev.Lat. Registers of Lateran Briefs (Vatican Archives) PRO Public Record Office transcripts of documents from the Vatican Archives Reg.Lat Lateran Registers (Vatican Archives) Reg.Supp. Registers of Supplications (Vatican Archives) Reg.Vat. Vatican Registers (Vatican Archives) SRO S cottish Record O ffice documents 2. Published Sources I have adopted here the abbreviations used in the standard L is t o f Abbreviated Titles of the Printed Sources of Scottish History to 1560 which was published as a supplement to the Scottish Historical Review xlii (1963). The titles listed there are not repeated here, but the following are used in addition. Complete Peerage The Complete Peerage, new ed. V.Gibbs and others (London,1910-59). Cowan, Parishes I.B.Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland. (SRS,1967). Eubel, Hierarchia C.Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi. 2nd ed. (Munster,1913-23). Easti D.E.R.Watt, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi ad annum 1638. 2nd draft (St.Andrews, 1969. Haws, Scottish Parish Clergy C.Haws, Scottish Parish Clergy at the Reformation. 1540-1574. (SRS,1972). Herkless and Hannay, J.Herkless and R.K.Hannay, The Archbishops Archbishops of St.Andrews. (Edinburgh, 1907-15). LP Henrv VIII Letters and Papers. Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henrv V III. ed. J.S.Brewer and others (London, 1864-1932. Thirds of Benefices Accounts of the Collectors of the Thirds of Benefices. 1561-72. ed.G.Donaldson (SHS,1949). INTRODUCTION: THE SOURCES This study is concerned with relations between Scotland and the papacy in the area of ecclesiastical patronage. It is an examination of the interplay and practical effect of two sets of rights relating to appointments to ecclesiastical benefices in late medieval Scotland: the rights of the crown and of local patrons as these had developed through the later middle ages, and papal rights of provision and reservation which had similarly become strongly established. In recent years, work has been published which gives a broad overview of the operation of the systems of appointment to these benefices in the years prior to the Reformation.* The particular feature of this study is that it is an examination in detail of the operation of these rights throughout the church in Scotland during a short period, which for practical purposes covers most of the reign of James V and the regency of the earl of Arran. Relations between Scotland and the papacy with regard to ecclesiastical patronage and appointments have attracted the attention of scholars, particularly since the work of R.K.Hannay in the 1930s. It has been recognised that any study of the various influences which impacted on such appointments has to labour under the difficulty that there are no records in Scotland corresponding to the series of bishops’ registers in England, whose staple diet is the record of institution of * See particularly, I.B.Cowan,”Patronage, provision and reservation: Pre-Reformation Appointments to Scottish Benefices”, in Ian.B.Cowan and Duncan Shaw (ed.), The Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland: essays in honour of Gordon Donaldson (Edinburgh, 1983), 75-92. 2 R.K.Hannav.The Scottish Crown and the Papacy. (Historical Association of Scotland,1931); D.E.R.Watt,"The Papacy and Scotland in the fifteenth century”, m R.B.Dobson (ed.) The Church, Politics and Patronage in the fifteenth century. (Gloucester,1984), 115-32. clergy to benefices and related material, such as resignations, the causes of vacancies and rights of patronage. There is thus no continuous administrative record within Scotland to provide a structure for such a study. Evidence from Scotland has to be gradually brought together from disparate national and local sources which, by their very nature, give an incomplete picture. At the highest levels of the church - the bishoprics, dignities and some monastic houses - many of the records are available to give at least a general picture. The difficulties increase as the examination moves to the much larger number of prebends and parish churches further down the church hierarchy. Fortunately, because of the special relationship which developed between the church in Scotland and the papacy, there are records which do provide the vital administrative core to such a study. The lack of a primate in Scotland until 1472 meant that Scottish clerics had a direct right of access to the Roman curia.