This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Building the Reformed Kirk: the cultural use of ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland, 1560–1645 by Graham T. Chernoff A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh July 2012 Abstract This thesis examines the built environment and culture of Scotland between 1560 and 1645 by analysing church buildings erected during the period. The mid-sixteenth- century ecclesiastical Reformation and mid-seventeenth-century political and ecclesiastical tumult in Scotland provide brackets that frame the development of this physical aspect of Scottish cultural history. This thesis draws most heavily on architectural and ecclesiastical history, and creates a compound of the two methods. That new compound brings to the forefront of the analysis the people who produced the buildings and for whom the church institution operated. The evidence used reflects this dual approach: examinations of buildings themselves, where they survive, of documentary evidence, and of contemporary and modern maps support the narrative analysis. The thesis is divided into two sections: Context and Process. The Context section cements the place of the cultural contributions made by ecclesiastical buildings to Scottish history by analysing the ecclesiastical historical, theological, and political contexts of buildings. The historical analysis helps explain why, for example, certain places managed to build churches successfully while others took much longer. The creative tension between these on-the-ground institutions and theoretical ideas contributed to Scotland’s ability to produce cultural spaces. The Process section analyses the narratives of individual buildings in several different steps: Preparing, Building, Occupying, and Relating. These steps connected people with the physical entity of a church building. The Preparing chapter shows how many reasons in Scotland there were to initiate a building project. The Building chapter uses financial, design, and work narratives to tease out the intricacies of individual church stories. Occupying and Relating delve into later histories of individual congregations to understand how churches sat within the world about them. Early modern Scottish church building was immensely varied: the position, style, impact, purpose, and success of church buildings were different across the realm. The manner people building and using churches reacted to their environments played no small role in forming habits for future action. Church buildings thus played a role establishing who early modern Scottish people were, what their institutions did, and how their spirituality was lived daily. ii I, Graham T. Chernoff, declare that this thesis has been composed by me, that the work is my own, and that it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. _________________________ iii Acknowledgements Thank you to Prof. Jane Dawson for her knowledge in every area this thesis touches upon, and her continuing mentorship. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Edinburgh and the School of Divinity at the university. Further financial support with the costs of fieldwork has been provided by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain’s Annabel Ricketts and Ramsden bursaries, and the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Edinburgh. To the dozens of ministers, kirk officers, and session elders who have let me into buildings, fascinated me with history not in books, and received me with trusting hospitality goes my deepest gratitude for continuing to build the Church in Scotland. I would not have been able to accomplish this task without my wife and her overflowing reserves of love, patience, and laughter. Her willingness to do this with me has kept me going at every turn. Though I should have been unable to complete this thesis without the above- mentioned support, any fault found in its content, implications, or structure is entirely my own. G.T.C. 2012 iv Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Contents v Figures vi A note on the text vii Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 Methods of ‘Building History’ 18 Historical and theological contexts 28 Preparing 66 Building churches in Scotland 96 Occupying 132 Relating – church buildings and their surroundings 164 Conclusion 200 Bibliography 212 v Figures Table I.1 12 Maps I.1 13 I.2 14 4.1 67 5.1 97 6.1 134 7.1 169 Images 4.1 to 4.5 93–95 5.1 to 5.11 126–131 6.1 to 6.4 161–163 7.1 to 7.11 195–199 vi A note on the text All money is in Scots pounds, unless indicated otherwise. In 1603, James VI regulated the exchange rate between Scots and English pounds at £12 to £1 sterling. A merk was worth two-thirds of £1, equivalent to 13s 4d. Transcriptions of manuscripts have been left in the original Scots, aside from modernising v’s, w’s, i’s, thorns, and yoghs. Contractions have been expanded. Abbreviations FES : Scott, Hew. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation . New ed. 11 vols. Vols. 1 to 8. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1925–1950. NAS : National Archives of Scotland. NLS : National Library of Scotland. RPS : Records of the Parliament of Scotland: http://www.rps.ac.uk. University of St Andrews, 2007-2012. Reg. Episc. Brech. : Chalmers, Patrick, and John Ingles Chalmers, eds. Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis : Cui Accedunt Cartae Quamplurimae Originales . 2 vols. Vol. 2. Aberdoniae: [Bannatyne Club], 1856. vii Introduction People and buildings This is a history of people and their buildings. The evidence people leave when they live with buildings can provide essential insight into how they see the world. For this reason, people are the topic while buildings are the focus that brings the topic into sharp relief. For many ordinary people, buildings themselves might be the only tangible connection to history available. The past can be alive in stone and timber: the physical longevity of particular structures is a testament to how people in the past understood permanence in a time of change. When a building survives long enough, it can carry the past into the present. The commitment, energy, resources, and expression invested in buildings throughout history demonstrate that these structures can hold within them significant meanings. 1 Meaning is an elusive concept when taking the long view, so in order to uncover just how much meaning people were capable of investing into buildings, it is essential to focus on particular types of meaning and particular types of buildings. A particular type of building where such memory, investment, and longevity are possible is a church. The spiritual, cultural, institutional, political, and societal importance of the gathering together of adherents to the Christian religion in Scotland is plain to see in the history of the country in the early modern period. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Scottish ecclesiastical world was characterised by both interruption and continuity. The adjustments of the Reformation fit into old traditions, setting a pattern of accommodation and conflict that would be seen throughout the country. The period after the 1560 Reformation Crisis ushered in a long time where societal and cultural change became essentially the norm for everyday life. In church buildings and the stories that led to their building, occupying, and use, there is abundant evidence that this time of societal and cultural change bedded down across Scotland in entirely different ways. Establishing a new church building, a place where memories and meanings could thrive, was an exercise in negotiating the fine distinctions between tradition and novelty, national and local politics, and accommodation and single-mindedness. This 1 For a succint exposition of the ability of architecture—the artistic expression of building structures— to create spaces and thereby delineate first relationships among people and groups and second the meanings flowing from such relationships, see Helen Hills, Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe , Women and Gender in the Early Modern World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 2. 1 thesis explains how people negotiated those fine distinctions by examining the cultural meaning of church buildings in early modern Scotland. The examination focuses on a particular type of building: the new parish church. Parish churches were one of the main places the community gathered in ecclesiastical life, but also in political and cultural life. Building a church was an undertaking that required the energy of many people in a community. There were important connections between ordinary people and those people who knew how to gain access to the institutional avenues that allowed them to accomplish the task. These connections allowed the less powerful people to participate in this activity in a way that gave them ownership over the church that eventually sat at the heart of their community. The people who drove this building activity are at the heart of this thesis: what they were providing for the society of Scotland at the time, and how they managed to produce culture and participate in a nation- and church-edifying exercise that was expressed for the most part through the localities.