A History of Scotland Presented by Scottish Radiance

Each month we present a chapter in the history of Scotland. We move forward in time each month.

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH

THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH The shortcomings of the medieval Church were slow to emerge and reponsibility for them is difficult to assign with any precision. Nepotism was the natural reflection of a society in which kinship counted for so much. Pluralism was endemic to an ecclesiastical system which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had sunk so many of its assets, in manpower as well as in stone and finance, into centres of excellence, whether in the form of the cloister or cathedral chapter. Prestigious building schemes amidst poverty were not unique to the medieval period. The dramatic beauty of Elgin Cathedral deserved its description as 'the ornament of the realm, the glory of the kingdom, the delight of foreigners'. There can also be little doubt that such bishops were concerned above all else with the bringing of the teachings of Christ to ordinary members of society; the thirteenth- century statutes of the Scottish Church are filled with a concern to administer the sacraments and teach the faith that would not be out of place in the sixteenth century or the twentieth. The parish clergy were enjoined to celebrate the sacraments 'with devout solemnity in the Catholic faith according to the precise form handed down by the holy fathers and the holy Scriptures' and parishioners were in their turn to be urged 'to explain that same faith to their children and to teach them to keep the Christian faith'.19 Such indications as there are show that the vast bulk of them did perform their duties with an admirable reverence. There can be little doubt, however, that there was a drastic loss of status of the clergy in minor orders, linked to their falling income, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Responsibility for this rests primarily with a hierarchy who failed to divert enough resources into the ordinary parish system, but it also belongs to the lay patrons who employed chaplains on minimum wages in collegiate churches, hospitals or other lay foundations. The laity expected more to be done for the salvation of their souls, but were unwilling or unable to pay as much for it as before.

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