discipline been attempted than in Scotland in the first century after the
Reformation. Not only was the teaching or the practice of the unreformed
faith punished with the severest penalties, not only was attendance at
church and the learning of religion, as the reformers understood it,
rigidly enforced; but even the private life of the people was watched and
scrutinized. The behaviour of the congregation on the way home from divine
service, the amusements which formed the relaxation of the people, the
dress of the women in the street as well as at kirk, the snuff-taking of
the men, domestic broils and filial misbehaviour in the various
households,--these and other such matters were discussed by ecclesiastical
tribunals and visited with pains and penalties, as much as offences
against human or divine laws. The country was overspread with a network
of church authorities claiming disciplinary powers, there was quite an
arsenal of punitive machines in every district, and the whole system was
kept in motion by the free use of espionage. Verily, in Scotland "new
presbyter was," as Milton said, "but old priest writ large," larger in
fact than the original by far. Even the soldiery of the Commonwealth,
sufficiently used to the methods of Puritanism in England, were astonished
and disgusted with the ways and means of Scottish discipline; so much so
that during their stay in the country in 1650 they destroyed many of the
weapons of this intolerable tyranny; and it is indeed surprising that the
people themselves accepted it so long with submission. That the Church has
authority to use discipline over its members is admitted; and that at the
present time this authority is too little recognised is, in the opinion of
very many, equally true; but in the day of its supremest power the
Scottish Kirk Sessions seem to have usurped a universal authority. The
punitive rights of the State, the proper control which a man has within
his own house, even that discipline which every one should learn to
exercise over himself, all these, as well as that influence which more
strictly is the province of the Church, the Kirk endeavoured to control
and enforce by means of its own ecclesiastical courts.
Of these courts the first was the "Exercise," as it was at first quaintly
called, from the custom of "making exercise," or critically examining a
given passage of Scripture; more properly described as the Presbytery.
Next to this came the authority of the Synod, or district court, and the
final appeal lay to the General Assembly. Of these the higher courts not
infrequently did much more than exercise appellant jurisdiction, issuing
orders to spur on the zeal of the inferior ones.
The methods of punishment employed by the Kirk were various.
Excommunications were freely launched against offenders, especially
against those who did not accept in their fulness the teaching and
practices of the reformers. Public penance was also resorted to, often in
addition to some other form of punishment; the penance usually involving
the use of the "repentance-stool," or the jaggs, or jougs. The former of
these was a wooden structure formed in two tiers or steps, the lower of
which, used for less heinous offences, was named the "cock-stool." An
offender, judged to perform a public penance on this stool, was first
clothed in an appropriate habit, the Scottish representative of the
traditional white sheet, which consisted of a cloak of coarse linen, known
as the "harden goun," the "harn goun," or the "sack goun." Thus arrayed,
he (or she) stood at the kirk door while the congregation assembled and
during the opening prayer of the service; just before the sermon the
penitent was led in by the sexton and placed, according to the terms of
the sentence, either upon "the highest degree of the penitent stuill" or
upon, "the cock-stool"; where he stood barefoot and bare-headed during
the discourse, in which his sins and offences were not forgotten. The
congregation generally wore their hats during the sermon.
[Illustration: REPENTANCE STOOL, FROM OLD GREYFRIARS, EDINBURGH.]
The minutes and accounts of the Presbyteries have frequent allusions to
this stool and its accompanying "goun." Thus at Perth mention is made of
the provision of both cock-stool and repentance-stool, and in 1617 the
Kirk Session of the same place ordered a stool of stone to be built. The
Synods specially enjoined on all parishes the procuring of a
repentance-gown; in 1655 as much as L4, 4s. 6d. was spent in one for
Lesmahago, and in 1693 Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, ordered one of a special
fashion, "like unto that which they have in Straitoun," to be made. The
repentance-stool has maintained its place in scattered instances down to
modern times, one of the latest instances of its use being in 1884, when a
man stood on the stool to be publicly rebuked in the Free Kirk at
Lochcarron. The Museum of the Society of Antiquaries at Edinburgh contains
the old repentance-stool, formerly used in the Old Greyfriars' Church of
that city; the repentance-gown of Kinross parish is also preserved in the
same museum. It does not always follow that penance implies repentance,
and the strong arm of the Scottish Kirk sometimes compelled a man to
submit to the former without his experiencing the latter; such was
evidently the case with three reprobates who were excommunicated in 1675
by the Kirk Session of Mauchline, Ayrshire, because of "their breaking the
stool of repentance on which they had been sentenced to stand in presence
of the congregation."
[Illustration: JOUGS FROM THE OLD CHURCH OF CLOVA, FORFARSHIRE.]
[Illustration: THE JOUGS AT DUDDINGSTON.]
The jagg or jougs consisted of an iron collar fastened by a padlock, which
hung from a chain secured in the church wall near the principal entrance.
An offender sentenced to the jagg was compelled to stand locked within
this collar for an hour or more before the morning service on one or more
Sundays. About the time of the Revolution this dropt out of use, chiefly
from the fact that the State no longer suffered the powers of the Kirk to
be carried with so high a hand; several of the old jaggs, however, yet
remain. At Merton, Berwickshire, at Clova, in Forfarshire, and at
Duddingston, Midlothian, the instrument may still be seen attached to the
kirk wall; the jaggs of Stirling and of Galashiels have also been
preserved, though removed from their original places.[12]
Besides the repentance-stool and the jagg, which were specially the
weapons of the kirk, there were other instruments of punishment employed
by the State, to which the Kirk also did not hesitate at times to have
recourse. Just as the Spanish Inquisition handed over those whom it
condemned to the "secular arm" for punishment, so the Scottish Kirk passed
resolutions desiring the bailies to put this or that offender in gyves;
magistrates were requested to imprison others, "their fude to be bread and
watter;" employers were instructed to fine or chastise servants who used
profane language; and town authorities were solicited to procure
appliances for "ducking" certain classes of sinners. The brank or scold's
bridle, the stocks, and the pillory, were used by the ecclesiastical, no
less than by the civil, authorities; the Kirk also imposed fines, decreed
banishment, used the steeples as prisons, and inflicted mutilation, and
even death, upon offenders; its power to enforce these sentences being
largely due to the fact that civil disabilities followed the pronouncement
of excommunication. The excommunicated person was an outlaw; he could hold
no land, might be imprisoned by any magistrate to whom he was denounced,
and was to be "boycotted" by friends, followers, and tradesmen; any one
showing him the smallest consideration, or affording him the least
assistance, was liable to a similar punishment. These large powers were
only abrogated in 1690.
Among the offences dealt with by the Kirk, a prominent place was given to
adherence to the unreformed faith, and to any apparent lack of zeal for
presbyterianism. Saying mass according to the ancient rite, or even
hearing it, or giving any countenance to such as did so, was severely
dealt with. Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was summoned, with nearly
fifty others, before the High Court in 1563, charged with saying mass; and
although he was liberated at that time, he was subsequently hanged. For a
similar "crime," John Carvet was put in the pillory at Edinburgh, in 1565;
other priests were banished in 1613; and another (John Ogilvie) was
sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered in 1615. For hearing mass,
John Logane was fined a thousand pounds in 1613, and many persons were
from time to time imprisoned, or otherwise punished. The Church festivals
were also put under a ban. The General Assembly in 1645 prohibited
schoolmasters from granting a holiday at Christmas; the Kirk Session of
St. Andrews punished several persons for keeping that festival in 1573;
and in 1605 the same authority at Dundonald summoned a man for not
ploughing on "Zuile day" (Yule). To harbour a priest, to possess books of
Catholic devotion, to paint a crucifix, all these were recognised
offences, which were visited with fines and imprisonment. In 1631 Sir John
Ogilvy of Craig was committed to jail for "daily conversing" with
supporters of the old faith.
The means adopted to promote reformed opinions among the people were
equally drastic.
The most rigid observance of Sunday as a Sabbath was enforced. In 1627
nine millers at Stow, in Midlothian, had to do public penance and pay
forty shillings for that "their milnes did gang on the Sabbath;" and in
1644 another miller, in Fifeshire, was sentenced to a fine of thirty
shillings, with the same addition, for a similar offence. The uncertainty
of the weather was not admitted as any excuse for Sunday harvesting, as is
shown by a fine inflicted (together with the usual penance) upon one
Alexander Russell and his servant for "leading corn on the Sabbath
evening," at Wester Balrymont. There are records of the stool of
repentance being called into use for the correction of fishermen who
mended their nets, of sundry people who gathered nuts, of a woman who
"watered her kaill," and of another who "seethed bark," on a Sunday. The
last named had to stand in the jagg for three Sundays as well. Lads who
were found playing on Sunday were sometimes whipt, as in a case dealt with
by the Kirk Session of St. Andrews in 1649, and others at Dunfermline in
1685. In 1664 it was enacted at Dumfries that "persons walking idly from
house to house and gossipping on Sabbath" should be fined thirty shillings
for their evil conduct; and in 1652 the Kirk Session of Stow actually
compelled one William Howatson to do public penance for having, on a
Sunday, "walked a short distance to see his seik mother."
But mere abstinence from work and play was not sufficient; attendance at
the kirk was compulsory. The amount of the fine exacted in different
districts varied, but everywhere even a single absence was noted, and had
to be paid for. At Aberdeen, in 1568, the penalty was 6d. for every
service missed; at Lasswade, in 1615, it was 6s. 8d. from a gentleman, and
3s. 4d. from a servant; at Dunino, in 1643, sum was 2s. for a first
offence, 4s. for the second, and a like proportion for others. Paupers who
failed in this duty were to be deprived of all relief, by order of the
Kirk Session of St. Andrews in 1570.
The almost omniscient eyes of the Kirk Sessions kept watch, moreover, on
the behaviour of the congregation while at the services. The Kirk Session
of Ayr summoned Andrew Garvine before it and reproved him in 1606, because
he was late at kirk; and at Saltoun, in 1641, a fine of 6s. 8d. was
decreed against everyone who ventured to "take snuff in tyme of divine
service"; at Perth the Session's officer was instructed "to have his red
staff in the kirk on Sabbath days, therewith to wauken sleepers, and to
remove greeting bairns forth of the kirk." The congregation was divided
according to the sexes, the men (most ungallantly) being allowed to
occupy forms, while the women sat upon the floor; and any departure from
this arrangement was gravely censured. The dress of the women also
occupied the attention of the Sessions, their habit of wearing their
plaids about their heads being especially condemned. At St. Andrews, the
beadle was commanded to go about the kirk during the service "with ane
long rod to tak down their plaidis" from the women's heads; while the
authorities at Monifieth took very extreme measures, ordering the
expenditure of five shillings in tar "to put upon the women that held
plaids about their heads." Women condemned to do public penance upon the
penitence-stool were deprived of their plaids before ascending that
ecclesiastical pillory.
The instruction which the people were to receive was also regulated by the
Kirk Sessions. Before the morning service, and between that and the
afternoon service, the children were publicly to recite their catechism,
both for their own edification and that of the people present. So it was
ordained at Stow in 1656, and at Dunfermline in 1652, on the ground that
it was "usit in uthyre kirks." But the passages of Scripture to be
treated by the preachers were also settled by the same authorities; the
custom being, apparently, for the minister to go systematically through
some complete book of the Bible. The Kirk Session of the "Kirk of the
Canongait," Edinburgh, desired the minister, who had just entered upon the
Book of Isaiah, "to begyne the Actes of the Apostles," after completing
the first chapter of the prophet; and Mr George Gladstanes, at St.
Andrews, was requested to take up the Second Book of Samuel. The length of
the sermon was fixed also by the Session, as is illustrated by a
resolution passed at Elgin, to the effect that Mr David Philips do "turn
his glass when he preaches, and that the whole be finished within an
hour."
All these regulations, moreover, did not apply exclusively to Sunday; for
although the Kirk forbade the observance of old Church festivals, it
rigidly enforced its own fasts and days of thanksgiving. There was public
service in the towns usually every Wednesday and Friday, and work was as
absolutely forbidden during service time on those days, and attendance at
kirk as strictly enjoined, as on Sundays. Moreover, the non-observance of
an appointed fast was visited with a heavy fine.
For the further protection of the people from any teaching contrary to the
received standard, the Press was carefully guarded, and the publication of
any work bearing on religion forbidden, unless it had first received the
_imprimatur_ of the Kirk's official "superintendent"; and publishers who
issued books which proved to be obnoxious to the ecclesiastical
authorities were compelled to withdraw them. The purchase of Bibles,
moreover, was not left to the zeal or discretion of the people; but by an
act of 1576, every householder worth 300 marks annual rent, and every
yeoman or burgess having stock valued at L500, was compelled to procure a
Bible and a Psalm-book, under a penalty of L10 (Scots).
Next to importance in the guidance of religious teaching and worship, and
indeed closely connected with it, in the estimation of the Scottish
ecclesiastical courts, came the question of witchcraft and sorcery. The
annals of the country throughout the seventeenth century, together with
the closing years of the preceding one, are full of stories of the trial,
torture, and punishment of alleged witches; and even in the early years
of the eighteenth century there are occasional instances of persons
proceeded against in the Kirk Sessions for using charms, and similar
superstitious practices. The unfortunate women charged with selling their
souls to Satan in exchange for occult powers seldom succeeded in
establishing their innocence, and juries which ventured to acquit them
were themselves occasionally charged with "wilful error" for so doing.
Under these circumstances it would seem that the accused, abandoning all
hope of escape, frequently took pleasure in exciting the wonder and the
horror of the court by the weird and marvellous tales which they invented
of their evil deeds; and no tale could be too marvellous for belief. It
made no difference in the enormity of the crime whether the supernatural
powers ascribed to the prisoner were used for good objects or for evil;
Isabel Haldane, who "cured Andrew Duncan's bairn, by bringing water from
the burn at Turret Port," Margaret Hornscleugh, who restored Alexander
Mason's wife to health and renewed the milking powers of Robert Christie's
cow, were burnt equally with Agnes Simpson, who had raised a storm to
drown King James, and Catherine Campbell, who had struck her young
mistress with convulsions. Foremost in hunting down these poor deluded, or
maligned creatures, were the ministers of the Kirk; and practically the
only lawful excuse for absence from a public service on Sunday, or even
for the omission of the service altogether, was attendance at a
witch-burning.
Much time of various Kirk Sessions was also occupied, now and again, in
considering cases of pilgrimage to holy wells, "turning the riddle" to
discover the name of a thief, and similar matters, and in reprimanding the
offenders. So late as 1709, the Kirk Session of Kilmorie summoned before
it a woman accused of "the horrid sin of the hellish art of
riddle-turning," and sentenced her to public penance on three several
Sundays.
More useful were the efforts, directed by the disciplinary authorities of
the Kirk, to prevent such sins as drunkenness, profanity, slander, and
sexual immorality. At Stirling, in 1612, a man was fined 20s. for being
intoxicated; and Dunino had, in 1645, a regular scale of fines for such
cases, 6s. for the first offence, 12s. for the second, and so forth.
Cursing and swearing were openly punished at the market crosses, by the
shame of the pillory, and by fines. Slander was met with the use of the
brank, the pillory, compulsory shaving of the head, or, in extreme cases,
with banishment from the district. In all these cases, a public reprimand
on Sunday at the stool of repentance was usually inflicted, in addition to
whatever other penalty there was imposed.
The violation of the marriage vow was made a capital crime in Scotland in
1563; but the death sentence was not actually carried out very frequently.
At Glasgow, in 1586, it was considered sufficient to send the offenders to
the pillory, barefoot and in sackcloth, and then to cart them through the
town; but in 1643, the punishment was made more severe--the jagg, a public
whipping, committal to the common jail, and, finally, expulsion from the
town, being the satisfaction demanded by local justice. In the case of a
minister who had admitted that he was guilty of adultery, the utmost
humiliation was demanded. He had first to prostrate himself before the
General Assembly, and implore their pardon in the most abject manner; he
was then required to do public penance in sackcloth at the kirk door, and
on the repentance-stool for two Sundays each, in three several towns,
which were chosen so as to complete his degradation. Edinburgh, the
capital, Dundee, his native town, and Jedburgh, the place of his ministry,
were all to witness his shame. For other sins of impurity, fines,
imprisonment in the kirk steeple, standing in irons at the market cross,
and having the head shaved, were, one or more of them, adjudged.
Some of the cases in which the Kirk exercised its discipline were such as,
it would appear to us, might have been dealt with more effectually in less
formal or more private ways. When a lad failed in proper respect to his
father, like the Glasgow youth who did not "lift his bonnet" on meeting
him, or even like him of St. Andrews, who struck his parent, it would
hardly seem to have been needful to report the matter to the Kirk, for it
to deal with it; yet the Sessions at those places solemnly considered
these misdemeanours, in 1598 and in 1574 respectively. Again, few
husbands, now, would probably care so far to confess themselves unable to
control their wives as to call in the authority of the Kirk to prevent the
"weaker vessels" from abusing their lords; yet such cases frequently
occupied the attention of Kirk Sessions. The brank, or imprisonment, or
the pillory, was the sentence usually pronounced on these rebellious
wives.
The interference of the Kirk Sessions in some matters, which they once
claimed as within their sphere, would now certainly be resented. Thus, the
presbytery of Glasgow forbade a marriage between James Armour and Helen
Bar, in 1594, on the ground that the prospective bridegroom was "in greit
debt"; and at St. Andrews, in 1579, all persons who could not recite the
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Commandments were debarred from
matrimony. Moreover, the Kirk undertook the regulation of the wedding
festivities. At Stirling, in 1599, the Kirk Session decreed that no
marriage dinner or supper should cost above 5s.; and this was an advance
upon the rule passed at Glasgow, in 1583, which limited the cost to
"eighteen pennies Scots." At Cambusnethan, in 1649, the presence of a
piper at a wedding was forbidden; and at Dumfries, in 1657, the number of
guests was limited to twenty-four.
In too many instances the Kirk procured the information on which it acted
in enforcing these decrees through spies of one kind or another. The
informants, through whom cases were got up against the adherents of the
unreformed rites, were often men of the worst characters, such as Robert
Drummond, a twice-convicted adulterer, who finally died by his own hand.
The wretches who hunted down and tested those accused of witchcraft were
scarcely more respectable agents. Officers both of the kirks and of the
municipalities were required to watch for and report those who did not
attend divine service regularly; an espionage of the most dangerous and
objectionable kind being introduced when, as at Glasgow in 1600, it was
decreed that, on the "deacons" of craft-gilds informing of any remissness
in kirk-attendance of their members, half the fine imposed should be given
to the gild. Bailies were desired to traverse the houses on "preaching
dayes" to see that the people did not stay at home; beadles were "to tak
notice of those who tak ye sneising tobacco in tyme of divine service, and
to inform concerning them;" others were appointed to take the names of
such as were in the alehouses after eight o'clock at night; midwives and
doctors were threatened with discipline if they failed to report any
illegitimate birth which they attended; "searchers" were appointed to find
out those who did not buy Bibles and Psalm-books; in a word the lives of
the people were constantly under observation. It is perhaps the strongest
proof of the strength of the Scotsman's character that, after a century or
more of such interference with his responsibility, his sturdy independence
survived. Much of this disciplinary system died away when, in 1690, it
ceased to have behind it the civil disabilities attendant on
excommunication.
Curiosities of Church Finance.
BY THE REV. R. WILKINS REES.
"The plate for collections is inside the church, so that the whole
congregation can give a guess at what you give. If it is something very
stingy or very liberal, all Thrums knows of it within a few hours; indeed,
this holds good of all the churches, especially, perhaps, of the Free one,
which has been called the bawbee kirk, because so many half-pennies find
their way into the plate. On Saturday nights the Thrums shops are besieged
for coppers by housewives of all denominations, who would as soon think of
dropping a threepenny bit into the plate as of giving nothing. Tammy Todd
had a curious way of tipping his penny into the Auld Licht plate while
still keeping his hand to his side. He did it much as a boy fires a
marble, and there was quite a talk in the congregation the first time he
missed. A devout plan was to carry your penny in your hand all the way to
church, but to appear to take it out of your pocket on entering, and some
plumped it down noisily like men paying their way. I believe old Snecky
Hobart, who was a canty stock but obstinate, once dropped a penny into the
plate and took out a half-penny as change; but the only untoward thing
that happened to the plate was once when the lassie from the farm of Curly
Bog capsized it in passing. Mr Dishart, who was always a ready man,
introduced something into his sermon that day about women's dress, which
everyone hoped Christy Lundy, the lassie in question, would remember."