A Corpus of Scottish Medieval
Parish Churches

Historical outline

Dedication: Our Lady

It is likely that the church of St Mary of Haddington had its origins as a minster church serving an extensive administrative district or shire of the northern portion of the kingdom of Northumbria and continuing down to the twelfth century as that region was absorbed into the expanding Scottish kingdom.(1)  The firm historical record of the church commences in the period 1136 to 1140 when King David I granted the church of St Mary of Haddington and its shire to the canons of St Andrews cathedral-priory.(2)  The grant was confirmed at the same date by his son, Earl Henry, to whose wife Ada the lands of Haddington belonged as part of her marriage settlement.(3)  That Haddington was still something more than simply a parish church appears to be confirmed by the grant by King David to it in 1140, with Earl Henry’s consent, of the land of Clerkington.(4)  There were similar later grants, with King William between 1178 and 1188 confirming to church of St Mary and St Michael of Haddington, a piece of land described as ‘between the house of Pain and the king’s garden and the cemetery’, which his mother, Countess Ada, had given to the church.(5)  The church was confirmed in the possession of St Andrews by Bishop Richard of St Andrews c.1163, with papal confirmations by Lucius III, Gregory VIII and Clement III down to 1187.(6) 

Bishop Richard (1163-78), while confirming the canons’ possession of the church of Haddington, had also made a grant of a portion of its revenues to the Cistercian nuns of Haddington ‘on the day when he had blessed the cemetery of that house’.  This division was confirmed in a convention witnessed by King William, his brother Earl David, Bishop Richard, Bishop Jocelin of Glasgow, John, abbot of Kelso, and Walter Bidun the king’s chancellor, the profile of the witness list signifying the importance of the settlement.(7)  It may have been as a result of this arrangement that the chapel of St Martin in the Nungate, held by the nuns of Haddington and apparently enjoying quasi-parochial status, had its origins.(8)  The grant is alluded to in a confirmation of the canons’ possession of St Mary’s made by King William between 1175 and 1178.(9)

As Bishop Richard’s division of the revenues and rights attached to the church might indicate, it is possible that although King David had intended that all teinds from Haddingtonshire should be conveyed with possession of the church, the earlier grants and confirmations to the priory at St Andrews might have given only possession of the patronage of St Mary’s rather than corporal possession of the church.  Any uncertainty was remedied for the canons by Bishop Roger de Beaumont (1198-1202) who confirmed the Haddington in proprios usus to St Andrews.(10)  Bishop William Malveisin confirmed that annexation and instituted a vicarage settlement sometime between 1202 and 1238, assigning to the vicar all oblations and obventions of the living and the dead throughout the parish, both in its dependent chapels and in the mother-church of the burgh, a teind from all business transactions in the burgh, and a teind from all gardens within the burgh also, plus a house and garden to sustain him next to the church.(11)  The annexation in proprios usus and the vicarage settlement were confirmed by Bishop David de Bernham in January 1240/1.(12)  It was as a vicarage that the church of Haddington was recorded in 1275 in the accounts of the papal tax-collector in Scotland, assessed at 20s in the first year and then at one merk for subsequent terms.(13)  The parsonage remained annexed to the priory of St Andrews at the Reformation with its teinds valued at £266 13s 4d; no indication is given of the fate of the vicarage, but the cure of souls actually may have been discharged by a curate in the early sixteenth century.(14)

It seems likely that St Mary’s suffered in the sack of the burgh by the army of King John of England in January 1216(15) and again by Edward III during the so-called ‘Burnt Candlemas’ expedition in the early months of 1356.  Although the church is not mentined explicitly in records of either expedition, chronicle accounts of the 1356 event describe the burning of the town and both the Cistercian nunnery and Franciscan friary.  It is unlikely that the burgh’s parish church escaped the devastation of the town unscathed.(16)  Significant building operations at St Mary’s, however, are recorded only from a century later, when in around 1457 an obligation was given to the baillies of Haddington for repair of the church and for the construction and repair of the choir and the furnishings of the high altar.(17)

From around this period also we start to have surviving evidence for a proliferation of subsidiary altars in the parish church.  The first reorded additional altar dedication beyond that of the Blessed Virgin Mary was on 28 May 1426 when one John of the Ford bequeathed a silver chalice to St Peter’s altar.(18)  Despite the dedication of the altar to one of the major saints of the Roman Church, there are few other references to St Peter’s altar, but on 3 December 1449 John Doby, priest of the church of St Mary, settled a tenement in Haddington on Agnes Scott, daughter of the late Hugh Scott, burgess of Haddington, and her son, John Doby – probably the priest’s illegitimate son – whom failing, the property would pass to the altar of St Peter and the chaplain serving there.(19)

By the 1440s a series of other altars had been founded.  The first, in 1447, was dedicated to St Blaise and was in the patronage of the family of Cockburn of Skirling.(20).  On 12 November 1477 Alexander Barcare or Barker, vicar of Pettinain in Glasgow diocese, granted rents totalling 66s 8d in honour of God, Jesus Christ, BVM and St Blaise, for the souls of James III, his consort Margaret and their ancestors and successors, and for Barker’s own ancestors and successors, to found a perpetual chaplainry at St Blaise’s altar.  His charter stipulated that after his death the patronage of the chaplainry would pass to the burgh council.(21)  Barker was still alive in 1500 when, described as patron of the service or altarage of St Blaise, he resigned his rights into the hands of William Cockburn of Skirling, successor of the original patron of the altar.(22)

The altar of St Michael the Archangel is recorded first in 1448 when the burgess John ‘Meneris’ provided rents worth one merk annually for the souls’ weal of himself, his wife, and his late sister, with a placebo and dirge to be sung on the anniversary of his death and the mass de profundis on the following day.(23)  The altar quickly became associated with the cordwainers’ or shoemakers’ craft.  In 1470 John Patonsoun, burgess and cordwainer, made a gift to the altar of 13s 4d for the souls of himself, Laurence his son and Ibby, Janet and Marion his daughters, and his two wives.  By it he arranged for commemoration on the anniversary of his death with placebo, dirge and solemn requiem mass to be sung by 11 priests and a clerk, and for 40s to be distributed among poor folk in the burgh that day.(24)  The dedication of the altar was widened to reflect the shoemakers’ patronage, being recorded by October 1505 as the altar of St Michael the Archangel and SS Crispin and Crispinian, the two latter being the patron saints of the shoemakers’ craft.  The reference occurs in a grant by John Brown (shoemaker), in honour of God, the Blessed Virgin and All Saints, made for the souls of the king and queen, for Brown’s own soul and that of his wife Agnes Caldhaw and for his parents, ancestors and successors.  By its terms, he founded a chaplainry at the altar, supported on rents of 10 merks annually, and with patronage to remain with his heirs.(25)  Further grants flowed to the altar down to the 1530s, collectively making it one of the richest endowed altars and chaplainries in the parish church.(26)

On 25 February 1449/50 the first surviving reference occurs to the altars of St Nicholas and St Ninian.  Both were recipients of the patronage of John Nicolsoun, burgess, who bequeathed certain property to Janet elder, and Janet younger, his daughters, whom failing the lands were to be divided equally between the altars of the two saints in parish church.(27)  The Nicholas altar benefited from the patronage of the shoemakers guild alongside the altar of Michael the Archangel, Crispin and Crispinianus, and was clearly a separate altar rather than another dedication added to an existing one.(28)  No other pre-Reformation records of it seem to survive, but in 1545 it was noted that a silver chalice belonging to the altar was kept in the common cist of the parish church.(29)  There are likewise few references surviving to the St Ninian altar, but in October 1471 a liferent grant of property in the burgh made by the bailies had a reversionary clause in favour of the altar inserted into it.(30)  Like St Nicholas’s altar, it was recorded in 1545 that there was a silver chalice belonging to the altar of St Ninian, but was in the hands of Alexander Lawson rather than being in the common cist of the church.(31)

Three apparently unrelated gifts made between 30 July and 7 September 1454 mark the first appearance in surviving records of the altar of St John the Baptist.  The first, a grant of 20s per annum by Robert Ingaldistoun and his wife to a chaplain at the altar, paid for masses to be said weekly for their souls’ weal, patronage of the chaplainry to rest with the Ingaldistouns for life and after their deaths falling to the burgh council.(32)  The next charter, made by Thomas Allanson with consent of his wife, Margaret, assigned rents to the same chaplain to pay for nine masses annually to be said for the welfare of Thomas, Margaret and their children.(33) The third grant, made by Gilbert Redpath, burgess, provided 20s annually for service to be done at the altar.(34)  In the sixteenth century it appears that the number of services at the altar proliferated.  On 1 April 1530 arbitration between the wrights and masons guild on one part and William Cockburn, chaplain of St John’s altar on other, permitted the guild to have an image of St John the Evangelist to be their patron, provided they could make suitable financial provision for upholding it in wax, vestments, payment of chaplains, and also that they would make image of St Doicho (St Duthac of Tain?), to be put at the altar of St John the Baptist in exchange for that of St John the Evangelist there, and that they would restore to Cockburn 11s 6d of offerings owed to him.(35)  From this agreement, it appears that the altar of St John the Baptist had at some date after 1454 acquired a secondary dedication to John the Evangelist but, from 1530 a separate altar of the Evangelist was established and a new secondary dedication to St Duthac added to that of the Baptist. Certainly, reference was made in 1533 to the ‘recently founded’ altar of the masons and wrights crafts dedicated to John the Evangelist.(36)  No other pre-Reformation records to this latter altar appear to survive, but St John the Baptist’s altar was noted in 1545 as possessing a silver chalice upon the base of which was inscribed calix Sancti Johannis ecclesie de Haddington (the chalice of St John of the church of Haddington) and a cross inscribed on the paten.(37)

In sequence of first recording of altar dedications, the next to appear is a secondary altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary which was described as located in the north aisle of the parish church.  This altar, it emerges in the sixteenth century, was founded and endowed by the Cockburn family, who maintained a close interest in it thereafter and who appear to have held the patronage of at least one chaplainry at it down to the Reformation.  It is first identified in 1463 when a chaplain, John Cockburn, who was also vicar of Calder Clere, was named in an instrument of sasine.(38)  The first significant recorded endowment of the altar was made in 1480 when Richard Cockburn of Harperdene, burgess of Haddington, granted 15s annually for masses to be said for the souls of James III, Margaret his consort, their children, Cockburn’s parents and others, at the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in north aisle of parish church.  The endowment provided for services at the altar for his lifetime by 8 chaplains and 1 clerk.(39)  In 1543 the altar was described as having been founded by the late Alexander Cockburn ‘of good memory’ in a property transaction by another Alexander Cockburn in which the rights of the chaplain of the altar in the subject-matter of the deal were safeguarded.(40)  A silver chalice pertaining to the altar was delivered in 1545 to the chaplain serving there, Thomas Mauchlyne.  It was described as inlaid with the text hic calix Sancte Marie de Haidyngtoun (This is the chalice of St Mary of Haddington).(41)  What appears to have been a second chaplainry at the altar, described as founded by the Tullibardines of Skirling, is recorded in 1500.(42)

Before May 1490 an altar of St Katherine – probably of Alexandria rather than Sienna(43) - had been founded in the church.  In a complex property settlement whereby Robert Greenlaw, burgess of Haddington, settled a tenement in the town upon George Greenlaw, his eldest son, elaborate provision was made for succession to the property should George die without legitimate heirs, ultimate reversion being to the altar of St Katherine and the chaplain serving there.(44)  Direct endowment of the altar flowed in November 1494 from Marion Lawson to the vicar, curate and parish clerk of Haddington – collectively named as patrons – who were to receive 8s for an obit and anniversary mass to be performed for her late husband, John, to be performed at St Katherine’s altar.(45)  A second endowment for pro anima and requiem devotions at the altar was made on 3 December1520 through a resignation made by Marion Clark of 13s 4d to the chaplains of choir of Haddington.  By its terms they were to make anniversary commemoration and obsequies at the altar on the day of death of Margaret Crag, the second wife of William Robinsoun, burgess and bailie, and on the day of his death and of his other wife.(46)  At St Katherine’s altar, too, delivery was made in 1545 of a silver chalice, this one inscribed on its foot with the name of the probable donor, Richard Crummye, and a cross, and a paten engraved with a hand.(47)  It is unclear where in the church this altar was located, but post-Reformation records imply a position at the west end of the nave.(48)

The additional altars recorded to this point were dedicated to saints of the universal church or to those who had already acquired an association with particular craft and trade guilds.  It is only from the 1490s that evidence emerges for the provision at Haddington of altars associated with some of the cults which had been enjoying widespread popularity across western Europe more generally.  This late emergence of such dedications is not necessarily a sign of some degree of religious conservatism on the part of the burgesses and would-be patrons of altars at St Mary but is more probably a consequence of the survival of the records.  It is clear in most cases that the first surviving reference to an altar is not to a new foundation but to establishments of long standing.

The first of the more ‘exotic’ cults to be recorded at Haddington was that of St Salvator or the Holy Saviour.  The first record of this dates from 1495 when John Paterson confirmed a gift to the altar, which had been founded by William Wawane, Official of Lothian.(49)  Wawane’s role as founder is confirmed explicitly in a charter of 29 August 1520 to the chapel of St Salvator. This charter by Laurence Fleming, burgess, assigned annual rents of 13s 4d to be paid to the provost in return for twice-yearly offices for the dead for the former chaplain Andrew Dalrymple.(50)  A further charter of 9 April 1529 refers to sir John Young, chaplain of the chaplaincy founded by William Wawane at altar of St Salvator, which it locates as lying in the north aisle of the choir at the east end ‘after’ the high altar.(51)  There appears to be a link between the altar of St Salvator and that of another of the ‘new’ cults, the Holy Blood.  On 25 August 1536, James Wawane of Stevenson sold, amongst other portions of his property, the advowson of the chaplainry or altar of the Holy Blood in the parish church of Haddington, to Mr Henry Sinclair.(52)  In the formal settlement of a dispute in1539 George Crosar was declared undoubted patron of the altar of St Salvator by the burghal court, which stated that the altar had been initially founded by William Crosar his father, who had resigned it to a certain Robert Young.(53)  In 1543 one John Crosar appears as chaplain of the altar of the Holy Blood in a case before the burgh court.(54)  The surnames of George and the chaplain at the Holy Blood altar have been taken in the past as providing circumstantial evidence that both services were located at the same altar, but a process of 1555 seems to confirm that view.  In that year William Broun, described as patron of the Holy Blood altar, had alleged that sir John Crosar should not pursue further legal action concerning a tenement in the Sidgait of Haddington, as he had demitted patronage of St Salvatore’s altar alias Holy Blood, into the hands of William Wilson, chaplain.(55)  Broun occurs as patron of the Holy Blood altar on 25 January 1557 when he presented sir Adam Broun to the chaplainry on Crosar’s death.  As patron, Broun presented him Adam with the chalice, mass book and other ornaments of the altar.(56)  Adam Broun’s tenure of the chaplainry must have been short – unless there were two distinct services – for on 8 October 1558 one Thomas Fylder bound himself to pay Alexander Levinstoun, described as chaplain of the Holy Blood, the annual that he was due to pay the chaplain from a tenement in the burgh, it being agreed that this was now reduced by one quarter after the burning of Haddington by the English in the 1540s.(57)

The next altar to appear in a surviving record was dedicated to one of the traditional repertoire of Western saints.  St James’s altar in the nave of the parish church is named first in a surviving document in February 1516/7 when William Kemp, burgess of Haddington, endowed a chaplain to say mass at it.(58)  Kemp made over his mortification of the altar and possession of the presentation to the town council as patrons. His endowment was valued at £10 annually, with chalice, book and vestments also pertaining to altar. It was stipulated in Kemp’s resignation that one James Mauchlyne was to be made chaplain and that after Mauchlyne’s death if Thomas Wauss or John Kemp, burgesses, had any children qualified to serve at the altar one of them should be the first choice as successor.(59)  In 1545 Mauchlyne received possession of the silver chalice that had been given to the altar by Kemp and which was described as bearing Kemp’s mark.(60)  Mauchlyne was still serving as chaplain of St James’s altar in 1558 when he resigned his properties into the hands of the burgh council in return for a pension of £4 annually and agreement to continue to provide services in the parish church.(61)

Although it is only first named in a surviving document in 1518, the Holy Rood or Holy Cross altar in the church was probably significantly older.  The first reference is singularly uninformative as to date of foundation, nature of endowment, or identity of patron, simply naming the then incumbent chaplain, Patrick Mauchlyne.(62)  Mauchlyne was still incumbent in 1535 but appears to have had wider responsibilities than the Rood altar alone, for in that year he was paid £4 10s for ‘finding bairns and books in the choir for a year’, basically providing choir- and altar-boys and the mass-books for services.(63)  It is in 1539 that we learn that the altar’s patrons were the bailies and council of the burgh.(64)  On 23 June 1544, following Mauchlyne’s death, the provost and council of Haddington, as patrons, gave the service of the Rood altar to Archibald Borthwick, and providing him to his chaplainry’s stall in the choir of the church.(65)  The following year the provost and council gave Borthwick the Rood chalice of silver, on the foot of which was inscribed Johannes de Crummye et sponsa sua me fieri fecerunt (John Crummy and his wife caused me to be made), with Jesus engraved on the paten.(66)  The last pre-Reformation reference to the Rood altar is in 1556 when Thomas Mauchlyne was named as chaplain.(67)

By the 1520s, there was already a substantial complement of chaplains and clerks serving at the various altars in the parish church, but the provision was to be expanded significantly in the course of the next two decades.  The first step came in 1520 when a supplication to Archbishop Forman of St Andrews sought permission to establish a parish clerkship served by two chaplains.(68)  The two holders of the joint clerkship are recorded in 1530 as William Wilson (possibly the same priest who in 1555 had the chaplaincy of the Holy Blood) and Archibald Borthwick (probably the same man as who was provided to the Rood altar in 1544).(69)  Amongst their duties it was noted that they were responsible for keeping the lamp burning perpetually in the choir of the church provided with a supply of oil.  In 1533 the council also made provision for the employment of a ‘bellman’ at the church, whose duties included keeping dogs and the poor out of the building.(70)

Amongst a new group of altars first recorded in this period is an already clearly established one dedicated to saints ‘Severus’ (more probably Servanus or Serf) and Bartholomew.  This is identified in an instrument of resignation and sasine of 24 September 1520, made by James Galloway, burgess of Haddington , with consent of Margaret Bolton his spouse, in favour of Sir James Mauchlyne, curate for doing daily anniversary at that altar for souls of John Foular and Elizabeth Richardson his spouse and their children, on day of their obit.(71)  This is the only explicit reference to this altar but the Bartholomew dedication makes it likely that it was that of the Fleshers’ guild referred to in 1572 when the council ordered the re-glazing of a window at the rear of the church ‘foreanent the Fleshers’ altar’.(72) 

A chaplainry was founded at the altar of the Holy Trinity around 1521.  On 23 May 1532 John Getgud, son and heir of deceased John Getgud, burgess of Haddington, granted a charter conveying an acre of land in Haddington to Robert Walterson, provost of the collegiate church of Bothans, who was described as chaplain and founder of the Holy Trinity altar, which lay towards the west end of the south aisle of St Mary’s.(73) Getgud’s charter conveyed land that was part of the subject-matter of a second charter.  This, a Great Seal confirmation of 8 April 1539 of a mortification of two tenements in the burgh’s Hardgait and an acre of land on the outskirts of the town made by Walterson, for the provision of chaplains in the choir at Haddington and at the Trinity altar, reveals that the gift had been made nearly eighteen years earlier on 8 October 1521, with the acre of land being referred to as then held at feu by Getgud.(74) After Walterson’s death the patronage of the chaplainry and altar was to pass to the bailies and council. Walterson’s endowment of the altar extended also to mass gear.  On 8 June 1545 the provost and bailies gave John Fresar a chalice of silver which had Trinity on its foot with Mr Robert Waltersoun written above that along with his personal arms and in paten there was inscribed Jesus.(75)

The next-recorded altar was of more recent foundation.  On 22 October 1522 George Sidserf and his successors, chaplain of the altar of the Virgin and Three Kings of Cologne, received sasine following a charter of 20 October by David Forrest, burgess of Haddington, of properties in the burgh yielding rents of 14 merks annually.  Possession was also given to him of images of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Three Kings ‘who lie in Cologne’.  These images were placed at the north-west altar and chapel within the nave of the church, which had been constructed by Forrest.(76)  Further endowment flowed to this new altar from Forrest’s family.  On 26 March 1527 an instrument of resignation and sasine was drawn up for Christine Bowmaker, widow of John Clark, and by Marion Clark his daughter.  This provided for payment of 13s 4d annually in favour of Thomas Mauchlyne, curate of Haddington, to be received in the name of choir chaplains for obsequies and anniversaries to be made on the day of death of David Forrest and Isabel Dickson his second wife, at altar of Three Kings which David had founded.(77)  Patronage of the altar and chaplainry remained with the Forrest family and on 15 July 1553 Mr Alexander Forrest, provost of college kirk of St Mary in the Fields, Edinburgh, David Forrest’s son, resigned his rights in the patronage in favour of John Forrest his nephew, burgess of Haddington.(78)

A series of records relating to altars associated with particular crafts and trades suggests some further proliferation of altars and chaplainries through the later 1520s and 1530s.  Reference in 1530 to an assize which ordained that members of the tailors’ craft were to pay a penny weekly for the upholding of an (unnamed) altar in the church might indicate the first moves to institute a new craft altar in the church.(79)  In 1537 it was further ordained that all tailors were to pay 40s from their booths in the town for the upkeep of the altar.(80)  It is only later that year when Gilbert Robinson, tailor, gave formal acknowledgement that he had received 11s 4d from ‘St Anne’s Box’ and promised to give full account to the craft-members for that loan.(81)  On 18 March 1544/5 it was ordained by the provost and council that the members of the skinners’ and furriers’ trades would join with the tailors in the upkeep of the altar of St Anne.(82)

Another clearly old-established altar connected with a craft or trade is first recorded in 1531, when Robin Norrie delivered the chalice of St Andrew’s altar to the bailie, Alexander Hepburn.(83)  This was an altar supported on rents from landed properties in the burgh, James Scherill in 1533 being commanded to deliver a pound of wax to St Andrew’s altar as a punishment for late payment of annual rents of 8s which he owed to said altar.(84)  It is only in 1539 that we learn that this altar was the concern of the burgh’s Maltmen, when a complaint was brought before the council by the deacon of their craft that they upheld the altar of St Andrew and were severely hurt by others infringing their monopoly.(85)  Reference that same year to an altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Andrew upheld by the Maltmen might indicate that there was a second service at the trade’s altar.(86)  No further record of St Andrew’s altar appears to survive in pre-Reformation sources.

Also emerging in the surviving records around this time was the altar upheld by the Baxters’ or Bakers’ trade.  The first mention of their trade altar (no dedication mentioned) was in 1532, when the bailies of Haddington ratified ordinances concerning its upkeep.(87)  The altar is recorded in an instrument of sasine of 1537 Robert Turner, burgess, made in favour of the Baxters, which granted rents worth one merk for the upholding of their altar, named as dedicated to ‘St Howbert’ or St Aubert.(88)  The altar occurs only once more in a surviving pre-Reformation document, the record of a court action of 25 May 1555 in which Martin Wilson, deacon of the Baxter’s craft guild reported that the silver chalice of St ‘Towbartis’ altar was missing.(89)

Two other altars are recorded in only single surviving documentary references.  In 1534, the Smiths’ or Hammermen’s trade was given privileges and freedom for upholding the altar of their trade patron, St Eloi.(90)  The final altar referred to is that of St Thomas (unclear whether this was the Apostle or St Thomas of Canterbury).  On 29 October 1538 one John Haliburton acknowledged that he owed half a merk in offering-money to the box of St Thomas,(91) which suggests that there was a distinct service at an altar dedicated to that saint.  Where either of these altars was located within the church is unrecorded.

The fragmentary nature of the surviving record of altars and chaplainries at Haddington renders it impossible to be sure that the evidence discussed above represents the totality of the provision within the parish church by c.1540.  It is, moreover, impossible to state with confidence in all of these cases that where there are multiple endowments made to an altar or chaplainry that these were to a single chaplain or to additional chaplains serving at the same altar.  With those caveats in mind, what we can say is that by the 1540s there were at least twenty altars in the church in addition to the high altar and that the majority appear to be foundations instituted during the enlargement of the church in the post-1400 period.(92)  Of these, only the physical location of seven is recorded and even then usually in very vaguely-couched terms.  The clearest locations of any altars are provided in information relating to the altar of St Salvator and/or the Holy Blood, which was described as on the north side of the church to the east of the high altar, so presumably in the north aisle of the choir, and that of the Three Kings of Cologne, which was in the north-west chapel of the nave’s north aisle.  The secondary altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary was simply described as being ‘in the north aisle of the parish church’ but it is unclear if that was in the nave or choir aisles.  We can assume that the Rood altar was either positioned in front of the rood screen that separated the nave from the choir or was located in the rood loft itself.  The Trinity altar is described as lying towards the west end of the church in the south aisle, presumably meaning in the nave.  Post-Reformation records suggest that St Katherine’s altar was likewise located towards the west end of the church, while St James’s altar was simply described as located ‘in the nave’. 

Where we have evidence for the nature of the foundation and the identity of the founder of the altars and chaplainries, what is most striking is the absence of patrons from the top ranks of society.  It is striking that none of the altars was patronised by leading members of the regional nobility as, for example, was the case at Dundee where the Lindsay earls of Crawford and the Scrymgeour constables of the burgh were amongst the most prominent long-term benefactors of the burgh’s church.  For the Hailburtons at Dirleton, Hays at Yester and Setons at Seton, religious devotion and material support were channelled into their own collegiate foundations at Dirleton, Bothans and Seton, but families like the Hepburns of Hailes, who emerged as politically important on a national scale from thr 1480s, have left no obvious evidence for the direction of their religious patronage.  There is likewise very little evidence for significant endowments made by leading clerics other than from obviously local men like Robert Walterson, provost of Bothans or Alexander Forrest, provost of Kirk o’ Field in Edinburgh.  Haddington’s principal sources of endowment were the burgh’s leading burgess families and guild-members and the scale of their benefaction is all the more remarkable for that.

It is possible that the rather traditional cast of saints represented in the known foundations reflects the somewhat conservative religious tastes of these social groups.  A large segment of the dedications had western Christendom-wide associations with particular crafts and trades: Batholomew is patron of skinners and tanners, and at Haddington possibly with the butchers; Blaise is associated with wool-combers and the wool-trade generally; Catherine/Katherine of Alexandria is associated with wheelwrights, spinners and millers; Crispin and Crispinian with cobblers, shoemakers and leatherworkers; Eloi with goldsmiths, blacksmiths and farriers.  These trades are particularly well-attested at Haddington in the later Middle Ages.  Why at Haddington St Andrew was associated with maltmen, St Anne with the fleshers and furriers and St Aubert with the bakers is unknown.  Merchant activity may account for the the presence of an altar of St Nicholas, the patron of mariners, and possibly also for the Holy Blood altar, that cult having a particularly strong following amongst merchants and possibly reaching Scotland via the medium of trade with Flanders.(93)  Most of the saints are unremarkable: Andrew, James, the two Johns and Peter for definite, Anne (mother of the Virgin) and possibly Thomas, along with Michael the Archangel are amongst the most popular ‘biblical’ saints of the Middle Ages.  Andrew has also strong national but more particular local significance – St Mary’s was, after all, appropriated to the cathedral-priory at St Andrews, but there were several other Andrew parish dedications in East Lothian – Serf has associations with the East Lothian-based birth-legend of St Kentigern, while St Ninian and St Duthac enjoyed national prominence on account of the popularity of their shrines from the middle of the fifteenth century.  From the whole list of known dedications, the only two truly ‘exotic’ cults represented were those of Aubert and the Three Kings of Cologne.  For the former, why the 8th-century bishop of Avranches and putative founder of the abbey of Mont-St-Michel might be represented at Haddington is nowhere recorded, but it is possible that his presence reflects a twelfth- or early-thirteenth-century connection through Countess Ada, her son King William, or William’s wife, Queen Ermengarde, all of whom had close associations with Haddington and Normandy.  The cult of the Three Kings of Cologne has an interesting distribution across Scotland, including as the principal dedication of the parish church of Loch Goil in Argyll,(94) and altars and chaplainries at Aberdeen and Dundee, but there is no clear evidence for why it was favoured at Haddington and by the Forrest family in particular.

The acceleration in provision of altars and chaplainries through the later 1520s and 1530s might be related to plans for the erection of St Mary’s into a collegiate church.  Robert Turner’s 1537 instrument of sasine in favour of St Aubert’s altar already refers to the ‘college kirk’ of Haddington,(95) but there is neither a surviving record of the formal process by which the college was instituted nor of the constitution of the establishment.  A process for the appiointment of a ‘president’ to govern the chaplains and choristers of the choir of St Mary’s was underway in about 1540, reference being made in that to the initiative for the erection of the college lying with the bailies, council and community of the burgh.(96)  There appears to have been no direct link between the vicarage of Haddington and the collegiate institution, reference being made to Cardinal Beaton’s appointment of ‘RW’ vicar perpetual of the church of the Holy Rude at Stirling as president of the chaplains and choristers of Haddington.(97)  Prebendaries and chaplains of the collegiate church were referred to in 1557 and 1558 in general acts by the burgh council concerning services in the church, but no detail is given of who these men were or the nature of their prebends.(98) 

Within a decade of the establishment of the collegiate church, St Mary’s had been comprehensively sacked twice in the course of the English invasion of Scotland and military occupation of the burgh, first in 1544-5 and then again in 1548-9 as a result of the siege of the English garrison by a Franco-Scottish force.(99)  The principal damage had been inflicted at the beginning of the English occupation of the burgh, for St Mary’s lay outside the proposed defensive circuit that was being constructed around the burgh and it was decided to dismantle the church building as it threatened the effectiveness of the ramparts.  Despite letters from Lord Grey, the commander of the garrison, to the Duke of Somerset informing him that the church was ‘overthrown’, it appears that little more than the roofs and vaults had been dismantled by the time that the Franco-Scottish besieging force arrived in late June 1548.  Further significant damage was apparently caused by English artillery-fire intended to dislodge their attackers from vantage points on the tower and wall-heads of the church, but there is also reference to Franch engineers under-cutting the piers of the church with a view to toppling the building against the earthen rampart around the burgh.(100)  Damage continued to be inflicted on the upstanding elements of the structure through until September 1549 when the English at last withdrew from the town, taking with them three bronze bells that had been removed from the steeple of St Mary’s before the start of the siege.

Efforts to restore the church to a condition where services could be conducted within it do not seem to have advanced far by the mid-1550s.  Materials were being delivered for the re-roofing of the building by 1554, with ‘a Dutchman’ receiving payment of £20 for timber delivered to the site.(101)  The following April the provost of the burgh was instructed to arrange for the provision of a new bell for the steeple; the entry in the council minutes, however, was struck out and a marginal note entered which recorded that he had been recompensed.(102)  The ravaged town was clearly struggling to find resources with which to pay for the rebuilding and on 8 August 1555 paid expenses to Bernard Thomson and John Aytoun for riding to St Andrews to get permission to sequestrate the parsonage revenues to meet the costs of rebuilding the choir, and on 13 December that year James Oliphant and Bernard Thomson were paid expenses for three nights spent in Edinburgh for an appointment with the commendator of St Andrews, Queen Mary’s illegitimatehalf-brother Lord James Stewart, about the choir work.(103)  Progress on the tower had been made by 9 October1556 when James Oliphant presented his account to the council for the new kirk bell, costing £3 10 of ‘flemis’ money and £17 9d of Scottish money, plus other expenses relating to the hanging of the bell.(104)  Earlier that year, on 18 June, ‘35 geistis of aik’ (oak joists) were ordered to be delivered to Thomas Mauchlyne for work on the ‘saith cosall of the kirk’ 9south aisle of the church).(105)  Roofing-work and replacement of other fixtures continued into 1558, when Alexander Langlandis, smith, was paid for a ‘smekk’ for the church doors, and James Hawthorne was paid for a roof spar, and a set of double ‘sparris’ that he had purchased for the ‘upsetting of the roof’.(106)  A final set of entries in the 1558 record 8d given to Thomas Reid for making holes in the walls (of the kirk) to set in the timbers. Henry Campbell was paid 2s for his workmanship and James Gotherey for cutting the said wall. A further payment was made when Gotheray cut a hole in the wall above the high altar.(107)  These were the final pre-Reformation records of repair-work on St Mary’s and it appears that when the Reformation finally broke in the Lothians through 1558-9 that work stopped on the reconstruction and the parish church remained a half-gutted shell until the nave was fitted up as a Protestant church and the crossing and choir of the building abandoned.

Notes

1. For Haddingtonshire see G W S Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots, 2nd edition (Edinburgh, 2003), 29.

2. The Charters of King David I, ed G W S Barrow (Woodbridge, 1999), no.85 [hereafter Charters of David I]; Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree in Scotia (Bannatyne Club, 1841), 180-181 [hereafter St Andrews Liber].

3. St Andrews Liber, 191-2.

4. Charters of David I, nos 86, 87, 116.

5. Regesta Regum Scottorum, ii, The Acts of William I, ed G W S Barrow (Edinburgh, 1971), no.235 [hereafter RRS, ii].

6. St Andrews Liber, 58-9, 63, 68, 135.

7. St Andrews Liber, 334.

8. I B Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society, 1967), 79.

9.RRS, ii, no.173; St Andrews Liber, 222.

10.. St Andrews Liber, 153.

11. St Andrews Liber, 158.

12. St Andrews Liber, 167.

13. A I Dunlop (ed), ‘Bagimond’s Roll: Statement of the Tenths of the Kingdom of Scotland’, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, vi (1939), 34, 58, 59.

14. J Kirk (ed), The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices (Oxford, 1995), 8.  For the curate of Haddington, see NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/30.

15. A O Anderson (ed), Early Sources of Scottish History, ii (Edinburgh, 1922), 407, 409 [Chronicle of Melrose; Histoire des Ducs de Normandie].

16. Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, ed D E R Watt and others, vii (Abderdeen, 1996), 291.

17. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

18. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol.3r.

19. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 8r.

20. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

21. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/4. For the confirmation under the Great Seal see Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, ii, 1424-1513, ed J B Paul (Edinburgh, 1882), no.1333.

22. Protocol Book of John Foular, 9 March 1500 to 18 September 1503, ed W McLeod (Scottish Record Society, 1930), no.29.

23. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 6v.

24. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 10r.

25. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40.

26. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 11r; GD1/413/1, fol. 11; NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/16.

27. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 7r.

28. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1 , fol. 11.

29. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211v

30. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 10v.

31. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211v.

32. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 8r.

33. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 8v.

34. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 9r.

35. NRS Douglas Collection, 1375-1923, GD98/11/8.

36. NRS Douglas Collection, 1375-1923, GD98/11/7.

37. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211r.

38. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 11v.

39. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/4/2.

40. NRS Montgomerie Family, Earls of Eglinton: Titles. GD3/1/11/7/2.

41. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, xvii, part 2, 1492-1503, ed A P Fuller (Dublin, 1994), no.366.

42. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211r.

43. The foundation of the convent of Dominican nuns dedicated to St Katherine of Siena at Sciennes in Edinburgh in 1517 marked the arrival of her cult at a significant level in Scotland.  For Sciennes, see I B Cowan and D E Easson, Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland, 2nd edition (London, 1976), 152-3.

44. Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, ii, 1424-1513, ed J B Paul (Edinburgh, 1882), no.2005.

45. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/7.

46. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/20.

47. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211r.

48. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 88v.

49. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

50. Calendar of Writs Preserved at Yester House, eds C C H Harvey and J Macleod (Scottish Record Society, 1930), no.394.

51. NRS GD1/199/27.

52. Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, iii, 1513-1546, eds J B Paul and J M Thomson (Edinburgh, 1883), no.1616, confirmation under the Great Seal dated 28 August 1536 [hereafter RMS, iii].

53. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2 ,fol. 101v.

54. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 188v.

55. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 83r.

56. NRS Prot Bk of Thomas Stevin, 1548-1565, B30/1/5,fol. 163v.

57. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1555-60, B30/9/3, fol. 136r.

58. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/22.  The grant was confirmed under the Great Seal in 1520, but there is no enrolement of the confirmation in the Register of Great Seal.

59. NRS Protocol Book of Alex Symson, 1539-42, B30/1/3, fol. 94r.

60. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211v.

61. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 17v.

62. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/13.

63. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 60v.

64. NRS Protocol Book of Alex Symson, 1529-44, B30/1/2, fol. 119r.

65. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 199r.

66. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211r.

67. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1, fols. 67v & 77v.

68. St Andrews Formulare, 1514-46, ii, ed G Donaldson (Stair Society, 1944), 87-91 [hereafter St Andrews Formulare, ii].

69. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 62.

70. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 24-25.

71. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/20.

72. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 65v.

73. The transcript in NRS made by Wallace-James appears no longer to be extant, see B L H Horn ‘List of References to the Pre-Reformation altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalist Society, x (1966), 55-91 at 88.

74. RMS, iii, no.1962; NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/33.

75. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-80, B30/1/13, fol. 33v.

76. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/1/21.

77. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/30.

78. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/1/37.

79. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 6.r.

80. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 83r.

81. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 84r.

82. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 194v.

83. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 17r.

84. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 60r.

85. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 118r.

86. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 67.

87. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 34v.

88. NRS Protocol Book of Alex Symson, 1529-44, B30/1/2, fol. 96v.

89. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1, fol. 9v. Martin appeared in court again on 10 July and was again told to produce the chalice, fol. 10r. The following day John Forrest agreed to restore the chalice to the altar, fol 10v.

90. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 51r. Horn was of the view that this was a second service at the altar of St Blaise, but his evidence for that identification is not made clear.  See Horn, ‘References to altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, 66.

91. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 92v

92. R K Marshall, Ruin and Restoration: St Mary’s Church, Haddington (Haddington, 2001), 10, suggests seventeen altars plus the high altar, but she omits the Rood altar and follows Horn in conflating Blaise and Eloi.

93. D Ditchburn, ‘The “McRoberts thesis” and patterns of sanctity in late medieval Scotland’, in S Boardman and E Williamson (eds), The Cult of Saints and the Virgin Mary in Medieval Scotland (Woodbridge, 2010), 177-194 at 179 and 188-9.

94. E Williamson, ‘The cult of the Three Kings of Cologne in Scotland’, in S Boardman, J Davies and E Williamson (eds), Saints' Cults in the Celtic World (Woodbridge, 2009), 160-179.

95. NRS Protocol Bk of Alex Symson, 1529-44, B30/1/2, fol. 96v.

96. St Andrews Formulare, ii, 169-172; Cowan and Easson, Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland, 222.

97. St Andrews Formulare, ii, 172.

98. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 12v-13r; B30/13/1, fol. 20v.

99. Marshall, Ruin and Restoration, 14-20.

100. Marshall, Ruin and Restoration, 18-19.

101. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, p.3. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 and 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

102. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, B30/13/1, fol. 6v.

103. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, pp. 7-8.

104. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 10v.

105. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 7r.

106. NRS Haddington Treasurer’s accounts 1558, B30/21/79, fol. 14r.

107. NRS Haddington Treasurer’s accounts 1558, B30/21/79, fol. 14r.  

Summary of relevant documentation

Medieval

Synopsis of Cowan’s Parishes:

Granted with its chapel to the priory of St Andrews by David I, c.1139. The parsonage remained annexed with a vicarage erected in the 13th century; certain revenues went to the nunnery and the parish remained quasi-parochial.(1)

1136 x 1140 David I gave (dare) to the church of St Andrews the church of Haddington with chapels and tithes of the whole shire of Haddington (videlicet de tota Hadintunnschir).

1140 David I gave the vill of Clerkington directly to the church of Haddington with one full toft in Haddington and confirming to the church all tithes in Haddingtonshire.(2)

1141 x 1152 Earl Henry confirmed the king’s gift to the church. On the same occasion, in a parallel charter the king gave the vill of Clerkington to both the church of Haddington and the church of St Andrews.(3)

It was not until the 1170s that the church was given over to the cathedral priory by the bishops of St Andrews.

1228 Alexander II confirmed the church of Haddington with Clerkington, rights of fishing, a toft, chapels, and tithes as a gift of David I.(4) Thus, it appears that some connection to David I as donor of the church was retained.

1172 x 1178 Richard, bishop of St Andrews, gave (dare) the church of Haddington with the land of Clerkington to the priory save for that which was given to the nuns of Haddington by the bishop and also reserving synodals and episcopal aids.(5)

1175 x 1178 William I confirmed to the priory the church of Haddington with Clerkington and tithes, preserving the rights of the nunnery of Haddington.(6)

1175 x 1178 A conventio was established between the priory and the nuns of Haddington anent the church of Haddington. The nuns confirmed the portion (portiones) of the church of Haddington given (donavit) to them by Richard, bishop of St Andrews. The charter (only found in the cartulary) confirms a grant made to the nuns by Robert, bishop of St Andrews, on the day he blessed their cemetery. The implication being that Robert had also conceded rights to the nuns in the church of Haddington, very likely concerning burial rights for the nuns and their servants in their own cemetery.(7)

1178 x 1184 Hugh, bishop of St Andrews, confirms (general confirmation) the church of Haddington with chapels, tithes, lands, and rents with the land of Clerkington, save for that which owed to the nunnery in the Haddington parish.

1198 x 1199 Roger, bishop of St Andrews, confirms (general confirmation) the church of Haddington with lands and chapels as a gift of Bishop Richard.(8)

Papal Confirmations

1183 Pope Lucius III confirmed (general confirmation) the church of Haddington with lands and chapels as a gift of Bishop Richard (Scotia Pontificia, no. 119). 1185, Pope Lucius III confirmed to the cathedral priory the church of Haddington given to the house canonically by Bishop Richard. The timing of this bull dealing exclusively with the church of Haddington seems to be directly related to schism. The church of Haddington with its chapels and the vill of Clerkington received papal confirmation from Gregory VIII in 1187, Clement III in 1188, and Honorius III in 1216.(9) 

1189 x 1198 Roger, bishop of St Andrews, gave (dare) the church of Haddington to the cathedral priory in proprios usus; save for synodals and episcopal customs.(10)

Post 1300

1355-56 Church damaged during ‘burnt candlemass’ by forces of Edward III.

1424 On death of last rector Simon Beg, litigation between Donald Post and Gilbert Forrester over the vicarage. Neither successful and John Bowmaker is perpetual vicar by 1428.(11) This is followed by further litigation between Bowmaker, Post and Thomas de Mertoun (who had detained the vicarage from 1426-28). Situation resolved by 1435 with John Arouns (secretary to Queen Joanna) collated to vicarage and Bowmaker paid off with an annual pension of 40 marks (overall value £45).(12)

1445 William Haddington (illegitimate) unsuccessfully supplicates for the removal of incumbent John Ker, whom he accuses of simony, perjury and irregularity and having not feared to publically practice the arts of medicine. Ker is dead by 1449.(13)

1454 George Shoreswood resigns vicarage on promotion to bishopric of Brechin, replaced by James Gray (MA from Paris), value of vicarage £16.(14)

#1457 Obligation by Brown of Coltoun to the baillies of Haddington for repair of the church and for the construction and repair of then choir and the furnishings of the high alter [in Colstoun Writs].(15)

1482 Henry Aytoun, vicar of Haddington, witness to a mortification grant.(16)

1514 Adam Hepburn (16 years old and son of a regular canon) collated to vicarage on the resignation of George Hepburn (value £12).(17)

1520 Supplication to Archbishop Forman of St Andrews from town council for the erection of a parish clerkship with two chaplainries.(18)

1530 William Wolson and Archibald Borthwick appointed parish clerks; tasks include upholding the lamp with oil which hangs in the choir of the church.(19)

1533 Bellman employed by council; tasks include keeping dogs and poor people out of the church.(20)

1535 Patrick Mauchlyne, Rood Priest, to have £4 10s for ‘for finding bairns and books in the choir for a year.(21)

1548-49 Church gutted during English attack on Haddington.

1554 A ‘Dutchman’ paid £20 for delivering timber for the kirk.(22)

1555 (21 April) Provost ordered by council to purchase a new bell (entry deleted; sidenote states that the provost had been recompensed).(23)

1555 (8 Aug) Bernard Thomson and John Aytoun paid expeneses for riding to St Andrews to get permission to sequestrate of the parsonage of Haddington for rebuilding the choir. 13 Dec same year James Oliphant and Bernard paid expenses for 3 nights spent in Edinburgh for an have appointment with the prior of St Andrews [James Stewart, earl of Murray] about building of the choir.(24)

1556 (9 Oct) James Oliphant (burgess, treasurer?), presents compt to council for the new kirk bell, costing £3 10 of ‘flemis’ money and £17 9d of Scottish money. [other expenses for stones and hinges for the bell].(25)

1556 (18 June) ‘35 geistis of aik’ [oak?] to be delivered to Thomas Mauchlynre to build the ‘saith cosall of the kirk’.(26) [Oak joists for repair of the south aisle]

1557 (29 April) Council orders all prebendaries of the collegiate church of Haddington warned to compear before the burgh council ‘for consultation to be had for augmentation of divine service in the kirk’.(27)

1558 (10 February) Burgh council orders that all prebendaries and chaplains of the Collegiate church to be assessed and to have annuals poinded.(28)

[Work on the roof 1558]

1558 Alexander Langlandis, smith, paid for a ‘smekk’ for the church doors. Same day James Hawthorne paid for a roof spar, and a set of double ‘sparris’ purchased for the ‘upsetting of the roof’.(29)

1558 Same accounts record 8d given to Thomas Reid ofr making holes in the walls [of the kirk] to set in the timbers. Henry Campbell paid 2s for his workmanship and James Gotherey paid for cutting the said wall. A further payment was made when Gotheray cut a hole in wall above the high altar.(30)

[The following year considerable works were carried out on the Tolbooth by the same workmen. Did this lead to a postponement/halt on work on the church?](31)

Altars/Chaplainries within the church of St Mary

Blessed Virgin Mary(1)(High altar) (the site of numerous financial transactions)

Blessed Virgin Mary(2)

1447 Charter by Alicia Hay, for God, Our Lady and St Cuthbert making bequest to chaplain of altar of Blessed Virgin Mary. Witnessed by Richard Knowlis, vicar of Bothans, John Ker vicar of Haddington and John de Strathhavane, rector of Morham.(32)

1463 Instrument of sasine in favour of John of Cockburn, vicar of Calderclare (Mid Calder) chaplain of the altar of Our Lady in parish church of Haddington.(33)

1480 Charter by Richard Cockburne of Harperdene, burgess of Haddington, for souls of James III, Margaret his consort, their children, his parents and other, to altar of Blessed Virgin Mary in north aisle of parish church, 15s, to do obit at the altar for his lifetime with 8 chaplains and 1 clerk.(34)

1500 John Tullibardine perpetual chaplain at altar of Blessed Virgin Mary, founded by the late Alexander Tullibardine, Lord of Straling.(35)

1530, 1532, 1534 Thomas Mauchlyne pursues rents owed to his altar as the Lady Priest.(36)

1543 Charter granted by Alexander Cockburn with consent of his spouse, in favour of Jonet, Lady Seton in life rent and the said chaplains in fee of the said annual rent; to hold of sir John Forest, chaplain at the altar of the Blessed Mary, the Virgin, founded by deceased Alexander Cockburn of good memory in the parish church of Haddington, in the north aisle of the said church.(37)

1545 Silver chalice pertaining to the altar delivered to chaplain Thomas Mauchlyne with inlaid hic calix Sancte Marie de Haidyngtoun.(38)

 [One of several references to return of altar ornaments in same council meeting entry, see SS Katherine, John, James, Nicholas, Ninian. Hidden during the Anglo-Scottish conflict or moved perhaps as part of church refurbishment?](39)

1557 8s annual rent due to the altar of Our Lady.(40)

1558 Thomas Mauchlyne remains chaplain of altar.(41)

Blessed Virgin Mary(3) and St Andrew

1539 Altar upheld by the Maltmen craft [unclear whether distinct from the Blessed Virgin Mary and Andrew altars].(42)

Holy Blood [Horn suggests connected to St Salvator altar, same family are patrons of both and chaplains are both Crosur’s, but no other reference to a connection].(43)

1536 (28 Aug) Great seal charter of confirmation of charter by James Wawane of Stevenstoun to Henry Sinclair, of lands of Stevenstoun, with advocation of chaplainry or altar of Holy Blood in parish church of Haddington.(44)

1543 John Crosar, chaplain of the altar, appears in burgh court.(45)

1555 William Broune described as patron of the Holy Blood altar, (part of long running process regarding recovery of rents post-1548).(46)

1557 (25 Jan) William Broun, burgess of Haddington, patron of Holy Blood altar, presents Sir Adam Broun to the chaplaincy on death of John Crosur. Presents him with chalice, mass book and other ornaments of the altar.(47)

1558 (8 Oct) Thomas Fylder bound himself to pay Alexander Levinstoun, chaplain of the Holy Blood, annual due from a tenement, now less ¼ after being burned by English.(48)

Holy Cross

1518 Patrick Mauchlyne, chaplain at the altar.(49)

1535 Patrick Mauchlyne, Rood Priest, to have £4 10s for ‘for finding bairns and books in the choir for a year.(50)

1539 Patrick resigns a tenement to Robert Listar, altar described as in the patronage of the baillies, council etc of Haddington.(51)

1544 (23 June) Provost, council etc give Archibalkd Borthwick service of Rood chaplain on decease of Patrick Mauchlyne, with his stall in the choir.(52)

1545 Provost etc give Archibald Borthwick the Rood chalice of Silver, having on the foot Johannes de Crummye et sponsa sua me fieri fererunt, on the paten Jesus.(53)

1556 Thomas Mauchlyne described as the chaplain of the altar of the Holy Rude.(54)

Holy Trinity (1532, John Getgud, location below)

1532 (23 May) Charter by John Getgud, son and heir of deceased John Getgud, burgess of Haddington, to Robert Walterson, provost of Bothans, chaplain of chaplaincy of Trinity, founded by him in parish church of Haddington, in south aisle, on west part thereof, of an acre of land.(55)

1539 (8 April) Great seal confirmation charter of charter by Robeert Walterson, provost of Bothans and Rector of Petcokkis, for souls of James V, Patrick Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, and Adam his son, to maintain chaplain in choir and at altar of Holy Trinity in parish church of Haddington. After death of Robert patronage to revert to council etc.(56)

1545 (8 June) Provost and baillies gave John Fresar a chalice of silver, having Trinity on the foot with Mr Robert Waltersoun written above and his arms and in paten Jesus.(57)

1563 Chaplaincy of the Holy Trinity within the parish church granted by the burgh council to Patrick Cockburn.(58)

St Salvator (found Willam Wawane, later George Crosur, location below)

1495 Charter of confirmation by John Paterson of gift to altar which had been founded by William Wawane, official of Lothian.(59)

1520 (29 Aug) Chapel of St Salvator founded within the parish church of Haddington by the late William Wawane. Annual rent of 13s 4d paid to provost etc by Laurence Fleming, burgess, in return for twice yearly offices for the dead for former chaplain Andrew Dalrymple.(60)

1529 (9 April) Charter with sasine features sir John Young, chaplain of chaplaincy founded by William Wawane at altar of St Salvator, on east part of parish church of Haddington, after High altar thereof, in the north aisle.(61)

1539 After dispute George Crosar declared undoubted patron of the altar by the burghal court, initially founded by William Crosar his father who resigned it to Robert Young.(62)

1555 William Broun (patron of Holy Blood altar) alleges that Sir John Crosur  should not pursue process against a tenement in Sidgait, as he had demitted patronage of St Salvatore’s altar alias Holy Blood, into the hands of William Wilson, chaplain.(63)

St Andrew

Maltmen altar

1531 Robyn Norre delivers chalice of St Andrew to the Alex Hepburn, Baillie.(64)

1533 James Scherill commanded to deliver a pound of wax to the altar as a punishment for late payment of annual rents of 8s owed to said altar.(65)

1539 Complaint by the deacon of the craft of Maltmen that they uphold the altar of St Andrew and are severely hurt by others infringing their monopoly.(66)

St Anne (probable)

Tailors/Skinners altar

1530 Assize ordains that tailors shall have power to choose man to collect weekly penny from members (for upholding altar, dedication not specified).(67)

1537 All tailors to pay 40s for upkeep of altar from each of their booths in Haddington.(68)

1537 Gilbert Robinsoune granted that he had taken 11s 4d from St Anne’s box, and agreed to make compt to the craft.(69)

1544 (18 March) Provost etc ordain that Skinner and Furriers shall join Tailors in upholding altar.(70)

St Aubert (Towbert/Howbert)

Baxter’s altar

1532 ratification by baillies of act by Baxters anent upholding their altar [dedication not specified].(71)

1537 Instrument of sasine by Robert Turnor, burgess, in favour of Baxters, to uphold St Howbert’s altar in college kirk etc, 13s 4d.(72)

1555 (25 May) Martin Wilson, deacon of the Baxter’s craft guild in court regarding missing silver chalice of St ‘Towbartis’ altar (altar pertains to the craft).(73)

St Bartholomew (probable)

Fleshers altar - dedication is not certain

1572 (11 July) Burgh Council orders the treasurer shall glass the rear kirk window foreanent  

St Eloi (Blaise) [according to Horn these altars are one and the same?](74)

Smiths

1447 First reference to altar of St Blaise under patronage of Sir James Cockburn of Skirling.(75)

1477 (12 Nov) Charter by Alexander Barcare, vicar of Petynane, in honour of God, Jesus Christ, Our Lady and St Blaise, for the souls of James III, his consort Margaret and their ancestors and successors (and his ancestors and successors) founds a perpetual chaplainry at the altar of St Blaise in the parish church (66s 8d). After his death patronage to revert to the burgh council etc.(76)

1500 Alexander Barcar, patron of the service or altarage of St Blaise, founded in the parish church of Haddington, resigns right of patronage to William Cockburn of Scraling.(77)

1534 Smiths are to have privileges and freedom for upholding St Eloi altar.(78)

1545 Provost etc present Ninian Borthwick to St Blaise’s altar, vacant by decease of Thomas Carmichael last chaplain.(79)

St James (location below)

1520 Great seal charter (not in RMS), confirming charter of 8 Feb 1516 by William Kemp, burgess, to Our Lady and St James, paying for a chaplain to celebrate mass at the altar of St James in the nave of the parish church of Haddington, for souls of James V, James, duke of Albany, Robert, bishop of Ross and William and his wife Janet.(80)

1541 William Kemp delivers to the town his mortification of the altar and possession thereof as patrons. Value £10 pa, with chalice, book and vestments pertaining to altar. James Mauchlyne to be made chaplain. After his death, if Thomas Wauss or John Kemp have any children qualified to serve at altar they are to have first choice.(81)

1545 Silver chalice pertaining to the altar delivered to James Mauchline, chaplain. Chalice was a gift by William Kemp and has his mark on it.(82)

1558 James Mauchline still chaplain of altar. Resigns all rights to lands pertaining to altar to the burgh council in return for a pension of £4 for which he is to perform services in the parish church. Reference to house of Andrew Mayne pertaining to St James altar.(83)

St John the Baptist

1454 (30 July) Grant by Robert of Ingaldistoun, burgess of Haddington, and Anny his wife, to altar of John the Baptist in parish church, and to a chaplain to do mass for their souls every Wednesday for 20s pa. Robert and Anny patrons for their lifetime and thence the town council.(84)

1454 (2 August) Grant by Thomas Alansoun, burgess, with consent of his wife Margaret,  to altar of John the Baptist in the parish church of 1m 40s, to do 9 masses yearly for the sake of  his and her soul and of their children.(85)

1454 (7 Sept) Grant by Gilbert of Redpeth, burgess, to altar of 20s annual for service to be done at the altar.(86)

1530 William Cockburn chaplain of the altar.(87)

1545 William receives the silver chalice pertaining to the altar, having on the foot calix Sancti Johannis ecclesie de Haddington and a cross in paten.(88)

SS John the Baptist and John the Evangelist

1530 (1 April) Arbitration between the wrights and masons on one part and William Cokcburn, chaplain of St John’s altar on other, whereby arbiters decern that wrights and masons shall have an image of St John the Evangelist to be their patron, if they can find caution for upholding it in wax, mass clothes, mass as sung and festivals, and shall make image of St Doicho [St Duthac of Tain?], to be put at altar of St John the Baptist in exchange for St John the Evangelist, and shall restore to said William 11s 6d of offerings owed to him.(89)

St John the Evangelist

Wrights and Masons

1533 (16 July)Instrument narrating that the deacons of wrights and mason presented a paper to baillies of Haddington asking for same privileges as other crafts for repairing their altar of John the Evangelist, lately founded.(90)

St Katherine

1491 (20 Jan) Great seal confirmation of charter of 8 May 1490 by Robert of Greenlaw, burgess, to his son George, of a tenement in Haddington, if heirs fail to go to altar of St Katherine in Haddington.(91)

1494 (12 Nov) Grant by Marion Lawson to vicar, curate and parish clerk of Haddington as patrons, of 8s for an obit and anniversary of her late husband John, to take place at St Katherine’s altar.(92)

1520 (3 Dec) Resignation by Marion Clark of 13s 4d to chaplains of choir of Haddington to daily anniversary and obsequies at altar of St Katherine on day of death of Margaret Crag, 2nd wife of William Robinsoun, burgess and Baillie, and on day of his death and of his other wife.(93)

1545 Silver chalice with on foot Richard Crummye with a cross and a paten with a hand, delivered to George Kerington, chaplain.(94)

1576 (14 Dec) Council orders lime and sand to be prepared and laid in St Katherine’s chapel [see below chapel was in west end of church] for building of the school house.(95)

SS Michael and Crispin and Crispinian [joint according to Horn]

Shoemakers

1448 Instrument narrating disposition by John of Meneris of 1 mark annual to celebrate in divinis at St Michael’s altar for soul of himself, his wife Janet and his deceased sister Isobel, with placebo and dirge on the anniversary of his death and with mass de profundis the next day.(96)

1470 Grant by John Patonsoun, burgess and cordwiner, to altar of St Michael the Archangel of 13s 4d for sols of himself, Laurence his son and Ibby, Janet and Marion his daughters, and his 2 wives, on anniversary of his death with placebo, dirge and solemn requiem  mass sung by 11 priests and a clerk, 40s to be given to poor folk that day.(97)

1505 (Oct) Grant by John Brown (shoemaker), in honour of God, Our Lady and All Saints, for the souls of James IV and his consort Margaret, for his soul and that of his wife Agnes Caldhaw and for his parents, ancestors and successors. Founds a chaplainry at the altar of St Michael the Archangel and Crispin and Crispinian situated in the parish church of Haddington, (10m in total). Patronage to remain with his heirs.(98)

1515 (5 Feb) Grant by John Young, chaplain to altar of St Michael and Crispin and Crispinianus of an annual of 5s 5d and a further one if 15d, for souls of deceased William Young and Elizabeth his parents and for his soul after his death.(99)

1519 (28 April) John and Janet Lyell resign 20s annual rents to John Young, chaplain of the altar.(100)

1531 SS Crispin and Crispinian and St Nicholas altars upheld by the Cordwiners craft guild.(101)

1554 John Tait, chaplain of the altar, pursues rents owing to it.(102)

1555 (8 Oct) George Brown, procurator for the chaplain of altar of St Crispin and Crispinian [no reference to Michael], appears in court to pursue rents owing to the altar.(103)

St Nicholas

Cordwiners, as well as Crispin and Crispinian

1449 (25 Feb) Charter by John Nicolsoun, burgess, to Janet elder, and Janet younger, his daughters, whom failing half the lands specified to altar of St Ninian in parish church, the other half to the altar of St Nicholas (various lands).(104)

1531 SS Crispin and Crispinian and St Nicholas altars upheld by the Cordwiners craft guild.(105)

1545 Silver chalice pertaining to the altar stored in the common kist.(106)

St Ninian

1449 (25 Feb) Charter by John Nicolsoun, burgess, to Janet elder, and Janet younger, his daughters whom failing half the lands specified to altar of St Ninian in parish church, the other half to the altar of St Nicholas (various lands).(107)

1471 (8 Oct) Charter by baillies etc to Thomas Lystar and Elizabeth Broun his wife, for life, and then to the altar of St Ninian in parish church, of a piece of land in the burgh.(108)

1545 chalice pertaining to the altar is in the hands of Alexander Lawson.(109)

St Peter

1426 (28 May) John of the Furde gave a silver chalice to St Peter’s altar.(110)

1449 (3 Dec) Instrument of sasine of a tenement by John Doby, priest of the parish church of Haddington, to Agnes Scott, daughter of the late Hugh Scot, burgess, and to John Doby her son, of, whom failing to the altar of St Peter in the parish church and the chaplain thereof.(111)

St Severus and Bartholomew

1520 (24 Sept) Instrument of resignation and sasine by James Galloway, burgess of Haddington , with consent of Margaret Bolton his spouse, in favour of Sir James Mauchlyne, curate for doing daily anniversary at altar of SS Severus and Bertillomeus, within parish church of Haddington for souls of John Foular and Elizabeth Richardson his spouse and their children, on day of their obit.(112)

St Thomas [which one is not specified]

1538 (29 Oct) John Haliburton granted that he owed half a mark to the box of St Thomas.(113)

Three Kings of Cologne and Blessed Virgin Mary

1522 (20 Oct) Sasine to George Sidserf and his successors, chaplain of the altar of the Virgin and Three Kings of Cologne following an earlier charter (20 Oct) by David Fowross [Forrest?], burgess of Haddington, for possession to be given to images of Our Lady and three kings who lie in Culene, situated at north west altar and chapel within parish church of Haddington, constructed by the said David, and to chaplain serving at altar, for souls of James IV, James V and himself and Agnes Lawson and Isabel Dikson his spouse, 14 marks annual rents.(114)

1527 (26 Mar) Instrument of resignation and sasine by Christine Bowmaker, relict of John Clark, and Marion Clark his daughter, of 13s 4d annual in favour of Thomas Mauchlyne, curate of Haddington in name of choir chaplains for obsequies and anniversaries to be made on the day of death of David Forrest and Isabel Dickson his 2nd wife, at altar of Three Kings, founded by said David, in parish church of Haddington on north part in west end thereof.(115)

1553 (15 July) Instrument of resignation by Mr Alexander Forrest, provost of college kirk of St Mary in the Fields, Edinburgh, son of deceased David Forrest, in hands of John Forrest (his nephew), burgess of Haddington and thus patron of altar of the Three Kings, in favour of John Anderson, the chaplain.(116)

1557 (4 May) Thomas Kerington, chaplain of altar in court pursueing rents.(117)

1557 (29 June) Instrument narrating that John Forrest, patron of chaplaincy of three kings, instituted John Anderson chaplain, in place of Thomas Kerington who has resigned.(118)

1558 (11 Oct) John Anderson in court pursuing rents owed to the altar [Anderson in court regularly 1557-1575 regarding annual rents due to his altar].(119)

Structural changes after the Reformation

#Marshall ‘according to tradition, John Knox had come up with the solution to the seeming insuperable problem [repair of church with limited funds]. A barrier wall would be built, by using stones from the north transept to block up the arches at the east end of the nave. The choir and transepts could then be left in their ruined state, the barrier wall would hide what had become an eyesore’.(120)

#Gray/Jamieson ‘At the Reformation the church, which had become dilapidated,….. was repaired ‘fra steepill to west end’ to quote the burgh records. The nave was now transformed into a Presbyterian place of worship. Subsequently the choir and transepts were walled off and allowed to become ruinous’.(121)

Post-medieval

Books of assumption of thirds of benefices and Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices: The Parish church parsonage with the priory of St Andrews, set for £266 13s 4d. Parish churches called ‘Abbay’ and ‘Nungate’ pertaining to priory of Haddington, and given money to distribute in alms (no reference to how they were run).(122)

Post-Reformation primary sources

1561 (19 Sept) Council warns populace that no person should take stone from the high church or the friar church on pain of 40s fine.(123)

1562 (12 Feb) Burgh council sends James Oliphant and Barnard Thomson to Edinburgh to request payment from James Stewart, earl of Moray, of the money owing to the burgh for the ‘bigging of the kirk’.(124) (Moray was commendator of the Priory of St Andrews)

1562 (17 March) Burgh Council employs Andrew White and Patrick Agayne to clean and lock the doors of the church and to buy a basin for administration of baptism and to requestrate the fruits of the vicarage, the fermes of which had previously paid for the curate [small teinds?]. Cuthbert Cockburn also to be compensated for damage done to his lands at the ‘ledy’ [loading?] of the church timber.(125)

1567 (24 March) Great seal charter in favour of burgh of Haddington, of all lands, churches, chapels, annuals, obits, anniversaries, whatsoever, pertaining to any chapels, altarages or college within burgh, reserving life rent to chaplains, prebendaries and friars who were in possession thereof before the alteration of religion.(126)

1567 (26 Mar) Petition by William Wilson to the council for the right to collect 12d from every fine house in the town to continue the job he had from 1535-1560 as burgh and kirk clerk. Job includes preparing baptismal water, keeping the church clean and closing and opening the doors. He is also prepared to act as an exhorter in the church.(127) [although William offers to reconcile with the new church he seems lukewarm in adherence to new faith, describing post-1560 church as ‘The Imitation of Religion’]

1571 (29 Nov) Provost etc orders that all annuals of chaplainries and altarages in the burgh church to be  applied for the use of the new school master or reader for teaching the ‘bairns’, or for the exhorter in the kirk.(128)

[Works on the windows and the roof 1571-74]

1572 (21 March) Burgh council orders Treasurer to build up with lime and stone the kirk windows within the kirk yard dyke and stiles pertaining to that part, so that no beasts can be pastured therein.(129)

1572 Payment to John Campbell for bringing old glass for the kirk.(130)

1572 Andrew Lyell sent to Leith to find a glasswright. Several references in accounts to payments to the (unnamed) glass wright and pay for his accommodation first with Philip Gibson for 10 days and in same year with Henry Campbell.(131)

1572 Payment of 20s to Henry Campbell for building pillar of repentance in the parish kirk.(132)

1572 (11 July) Burgh Council orders the treasurer to glass the rear kirk window fore anent the fleshers altar, and to build the kirk stiles with steps so that no beasts shall have entry into the kirkyard.(133)

1572 (Nov) Council orders that the paving stones be transported from the friar kirk to the high kirk and laid there.(134)

#1573 (4 March) payment of £3 for 2 joists for the kirk.(135)

1573 (17 March) further ordinance from council that all annuals owing to chaplainries etc to be paid to the burgh council. The third part to be assessed [see Thirds of Benefices].(136)

1573 (20 May) Further problems collecting rents owing to chaplainries; collector given power to poind those that fail to pay.(137)

#1573 (15 July) Payments to William Young of Saltoun for lyme (8d), Andrew Brown for leading of 9 dozen of sand for the kirk and John Inglis for 11 chalders of lyme for the kirk (11 marks). Also to John Winter and Robert Anderson for carrying stones to the kirk (20s) and George Lak and John Jolie (the masons?).(138)

#1574 (15 April) Licence given to Thomas Punton (former provost) to have a sepulchre or burial place within the parish church at the time of his decease, but until then a ‘throucht’ to put his mark thereupon; granted for his good service to the burgh.(139)

#1574 (14 June) Drink silver given to the masons and wrights on the upsetting of the timber [putting new roof up?]. Same day Lord Lindsay and Robert Hepburn paid 3s for bringing home the slates. Further payments for carrying pend stones into the kirk, for bringing home a great lintel stone for the north door of the kirk, requiring two gangs of men and payment of rhe masons expenses in bringing it home (33s).(140)

1574 Nov-1575 May Series of payments for work on the kirk doors.(141)

[Work on the interior, walls, roof and windows 1575-76]

1575 (12 Feb) Arthur Wallace and Robert Wallace payed for building the east ‘galft’ of the aisle of the church.(142)

1575 (21 Feb) Wilson, John Matheson and Robert Hinde paid for taking down the ‘medwall’ of the kirk and bringing out the wood and stones.(143)

1575 (8 March) Ladder borrowed for the cutting of the east wall of the krik; Patrick Borwn and John Matheson paid for the job. Same men to lyme the kirk windows with brown. Same day payment for the making of a door in the west end of the kirk. Further payment to James Tait (wright) for putting up scaffolding on the east windows and putting in the windows from the ‘kais’.(144)

1575 (27 April) Further payments for work on the kirk windows, including the ‘glassinwright’ (unnamed) who purchased 39 feet of glass for £3 18s and mended the great west window and the three south windows. Glass wright helped by Thomas Stevenson, wright, and other workmen.(145)

1575 (June-October) Continuing payments to Thomas Stevenson and others at the kirk work and for supplies like glue, lime, stone and timber. Reference in October to building of wainscoting and ‘daillies’.(146)

1575 Council orders treasurer to purchase timber and build new seats, pews and a new pulpit in the church.(147)

1575 (15 Dec) Council orders that the aisle of the north side of the church to be ‘lathie, slaitit and spurgit with lyme and  that the bundois’ of the south side of the church  above the aisles be glassed and the rest be ‘lathit’.(148)

#1576 (4 April) Treasurer ordered to finish the north and west sides of the kirk and to cast down the pillar of repentance.(149)

Construction of School House in west end of church and other work on the roof and the installation of seats 1576-1577

1576 (November) Payments for gathering of stones and casting together of sand and bringing them to the church for the building of the school house.(150)

1576 (14 Dec) Council orders lime and sand to be prepared and laid in St Katherine’s chapel [see below chapel was in west end of church] for building of the school house.(151)

1577 (Feb-Mar) Payments for further work on the schoolhouse, supplies of sand and lyme brought by Matthew Airth.(152)

1577 (1 March) Council orders the treasurer to build the school house in the west end of the kirk with stone and lime and also a new door.(153)

1577 (1 April) David Cowsting,  James Tod, Thomas Gwold and Thomas Aitkin, masons paid for work on the west wall at the west end of the kirk.(154)

1577 (22 April) Payment for a pitcher of ale for the masons above (3s 6d) at the completing of the work. Same day James Tait (wright) paid for 6 days work making doors at the west end of the kirk and mending the pillar of repentance.(155)

1577 (15 June) Workman paid for carrying trees to the kirk and setting up seats therein.(156)

1577 (11 July) James Wilson paid for carrying home to the kirk roof sparis and brand spars; (5 August) payment for slating, painting and mending of the kirk.(157)

1577 (August) Thomas Stevenson and others still on kirk work, includes putting the seats in the south side of the kirk and ‘pavementing’ the same area.(158)

1579 (27 Feb) Council orders various members of the committee and the treasurer to furnish lime, stones and scaffolding to build the school house at the chapel of the kirk.(159)

1579 (12 Dec) Ordinance that all swine are to be kept out of the church yard on pain of death [presumably for the animal rather than owner].(160)

1587 (Sept) A visitation of the church by the Presbytery of Haddington finds the 1st minister (Mr John Ker) to be adequate. The minister complains that the landward parishioners are accused of only visiting at times of baptism and marriage. The visitors also find that the kirk yard is not kept well.(161)

1632 (18 Jan) Visitation of the church by the Presbytery of Haddington, finds that unless repairs are undertaken it is likely to be ruinous. The presbytery ordains the kirk session to collect a sum of money, wrights and slaters to be consulted.(162) 8 Feb further reference to the parishioners of Haddington collecting money for craftsmen, slaters and wrights for reparation of the church in slates and timber (2000 marks are required); the church also to be made more commodious and Alexander Hamilton (the minister) ordained to organise the collection.(163)

1645 (7 May) Lord of Lamington and Patrick Inglis of Elvingston offer to erect a new kirk in the wester part of the parish of Haddington (Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale agress to proposal and orders heritors to support Lamington and Elvingston).(164) New church to be called Gladsmuir.

1673 (7 Aug) Visitation of the church by the Presbytery of Haddington finds that the church is in need of reparation and that there is no provision for a school in the landward part of the parish. Subsequent meeting between the heritors on 19 Aug who acknowledge that the church stood in need of speedy reparation. They report that the south ‘tofall’ of the church could not be sufficiently repaired unless the roof thereof was raised with new timber and slates, the said work coming to £700 scots.(165)

Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev George Barclay, 1791):

 ‘The parish church is a large and venerable structure; it was formerly the church of the Franciscan monastery; from the style of the architecture it appears to have been built in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. Only the western part is use for public worship, the reminder of the fabric is unroofed, and going fast to ruin’.(166)

New Statistical Account of Scotland (Revs John Cook and Robert Lorimer, 1835):

 ‘The church is a venerable gothic fabric, 210 feet in length, supposed to be thirteenth or fourteenth century. …The quire and transept are now in somewhat of a dilapidated state; but the square tower, which surmounts the building, and is 90 feet high, is entire’. The western apart of the ross has been lately fitted up in a superior style, and is used as the parish church’.(167)

Notes

1. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland , 79.

2. David I Charters, nos. 85 & 86.

3. David I Charters, nos .116 & 87.

4. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, pp. 232-236.

5. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, p. 135.

6. RRS, ii, no. 173.

7. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, p. 334.

8. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, pp. 144-47 & 149-152.

9. Scotia Pontificia, nos. 119, 125, 148 & 149, Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, pp. 76-81.

10. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree, p. 153.

11. CSSR, ii, 73, 156 & 217.

12. CSSR, iii, 160-61, 190-91, 216, CSSR, iv, nos. 82, 188 & 223.

13. CSSR, iv, no. 1196, CSSR, v, 290, CPL, x, 440.

14. CSSR, v, nos. 511 & 768.

15. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’. GD302/106.

16. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/5.

17. CPL, xx, nos. 283 & 285.

18. St Andrews Formulare, ii, 87-91.

19. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 62.

20. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 24-25.

21. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 60v.

22. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, p.3. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

23. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, B30/13/1, fol. 6v.

24. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, pp. 7-8. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace)..

25. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 10v.

26. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 7r.

27. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 12v-13r.

28. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 20v.

29. NRS Haddington Treasurer’s accounts 1558, B30/21/79, fol. 14r.

30. NRS Haddington Treasurer’s accounts 1558, B30/21/79, fol. 14r.

31. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, pp. 15-16. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

32. Yester Writs, no. 85.

33. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 11v.

34. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/4/2.

35. CPL, xvii, no. 366.

36. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fols. 9v, 40r & 58r.

37. NRS Montgomerie Family, Earls of Eglinton: Titles. GD3/1/11/7/2.

38. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211r.

39. Marshall suggests both of these motivations for the references in 1545, Marshall, St Mary’s Church, Haddington, p.11.

40. Prot Bk of Mr Gilbert Grote, 1552-1573, no. 112.

41. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1,fol. 127r.

42. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, p. 67.

43. Horn, ‘Pre-Reformation altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, 78.

44. RMS, iii, no. 1616.

45. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 188v.

46. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1555-60, B30/9/3,fols. 5r & 24v.

47. NRS Prot Bk of Thomas Stevin, 1548-1565, B30/1/5,fol. 163v.

48. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1555-60, B30/9/3,fol. 136r.

49. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/13

50. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 60v.

51. NRS Protocol Bk of Alex Symson, 1529-44, B30/1/2, fol. 119r.

52. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 199r.

53. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211r.

54. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1,fols. 67v & 77v.

55. Transcript made by Wallace-James, no longer extant, see Horn, ‘References to altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, 88.

56. RMS, iii, no. 1962, NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/33.

57. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211r.

58. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-80, B30/1/13,  fol. 33v.

59. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

60. Yester Writs, no. 394.

61. NRS GD1/199/27.

62. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 101v.

63. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1555-60, B30/9/3,fol. 29v.

64. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 17r.

65. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 60r.

66. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 118r.

67. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 6.r.

68. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 83r.

69. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 84r.

70. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 194v.

71. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 34v.

72. NRS Protocol Bk of Alex Symson, 1529-44, B30/1/2, fol. 96v.

73. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1,fol. 9v. Martin appeared in court again in 10 July and was again told to produce the chalice, fol. 10r. The following day John Forrest agrees to restore the chalice to the altar, fol 10v.

74. Horn, ‘References to altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, 66.

75. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106. (no name on notes but probably B. L. H . Horn)

76. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/4. For the confirmation see RMS, ii, no.1333.

77. Prot Bk of John Foular, 9 March 1500 to 18 September 1503, no. 29.

78. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 51r.

79. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 213v.

80. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/22.

81. NRS Protocol Bk of Alex Symson, 1539-42, B30/1/3, fol. 94r.

82. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211v.

83. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 17v.

84. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 8r.

85. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 8v.

86. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 9r.

87. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 2v.

88. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211r.

89. NRS Douglas Collection, 1375-1923, GD98/11/8.

90. NRS Douglas Collection, 1375-1923, GD98/11/7.

91. RMS, ii, no.2005.

92. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/7.

93. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/20.

94. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211r.

95. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 88v.

96. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 6v.

97. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 10r.

98. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40.

99. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 11r.

100. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/16.

101. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1, fol. 11.

102. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 277v.

103. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-60, B30/10/1 fol. 18v.

104. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol. 7r.

105. NRS Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records, GD1/413/1 , fol. 11.

106. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2,fol. 211v.

107. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 7r.

108. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 10v.

109. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 211v.

110. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1,fol.3r.

111. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1423-1514, B30/9/1, fol. 8r.

112. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/20.

113. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1530-55, B30/9/2, fol. 92v.

114. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/1/21.

115. NRS Mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40/30

116. NRS Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/1/37.

117. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records 1555-60, B30/9/3,fol. 86v.

118. NRS Prot Bk of Thomas Stevin, 1548-1565, B30/1/5, fol. 179v.

119. NRS Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-60, B30/10/1, fol. 136v.

120. Marshall, St Mary’s Church, Haddington, p.24.

121. Gray & Jamiesion, A Short History of Haddington, pp.24-25.

122. Kirk, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, 16 & 163.

123. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 24v.

124. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 31v.

125. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 32r.

126. RMS, iv, no. 1776.

127. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 47v.

128. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 62v.

129. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 63v.

130. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, p. 21. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

131. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, pp. 21& 24. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

132. NRS Haddington Common Good Accounts, GD1/413/4, pp. 25. (Haddington Common Good accounts for 1554, 1555, 1557, 1565 & 1571-72 are no longer extant but are transcribed in the notes of J G Wallace).

133. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 65v.

134. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 67r.

135. NRS Extracts relating to the Parish church of Haddington, B30/20/6, p.14

136. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 70v.

137. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 71r.

138. NRS Extracts relating to the Parish church of Haddington, B30/20/6,  p.14.

139. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

140. NRS Extracts relating to the Parish church of Haddington, B30/20/6, pp.15-16.

141. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fols. 5 & 6.

142. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fol. 6.

143. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fol. 7.

144. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fol. 8.

145. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fol. 13

146. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, i, fols. 19-27

147. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 81v.

148. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 83v.

149. NRS Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

150. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fol. 7v.

151. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 88v.

152. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fol. 12r.

153. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 89v.

154. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fol. 12r.

155. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fol. 14r.

156. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fol. 16v.

157. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fols. 18v & 20v.

158. NRS Accounts of the common good of Haddington, B30/21/82, ii, fols. 22v & 23v.

159. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 99v.

160. NRS Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/13/1, fol. 107v.

161. NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1587-96, CH2/185/1, fol. 5r.

162. NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1627-1639, CH2/185/4, fols. 56r-v.

163. NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1627-1639, CH2/185/4, fols. 57r-v.

164. Synod Records of Lothian and Tweeddale, pp.175 & 182.

165. NRS Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1662-1686, CH2/185/7, fol. 147.

166. Statistical Account of Scotland, vi, 540.

167. New Statistical Account of Scotland, i, 13.

Bibliography

MS sources

National Records of Scotland

Haddington Burgh Protocol Books, 1520-33. James Meldrum, B30/1/1.

Haddington Burgh: Protocol Books. Alexander Symson, 1529-1544, B30/1/2.

Haddington Burgh: Protocol Books. Alexander Symson, 1539-1542, B30/1/3.

Haddington Burgh: Council Minutes, 1554-1580, B30/1/13.

Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records, 1423-1514, B30/9/1.

Haddington Burgh: Court and Council Records, 1530-1555, B30/9/2.

Haddington Burgh: Court Books, 1555-1560, B30/10/1.

Extracts relating to the parish kirk of Haddington, B30/20/6.

Charters and Other Writs (33) relating to mortifications granted in favour of the parish church of Haddington, 1448-1572, B30/21/40 passim#.

Protocol Book of Thomas Stevin, 1548-1565, B30/1/5.

Haddington Treasurer's accounts. [Small volume] 1558, B30/21/79.

Accounts of the common good of Haddington from Martinmas 1574 to Whitsunday 1577, B30/21/82/1.

Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1587-96, CH2/185/1.

Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1596-1608, CH2/185/2.

Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1613-1627, CH2/185/3.

Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1627-1639, CH2/185/4.

Presbytery of Haddington, Minutes, 1662-1686, CH2/185/7.

Title deeds to properties in and about Haddington, East Lothian, GD1/39/4/2.

Haddington Burgh Court and Council Records 1530-1602. Research notes of Dr. J.G. Wallace-James on East Lothian, GD1/413/1.

Haddington Town Council Minutes 1554-80. Research notes of Dr. J.G. Wallace-James on East Lothian, GD1/413/3.

Haddington Common Good Accounts. Research notes of Dr. J.G. Wallace-James on East Lothian, GD1/413/4.

Notes of Ecclesiastical Records of Haddington, 'especially on Parish Church’, GD302/106.

Montgomerie Family, Earls of Eglinton: Titles. GD3/1/11/7/2.

Douglas Collection, 1375-1923, GD98/11.

Primary and secondary printed sources

Calendar of entries in the Papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland; Papal Petitions, 1893-, ed. W.H. Bliss, London.

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1423-28, 1956, ed. A.I. Dunlop, (Scottish History Society) Edinburgh.

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1428-32, 1970, ed. A.I. Dunlop; and I.B. Cowan, (Scottish History Society) Edinburgh.

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1433-47, 1983, ed. A.I. Dunlop and D MacLauchlan, Glasgow.

Calendar of Scottish Supplications to Rome 1447-71, 1997, ed. J. Kirk, R.J. Tanner and A.I. Dunlop, Edinburgh.

Calendar of writs preserved at Yester House, 1166-1625, 1930, eds. C. Harvey & J. McLeod (Scottish Record

Society), Edinburgh.

Charters of King David I : the written acts of David I King of Scots, 1124-53 and of his son Henry Earl of Northumberland, 1139-52, 1999, ed. G.W.S. Barrow, Woodbridge.

Cowan, I.B., 1967, The parishes of medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), Edinburgh.

Donaldson, G., 1949, Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices, (Scottish History Society), Edinburgh.

Gray, W. F & Jamieson, Jn. H, 1995, A Short History of Haddington, Stevenage.

Horn, B. L. H., 1966, ‘List of References to the Pre-Reformation altarages in the parish church of Haddington’, Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalist Society, x, 55-91.

Kirk, J., 1995, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, (British Academy) Oxford.

Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sancti Andree in Scotia, 1841, ed. T. Thomson (Bannatyne Club), Edinburgh.

Marshall, R. K, 2001, Ruin and Restoration; St Mary’s Church, Haddington, Haddington.

New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1834-45, Edinburgh and London.

Protocol Book of John Foular, 9 March 1500 to 18 September 1503, 1930, ed. W. McLeod (Scottish record Society), Edinburgh.

Protocol Book of Mr Gilbert Grote, 1552-1573, 1914, ed. W. Angus (Scottish Record Society), Edinburgh.

St Andrews Formulare, 1514-46, 1942-44, eds. G. Donaldson & C. Macrae (Stair Society), Edinburgh, i.

Scotia pontificia papal letters to Scotland before the Pontificate of Innocent III, 1982, ed. R. Somerville, Oxford.

Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791-9, ed. J. Sinclair, Edinburgh.

Synod Records of Lothian and Tweeddale, 1589-1596, 1640-1649, 1977, ed. J. Kirk (Stair Society), Edinburgh.

Architectural description

Nothing is known of the church that must have been at Haddington as early as about 1139, when both the church and its dependent chapels were granted to St Andrews cathedral priory.(1) It is likely to have been damaged when the town was burned by King John in 1216,(2) and further damage was almost certainly caused in the burning of the burgh inflicted by the forces of Edward III in 1355–6, during what was known as the ‘Burnt Candlemass’.(3) There was presumably some rebuilding after both those events, though the fortunes of the burgh were still at a low ebb between 1388 and 1392, when a remission of its fermes had to be allowed.(4) The building that is now seen, which was the most architecturally homogeneous of the late medieval great burgh churches,(5) was started in around 1462. In that year agreement was reached with the priory of St Andrews over the costs of rebuilding the choir, with the prior agreeing to contribute £100 each year for a period of five years.(6) However, plans may have been in preparation for some years before then, if there is any basis in a reputed obligation by Brown of Colstoun to fund construction of the choir and the furnishing of the high altar in 1457.(7) 

References to a number of altars provide some clues to the progress of construction. In 1480 an endowment to the altar of the Blessed Virgin by Richard Cockburn of Harperdene refers to it as being in the north aisle – presumably of the choir - and this location is repeated in a further endowment by Alexander Cockburn in 1543.(8) In 1520 the altar of St James was said to be in the nave, suggesting that the main body of the church may have been structurally largely complete by then.(9) Amongst other altars mentioned are those of St Salvator in 1520, of St John the Baptist in 1530, of Sts Crispin and Crispinian and St Nicholas in 1531, and of the Blessed Virgin and St Andrew in 1539.(10) It was already beginning to be regarded as collegiate at that time, though that status was only formally achieved in about 1540(11) It is likely, however, that some of the intended architectural features were never set in place, including most notably the crown steeple that was evidently intended for the central tower. It must have been a devastating blow when the church was gutted in yet another English attack on the town, in 1548,(12) so soon after nearing completion, and the purchase of timbers in 1554 and 1556 suggests that some repairs were in progress, while holes were being cut in the walls for timbers in 1558.(13)

However, in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation, it was the nave alone that was beinbg repaired and brought back into use for worship, it was only about 420 years later that the damage then inflicted was at last fully reversed. Obtaining the funds from those who had to finance the work may not always have been easy, as in 1562 when representatives were sent to the earl of Moray to seek the money he owed for the ‘bigging’ of the church.(14) Major works were still in progress in the 1570s.(15) It is likely that the usual mixture of pews, galleries and other furnishings progressively accumulated around the focus of the pulpit. Later in the century the sacristy against the ruined choir was reduced in height and remodelled as the burial place of the Maitland family. It is now dominated by the magnificent arcaded monument to Chancellor Lord Maitland, who died in 1595, which was erected in his memory by his son, the first earl of Lauderdale.

In 1808 it was decided that a more regular arrangement of galleries should be introduced to the nave, and James Burn produced designs for doing so, which were carried out under the supervision of James and Archibald Elliot in 1810-11.(16) These changes were more far-reaching than is immediately apparent, involving the heightening of the nave arcades and the reconstruction of the outer aisle walls. The most obvious relic of this campaign is the plaster vaulting over the central vessel of the nave – the only part of the medieval church that had not been intended to be covered by vaults – and over the aisles, where it was made very shallow in order to give greater headroom to the galleries inserted there.

By the mid-nineteenth century there was a new development in the understanding of who was responsible for the fabric, as it came to be accepted by the state in Scotland that it had a responsibility towards the Scottish monasteries and cathedrals as a result of an Act of Annexation of 1587 and of the final abolition of episcopacy in 1689. On the mistaken assumption that Haddington St Mary had been an abbey church, in 1850 it was decided that ‘the right of property in the edifice is vested in the crown’.(17) In fact it was soon afterwards established that this had been a mistake, though the state nevertheless continued to fund and supervise some works on the ruined choir and transepts, and to require that its permission was sought for works that were carried out by others. Thus, in 1875 Lord Elcho sought permission to insert new tracery in the east window of the choir, which was carried out in 1877,(18) taking a lead from the east window of Iona Abbey; this was apparently done under the supervision of William Young, who was to work at Lord Elcho’s house of Gosford soon afterwards. In 1892 there was a restoration of the nave, by George Hay of Hay and Henderson, when the plaster was stripped from the walls and the galleries removed from the aisles.(19)

Seven years later the same architects drew up proposals for restoring the ruined parts of the building, a scheme which apparently also included proposals for a crown steeple over the crossing tower. However, in the face of objections from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and from Lord Wemyss, in 1903 the benefactor who had proposed the work withdrew his offer of funding.(20) Three years after then, in September 1906, the situation of responsibility for the ruined parts of the building was once again clarified  when it was agreed that the onus of care for those parts should be formally transferred to the state.(21) The idea of restoration was to be revived in 1962, when John Wilson Paterson, himself a former Office of Works architect, produced detailed proposals for taking this forward. But it was only following an extended period of gestation, and after the death of Paterson himself, that choir and transepts were eventually restored between 1969 and 1973 to the designs of Crichton Lang of Ian G. Lindsay and Partners. Responsibility for the restored parts then passed from the state to the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland though, perhaps somewhat anomalously, it was decided that the Lauderdale mausoleum in the sacristy should remain in state care.

The shell of the choir and transepts had survived remarkably completely, bearing in mind how long they had been roofless and exposed to the elements; the main areas that had to be reconstructed were parts of the north and west walls of the north transept and the vaults that had covered all those parts. The vaults presented the most difficult problem, since there were doubts that the walls could support the weight of reconstructed stone vaults, and the decision was taken to reconstruct them in fibreglass.

As planned around 1462, Haddington was given a choir of four aisled bays, with a two-storeyed sacristy and treasury off its north side. Full-height rectangular transepts project on each side of a central crossing, above which rises the single-storey of a bell tower that was evidently intended to be capped by a crown steeple on the indications of what are best interpreted as seatings for flyers at the centre of the wall faces. The nave is of five aisled bays. It is a sign of the high ambitions of the burgesses for their church that the choir and transepts were fully vaulted, while in the nave the aisles were vaulted, all of which perhaps suggests a degree of rivalry with Edinburgh St Giles, where everything except the central vessel of the nave was vaulted.

The internal elevation of Haddington shows similarities with those of two Edinburgh churches: Trinity College Church, which was started in 1460, and the remodelled eastern bays of the choir of St Giles of around the same date. The arcade piers are particularly close to those at Trinity College in having shafts on the cardinal axes, and broad angled faces on the diagonal axes, the main difference being that at Trinity College the shafts are filleted. Apart from those of the eastern responds, which are moulded, the Haddington arcade capitals have somewhat thickly carved foliage decoration. As at the two Edinburgh churches, the two storeys are demarcated horizontally by a string course, and triplet vaulting shafts rise from between the arcade arches to divide the bays. At Haddington, however, the arcades are less lofty, occupying only about half of the total elevation, and the clearstorey windows are pushed considerably higher, so that the vaults spring from well below those windows rather than from their sill height as in the Edinburgh churches. There are thus greater expanses of wall area. A further difference is that Haddington’s choir had quadripartite vaulting rather than the tierceron vaulting of Trinity College and St Giles. It therefore seems rather odd that there was tierceron vaulting in Haddington’s south transept, and one wonders what there may have been in that transept to justify the greater enrichment.

Most of the details of the choir design were continued into the nave, so that Haddington was perhaps unique amongst the great burgh churches in the architectural homogeneity of its interior, other than in the absence of high vaulting in the nave. The crossing piers are an augmented version of those in the choir, having pairs of broad diagonal faces separated by a shaft to the flanks, albeit with the shafts on the cardinal axes filleted. So far as can now be judged from the nave elevations following their remodelling in 1811, the nave elevation was in most respects the same as that of the choir. Since the 1892 restoration, which stripped the plaster from the walls, it has been possible to see the traces of the cut-back wall shafts and the wall ribs of the medieval aisle vaulting along the aisle walls. It is also possible to see the traces of the cut-back string course that demarcated the storeys along the arcade walls, which is now at about half-height of the raised arcade arches. It may be mentioned here that clear evidence for the heightening of the aisles in 1811 is to be seen externally. In most of the aisle bays the top three courses of masonry are of slightly more regular ashlar; but the clearest evidence is at the point where the south nave aisle meets the south transept stair turret, where a short length of the medieval wall-head cornice has been preserved.

Despite the overall similarities between the choir and nave, there were a number of minor differences. The foliage carving of the re-set caps appears to be of a marginally more refined quality than in the choir, though it is possible that this is because it was re-cut in either 1811 or 1892. A further difference is that the shafts which rise between the arcade arches are single rather than the triplets of the choir. It is also possible that there was a second string course at sill level of the clearstorey windows, where a narrow cut-back course is to be seen. This would mean that the elevation was perhaps rather closer to that in the choir of Linlithgow St Michael, which similarly has piers with broad diagonal faces, and where work is known to have been started in about 1497, when agreement was reached with St Andrews Cathedral Priory over the costs.(22)

The continuity of approach between choir and nave is additionally evident in the design of the tracery in the two-light clearstorey windows, all of which have pairs of daggers curving around the light heads. However, whereas most of the choir aisle bays have two-light windows with a single cusped figure at the head, after the easternmost bay the nave aisles have three-light windows with two inward curving daggers below a single dagger at the light head. A slightly uncertain aspect of the nave tracery is that, after the first bay on the north and the first three bays on the south, the aisle windows are without cusping, and all of the nave clearstorey windows are uncusped. This could be a result of the work carried out in 1811, but if it is an original feature, this would suggest that the tracery was not installed before the early sixteenth century, when a fashion for uncusped tracery was emerging at churches such as Tullibardine and the Domincan church in St Andrews. On balance the latter may be more likely, since it has already been suggested that there are aspects of the nave elevations that could point to a date no earlier than the end of the fifteenth century, by comparison with Linlithgow; a date around the turn of the fifteenth century may also be indicated by the design of the west front.

An imposing west front was not usually one of the aspirations of the patrons of churches that were of neither cathedral nor monastic status. Of the other great burgh churches that had a central rather than a western tower, and where there was thus scope for an imposing west front, there was evidently nothing of the kind at Edinburgh St Giles, while at Perth St John work in the later middle ages probably never reached as far as the west front. Considered in this context, the west front of Haddington is particularly impressive. The line of the arcade walls is marked by deeply projecting buttresses with multiple offsets that are capped with pinnacles, while the aisle ends, which were raised in 1811, are blank. At the lowest level of the central vessel is a round-arched processional doorway with two round sub-arches carried on a trumeau. There is lavish foliage decoration to the capitals, the outer arch order and the hood moulding that is of a significantly higher quality than anything seen inside the church. Resting on a string course immediately above the doorway arch is a deeply inset six-light window, with the tracery field divided by a pair of massively proportioned sub-arches, each containing an enlarged and attenuated version of the combination of forms seen in the aisle windows, and with a pair of large daggers between the sub-arches. The gable is set back behind a parapet with an openwork balustrade.

This is a noble composition, but not one for which there are obvious prototypes in either Scotland or England. There are, however, a number of parallels for such combinations of elements in the churches of the Low Countries, and it is possible that it was from there that the idea was taken. A building that showed many of the same features as Haddington’s west front, and of which many Scottish merchants trading with the Low Countries must have been aware, was the great Dominican Church in Bruges.(23) This was first completed in 1320, though the greater part of the west front is likely to date from later works of enhancement that were perhaps linked with the vaulting of the nave in 1392–7. That church is now almost entirely lost, but the external forms are known from eighteenth-century engravings, and the west front can be seen to have had the common Netherlandish elements of a round-arched double doorway with a trumeau, set below a great window with massively enlarged sub-arches. It is not clear if in that case there had once been a balustrade at gable height, as was common in the Low Countries, though there was certainly one below the window. Façades composed of these elements could either be treated with relative simplicity, as in the transepts of Our Lady’s Church at Dordrecht of after 1457,(24) or with rather greater richness of effect, as in the transepts of the Great Church at Goes of around 1505.(25) But it is clear that in the Low Countries this approach to façade design was especially favoured.

Features such as the massive enlargement of the window sub-arches may have had their origins in the widespread use of brick in that area; since brick is a rather less tractable material than stone it did not so easily permit slenderness in supporting members, and the consequences may be seen for example in the south windows of the Domincan Church in the Hague, of around 1500. Further support for the design of the Haddington façade being indebted to Netherlandish models may be drawn from a number of similarities that it has with the details of the west tower of the church of St Mary at Dundee,(26) At Dundee, where the tower was probably nearing completion when a bell was donated in 1495, the treatment of the  subdivided round-arched door, and its relationship with the great window subdivided by massive sub-arches, is the closest Scottish parallel for the relationship between door and window at Haddington. Since the telescoped design of Dundee’s tower could hardly be understood without reference to prototypes in the Low Countries, of which that at Utrecht Cathedral is probably the earliest, the case for seeing reflections of Netherlandish models in the west front at Haddington appears to be strengthened.

The tower over the central crossing at Haddington was probably the last part to be built. Like most Scottish towers it was designed to rise only a single storey above the surrounding roofs, and the chosen design is very like that at Edinburgh St Giles, in having three-round arched openings to each face, a type of design that in its basic disposition appears to look back to the early thirteenth-century west tower of Kelso Abbey. Like the tower at Edinburgh, Haddington’s was almost certainly intended to be capped by an eight-arched crown steeple; external seating is provided in the form of two stage projections for the flyers that would have risen up from the centre of each face, though no corresponding provision was made internally. Perhaps as part of a sense of rivalry with Edinburgh, Haddington’s tower is more richly treated than that at Edinburgh, having tabernacles flanking the upper parts of the openings, and a string course at mid-height. That string course is continued across the openings in interlaced transoms, a motif that has a partial parallel in the west oriel window of the hall at Stirling Castle, where work was nearing completion in 1503.(27) Thus, as it has been suggested was the case with the aisle windows and west front, it seems unlikely that work on the tower can have been started long before the years around 1500, and may have been some years after then. That is consistent with the little that can be ascertained about the dating of the Scottish crown steeples, none of which is likely to be earlier than 1500.     

Notes

1. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), 1967, p. 79.

2. Chronica de Mailros, ed. Joseph Stevenson, (Bannatyne Club), 1835, pp. 121-23.

3. Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, ed. D.E.R. Watt et al., Edinburgh, vol. 7, 1996, p. 291.

4. Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vol. 3, p. 200.

5. Accounts of the church will be found in : David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, Edinburgh, vol. 2,  1896, pp. 491–505; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of East Lothian, 1924, pp. 38–43; Christopher Wilson in Colin McWilliam, Buildings of Scotland, Lothian, Harmondsworth, 1978, pp, 30–35; 

6. Illustrations of Scottish History, ed. J. Stevenson, (Maitland Club), Glasgow, 1834, pp. 75–76; Ian B Cowan and David E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, Scotland, London and new York, 2nd ed., 1976, p. 222.

7. National Records of Scotland GD302/106.

8. National Records of Scotland, GD1/39/4/2; GD3/1/11/7/2.

9. National Records of Scotland, B30/21/40/22.

10. Calendar of Writs preserved at Yester House, ed. C.C.H. Harvey and J. Macleod, (Scottish Record Society), 1930, no 394; National records of Scotland, GD1/413/1, pp. 11 and 67.

11. St Andrews Formulare, 1514-46, ed. G. Donaldson and C. Macrae, (Stair Society), vol. 2, no 435.

12. Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings, East Linton, 2000, pp. 317-9.

13. National Records of Scotland GD1/413/4 p. 3;  B30/13/1 fol. 7r; B30/21/79 fol. 14r.

14. National Records of Scotland, GD1/413/3, Haddington Town Council Minutes 1554-80, fol. 89.

15. National Records of Scotland, B30/21/82, i, fols 5-27 and 11, fols 12r-23v.

16. National Records of Scotland, Heritors Records 101/1-2. Discussion of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century restorations will be found in Rosalind K., Marshall, Ruin and Restoration, St Mary’s Church, Haddington, Haddington, 2001.

17. National Records of Scotland, MW/1/666, lawyer’s opinion following submission of a memorial from the heritors of Haddington.

18. National Records of Scotland, MW/1/666, correspondence of May 1975.

19. Online Dictionary of Scottish Architects.

20. National Records of Scotland, MW/1/666, correspondence of 29 March 1900 to 7 May 1903.

21. National Records of Scotland, MW/1/908.

22. Liber Cartarum Prioratus Sanct Andree, ed. T. Thomson, (Bannatyne Club), 1841, p. xxxviii.

23. Monique Dewulf, ‘De kerkelijke architektuur van de Dominikanen te Brugge’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeshiedenis en de Oudheidkunde, vol. 18, 1959–69, pp. 107–57.

24. Rijkscommissie voor de Monumentenbeschrijving, Kunstreisboek voor Nederland, Amsterdam, 1977, p. 428. It was only about 420 years later that the damage then inflicted was at last fully reversed.

25. Kunstreisboek voor Nederland, 1977, p. 524.

26. A. Maxwell, Old Dundee: Ecclesiastical, Burghal and Social, Edinburgh and Dundee, 1891; Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, vol. 3, pp. 123–32.

27. Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 2, p. 408.