Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

lxvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE
as a bugbear, was in a very trivial degree indeed the cause of
the lamentable deficiency of Scottish writs and memorials,
which characterizes and distinguishes Scotland from almost
every European State. The deprivation in question is
chiefly owing, in the first place, to the destruction of the
records of the Church, who had so extensive a jurisdiction in
their ultimate and crowded tribunal of the ' Sente, 1 held at
the metropolitan city of St Andrews, as well as in the sub-
ordinate courts, in matters wholly ecclesiastical, or deemed
to be so, but since absorbed by the Court of Session. These
included all cases of marriage, separation, divorce, legiti-
macy, bastardy, and descent, defamation, teinds, contracts,
and obligations; and everything turning upon the nature of an
oath, opening the widest field to discussion and litigation ;
besides, innumerable questions apparently of a civil kind,
connected with the justice administered in the high Baronial
Church Courts over feudal vassals and rentallers. Then
there were the services, and infeftments, and copyhold ad-
missions of the latter in land, embracing the greater part of
all Scotland, the confirmation of the testaments of all, and
the cognizance in every case of executry and moveable suc-
cession. It was before the ecclesiastical tribunals likewise,
that transumpts or exemplifications of the most solemn and
important civil deeds were taken, at the instance of laics,
and duly entered for better preservation in their Registers —
the adhibition of the sacred authority being held to give the
greatest weight to the procedure. All the mass of Records
embodying the above transactions, besides the warrants,
valuable chronicles, chartularies, original charters, and title-
deeds, &c. &c. were kept within the walls of the cathedral
or religious house — in the case of the former chiefly in the
archives of the Consistorial Court, which formed a part of
the august edifice — with whose destinies they were thus
united ; and nearly the whole, excepting some chartularies
and consistorial MSS. embracing divorce and executry cases,
have perished. Secondly, the deficiency alluded to has been
attributed, although in a far less extent, to the shipwreck
of certain deeds and muniments at sea on their return to