Series 3 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Sixth volume)

INTRODUCTION
English foundations of the ‘ chantry ’ type. It has been
said by Professor Hamilton Thompson, writing of the
English colleges, that
‘ the cathedral model . . . was followed in the lesser
collegiate churches but with the difference that they
seldom possessed the full complement of dignities to
be found in a cathedral church. In its simplest form,
the chapter consisted merely of a dean and a certain
number of canons, each with his prebend.’1
Dunbar Collegiate Church was founded for a dean, arch¬
priest and eight canons. In Scotland, the more usual title
of the head of a collegiate church was provost. Doubtless,
royal foundations, like Restalrig and the Chapel Royal of
Stirling, were to have deans ; but the dean at Trinity
College, Edinburgh, was to be the second dignitary of the
college. Provision for an archpriest was still more un¬
common in Scotland ; only at Our Lady College, Glasgow,
a much later foundation, was such an office created ; and
to find contemporary English instances we have to refer
to the diocese of Exeter. But the archpriest of Our Lady
College was the second official of a college of chantry
priests ; and the archpriests mentioned in England, e.g. at
St. Michael’s, Penkevel, near Truro, in 1319, and at Bere-
Ferrers, in January 1333-34,2 were in each case at the head
of incorporations of chantry chaplains ; whereas the arch¬
priest of the Collegiate Church of Dunbar was responsible
for the parochial cure of souls and the supervision of the
chaplains serving the outlying chapels.
The income of the collegiate church was to be derived
from the revenues of the church of Dunbar (whose ample
resources are mentioned in the charter 3) augmented by
1 ‘ Notes on Secular Canons ’ in Archaeol. Journal, LXXIV, pp. 151-52.
2 Oliver, Monasticon Dioc. Exon., pp. 66, 289.
* It is valued in an early roll of benefices at 180 merks (R.P.S.A., p. 30).
At a later date, its revenues had declined in value.