Series 1 > Statutes of the Scottish Church, 1225-1559

296 GRANT BY THE KING [app. ii.]
time provost and possessor of the same; or if it has become
vacant by resignation, let it be put thus: now lately become
vacant by the unconditional and simple resignation of our
beloved Magister J. G., last provost of the same, voluntarily
made into our hands and by us accepted by royal right; [an
appointment] pertaining by full royal right to our provision,
disposition and donation in all respects, as often as it shall
happen that the same becomes vacant. And him, personally
in our presence for the purpose, we put in corporal possession
(as it were),1 of the said provostry, its rights and pertinents,
and of royal right invest with the same by putting our ring
on his finger; the said provostry to be held and had and
governed by the said Dominus J. K. for the whole time of
his life: with all and sundry its lands, churches, fruits,
returns, proceeds, rights, tithes, leases, and emoluments; its
houses, buildings, liberties, immunities, privileges, exemptions,
perquisites, honours and dignities.
uncanonical privilege in the face of the world. For in the long controversy of the
Middle Ages about investitures the church had, especially through Gregory vn.
and his successors, successfully contended against lay investiture by ring and
staff, not merely to ecclesiastical offices but to the temporalities therewith
associated. James seems to rejoice in his ‘royal right’ to institute, with his
own ring, to a distinctly spiritual office with its rights and pertinents, all mention
of the ordinary of the diocese, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, being omitted.
See Dr. Robertson’s Preface, vol. i. pp. ccxxiv-ccxxvi.
1 Seu quasi ; i.e. symbolically. See Du Cange on quasi.
FINIS.