08.05 - Care of the Poor
V. Care of the Poor.
[Sidenote: Oppression of the Poor.]
I must still add that the same enlightened principles which guided them to make careful provision for these important objects, led them also to take a kindly interest in the humbler poor and aged, and to urge both on the state and on the members of the church the duty they owed to this long despised and neglected class of the population. First, for the poor peasantry who were not paupers, but who, they allege, had been grievously oppressed by the exactions of the clergy in the times immediately preceding, they present the following earnest plea: "With the griefe of our hearts we heare that some gentlemen are now as cruell over their tenants as ever were the Papists, requiring of them (the tiends and) whatsoever they afore payed to the kirk, so that the Papistical tyrannie shall onely be changed into the tyrannie of the lord and laird. We dare not flatter your honours, neither yet is it profitable for you that we so doe: (for neither shall we,) if we permit cruelty to be used; neither shall ye, who by your authoritie ought to gaine-stand such oppression, nor yet they that use the same, escape God’s heavie and fearfull judgements. The gentlemen, barones, earles, lords, and others must be content to live upon their just rents, and suffer the kirk to be restored to her (right and) liberty; that by her restitution, the poore, who heretofore, by the cruell Papists, have been spoiled and oppressed, may now receive some comfort and relaxation, and their tiends and other exactions be cleane discharged and no more taken in time comming. The uppermost claith, corps-present, clerk-maile, the pasche-offering, tiend-ale, and all handlings[216] upaland can neither be required nor recieved of good conscience."[217] [Sidenote: Exactions of the Medieval Church.] [Sidenote: The Oppressors relentless.] The history of the world, the history of the Christian church, has few passages more noble than this, where these poor ministers, not yet assured of decent provision for their own maintenance, boldly undertake the patronage of the peasantry, and say they would rather suffer themselves than ask that teinds should be exacted from those who had been so long ground down, not only by the exaction of these from their crofts and even from their gardens, but also by a multitude of other imposts, which, although their very names are now almost forgotten in Scotland, had been long felt to be a grievous oppression. Was it any wonder that those crushed and down-trodden classes should rally round their protectors, and under their kindly and godly training should grow up to be a strength to the church and a power in the state? Charming fancy pictures are still sometimes drawn of the stately monastery—with its handsome church and kindly and cultured monks—as a centre of civilising and Christianising influences to the district in which it was erected. These influences no doubt had a certain reality in the early ages of the church, and even in the days of the good Queen Margaret; but in Scotland, at least, these days had long passed away before the sixteenth century; and the monasteries, as a whole, had become a source of weakness and scandal, rather than of strength and honour to the dominant church. In fact, their wealth, being to a large extent derived from the teinds of parishes, should have been devoted to the spiritual interests of these parishes, whereas the vicars appointed by them being generally put off with a miserable pittance and left largely dependent on these hated and oppressive exactions—corpse presents, uppermost cloth, Pasche-offerings—could not fail to alienate the peasantry from the monasteries and their rural representatives. Such charges of oppression could never have been so publicly made against them had they not been notoriously true. And if further evidence were needed, it may be found in abundance in the poems of Sir David Lindsay and the Wedderburns. The picture the former has drawn of the poor peasant driven out of house and holding[218] by these oppressive exactions is known to be true to the life; and contributed greatly to the overthrow of the merciless oppressors who, until the very eve of the triumph of the Reformation, could not be persuaded either to abolish or abate their dues.[219]
FOOTNOTES:
[180] [The six were John Wynram, John Spottiswoode, John Willock, John Douglas, John Row, and John Knox (supra, p. 99).] [181] Spottiswoode’s History, Spot. Soc. ed., i. 371, 372.
[182] Supra, pp. 112, 113.
[183] The appointment of such an official as chief minister of the English congregation of Frankfort had, however, been urged by Knox’s opponents there, but was refused by his party (Discourse of Troubles at Frankfort, pp. xiv, xlvii, cxvii, cxxxv-cxxxviii, cxlvi, cxlvii).
[184] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 409, 410; Laing’s Knox, iv. 177.
[185] The great services Coverdale had rendered to the cause of Protestantism by his translation of the Scriptures did not suffice to blot out from the minds of Elizabeth and her ministers the remembrance of his connection with Knox and Goodman. He was welcomed at the consecration of Archbishop Parker, though he came in his black gown, for they could not well do that without him; but all Grindal’s efforts failed to secure for him a Welsh bishopric, or even to get him left unmolested in the parochial benefice he conferred on him.
[186] Even in St Andrews, with all its equipment of schools and colleges, the common people are represented in 1547 as welcoming Knox’s offer of a public disputation, because though they could not all read his papers they could understand what he addressed to them viva voce (Laing’s Knox, i. 189).
[187] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 518; Laing’s Knox, ii. 185.
[188] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 526; Laing’s Knox, ii. 191.
[189] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 530; Laing’s Knox, ii. 194.
[190] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 530; Laing’s Knox, ii. 194.
[191] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 577; Laing’s Knox, ii. 233.
[192] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 578; Laing’s Knox, ii. 234, 235.
[193] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 581; Laing’s Knox, ii. 236, 237.
[194] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 532; Laing’s Knox, ii. 195, 196. [Readers who were able to exhort and explain the Scriptures were to have their stipends augmented until they attained the honour of a minister (Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 536, 537; Laing’s Knox, ii. 199, 200).]
[195] [The readers who had "any gift of interpretation" were to take part in these meetings (Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 590; Laing’s Knox, ii. 244).] [196] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 539; Laing’s Knox, ii. 202.
[197] ["It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the apostles’ time there hath been these orders of ministers in Christ’s church: bishops, priests, and deacons" (Liturgies of Edward VI., Parker Society, p. 331).] [198] The jest attributed to Queen Elizabeth that she had made a bishop but marred a good preacher shows this.
[199] In the chief towns, just as in Geneva, there seems from early times to have been a common or "general session," although there were several congregations in each, as in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Perth.
[200] Even the Second Book of Discipline does not sharply distinguish between the lesser and greater eldership or presbytery; and Gillespie admits they were not distinguished in the primitive church, though he holds that both were needed in Scotland to do the work which the one presbytery did in the primitive church (infra, pp. 230-233).
[201] [The Book of Common Order distinguishes between the weekly meeting of the ministers and elders in their assembly or consistory, and the weekly meeting of the congregation for the interpretation of the Scriptures (Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 411-413; Laing’s Knox, iv. 177-179). For the nature and object of the exercise see infra, pp. 170-173.]
[202] [The bull, which is printed in Concilia Scotiae, ii. 3, is dated "xiiij kalendas Junij pontificatus nostri anno nono," i.e., the 19th of May 1225.] [203] See Schenkel’s article, "Kirche," in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopaedie.
[204] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 68; Laing’s Knox, ii. 110.
[205] See Calvin’s Institutes, book iv. chap. ii.—"As no city or village can exist without a magistrate and government, so the Church of God stands in need of a spiritual polity of its own. This is altogether distinct from the civil government, and is so far from hindering or impairing it, that it rather does much to aid and promote it."
[206] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 413; Laing’s Knox, iv. 203.
[207] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 414-417; Laing’s Knox, iv. 204-206. If this humanity is not observed in private as well as in public, there is danger lest instead of discipline we fall into a kind of Gehenna, and instead of correctors and educators become executioners of the brethren (Calvin).
[208] The form of absolution then appointed to be used was, with consent of Henderson, modified by the Westminster divines into the shape in which it appears in their Directory for Church Government and Excommunication, and as modified was afterwards inserted in our Form of Process of 1707.
[209] La France protestant, deuxieme edition, iii. 530.
[210] Book of Common Order, in Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 412; Laing’s Knox, iv. 179.
[211] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 587-589; Laing’s Knox, ii. 242, 243.
[212] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 590, 591; Laing’s Knox, ii. 244, 245.
[213] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 547; Laing’s Knox, ii. 209.
[214] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 548-550; Laing’s Knox, ii. 209-211.
[215] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 561; Laing’s Knox, ii. 220, 221.
[216] [Dr Mitchell seems to have thought that handlings should be read haldings.]
[217] Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 562, 563. [The words which in this quotation are enclosed in parentheses are not in the copy of the Book of Discipline preserved by Knox (Laing’s Knox, ii. 221, 222). Instead of the words, "if we permit cruelty to be used," that copy reads, "if you permit suche creualtie to be used"; and after the words, "comfort and relaxation," is the clause, "Concludit be the Lordis."] [218] The pauper comes on the stage with the words—
"Of your almis, gude folks, for God’s luife of heavin, For I have motherles bairns either sax or seavin;" and proceeds in piteous strain—
"Gude man, will ye gif me of your charitie, And I sall declair yow the black veritie. My father was ane auld man, and a hoir, And was of age four scoir of yeirs and moir. And Mald, my mother, was four scoir and fyfteine, And with my labour I did thame baith susteine. Wee had are meir, that caryit salt and coill, And everie ilk yeir scho brocht us hame ane foill. Wee had thrie ky, that was baith fat and fair, Nane tydier into the toun of Air. My father was sa waik of blude, and bane, That he deit, quhairfoir my mother maid gret maine: Then scho deit, within ane day or two; And thair began my povertie and wo. Our gude gray meir was baittand on the feild, And our Land’s laird tuik hir for his hyreild, The vickar tuik the best cow be the heid, Incontinent, quhen my father was deid. And quhen the vickar hard tel how that my mother Was deid, fra hand he tuke to him ane uther: Then Meg, my wife, did murne baith evin and morow, Till at the last scho deit for verie sorow: And quhen the vickar hard tell my wyfe was dead, The thrid cow he cleikit be the heid. Thair umest clayis, that was of rapploch gray, The vickar gart his clark bear them away. Quhen all was gane, I micht mak na debeat, Bot with my bairns past for till beg my meat. Now, haif I tald yow the blak veritie, How I am brocht into this miserie."
—Laing’s Lindsay’s Poetical Works, 1879, ii. 99, 102, 103.
[219] [In the Articles addressed by some of the temporal lords and barons to the queen regent, and sent by her to the Provincial Council convened in Edinburgh a few weeks before the Reformation burst like a tempest upon the country, it was requested that "the corps presentes, kow, and [um]est claith, and the silvir commonlie callit the kirk richts, and Pasch offrands quhilk is takin at Pasch fra men and women for distribution of the sacrament of the blessit body and blood of Jesus Christ," should no longer be extorted under pain of excommunication or debarring from the sacraments, but left to the free will of the givers (Concilia Scotiae, ii. 148, 149). The Council met this demand for reformation by enacting that in future the poor should be freed from mortuary dues, while those not quite so poor were only to pay them in a modified form; and the small tithes and oblations were to be taken up before Lent so as to avoid the appearance of selling the sacrament (Ibid., ii. 167, 168, 174). When, on the 27th of May 1560, the reforming vicar of Lintrathin raised a summons against his parishioners for payment of his teinds, "the cors present and umest clayth of all yeris and termes bigane restand unpayit" were specially excepted from his claim (Spalding Miscellany, iv. 121).]