sittings there" in domo Fratrum Predicatorum" (Hailes, Ann., vol. iii. p. 148).

It is unnecessary here to give the canons that were enacted in the first Provincial Council held in Scotland. The learned reader will find them all, as well as the canons of later Provincial Coun cils and Diocesan Synods, duly recorded in the 'Concilia Scotia' (tom. i. and ii., Bannatyne Club). Suffice it to say, that they dealt with such matters as the mode of electing the "Conservator," the teaching of religion to children, the administration of sacraments on the Lord's Day, teinds, and various matters affecting the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church.

In the spring of the year 1242, David de Bernham held an important Diocesan Synod at Musselburgh, where decrees of a somewhat similar character were enacted, and were ordered "to be published in every parish church, and strictly observed by all concerned." These canons will also be found in the volumes above referred to.

1 This is the second canon, and in regard to it Hailes (Ann., vol. iii. p. 149) observes that in it "every one will perceive the office and duty of a Moderator of the General Assembly. Our forefathers, at the Reformation, were not disposed to condemn every salutary form approved by the experience of ages, merely because it happened to be Popish."

A

CHAPTER XI.

On the Scolocs of the Thirteenth Century.

MONG the list of churches dedicated by Bishop David de Bernham in the year 1242, it is mentioned that there was one church that was not dedicated but reconciled (No. 20)— "reconciliata post effusionem sanguinis "-namely, that of the Holy Trinity at Berwick-on-Tweed. There had been, it would appear, a deadly feud between two Scolocs or Scologs (clerici scholares), and blood-human blood-had polluted the house of God. These two individuals had quarrelled, in all probability, outside the sacred building, and one of them being the weaker, and alarmed by the strength and savage aspect of his assailant, had fled into the church and taken refuge within its walls. He was followed, however, by the other, who, in a moment of overpowering passion, imbrued his hands in his adversary's blood, and laid him prostrate and dead upon the floor. This fatal result would not at all be

unlikely when we consider the barbarousness of the times. At all events, blood was shed. The sanctuary was desecrated, and therefore, according to the custom of the Church in those days, it required purification or reconcilement; and hence, on the 15th day of April 1242, David de Bernham proceeded to Berwick - on - Tweed, and there and then by a solemn service, the terms of which are recorded in his Pontifical, he reconciled this desecrated building.

But who were these Scolocs ? The question opens up to us an important inquiry as to the means and modes of education in these comparatively dark ages. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it would appear, the Church of Scotland had still preserved to it three offices of an educational character which had belonged to the Church of former centuries, and which the important changes introduced by Malcolm, Margaret, and the monarchs immediately descended from them, had not completely swept away. There were, first of all, "the Scoloc;" secondly, "the Master of the School;" and thirdly, "the Ferleiginn or Lecturer." The Scoloc or Scholar was the first or lowest of these offices, and the person who was so designated seems to have been an ecclesiastical clerk, whose duty it was

to attend upon the canons and perform other subordinate offices in the service of the Church. The very term, however, would seem to imply that he was at the same time undergoing some educational process-at the hands of the Master of the School at one time, and the Ferleiginn or Lecturer at another; so that, in addition to the education that went on in the monasteries, priories, and convents of Scotland in the middle ages, there was another mode of education being carried on by the secular clergy in and about their respective churches. There are records in existence which show that there were Scolocs at the time above referred to at Ellon, the ancient capital of the earldom of Buchan; at Kirkcudbright, in the south of Scotland; at Arbuthnott, in the Mearns; at Fetheressan (Fetteresso); and at places in the county of Fife and elsewhere.

The late Dr Joseph Robertson, of the Register House, Edinburgh, makes a valuable contribution to this subject in the fifth volume of 'The Spalding Club Miscellany' (Appendix to Preface), in which he relates the following story in regard to Scolocs that were then connected with the church at Kirkcudbright: "A writer of the twelfth century, Reginald of Durham, sometimes also called Reginald of Coldingham, takes occa

sion, in his lively' Book of the Miracles of St Cuthbert,' to relate certain incidents which befell the famous St Aelred of Rievaux, in the year 1164, during a journey into Pictland—that is, Galloway, it would seem, or perhaps more generally the provinces of Scotland lying to the south of the Forth and the Clyde. The saintly abbot happened to be at Cuthbrictis Khirche,' or Kirkcudbright as it is now called, on the feast day of its great patron. A bull, the marvel of the parish for his strength and ferocity, was dragged to the church, bound with cords, to be offered as an alms and oblation to St Cuthbert. 'The Clerks of the Church,' says Reginald, 'the Scolofthes, as they are called in the Pictish speech [clerici], irreverently proposed that the bull should be baited in the churchyard. It was in vain that the elder and wiser of their number remonstrated against the profanity. "There is no Cuthbert here," was the scoffing answer, "nor is this a place to show his power for all his stone chapel." With this the speaker unbound the bull, and began to bait him with the rest. The sequel need scarcely be told. The bull broke loose, and rushed upon his assailants, but hurt no one except only the scholar aforesaid (prædictam scholasticum solummodo). This would