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CHARTER BY WILLIAM t,
CONFIRMING TO THE BISHOPS AND CULDEES OF BRECHIN THE RIGHT OF MARKET GRANTED
BY DAVID I.
WILLELMUS, Rex Scotie,
omnibus probis hominibus to this Scotie ; Salutem : Sciatis me concessisse
et carta mea confirmasse Episcopis et Keldeis de ecclesia de Brechin,
donationem illam quam dedit eis Rex David, avus meus, per cartam suam de
foro imperpetuum habituro in villa per dies Dominicos adeo libere sicut
Episcopus Sanctiandree forum habet. Testibus, Andrea, Episcopo de Catones,
Nicholaio, cancellario. Apud Brechin.
Translation.
William, King of Scotland, to
all honest men of the whole of Scotland, greeting: Know me to have granted,
and by this my charter to have confirmed, to the bishops and Culdees of the
church of Brechin that donation which King David, my grandfather, gave them
by his charter, of market to be held in perpetuity in the city on the
Lords-days (or Sabbaths) as freely as the Bishop of St Andrews holds a
market. Witnesses, Andrew, Bishop of Caithness, and Nicholas, the
chancellor. At Brechin.
Note.—The original of this
charter does not now exist, but it is copied into a transumpt of the
principal charters of the church of Brechin, made before Robert, Bishop of
Dunkeld, at the instance of John, Bishop of Brechin, on the 16th May 1433,
which transumpt is No. 54 of the charters in the charter-room of the city of
Brechin; and it is also copied into another transumpt of a variety of
charters made at the sight of the sheriff and a number of landed gentlemen
of Forfarshire, on 21st July 1450, and which last mentioned transumpt is No.
106 of the charters of the town. Both transumpts are printed, by the late
Patrick Chalmers, Esq., of Aldbar, in his “ Registrum Episcopatus
Brechinensis,” vol. i. pages 56 and 138. The above copy is taken from the
original transumpts, and collated with Mr Chalmers’s printed charters. Mr
Chalmers also prints briefly, (i. 9,) a transumpt of the same charter, made
before the Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld in 1318.
We stated in our first
edition that Brechin was a royal burgh in the twelfth century. This
statement has since been contradicted, and it has been assumed that Brechin
held of an ecclesiastical superior, and that, as after the Reformation, that
superiority was vested by Act of Parliament in the crown, Brechin only
became a royal burgh in the time of Charles I. in 1641. No evidence exists
that the burgh had privileges from the bishop, although many tenements in
town were held feu of him and of the other ecclesiastics connected with the
burgh; and of the Knights Templars; and also of various laymen, as well as
in free burgage. In the work entitled “ An Inquiry into the Rise and
Progress of Parliament,” by Alexander Wight, Esq., advocate, Edinburgh,
edition 1806, page 36, we find it said, “ At what precise time the erection
of such corporations (royal burghs) first took place in Scotland, cannot
indeed be discovered with certainty. The oldest charters to burghs now
extant, or of which we have any knowledge from later instruments, were given
by William the Lion; and the most, if not all, of these, are rather to be
considered as grants of particular privileges to the inhabitants, than as
charters erecting them into communities or bodies corporate, with power to
choose their own magistrates/' and, in proof of this remark, Mr Wight gives
a charter by James III. to the town of Inverness, which recites verbatim
four charters by William the Lion and other princes, in which grants by
David I. are mentioned. Now this is exactly the case of Brechin, which is
included in the roll of the royal burghs from the earliest period. |
