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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Josephine on Thursday 25 March 21 20:25 GMT (UK)
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As I make my way through some of the kirk sessions records on ScotlandsPeople, I find myself feeling exceedingly glad that I can't be compelled to answer to a religious court.
I've just read about a woman who had a relationship with a married man and ended up pregnant. The church elders found the man but couldn't find the woman, so they had to go in search of her, and the entry referred to her as "a fugitive from church justice."
It's one thing to voluntarily place oneself under the authority of a religious court for specific issues, or to ask a cleric for advice, but this was something else.
Just think: 300 years ago, a woman and/or man found guilty of fornication or adultery could be compelled to appear in church wearing sackcloth and to sit on a special seat in full view of the congregation while being verbally abused and forced to show regret. They also had to pay a fine.
We can't judge people in the past by today's standards, I know, but it sounds so humiliating.
I want to go back in time and tell that fugitive woman: "Run, Bessie, run!"
Regards,
Josephine
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What concerned the Kirk Session was any child unprovided for becoming a burden on the parish funds. Money was aye short and the Kirk was the social security system!
Skoosh.
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What concerns me is that it was always the woman who was punished in some way, as though the man had nothing to do with it! I have an ancestor who had an illegitimate child and got her own back by naming it after its father, her employer, who could well have abused his position to take advantage of her. The parish caught up with him and made him pay for the child's upkeep.
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Just recently there was quite a lot in the news etc about the way Catholic girls in Ireland were so cruelly treated if they became pregnant,worked so hard and their babies taken from them for adoption.
As one such baby ,now a middle aged man ,said the fathers were never hounded or admonished by the priest.Just thr girls.
And all this when some priests were paedophiles, as many a choir boy / altar boy has testified.
Viktoria.
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As the lassie was left holding a wean which, unless her folk helped out, would be kept by the parish. "Its the rich wot get the pleasure while the poor wot get the blame" an age-old problem. The Session generally sent elders in pursuit of the Lothario to pay up or marry her! Robert Burns was so hounded! ;D
Skoosh.
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There is an article in RC Reference Library on the Manx version "Presentments for Fornication". (Wot I wrote ;) )
As Skoosh said, it was all about chasing the errant fathers, and getting them to pay for the upkeep of their illegitimate children.
The Manx women were charged with having to present themselves to their local vicar (or curate, or whatever!) in order to "confess" the name of the man.
Failure to do so resulted in a fine of 2s 11d.
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Burns was certainly cheesed-off by the kirk's discipline and, from memory, wrote,
"So gently scan your brother man, likewise your sister woman,
They didnae gang a-kennin wrang,
To err is only human! ;D or something.
A Dumfries barmaid gave birth shortly after his wife Jean had twins, to duck the country-clash Robert presented Jean with an addition to the family.
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Just adding a link to the original thread:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,743215
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Interesting! Thanks, all.
I understand why they did it back in the day but reading the entries still bothers me.
Guilty men were required to wear sackcloth and sit on the naughty seat, too. They also had to pay a fine.
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I want to go back in time and tell that fugitive woman: "Run, Bessie, run!"
Regards,
Josephine
I'm glad you didn't because the only reason I discovered the whereabouts of an errant (pre census) 18th century Yorkshire wife/mother was due to the fact that her name appeared online during a search, which brought up one southern county's records. She had been accused of fornication and the couple married the next day.
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I knew, as soon as I read the topic we were going to read about "the Kirk"!
There were 2 good movies made about single mothers and their awful treatment in Ireland at the hands of God-fearing nuns!
1. The Magdalene Sisters - a drama about three teenage girls sent to Magdalene asylums ('Magdalene Laundries') homes for women who were labelled as "fallen" by their families or society.
2. Philomena
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At least the kirk was consistent and did not distinguish between the men and the women or between social classes when it came to "the discipline of the kirk".
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The Kirk had no nuns, good, bad or indifferent. The Kirk-Sessions dealt with the welfare of the folk, the poor, the sick and the education of the weans. The Session clerk was often the school-teacher. The Heritors of the parish were responsible for the maintenance of the kirk but getting cash from them was a perennial problem and money was always short.
Industrialisation, the famine & epidemics of the 19th century saw the old system unable to cope, hence the Poor Laws. Welfare passed to the Poor Inspectors and institutions of which the Poor House was the most important. The Kirk lost what powers it had over morality, penance etc & the Kirk itself split at the Disruption largely over the dead-hand of the heritors & their patronage, amongst other things.
Skoosh.
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My reply was poorly phrased. I did not intend to convey the Kirk had nuns, that particular reference was made to another post.
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I want to go back in time and tell that fugitive woman: "Run, Bessie, run!"
Regards,
Josephine
I'm glad you didn't because the only reason I discovered the whereabouts of an errant (pre census) 18th century Yorkshire wife/mother was due to the fact that her name appeared online during a search, which brought up one southern county's records. She had been accused of fornication and the couple married the next day.
LOL, I'm so torn, because those busybodies have helped solve a mystery in my extended tree as well.
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At least the kirk was consistent and did not distinguish between the men and the women or between social classes when it came to "the discipline of the kirk".
Let's hope so.
I've noticed the cleric (in the register I've seen) used some discretion while recording disbursements to the poor: almost everyone was named, except for "a certain person" or "a certain family" in the parish. He made note of money or assistance given to "strangers," so I'm guessing it wasn't a case of not knowing the person's name.
(This isn't a criticism, just an observation.)
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"Stranger" means someone passing through the parish and not resident there.
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@ Josephine, I think there are about 1500 parishes in the Church of Scotland at present so back in the day about the same, (give or take,) session-clerks recording the parish business in the registers.
Money given to strangers might include soldiers/sailors passing through the parish making their way home, etc, etc, also Bible scholars who travelled the country attending communion services and "gaun-aboot-folk!" looking for a meal and a nights lodging.
Every parish was different and it looks like a lifetimes study awaits you but I doubt if the lairds son would be disciplined as per the off-spring of a cobbler! ;D
Good Luck,
Skoosh.
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"Stranger" means someone passing through the parish and not resident there.
Thanks, that is what I understood it to mean.
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@ Josephine, I think there are about 1500 parishes in the Church of Scotland at present so back in the day about the same, (give or take,) session-clerks recording the parish business in the registers.
Money given to strangers might include soldiers/sailors passing through the parish making their way home, etc, etc, also Bible scholars who travelled the country attending communion services and "gaun-aboot-folk!" looking for a meal and a nights lodging.
Every parish was different and it looks like a lifetimes study awaits you but I doubt if the lairds son would be disciplined as per the off-spring of a cobbler! ;D
Good Luck,
Skoosh.
Interesting; thank you.
In the case I found, it was the laird's grandson who was guilty of fornication, and whose relationship to the laird was noted in the kirk session.
I had previously found the baptism of an illegitimate child, whose father (of the same surname as the laird) was mentioned as staying at the laird's home, but the relationship between the father of the child and the laird was not given; instead, the baptismal record named the father's father (someone unknown to me, living in another city).
Finding the kirk session entries meant I had identified another son for the laird (the laird being my 8x-g-grandfather or something like that) and the only son of that son. When I put two and two together, I actually put my arms up in the air and shouted, "Woohoo!" Of course, I haven't been able to find anything else on either of the men or the illegitimate child, but it's still something.
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Trouble with these lairds was some of their sons being educated in England or getting commissions in the army and becoming completely Anglified, some became Episcopalians and no longer attended the Kirk anyhow yet as Heritors of a parish they had the right to exercise their patronage and appoint its minister.
This interference was one of the principal causes of the Disruption of the 1840's with many ministers and members joining the Free Church of Scotland. In some cases only the kilted gentry & their servants & tenants were left in the Kirk.
The country people only got the lairds off their back by the Crofters Acts of 1886, the so-called "Crofters Magna Carta", by which they had guaranteed security of tenure, a fair rent and compensation for improvements on leaving. Their new-found freedom was put to the test in 1888 in Shetland when two lairds claimed their centuries old right to a third of 300 whales driven ashore in a voe, this challenge went to the Sheriff Court in Lerwick which the people won but the lairds tried their hand at the Court of Session and lost again!
Thankfully folk no longer eat whales in Scotland or use whale-oil, and its the kilted lairds themselves might need a preservation order. ;D
Bests,
Skoosh.
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Very interesting, Skoosh; thank you!
I love the saying, "the kilted gentry," BTW. I've never heard it before -- it's great.