Note 361 — Chapter X · THE CHURCH.

Myln, Vit. Dunk. Ep., pp. 5–10. Reg. Aberd., vol. i. p. 76, note; vol. ii. p. 58. Reg. Morav., Nos. 46, 47, 48. Keith, Pref. p. 10. According to Fordun, l. viii. ch. 73, Earl Gilbert gave a third of his earldom to Inch Affray, a third to the bishopric of Dunblane, and only retained a third for himself and his heirs; and the same earl is often described as the Founder of the see. In a strict sense this is doubtful, for Dunblane was undoubtedly amongst the nine Sees existing, according to Ailred, at David’s death; and the poverty of the bishopric five years after Gilbert’s death, in 1223, hardly agrees with the supposed donation of a third of his earldom. Inch Affray was the Foundation of Gilbert, upon which he lavished the tithes of his Can, his rents, his fines, and his offerings. Yet that the bishopric was endowed by the earls is a certainty, because in 1442 James II. declared, that the temporalities of the bishopric, hitherto held of the Earl of Strathearn, were henceforth to be held of the Crown. When the Pope granted to the Bishop a fourth of the tithes of the whole diocese for the support of himself, a Dean, and Canons, the Bishop seems to have abandoned “all right of pension out of the lands or churches of the Earl of Menteith,” who was permitted to found a house for Regular Canons at Inch Mahomoc, making over the church of Kippen to found a Canonry in Dunblane Cathedral, and the church of Callander for the Bishop himself. This arrangement wears very much the appearance of a compromise; as if, at the revival of the see, David had assigned the earldoms of Strathearn and Menteith to the bishop as his diocese, neither of the earls, in the first instance, resigning the church-lands in their possession, until the Earl of Menteith waived all claim to the patronage of the See, in return for the permission to found the family Priory of Inch Mahomoc; whilst the bishop waived all further claim upon the earldom of Menteith, in return for the churches of Kippen and Callander. The diocese was thenceforth confined, in point of fact, to the earldom of Strathearn, in which all its temporalities were situated; and in return for the patronage of the see, no longer disputed by the Earls of Menteith, the successors of Gilbert would have no longer had any reluctance to carry out his intentions.—Vide Innes’ Sketches, etc.; Inch Affray, pp. 204 to 219. In earlier times each earl would have placed his bishop in the family establishments of Inch Affray and Inch Mahomoc.