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CAN AND CONVETH.

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penny or some trifling sum de unaquaque domo unde fumus exit.

Conveth seems to have been a due collected by a lord from his vassals, perhaps on the occasion of journeys. Malcolm iv. granted to the canons of Scone, from every plough belonging to the church of Scone, which had been lately burnt, for their conveth at the Feast of All Saints, a cow and two swine, and four clamni of meal and ten thraves of oats, and ten hens and two hundred eggs, and ten bunches of candles, and four nummatus of soap, and twenty half mela of cheese. The same charter granted the canons this privilege, that no one should take conveth from their men and lands except with their consent.1

In a dispute between the Bishop of St. Andrews and Duncan of Arbuthnot, tried in a Synod held at Perth 3d April 1206, witnesses swore that they had seen the preceding bishops in that land of Kirkton of Arbuthnot taking conveth as if the land and the native men upon it were their own, and that no one gainsaid them. Not finding it easy to give any etymology of the word, I asked my everready friend Mr. Skene's assistance. He pointed out to me the two occurrences which I have mentioned, and declined to suggest an explanation; and I follow his example.

1 Liber de Scon, No. 5.

2 Spalding Miscellany, vol. v.

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Here are two or three morsels of Church History from the Register of the Priory of St. Andrews, which I am tempted to lay before you.

In the year of grace 1264, on Thursday next after the Feast of St. Scholastica the Virgin, the Lord J., Prior of St. Andrews, held his pleasplacita at Dull in Atholl, near a great rock to the west of the house of Sir Thomas the Vicar, without any impediment, prohibition, or contradiction; on which day Kolin, son of Anegus the Souter, and Bridin, his son, and also Gylis, the brother of the said Kolin, did homage to the Lords Prior and Convent as their liegemen, in presence of all those present at the pleas, whose names are Sir Mauricius, called of Dull, Sir Richard, called of Pethkery, canons; Thomas, then Vicar of Dull, Rothryother, Duncan the clerk, called Makmulethir, Nicholas Makduncan, Makbeth Makgilmichel, Ewayn the doomster, Gilcolm Makgugir, MacBeth Makkyneth, Kennauch Makyny, John MacRothry, Makrath the priest, and many others whose names are unknown. The document is worth observing for the occasion of the meeting, but more for the remarkable attendance of Celtic suitors assembled at the standing-stone beside the vicar's house of Dull, where the country was gathered for the pleas and suits to be determined by the Lord Prior of St. Andrews, whose vassals they all were.

DEDICATIONS OF CHURCHES.

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The next document records a similar event a few years later, when the Clerauch of Dul did homage to his Lord the Prior of St. Andrews, and points at a claim by some other party disputing the superiority.

On the day of St. Baldred, in the year of grace 1269, Andrew son of Gilmur, Clerauch of Dul, made homage to Sir J. of Haddington, Prior of St. Andrews, within the Priory of St. Andrews, on his bended knees, by putting his hands within the hands of the Prior, in the presence of Thomas Vicar of Dul, and William of Clatti, John of Norham younger, canons, and there swore on the holy Gospels to hold his homage to the said Prior and Convent, and that he had never done homage to any other, nor of right could do homage, than to the said Prior and Convent.

The following memoranda of the dates and dedications of certain churches consecrated by Bishop David de Bernham are not without interest.

In the year of the Incarnation 1242, 13th Kalends of June, was dedicated the church of St. Michael of Linlithcu, and also the following churches, by the Lord David Bishop of St. Andrews: the same year, on the 7th of the Ides of August, the church of St. Cyricus the martyr, of Eglisgrig; on the 2d Kalends of September, the church of St. Mernan the martyr, of Foules; in 1243, 4th Kalends of June, the

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CHURCHES DEDICATED.

church of St. Memma the Virgin, of Sconin; on the 15th Kalends of July, the church of the Holy Trinity of Kylrimund; on the 13th Kalends of August, the church of St. John the Baptist and St. Modrust the martyr, of Marchynche; on the 10th Kalends of August, the church of St. Stephen the Martyr and St. Moan the martyr of Portmuoch; on the 5th Kalends of August, the church of St. John the Evangelist and St. Athernisc the martyr, of Losceresch; on the Ides of August, the church of St. Lawrence the Martyr and St. Coman the martyr, of Rossinclerach.1

1 Reg. Prior. S. Andree, p. 348. On the fly-leaf of my copy of the same Register, there is this note, dated at Paris, 30th May 1858:

"M. Leopold Delisle writes to J. Y. Akerman of a Ms. Bibl. Imper. fond Latin n. 128-a pontificale written in the beginning of the 13th century, which seems to have been à l'usage of David Bishop of St. Andrews. At the beginning is a long list of churches, titled, Hee sunt ecclesie quas dedicavit episcopus David Ecclesia de Lessewade dedicata fuit anno gracie Millesimo ducentesimo quadragesimo 11 nonas Maii: Ecclesia fratrum predicatorum de Pert eodem anno iii idus Maii: Ecclesia Sancti Nicholai de Berewych eodem anno viij idus Julii: Ecclesia de Kirktun anno etc. qua

:

dragesimo uno xvij Kalendas Septembris.

"Le document finit ainsi : Ecclesia de Ketenes anno etc. quadragesimo nono xiiij Kalendas Maii: Ecclesia de Sancta hittenmantin (Stramartin) eodem anno xv. Kalendas Junii: Ecclesia de Clacmanan eodem anno nono Kalendas Septembris,

"Puis une main un peu plus récente a ajouté les articles qui suivent.

"Hee sunt ecclesie quas dedicavit episcopus Willelmus: Ecclesia de Dunothyr dedicata est anno gracie Millesimo ducentesimo septuagesimo vi. idus Maii: capella de Collyn eodem anno xi Kalendas Junii ita quod nullum prejudicium generetur matrici ecclesie de Fethyressach."

LECTURE V.

OLD FORMS OF LAW.

I MUST pass lightly over the institutions which we certainly had in common with the whole AngloSaxon peoples of Britain, but only because these have been well illustrated from Saxon or English sources and by English writers. Our laws are of the same family; our customs, judicial forms as well as others, even where identical with those of England, are not therefore to be held borrowed or imitated from England-for England was not even a name at the time when the institutions I am about to enumerate to you existed among us. For another reason I must not detain you on our earliest judicial forms-our aboriginal forms of process I may call them,—and that is because they have left little or no impression on our existing procedure.

It will startle only the youngest of my students to find that at a period within history the facts of a disputed case were not ascertained by documents

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