Browse Items (515 total)

Disagreements about the appointment of ministers and the role of powerful landowners as patrons led to a split in the Church of Scotland. A small group of ministers who wished for congregations to have greater control over church appointments broke…

In August 1745 Charles Edward Stuart (sometimes called the Young Pretender) landed on the West Coast of Scotland. His arrival triggered a far-reaching rebellion in support of the Stuart claim to the throne. In comparison to many other parts of…

Following the failed rebellion of 1745 and 1746 checks on Episcopalians increased. Episcopal ministers who failed to take an oath of loyalty were forbidden to lead services for more than four people. Episcopalians were also not allowed to be public…

The new Secession Church had a number of internal divisions which came to a head in the late 1740s. A particular area of disagreement concerned whether Seceders could take an oath to support the religion ‘presently professed in the country’. This…

During the 1750s and 1760s a dispute over the appointment of a new minister at Inverkeithing led to another split in the Church of Scotland. A group of ministers who objected to outside interference in parish appointments set up the new Relief…

Since the Reformation the Scottish government had banned Roman Catholic worship. In 1778 the British Parliament tried to reduce the restrictions on Roman Catholics. The proposed act caused major protests in Scotland. As a result of the popular…

Following the death of Charles Edward Stuart, the leaders of the Scottish Episcopal Church agreed to support George III. After some argument, the British Parliament removed most of the legal restrictions on Episcopalians in Scotland. Episcopal…

In the early 1790s the British Parliament decided to resolve the status of Roman Catholics in Scotland. More than a decade after the harshest restrictions had been lifted on Catholics in the rest of the United Kingdom, it was agreed that Roman…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church resolved their differences with the Anti-Burghers. They joined together as the new United Secession…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church resolved their differences with the Anti-Burghers. They joined together as the new United Secession…

In 1829 the British Parliament passed legislation lifting most restrictions on Roman Catholics. Among other new freedoms, Roman Catholics were now allowed to vote and become members of Parliament. Over the course of the nineteenth century the Roman…

For more than a century there had been divisions in the Church of Scotland over how appointments were made and the relationship between church and state. A series of legal cases in the 1830s worsened relations between the growing evangelical wing of…

While the Church of Scotland was splitting again, some groups of seceders were joining together. In 1847 the United Secession Church and the Relief Church combined to form the United Presbyterian Church. The United Presbyterians had considerable…

For some decades there had been debates about the fact that clergy ordained by Scottish Episcopal bishops could not legally be appointed to positions in the Church of England. In 1864 this ban was overturned, ending official government discrimination…

Since the early 1700s the role of lay patrons in church appointments had been a major cause of discontent in the Church of Scotland, and had triggered several splits in the church. In 1874 the British Parliament agreed that Church of Scotland…

As discrimination against Roman Catholics reduced, the Papacy decided to re-establish a traditional church hierarchy in Scotland. Six Roman Catholic dioceses were created. Except for Glasgow, all the new dioceses were subject to the Archbishop of St…

For several centuries the University of St Andrews had not celebrated Christmas. However, in 1887 the university decided to have a communal Christmas dinner at St Mary’s College. The menu included hare soup, roast beef, and plum pudding.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had seen several groups leave the Church of Scotland. In 1900 two of the largest of these break-away denominations joined together. Following several years of negotiations, the majority of members of the Free…

Thousands of Fife residents served in the armed forces during the First World War. Many were killed. After the war communities across Fife put up memorials to the dead. These war memorials are frequently located in churches. Others are free-standing,…

After centuries of the controversy about the relationship between church and state, the British Parliament passed the Church of Scotland Act. This gave the Church of Scotland freedom to decide spiritual matters and church appointments without…

At a joint assembly in Edinburgh the United Free Church agreed to merge with the Church of Scotland. This meant that many places in Fife now had multiple Church of Scotland congregations. Some continued as independent congregations, but others…

During the Second World War the armed forces expanded and many people moved around the country. New places of worship were established in Fife for service personnel from Britain and overseas. A significant number of Polish troops were stationed in…

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Presbyterian opposition to Christmas reduced. In 1958 Christmas became a public holiday in Scotland. Increasingly Fife’s Church of Scotland congregations held special services for Christmas Day.

The Second Vatican Council (held in the Vatican in Rome) sought to modernise Roman Catholicism. It agreed major changes to Roman Catholic worship. One of the most notable alterations was ending the use of Latin for ordinary services. The interiors of…

Between the 1520s and the 1550s the Roman Catholic authorities in Fife severely punished a number of Protestant sympathisers. No less than four Protestants were burned at the stake in St Andrews. The first and most high profile of these was Patrick…

The 1540s saw fighting between Scotland and England. The conflict was partly driven by the English government’s wish to arrange a marriage between Edward VI and the young Mary Queen of Scots (which is why this period is sometimes called the Rough…

The bishops of St Andrews had for centuries claimed to be the most important churchmen in Scotland. In 1472 their special status was officially recognised by the pope, when the bishopric of St Andrews was raised into an archbishopric. The new…

In the early 1430s a doctor named Pavel Kravar (sometimes known as Paul Craw in Scotland) was burned for heresy in the centre of St Andrews. Kravar was from Bohemia and had tried to gain support in Fife for the Hussite movement, which then had a…

In 1349 the Black Death (probably a severe epidemic of bubonic plague) reached Fife. Churchmen were particularly likely to catch the disease as they often tended to the sick and dying. The communal lifestyles of monasteries also proved ideal for…

Like many religious orders, the Franciscans (or grey friars) grew slightly less strict over time. This concerned some people, and led to the establishing of the Observant Franciscan movement. The Observant Franciscans had unusually strict rules on…

The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries saw major building projects at many Fife churches. New churches were built and old ones remodelled. The parish churches at St Andrews and Cupar were rebuilt at this time. Late medieval bell towers survive…

During the late Middle Ages universities increasingly took over responsiblity for higher education. In 1410 a group of churchmen established a university in St Andrews (which was already an important place of learning with many scholars attached to…

In the 1360s King David II spent a large amount of money rebuilding the church at St Monans. The king did this because in 1346 he had survived being severely wounded by an arrow in the face at the Battle of Neville’s Cross (where the English defeated…

During the thirteenth century some people felt that monasteries had become too wealthy. In response new religious orders of friars were created. The friars were committed to extreme poverty and earned much of their income from begging. Unlike many…

The origins of the close connection between St Andrew and the people of Scotland go back into the early Middle Ages. However, during the wars between Scotland and England in the 1290s and 1300s a particular emphasis was placed on St Andrew’s role as…

Queen Margaret (the wife of Malcolm III) seems to have been regarded as a saint by the residents of Fife soon after her death in 1093. Miracles were recorded at Margaret’s tomb in Dunfermline in the twelfth and early thirteenth century. Margaret was…

In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council officially declared the Roman Catholic Church’s belief in the doctrine of purgatory. This was the idea that most people did not proceed directly to heaven when they died, but spent time in an unpleasant waiting area…

In the 1160s work began on a grand new cathedral at St Andrews (to replace the smaller church now known as St Rule’s which was then in use). The new cathedral was the largest roofed space constructed in Scotland in the Middle Ages. It took more than…

King David I (one of the sons of Margaret and Malcolm III) supported major changes in the Scottish Church. He increased the number of bishops and gave them oversight of dioceses organised in a similar fashion to Continental Europe. He also backed a…

The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries saw a wish for monks to follow stricter rules. A number of new religious orders such as the Cluniacs and the Cistercians were founded, who led a more austere way of life. The Scottish royal family proved…

Around 1070 King Malcolm III’s wife Margaret (later known as St Margaret of Scotland) brought a group of Benedictine monks to Dunfermline. The Benedictines were the commonest monastic order in Western Europe at that time. Over succeeding years…

By the tenth century St Andrews had become one of the most important churches in the kingdom of the Scots. In 965 the brother of the King of Tara died while on pilgrimage to St Andrews. This incident is the earliest evidence for St Andrews as a place…

In the ninth and tenth centuries a new monastic movement known as the Céli Dé arrived from Ireland. Céli Dé means servants of God and is sometimes spelt as ‘Culdee’ in English. Communities of Céli Dé were established at St Andrews and Loch Leven, as…