Transactions. 157 



of forty shillings a year. Arrangements were made at the same 

 time, specifying the conditions of payment, and it was expressly 

 acknowledged that the rectors were ecclesiastically subject to the 

 bishop. The adjustment so effected was long the actual basis of 

 things, and was the subject of repeated ratifications.* In 1273, 

 the Bisliop of Glasgow transferredt his rights to the dean and 

 chapter of his diocese. In 1275 the rectory was returned J in 

 Bagimond's roll as worth £4 a year. Robert de Brus, the Com- 

 petitor, manifested the family's hereditary generosity by a gift§ to 

 the canons of a meadow near the grange or barn in the fields 

 of the vill of Annan — in campis vMce de Anandia : a phrase 

 plainly suggestive of a community with considerable connuon 

 fields — towards the south, of wiiich meadow for a time the 

 canons by their procurator had been his tenants, at a rent of 

 two shillings a year. With the confirmation|| of this grant by 

 his son Robert, fatlier of King Robert, the charters of the 

 Annandale family of Brus to Guisborough appear to terminate, 

 although it is impossible to avoid thinking that after the accession 

 of King Robert the ancestral connexion of the dynasty with the 

 monastery may have preservedll to the latter its Auuandale 

 possessions, longer than usual in similar cases, from the wrencii 

 caused by the war of independence. 



V. Progress and Status (1296). 



As the 13th century drew to a close, Annan's days of peace 

 were rapidly running out. It will be well to consider the status 

 of the town in the height of the long prosperity which inter- 

 national warfare whs so soon to blast. The mention of Annan as 

 a city was dismissed with a smile. The chronicler cannot have 

 used the word in any technical sense. That he employed it 

 to denote a considerable conmiunity is, however, an essentially 

 reasonable, and indeed necessary, proposition. The facts already 

 given, the castle or hall, the supposed mint, the varied indica- 



*In 1265, 1273, 1300, ami 1330. Gtiish. Chart., ii. 1188. 



\Reg. aiasg., i., p. 186. 



J/fef/. Glas., i. , pref. Ixv. 



^Guhh. Chart., ii., 1181. 



\\Guish. Chart., ii., 1180. 



IThis is strongly suggested by the eoufirmatiou of 1330 above referred to. 



