Mr. Stuart on Chirnside. 185 



had been divided into districts by the bishops, and committed 

 by them to the pastoral care of certain priests*. It was not 

 long before the existence of a church on the lands of a pro- 

 prietor became a necessary qualification for elevation to the 

 rank of thanef. The rights which ensued on the apportion- 

 ment of districts or parishes to a separate priest, were soon 

 recognized and enforced, for we find among the Anglo-Saxon 

 Ecclesiastical Institutes an injunction, that no mass priest 

 should entice any man from the parish of another church to 

 his church, nor instruct any one from another priest's district 

 to attend his church, and give him their tithe and the dues 

 which they ought to give to the otherj. In Ireland the mon- 

 astic system prevailed till the twelfth century, when, for the 

 first time, the division of the country into ecclesiastical districts 

 took place. It is probable that the monastic system prevailed 

 longer in Scotland than it did in England. We find, however, 

 cases of parochial arrangements in the time of David I., as in 

 that of Eccles where the rights of the parish church in the 

 matter of teinds and its cemetery are recognized. || 



An instructive example of the origin of a parish is afforded 

 by a deed of Thor Longus, one of the followers of King Edgar, 

 from whom he had received Ednaham — a desert. Which 

 desert, he goes on to say, he had cultivated and peopled, and 

 raised a church from the foundation in honour of St. Cuthbert, 

 and which church with one carrucate of land he now bestows 

 on the monks of St. Cuthbert§. This accounts for the parish 

 of Ednam in Roxburghshire, which probably coincides in ex- 

 tent with the land originally granted by King Edgar to Thor 

 Longus. 



The names of several parishes in Scotland are derived from 

 the early holders of the manors. Thus, Wiston in Lanark- 

 shire is the town of Wice or Withice, whose grant to the monks 

 of Kelso of the church of his town or manor was confirmed 

 by King Malcolm the maiden, in 1159. The adjoining parish 

 of Symington is the town of Simon Locchard, and " the church 

 of Symon Loccard's town" was also confirmed to the monks 

 of Kelso by the same monarch between the years 1189 and 

 1199. Thankerton is the town of Thomas Tancard, as Coving- 

 ton probably is the " villa Colbani" — one of the followers of 

 St. David. 



* Lingard's Hist, and Antiquities of the Anglo Saxon Church, Vol. I. p.p. 

 157-8. London, 1845. 

 t lb. p. 159. 



X Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, Vol. II. p. 411. 

 II Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Vol. I. p. 47. 

 ^ North Durham Appendix, p. 38. 



