Scottish Episcopal Acta, I

The twelfth century was a formative period for Scottish dioceses. Whereas there had been no more than three or four by the start of David I’s reign in 1124, by his death in 1153 there were at least nine. David I, who also actively encouraged new monastic foundations, was largely responsible for integrating the Scottish church into the European framework, and it is from his reign that Scottish episcopal charters start to survive in significant numbers. From the whole of the twelfth century, 259 Scottish episcopal charters survive, and there is evidence for another 136 now lost—a total that, per capita, does not compare unfavourably with the 4,500 or so known of from England and the hundred or so surviving in Wales. There were marked imbalances between Scottish dioceses: St Andrews, with 145 surviving acta (a total roughly comparable to the 180 or 190 surviving from Exeter in the same period) outstripped the rest by far: Glasgow produced forty-four Aberdeen, Brechin, Dunblane, Dunkeld and Galloway between ten and twenty each, Moray only seven and Caithness one. Most acts survive thanks to monastic cartularies—above all those for Arbroath, Dunfermline and the Augustinian cathedral priory of St Andrews—but seventy-two acts survive in the original, chiefly for Holyrood and Coldingham

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