In 1598, we find the presbytery of Glasgow concerning itself about a young man who had passed his father without lifting his bonnet. He was judged ‘a stubborn and disobedient son to his father.’ About 1574, the kirk-session of Edinburgh was occupied for some days in considering the case of Niel Laing, accused of making a pompous convoy and superfluous banqueting at the marriage of Margaret Danielston, ‘to the great slander of the kirk,’ which had forbid such doings.
The absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in contrast with the frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the continent, has been much remarked upon. We find in the records of ecclesiastical discipline clear traces of the process by which this distinction was brought about. To the puritan kirk of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries every outward demonstration of natural good spirits was a sort of sin, to be as far as possible repressed. To make marriages sober and quiet was one special object. It was customary in humble life for a young couple, on being wedded, to receive miscellaneous company, and hold a kind of ball, each person contributing towards the expenses, with something over for the benefit of the young pair. Such a custom has been kept up almost to our own time, but much shorn of its original spirit. In the latter years of the sixteenth century, it was customary for the party to go to the Market-cross, and dance round it. At Stirling, October 30, 1600, the kirk-session, finding ‘there has been great dancing and vanity publicly at the Cross usit by married persons and their company on their marriage-day,’ took measures to put a stop to the practice. It ordained ‘that nane be married till ten pounds be consigned, for the better security that there be nae mair ta’en for ane bridal lawing than five shillings according to order,’ ‘with certification, gif the order of the bridal lawing be broken, the said ten pounds sall be confiscat.’[260]
In like manner the kirk-session of Cambusnethan, in September 1649, ordained ‘that there suld be no pipers at bridals, and who ever suld have a piper playing at their bridal, sall lose their consigned money.’ And in June next year, the same reverend body decreed that men and women ‘guilty of promiscuous dancing,’ should stand in a public place and confess their fault.[261]
The power of the kirk to enforce its discipline and maintain conformity, was a formidable one, resting ultimately on their sentence of excommunication, of which the following contemporary description may be given: ‘... whasoever incurs the danger thereof is given over in thir days by the ministers, in presence of the haill people assembled at the kirk, in the hands of Satan, as not worthy of Christian society, and therefore made odious to all men, that they should eschew his company, and refuse him all kind of hospitality; and the person thus continuing in refusal by the space of a haill year, his goods are decerned to appertain to the king, sae lang as the disobedient lives.’[262]—H. K. J.
No unprejudiced person can doubt that the Presbyterian clergy of this age were in general correct in their own deportment, and sincerely anxious to promote virtue among the people; but it is also evident to us, under our superior lights, that they carried their discipline to a pitch at once irreconcilable with the natural rights of mankind, and calculated to have effects different from what were intended. It dived too much into the details of private life, was too inconsiderate of human infirmity, was extremely cruel, and altogether erred in trusting too much to force and too little to moral suasion. Even the innocent playfulness of the human heart seems to have been viewed by these stern moralists as an evil thing, or at least a thing leaning to the side of vice. On the injurious tendency of any system which equally makes a crime out of some peculiarity of opinion, or indifferent action, and of an actual infraction of the rights of our fellow-creatures, it were needless to insist.
[CUSTOMS.]
In the Council Register of Aberdeen, we obtain many notices of the customs of the burgh, most of which were probably common to other towns.
It seems to have been the practice of the whole people to assemble, but only at command of the council, in order to deliberate together upon any matter of importance, and make such arrangements as were required for the general weal. For this purpose, they were summoned by the bellman, who went through ‘the haill rews of the town’ ringing his bell, of which he had to make oath in order to render legal what was ordained by the meeting.
In 1574, it was ordained at such a meeting that John Cowpar should ‘pass every day in the morning at four hours, and every nicht at eight hours, through all the rews of the town, playing upon the Almany whistle [German flute?], with ane servant with him playing on the tabroun, whereby the craftsmen their servants and all others laborious folks, being warnit and excitat, may pass to their labours and frae their labours in due and convenient time.’
In 1576, it is ‘statute with consent of the haill town, that every brother of guild, merchant, and craftsman, shall have in all time coming ane halbert, Danish axe, and javelin within his booth.’ The wearing of plaids by the citizens was at the same time strictly forbidden, also the use of blue bonnets—for what reason does not clearly appear. The town’s landmarks were ridden every year. The keeping of swine within the town is (1578) forbidden, on penalty of having the animals taken and slain.