There are several curious entries in Kirk Sessional Records, showing that those parochial bodies were as zealous in restricting the customary festivities at christening parties as they have, in another paper, been shown to have been in repressing undue feasting at weddings. With respect of the former, the interference of Kirk Sessions was preceded by that of the Scottish Parliament, by which assembly it was enacted, in 1581, “that no banquets shall be at any upsitting after baptising of bairns in time coming, under the pain of twenty pounds, to be paid by every person doing the contrary.” In 1621 it was further enacted that, “no person use any manner of dessert of wet and dry confections at marriage banqueting, baptism feasting, or any meals, except the fruits growing in Scotland, as also figs, raisins, plum dames, almonds and other unconfected fruits, under the pain of a thousand marks toties quoties.”
These enactments appear, however, to have had little effect. In 1695 the Kirk Session of Greenock ordained that “persons having their children baptised on the Sabbath day abstain from keeping banquets and convening people at such occasions on that day, whereby much idle discourse and sin may be evited.” In 1701 it was very seriously complained by the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock that feasts continued to be held on Sundays after baptisms, and it was ordered that children should be baptised on the weekly sermon day (Thursday), except in case of necessity. But, either through attachment to old customs, or want of inclination to attend the week-day sermon, children continued to be presented for baptism on Sunday, and in 1720 the Session again ordered “that none make or hold feasts at baptising their children on the Lord’s day.”
In conformity with the Registration Act for Scotland, passed in 1854, all parish registers are deposited in the Registry Office then established in Edinburgh. Most of the registers of births commence about the middle of the seventeenth century, those of only fifteen parishes, out of about nine hundred, dating from the preceding century. The register of baptisms of Errol, Perthshire, commences in 1553, but the entries for the years preceding 1573 are transcribed from an older register which has been lost. Many of the older registers have been injured by damp, others by fire, and not a few have suffered from the negligence of their custodians. In many of them blanks occur. In some instances session clerks of the sixteenth century recorded in their registers events unconnected with their own parishes. The clerk of the Kirk Session of Aberdeen made an entry in the register of the birth of James VI., who was born at Edinburgh, loyally and piously adding, in the curious spelling of the period (which in previous extracts in this paper, has been modernised,) “quhame God preserve in guid helth and in the feir of God, to do justice in punishing of wrayng and in manttinyen the trewht all the dais of his lyfe. So be itt.”
Marriage Laws and Customs.
The laws relating to marriage differ so much in Scotland from those under which dwellers south of the Tweed live, that no comparison of social and religious life in the two countries can be made without knowledge of them. In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical laws relating to the relations of the sexes been more strict, or more strictly enforced, than in Scotland, and in no other have there been more irregularities. It was not until more than twenty years after the Reformation that the custom of “handfasting,” which had come down from old Celtic times, fell into disrepute and consequent disuse. By this term was understood cohabitation for a year, the couple being then free to separate, unless they agreed to make the union permanent. Lindsay, the chronicler, says of Alexander Dunbar, son of the sixth Earl of Moray, and Isobel Innes,—“This Isobel was but handfast with him, and deceased before the marriage.” When Margaret, widow of James IV., sued for a divorce from the Earl of Angus, she pleaded that he had been handfasted to Jane Douglas, “and by reason of that pre-contract could not be her lawful husband.” How such marriages were regarded at that time is shown by the fact that the marriage was dissolved by the Pope, though the issue of the Queen’s marriage with Angus was pronounced legitimate.
Sir John Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland” contains a report from the minister of Eskdale Muir, referring to the practice of handfasting as existing in that parish, under ecclesiastical sanction, at a period anterior to the Reformation. At a fair held there, unmarried men chose women to be handfasted with them, and a monk from Melrose Abbey visited the place annually, to marry those couples who wished the union to be made permanent. The first check given to the practice appears to have been the decree of the Kirk Session of Aberdeen, in 1562, that persons cohabiting under the sanction of a handfast contract of marriage should be united in lawful wedlock. But though this practice was discontinued, and those who wished to be thought respectable obtained the blessing of the Church on their marriage, irregularities continued to exist, and even to be permitted. An acknowledgment by a couple that they were husband and wife, either orally or in writing, followed or preceded by cohabitation, was regarded as a valid marriage, both by the Church and by society. In 1563, however, the General Assembly of the Church ruled that no contract of marriage so made should be recognised until the parties had submitted themselves to the discipline of the Church, and the contract had been verified by witnesses of good repute.
The custom of betrothal was very general, but it varied in form in different parts of the kingdom. The presentation of an “engagement ring,” as in England, is not found among these forms, nor does it appear that the sanction of parents was thought necessary; but after the contract was made it was usual for them to be informed and their sanction sought. Among the upper and middle classes there was usually a betrothal feast, but among the classes living by manual labour this was dispensed with. Dr Rogers says, in his “Social Life in Scotland,” that—“In betrothal, the parties usually moistened with the tongue the thumbs of their right hands, and then pressed them together. The violation of a contract so consecrated was considered tantamount to an act of perjury.” Another form of betrothal was the clasping of hands across a stream. In this way Burns, the laureate of the Scottish peasantry, and Mary Campbell vowed fidelity. In some counties silver coins were exchanged by plighted lovers, or a worn one was broken between them, each retaining one of the halves.
Marriages regarded by the ecclesiastical courts and Kirk Sessions as “regular” have always, from a long period anterior to the Reformation, been preceded by the publication of banns. In 1569 a case came before the General Assembly which shows the successive steps taken at that time before the solemnisation of a marriage. It is recorded that “ane promise of marriage made, before the readers and elders, in ane reformit church, the parties contractit compeirs before the minister and session, and requires their banns to be proclaimit.” In 1575 the question came before the General Assembly, whether the form of mutual declaration prior to the publication of banns should be longer continued; and it was ruled that it should be considered sufficient for the names of the parties desiring proclamation of banns to be given to the session clerk. Banns were ordered to be published, as in England, on three successive Sundays; but, after the Reformation, it was ruled that, on payment of a larger fee, one public announcement should be held sufficient, the words “for the first, second, and third time” being used.