Browse Items (658 total)

During the Second World War the armed forces expanded and many people moved around the country. New places of worship were established in Fife for…

At a joint assembly in Edinburgh the United Free Church agreed to merge with the Church of Scotland. This meant that many places in Fife now had…

After centuries of the controversy about the relationship between church and state, the British Parliament passed the Church of Scotland Act. This…

Thousands of Fife residents served in the armed forces during the First World War. Many were killed. After the war communities across Fife put up…

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had seen several groups leave the Church of Scotland. In 1900 two of the largest of these break-away…

For several centuries the University of St Andrews had not celebrated Christmas. However, in 1887 the university decided to have a communal Christmas…

As discrimination against Roman Catholics reduced, the Papacy decided to re-establish a traditional church hierarchy in Scotland. Six Roman Catholic…

Since the early 1700s the role of lay patrons in church appointments had been a major cause of discontent in the Church of Scotland, and had triggered…

For some decades there had been debates about the fact that clergy ordained by Scottish Episcopal bishops could not legally be appointed to positions…

While the Church of Scotland was splitting again, some groups of seceders were joining together. In 1847 the United Secession Church and the Relief…

For more than a century there had been divisions in the Church of Scotland over how appointments were made and the relationship between church and…

In 1829 the British Parliament passed legislation lifting most restrictions on Roman Catholics. Among other new freedoms, Roman Catholics were now…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church…

After more than seventy years of disagreement (largely focusing on the relationship between church and state) most members of the Burgher Church…

In the early 1790s the British Parliament decided to resolve the status of Roman Catholics in Scotland. More than a decade after the harshest…

Following the death of Charles Edward Stuart, the leaders of the Scottish Episcopal Church agreed to support George III. After some argument, the…

Since the Reformation the Scottish government had banned Roman Catholic worship. In 1778 the British Parliament tried to reduce the restrictions on…

During the 1750s and 1760s a dispute over the appointment of a new minister at Inverkeithing led to another split in the Church of Scotland. A group…

The new Secession Church had a number of internal divisions which came to a head in the late 1740s. A particular area of disagreement concerned…

1746 Increased Restrictions on Episcopalians

Following the failed rebellion of 1745 and 1746 checks on Episcopalians increased. Episcopal ministers who failed to take an oath of loyalty were…

1745 – 1746 Jacobite Rising (The Forty-Five)

In August 1745 Charles Edward Stuart (sometimes called the Young Pretender) landed on the West Coast of Scotland. His arrival triggered a far-reaching…

Disagreements about the appointment of ministers and the role of powerful landowners as patrons led to a split in the Church of Scotland. A small…

During the 1720s the popular preacher John Glas (a graduate of the University of St Andrews and minister at Tealing near Dundee) put forward a series…

After the Jacobite rising of 1715 the British government became increasingly suspicious of Scottish Episcopalians. Ministers in the Scottish Episcopal…

The accession of George I to the British throne was soon followed by a rebellion backing James Francis Edward Stuart’s claim to be king instead. James…

When Presbyterianism was re-established in 1690 the Scottish Parliament also passed legislation banning Christmas. In 1712 this ban was lifted and the…

The British government was initially more tolerant of Episcopalians than the Scottish Parliament had been. In 1711 the laws against Episcopal…

Lobbying from Scottish aristocrats led to the passing of the Church Patronage Act. This stated that the old patrons of Scottish parishes (typically…

After much debate, the parliaments of Scotland and England passed legislation to create a new Kingdom of Great Britain. The Scottish Parliament in…

Many of Fife’s Episcopal clergymen were removed from their parishes by the restoration of Presbyterianism. In 1695 the Scottish Parliament passed a…

In 1689 King James VII was replaced as ruler of Scotland by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. Soon afterwards the Scottish…

Archbishop James Sharp was a divisive religious leader. Many Presbyterians felt that he had sold out the Church of Scotland by agreeing to become…

In 1660 the English invited Charles II to return as king. Shortly afterwards Charles set about overturning the religious changes of the previous…

In 1639 Scotland slipped into religious war. Supporters of the National Covenant (sometimes known as Covenanters) took up arms in defence of their…

The 1630s saw growing tensions about religion in Scotland. At this time King Charles I tried to bring the Church of Scotland more in line with English…

As he grew older King James VI became opposed to the relatively democratic government of the Church of Scotland. He had bitter disputes with what he…

Reading the Bible formed a vital part of Protestant religious activity. In particular Protestants believed that people should have access to the Bible…

The later decades of the sixteenth century saw ongoing tensions about how radical the Church of Scotland should be. Many of these arguments became…

By the 1570s the Church of Scotland was adopting an increasingly hard line on religious festivals. In particular there was a campaign against…

For many years there were bitter debates about how the new Protestant Church of Scotland should be governed. In the 1560s each region had a…

In the spring and summer of 1559 Protestant activists set out to ‘reform’ Roman Catholic churches. Influenced by strict Calvinist ideas on the…

In the spring of 1546 the Roman Catholic archbishop of St Andrews, Cardinal David Beaton, was assassinated by a group of Fife lairds who opposed his…

The 1540s saw fighting between Scotland and England. The conflict was partly driven by the English government’s wish to arrange a marriage between…

Between the 1520s and the 1550s the Roman Catholic authorities in Fife severely punished a number of Protestant sympathisers. No less than four…

The bishops of St Andrews had for centuries claimed to be the most important churchmen in Scotland. In 1472 their special status was officially…

Like many religious orders, the Franciscans (or grey friars) grew slightly less strict over time. This concerned some people, and led to the…

In the early 1430s a doctor named Pavel Kravar (sometimes known as Paul Craw in Scotland) was burned for heresy in the centre of St Andrews. Kravar…

During the late Middle Ages universities increasingly took over responsiblity for higher education. In 1410 a group of churchmen established a…

In the 1360s King David II spent a large amount of money rebuilding the church at St Monans. The king did this because in 1346 he had survived being…

In 1349 the Black Death (probably a severe epidemic of bubonic plague) reached Fife. Churchmen were particularly likely to catch the disease as they…

During the thirteenth century some people felt that monasteries had become too wealthy. In response new religious orders of friars were created. The…

The origins of the close connection between St Andrew and the people of Scotland go back into the early Middle Ages. However, during the wars between…

Queen Margaret (the wife of Malcolm III) seems to have been regarded as a saint by the residents of Fife soon after her death in 1093. Miracles were…

In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council officially declared the Roman Catholic Church’s belief in the doctrine of purgatory. This was the idea that most…

A plot of land on the south side of the Nethergate in Crail has long been known as ‘The Nunnery’. However, written records suggest that there was at…

By the late eighteenth century there was a tradition in Crail that there had once been a medieval priory by the sea, a little to the south of what is…