David I and The Scottish Church - Ecclesiastical Disputes

Ecclesiastical Disputes

One of the first problems David had to deal with as king was an ecclesiastical dispute with the English church. The problem with the English church concerned the subordination of Scottish sees to the archbishops of York and/or Canterbury, an issue which since his election in 1124 had prevented Robert of Scone from being consecrated. It is likely that since the 11th century, the bishopric of St Andrews functioned as a de facto. In the recently recovered last 20% of Version-A of the St. Andrews Foundation Legend, a text composed at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, some of the contemporary clerics at the bishopric of St Andrews were mentioned by name, and one of these is "Archbishop Giric", referring to Bishop Giric. Bishop Fothad II, upon his death in 1093, was recorded in the Annals of Ulster as "Fothud ardepscop Alban", that is, "Fothad, Archbishop of Scotland". The problem was that this archiepiscopal status had not been cleared with the papacy, opening the way for English archbishops to claim overlordship of the whole Scottish church.

The man responsible was the new aggressively assertive archbishop of York, Thurstan. In 1125 Thurstan once again went on the offensive. In this year Pope Honorius II wrote to David and ordered him to receive his legate, John de Crema, and to:

"Cause also the bishops of thy land to assemble to his council when they are summoned by him. The controversy which has long been kept up between Thurstan, archbishop of York, and the bishops of thy land, we commit to this our legate to be very carefully investigated and discussed; but we reserve the final decision for the judgment of the apostolic see".

No legatine council however took place, and legate John de Crema headed back through southern England. The legate was charged with investigating the historical and political status of the bishoprics of Scotland-proper, the lands north of the river Forth. However, such investigation was not needed for the two bishoprics south of the Forth. In the same year, Honorius wrote to John, bishop of Glasgow, and Gille Aldan, bishop of Galloway, ordering them to submit to the archbishopric of York. As the former was part of David's dominion, this was not the news David would have been wanting. David ordered Bishop John of Glasgow to travel to the Apostolic See in order to secure a pallium which would elevate the bishopric of St Andrews to an archbishopric. Thurstan soon arrived in Rome himself, as did the archbishop of Canterbury, William de Corbeil, and both presumably opposed David's request. David however gained the support of King Henry, and the archbishop of York agreed to a year's postponement of the issue and to consecrate Robert of Scone without making an issue of subordination. York's claims over bishops north of the Forth were in practice abandoned for the rest of David's reign, although York maintained her more credible claims over Glasgow.