User:AJN/BrechinIntro

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Brechin (Scottish Gaelic: Breichinn) is a medieval city and former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Brechin's traditional designation as a city derives from its cathedral and its status as the seat of a pre-Reformation Roman Catholic diocese (which continues today as an episcopal seat of the Scottish Episcopal Church), but it held a unique position in medieval Scotland, as a urban community with full political and economic standing that was defined as a city and not a burgh.

History

Brechin is first mentioned in the second half of the tenth century, when an important church here was founded, or had its status increased, by King Kenneth II.[1] The settlement is already described here as a city, although at this date, the term was widely used for places with significant churches, without necessarily implying a bishopric or anything like modern city status.[2]

Uniquely among urban centres in medieval Scotland, however, Brechin was not a burgh. Instead, the town was granted equivalent rights without burgh status.[3] Although early documents often refer to Brechin as a "town", a confirmation of these rights by Robert the Bruce in 1321 speaks explicitly of "the city of Brechin".[4] A further amplification of these rights was issued by James II in 1441, and from this time on, references to Brechin as a "city" become standard both in Latin and in vernacular Older Scots.[5] Voting members of the civic community were thus known as "citiners" (i.e citizens) rather than burgesses.[6] This unusual status was reflected in an unusual form of civic government, with a prominent magistrate styled as the "constable and justiciar" of the city.

On 28th April 1488, however, James III declared that the "Commune and Commonwealth of the City of Brechin" was a free burgh, implicitly placing the city under direct royal authority.[7] This document seems to have had little effect, nor did a confirmation issued in the name of Charles I in 1641, but the establishment of Presbyterianism by the Convention of 1689 made the city's status problematic, so in 1695, the parliament of William of Orange, ratified these two documents,[8] normalizing the status of Brechin as a royal burgh, although the town subsequently adopted the dual style of "city and royal burgh", based on the terminology used by James III in 1488.

The City and Royal Burgh of Brechin lost its political identity during Regionalization in 1975. It was not included among the list of cities produced in 1997, but is equally absent from discussion of "former cities".[9][10] Nonetheless, the name of city occurs in official contexts, such as an Early Day Motion about supermarkets in the "cathedral city of Brechin", tabled by local MP Mike Weir in 2003.[11] Additionally, the designation remains widely used, with examples being the City of Brechin and District Community Council, City of Brechin and Area Partnership, City of Brechin Civic Trust and Brechin City Football Club.[12]

  1. ^ In the final sentence of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba: M.O. Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 249-53 at p. 253; B.T. Hudson, "The Scottish Chronicle", Scottish Historical Review 77 (1998), 129-61, at p. 161.
  2. ^ Hudson. "Scottish Chronicle", pp. 146, 156 n. 25.
  3. ^ Regesta Regum Scottorum II: The Acts of William I, ed. G.W.S. Barrow (Edinburgh, 1971), p. 198, No. 115. This is a document of around 1170, confirming an earlier lost document issued between 1124 and 1153, licensing a weekly market with the same rights as the burgh market of St Andrews. In 1369, David II specified that the merchants of the town had the right to import and export without paying customs or dues in the burghs of Dundee and Montrose and along the rest of the coast of Forfarshire.
  4. ^ Regesta Regum Scottorum V: The Acts of Robert I, ed. A.A.M. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1988), p. 459, No. 191.
  5. ^ For example, Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis (2 vols., Aberdeen 1856), vol. i. Nos. 82, pp. 127, 169-72, vol ii., No, 276, p. 314
  6. ^ Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis, vol. i., p. 183. Dating from 1457, this is by twelve years the earliest citation of the word in Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, ed. Sir W. Craigie, A.J. Aitken, J.A.C. Stevenson, M.G. Dareau, et al. (12 vols., Aberdeen & Oxford, 1931-2002), s.v. "citiner". Although the title was quickly adopted by the inhabitants of the archdiocesan metropoles of St Andrews and Glasgow, those towns had been formally chartered as burghs in the twelfth century. (Sir A.C. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters Prior to A.D. 1153 (Glasgow 1905). No. 169, pp. 132-3.) [citation needed]
  7. ^ Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis, vol. 2. No. 81, p. 122.
  8. ^ Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis, Introduction, p. xix. n.1.
  9. ^ "UK Cities". Department for Constitutional Affairs. 2002. Retrieved 2008-08-15. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ J.V. Beckett, City status in the British Isles, 1830–2002, Historical Urban Studies (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 2, 16-17, 182.
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ City of Brechin & District Area Partnership. "Members". Retrieved 2008-08-15.
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