Franciscans and Tertiaries in Later Medieval Scotland

Abstract

In an oft-quoted letter, King James IV wrote to the Dominican Prior General that Scotland was “almost the most remote region in the world.”1 Nevertheless, as scholarship of the past fifteen years has shown, later medieval Scotland played a central role in Latin Christendom.2 Perhaps most importantly for the current study, numerous religious orders (including all branches of the Franciscan family) were active in Scotland and had significant ties to the Continent.3 Many of the same questions pertaining to Continental houses also exist for Scotland. In particular, there are many unanswered questions about the group known as the Franciscan third order. Sources indicate that there were a number of men and women known as Franciscan tertiaries in Scotland; however, unlike in the rest of Europe, this did not seem to have caused enough canonical consternation to warrant a continuous and inconsistent program of institutionalization. At the same time, Scottish sources present a particular puzzle in that they appear to indicate secular and noble tertiaries more commonly than in areas of Central and Western Europe. This is sufficient cause to examine the convoluted and (often) contradictory evidence regarding the Scottish men and women who identified as members of the Franciscan third order.