[1633/6/169]¹

Act in favour of the kirk of Pittenweem

Our sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament have ratified and approved and, by the tenor of this present act, ratify and approve the bond and obligation made and granted by the late Alexander [Erskine], lord Fentoun to the bailies and council of the burgh of Pittenweem, whereby he bound and obliged himself, his heirs and successors to perfect, subscribe and deliver to them or to the minister at the kirk thereof a sufficient security in such ample form as might stand by law, by the which he should provide the said minister serving the cure at the said kirk of Pittenweem and his successors to a yearly stipend of 400 merks and 500 merks money of this realm respectively to be uplifted out of the parsonage and vicarage teinds of the lordship of Pittenweem, or any part thereof, at the terms and in manner as is specified and set down in the said bond, which is of the date 6 June 1632, and registered in the books of council and session and a decreet of the lords thereof interposed thereto upon 1 January 1633, together with the contract and appointment made and perfected between the bailies and council of the said burgh of Pittenweem thereof, subscribers for themselves and taking burden on them for the community of the said burgh on the one part, and Master John Melville, minister at the said kirk of Pittenweem, on the other part, of the date 12 July 1632, and registered in the said books of council and session and a decreet of the lords thereof interposed thereto upon 26 February 1633, whereby the said bailies and council of the said burgh of Pittenweem provided the said Master John Melville and his successive ministers at the said kirk thereof to a yearly duty of 120 merks money foresaid further than the provision above-specified contained in the said bond, to be uplifted at the term of Martinmas [11 November] yearly out of the readiest of the grass, meals, customs and common good of the said burgh, and designed to him the glebe specified in the said contract bounded in manner therein contained; whereby the said Master John Melville, for him and his successors, accepted the provision foresaid contained in the said contract and bond, with the designation of the said glebe, in full satisfaction of all further stipend, manse or glebe that could be craved by him or his successors in any time thereafter, as the said bond and contract in themselves at length bears. Moreover, our said sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament statute and ordain the foresaid two provisions of money contained in the said bond and contract and designation of the glebe designed by the said contract to stand and be a perpetual and sufficient local stipend to the said Master John Melville and his successive ministers at the said kirk, and to serve him and them in payment and full satisfaction of their manse and glebe at the same kirk. And further, forasmuch as his majesty's late dearest father, King James VI, of eternal memory, by his letters of gift under the privy seal of the date 30 June 1589, gave, granted and conveyed to the late Master Nicol Dalgleish and his successive ministers at the said kirk of Pittenweem certain quantities of victual, silver and salt mentioned therein, and that for yearly provision and stipend to the said late Master Nicol, then minister at the said kirk, and his successive ministers thereat, which gift bears that the said kirk was then lately erected in a parish kirk and so ratified in the preceding parliament, likewise the said late King James VI, by his signature superscribed with his hand, bearing date 16 August 1611, ratified and approved the erection of the said kirk in a parish kirk, notwithstanding whereof, through negligence of the parties entrusted in the managing of the town's affairs, the said act of erection is missing, likewise the said signature, by the like slackness of those who were employed therein, was never prosecuted nor completed; whereto his majesty and estates of this present parliament, being most willing and careful to provide remedy, therefore they have of new erected, created and constituted and, by this act, of new erect, create and constitute the said kirk of Pittenweem in a separate parish kirk and design the bounds of the parish thereof to comprehend the burgh of Pittenweem and whole lands lying between the burgh of Anstruther Wester on the east, the lands of St Monance and Abercrombie on the west, and the lands of Balcaskie and Grangemuir on the north (excepting always 80 acres of land pertaining to the feuars of Anstruther and Mylnetown, with their commonty, to the east of the march stones which lie in the parish of Anstruther Wester); and to the effect that the said kirk of Pittenweem may be a separate parish kirk, our said sovereign lord and estates of this present parliament have disjoined and dissolved the said burgh of Pittenweem and whole lands lying within the bounds foresaid which are comprehended within the said parish of Pittenweem from the said kirk and parish of Anstruther Wester, to the effect they may remain in all time coming hereafter two separate and distinct parish kirks and parishes.