[1706/10/315]¹

Act anent plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds

Our sovereign lady and the estates of parliament, considering the great prejudice that does redound to this nation through the want of an established and fixed judicature which may judge and determine in such causes and things as by former parliaments were referred to their commissions for plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds, and through the loss of the registers of that court which were burnt in the late fire that happened in this place, therefore, her majesty and the said estates do hereby empower, authorise and appoint the lords of council and session to judge, examine and determine in all affairs and causes whatsoever which, by the laws and acts of parliament of this kingdom were formerly referred to and did pertain and belong to the jurisdiction and cognisance of the commissions formerly appointed for that effect, as fully and freely in all respects as the said lords do or may do in other civil causes, and particularly, without prejudice to the generality foresaid, to determine in all valuations and sales of teinds, to grant augmentations of ministers' stipends, prorogations of tacks of teinds, to disjoin too large parishes, to erect and build new churches, to annex and dismember churches as they shall think fit, conforming to the rules laid down and powers granted by the nineteenth act of the parliament of 1633, the twenty-third and thirtieth acts of the parliament of 1690 and the twenty-fourth act of the parliament of 1693, in so far as the same stands unrepealed, the transporting of kirks, disjoining of too large parishes, or erecting and building of new kirks, being always with the consent of the heritors of three parts of four at least of the valuation of the parish whereof the kirk is craved to be transported or the parish to be disjoined and new kirks to be erected and built, the minister in the meantime to serve the cure in the present kirk of the parish. And for that effect, appoints the said lords to meet and sit each Wednesday in the afternoon during the time of session, and to call and discuss the said causes summarily conforming to a roll to be made up and kept of the same. And for supplying the lost registers of that court, her majesty and the said estates do hereby appoint and ordain that any authentic extracts from the said records be brought in and, being presented to the said lords, be recorded in a particular register, and that the said extracts so brought in be kept by the lord clerk register and his deputes clerks to be appointed by him for that effect as their warrants, which shall be held and repute as valid and authentic as the principal warrants themselves if the same were yet extant. And the lord register and his deputes are ordained to give a new extract gratis to every person that shall give in an old extract immediately upon delivery thereof, and that extracts from these new records shall make the like faith in judgement and outwith the same as the extracts from the old registers of the commission were wont to do before the same were burnt. And further, empowering the said lords, upon such evidences and adminicles as they shall see cause, to make up the tenor of such decreets in manner above-mentioned whereof extracts are missing and the registers lost in the said fire, declaring hereby that the lord register and his deputes to be appointed by him, as said is, shall have the sole and only power and privilege of raising and subscribing of the summonses and diligences relating to the affairs above-written, the same always passing her majesty's common signet as formerly. And also, declaring that the macers of privy council who, by their gifts, did attend and officiate before the said commission of parliament, shall continue to attend and officiate before the said lords of session in the matter committed to them by this act as they were in use to do before the commission, and none else. And lastly, it is hereby declared that this present act and commission shall be subject, nevertheless, to such regulations and alterations as shall be made by the parliament of Great Britain.