#infeft

[troybarnesbabygirlconfirmed]

i have. a severe ear infeftion. possibly mono. more to come re: this

[dreamcast-official]

IM SHOUTING BECAUSE THIS FUCKED UP INFEFTED MOTHERFUCKER WITH GUTS HANGING OUT OF HIS MOUTH JUST SPIT A BUNCH OF TOXIC SNOT AT ME

[weavingthetapestry]

Places to Go: Tullibardine Chapel

A small kirk sheltered by Scots pines, Tullibardine Chapel has an air of tranquility and simple elegance. Formerly the private chapel of the Murrays of Tullibardine, it is one of the few buildings of its kind in Scotland to have survived with many of its medieval details intact.

The Murrays acquired the lands of Tullibardine in the late thirteenth century, when William ‘de Moravia’ married a daughter of the steward of Strathearn. Later, through judicious marriages and court connections, they first became earls of Tullibardine and then Dukes of Atholl. But even as lairds the Murrays were a significant power in late mediaeval Perthshire. In those days Tullibardine Castle was one of their main strongholds, and the close proximity of royal residences like Stirling meant that the Castle also hosted several notable guests. Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed there in December of 1566 (allegedly in the company of the earl of Bothwell). One laird of Tullibardine became Master of Household to the young James VI, while his aunt Annabella Murray, Countess of Mar, oversaw the king’s upbringing. Thus James VI was also a frequent visitor and it was he who created the earldom of Tullibardine in 1606. The king is known to have attended the wedding of the laird of Tullibardine’s daughter Lilias Murray, though it is unclear whether this took place at Tullibardine itself. The castle grounds were probably an impressive sight too: the sixteenth century writer Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie claimed that a group of hawthorns at the “zeit of Tilliebairne”* had been planted in the shape of the Great Michael by some of the wrights who worked on the famous ship.

Thus the tower at Tullibardine, though presumably on a small-scale, was apparently comfortable and imposing enough for the lairds to host royalty and fashion an impressive self-image. But the spiritual needs of a late mediaeval noble family were just as important as their political prestige, and a chapel could both shape the family’s public image and secure their private wellbeing. The current chapel at Tullibardine, which originally stood at a small distance from the castle, was allegedly founded by David Murray in 1446, “in honour of our blessed Saviour”. At least this was the story according to the eighteenth century writer John Spottiswoode, and his assertion is partly supported by the chapel’s internal evidence, though no surviving contemporary document explicitly confirms the tale. A chapel certainly existed by 1455, when a charter in favour of David’s son William Murray of Tullibardine mentions it as an existing structure. In this charter, King James II stated that his “familiar shieldbearer” William Murray has “intended to endow and infeft certain chaplains in the chapel of Tullibardine”. Since the earls of Strathearn had previously endowed a chaplain in the kirk of Muthill, but duties pertaining to the chaplaincy had not been undertaken for some time, James transferred the chaplaincy to Tullibardine. He also granted his patronage and gift of the chaplaincy to William Murray and his heirs.

The charter indicates that Tullibardine Chapel was an important project for the Murrays. Interestingly though, no official references to the chapel in the fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeenth centuries describe Tullibardine chapel as a collegiate church, even though later writers have frequently claimed this. Collegiate foundations were increasingly popular with the Scottish nobility during the late Middle Ages, but, although such a foundation might have been planned for Tullibardine, there is no evidence that this ever took place.

The 1455 charter serves as an early indication of the chapel’s purpose and significance. Judging by its architecture the current chapel does appear to have been constructed in the mid-fifteenth century. However it was also substantially remodelled and enlarged around 1500, when the western tower was added. One remnant of the original design is the late Gothic ‘uncusped’ loop tracery on the windows. Despite the apparent simplicity of the chapel, features such as this window tracery have been taken as evidence that its builder was acutely aware of contemporary European architectural fashions. Another interesting feature is the survival of the chapel’s original timber collarbeam roof, a rare thing in Scotland. Several coats of arms belonging to members of the Murray family adorn the walls and roof corbels, although some of these armorial panels were probably moved when the chapel was reconstructed. They include the arms of the chapel’s alleged founder David Murray and his wife Margaret Colquhoun, as well as those of his parents, another David Murray and Isabel Stewart. A later member of the family, Andrew Murray, married a lady named Margaret Barclay c.1499, around the same time that the chapel was renovated, and although they were buried elsewhere, their coats of arms can also be seen there. Aside from such details- carved in stone and thus less perishable than books and vestments- the chapel’s interior seems quite sparse and bare today. Originally though the mediaeval building probably housed several richly furnished altars and some of the piscinas (hand-washing stations for priests) can still be seen in the walls. But the sumptuous display favoured in even the smallest mediaeval chapels was soon to be swept away entirely by the Reformation of 1560, when Scotland broke with the Catholic Church and Protestantism became the established faith of the realm.

Tullibardine was used chiefly as a private burial place after the Reformation, but there are signs that the transition from one faith to another was not entirely smooth. Four years after the “official” Reformation, a priest named Sir Patrick Fergy was summoned before the “Superintendent” of Fife, Fothriff, and Strathearn to answer the charge that he had taken it upon himself “to prech and minister the sacramentis wythowtyn lawfull admission, and for drawing of the pepill to the chapel of Tulebarne fra thar parroche kyrk”. Fergy did not obey the summons and so it was decided that he should be summoned for a second admonition. It is not known whether Fergy compeared on that occasion, nor what kind of punishment he might have received for his defiance. We are also in the dark as to the laird of Tullibardine’s views on the situation, even though it was going on right under his family’s nose. Nonetheless the case does provide a glimpse into what must have been a complex religious situation in sixteenth century Perthshire, no less for the ordinary parishioner than for the nobility. It also raises the possibility that private worship continued in the chapel after the Reformation, albeit unofficially.

Even as Tullibardine chapel’s public role diminished, the castle was still of some importance. Royal visits must have been considerably rarer after James VI succeeded to the English throne in 1603, and the Murrays of Tullibardine themselves acquired greater titles and estates, but the tower at Tullibardine still witnessed some notable events. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the castle was the home of Lord George Murray, a kinsman of the Duke of Atholl and famous for his participation in the Jacobite Risings of 1715, 1719, and 1745. During the last of these, Tullibardine Castle played host to a Jacobite garrison and was visited by Charles Edward Stuart. In less warlike times, Lord Murray often resided with his family at Tullibardine, and one of his daughters, who sadly died in infancy, seems to have been buried in the chapel. Lord George himself expressed a wish to be buried there as well but he was forced to flee into exile on the continent after the failure of the ’45, and so his body was interred “over the water” at Medemblick, in the Netherlands.

After Lord George’s exile Tullibardine castle entered a period of slow decline. Much of the fabric of the building was removed in 1747. Some years earlier plans had been made for the old tower to be replaced by a fashionable new house designed by William Adam, but these never materialised. A sketch of the mediaeval chapel made in 1789 shows the castle in the background- a roofless, tumbledown ruin. Tullibardine castle was finally demolished in 1833, and the family chapel, whose very existence had for centuries been defined by its proximity to the laird’s house, now stands alone. We are thus all the more fortunate for its survival, and both its attractive situation and interesting mediaeval features make Tullibardine chapel well worth a visit.

(Tullibardine Chapel, with the castle ruins in the background, as sketched in 1789. Reproduced with permission of the National Libraries of Scotland, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License)

Sources and notes may be found under the ‘read more’ button.

* “zeit” is presumaby “yett”, the old Scots word for gate.

Selected Bibliography:

- “Account of All the Religious Houses That Were in Scotland at the Time of the Reformation”, by John Spottiswood, in “An Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops Down to the Year 1688″, by Reverend Robert Keith.

- Seventh Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Part 2 (Duke of Atholl papers)

- “Register of the Ministers, Elders, and Deacons of the Congregation of St Andrews”, volume 4, Part 1 (St Andrews Kirk Session Register), edited by David Hay Fleming

- “Statement of Significance: Tullibardine Chapel”, Historic Environment Scotland

- “The Historie and Croniclis of Scotland From the Slauchter of King James the First to the Ane Thousande Five Hundreith Thrie Scoir Fiftein Zeir”, by Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, volume 1 edited Aeneas J. G. Mackay. 

- “Late Gothic Architecture in Scotland: Considerations on the Influence of the Low Countries”, by Richard Fawcett in ‘Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland’, 112 (1982) 

- “Aspects of Timber in Renaissance and Post-Renaissance Scotland: The Case of Stirling Palace”, Thorsten Hanke

- “Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland”, Vol. 5, ed. M. Livingstone

- “The Household and Court of King James VI”, Amy L. Juhala

- “Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland”, by David Moysie, ed. James Dennistoun for the Bannatyne Club

- “Calendar of State Papers, Scotland”, Volume 10, 1589-93, ed. William K. Boyd and Henry W. Meikle

- “The Indictment of Mary Queen of Scots, as Derived from a Manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge, Hitherto Unpublished”, by George Buchanan, edited by R.H. Mahon

[scotianostra]

June 6th 1329 saw the death of our most famous King, Robert I, "The Bruce".

Much has been said about King Robert and his prowess in battle, I'll try and highlight some of his other traits and how it was he who was first given the no de plume Braveheart.

The Bruce is said to have spoken several languages, Scots, Gaelic, Latin, and Norman French, and was an avid reader who loved studying the lives of previous monarchs. According to a parliamentary brief from around 1364, Robert the Bruce "used continually to read, or have read in his presence, the histories of ancient kings and princes, and how they conducted themselves in their times, both in wartime and in peacetime.” In his free time, he would recite tales from history, with the likes of Charlemagne and Hannibal being  two of his favourite subjects he shared.

Robert the Bruce’s physician, Maino de Maineri, criticized the king’s penchant for devouring eels. “I am certain that this fish should not be eaten because I have seen it during the time I was with the king of the Scots, Robert Bruce, who risked many dangers by eating [moray eels], which are by nature like lampreys," de Maineri wrote "It is true that these [morays] were caught in muddy and corrupt waters.” (Notably, overeating eels was considered the cause of King Henry I England’s death.)

Treasure hunters speculate that in the 14th century, the Knights Templar fled to Scotland with a trove of valuables because they received support and protection from King Robert the Bruce. Thanks to his help, they say, the Knights were able to hide gold and holy relics—from ancient Gospel scrolls to the Holy Grail—in secret spots across the country,  including in Rosslyn Chapel and it's not just through the Da Vinci Code, I remember my mum talking about the Holy Grail possibly being hidden within the Apprentice Pillar.

After the death of his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, Robert the Bruce decreed to give the Auld Kirk in Cullen, Scotland—now the Cullen and Deskford Parish—a total of five Scots pounds every year. That's because, in 1327, Elizabeth had died after falling off a horse, and the local congregation generously took care of her remains. Robert was so touched by the gesture that he promised to donate money “for all eternity.” To this day, his bequest is still paid to the kirk. 

The Kirk was  not the only thing to benefit from The Bruce. He moved about Scotland he was a frequent visitor to Aberdeen , his first arrival being in 1306. In the month of September 1319, King Robert, had again visited the city, where he stayed for some time, lodging in William the Lion's Palace in the Green.

The citizens of Aberdeen, many of whom were his former comrades-in-arms, gave Bruce a tremendous welcome. The King went south well pleased with the reception he had received, and at a Parliament in Berwick on 10th December 1319 , made his most generous benefaction to Aberdeen . He gave the burgesses in perpetual feu, and for a nominal payment of £213:6/8d, the whole of the Stocket Forest . From this remarkable gift the city's ‘Common Good Fund' may be said to have originated. The fund has accumulated over the years and has assets worth millions of pounds; the cities citizens still enjoy the benefits to this very day.

The Bruce died just a month before his 55th birthday, about the same age I am just now.  The cause of his death has been a source of much discussion, and disagreement, but most modern scholars believe that he succumbed to leprosy. His funeral was a rather elaborate affair that required nearly 7000 pounds of candle wax just for the funerary candles. Following the fashion for royalty, he was buried in multiple places. His chest was sawed open and his heart and internal organs removed: The guts were buried near his death-place at the Manor of Cardross, near Dumbarton; his corpse interred in Dunfermline Abbey; and his heart placed inside a metal urn to be worn around the neck of Sir James Douglas, who promised to take it to the Holy Lord. The reason his guts were taken and buried first was to stop the rest of the corpse did not rot before it's "spiritual" burial at the Abbey in Dunfermline. 

Unfortunately, Sir Douglas never made it to the Holy Land: He got sidetracked and took a detour to fight the Moors in Spain, where he was killed. Before his attackers reached him, Douglas reportedly threw the urn containing the king’s heart and yelled “Lead on brave heart, I’ll follow thee.” The heart was later returned to Scotland and it was not until 1921 it was rediscovered on an archaeological dig at Melrose Abbey. The Casket  was opened to find the mummified heart, it was photographed at the time, but I can't find these pics online, however it was unearthed again in 1996. 

After the casket had been fully examined, several different ideas were put forward about what should happen to it next. There were some suggestions of sending the casket to the National Museum of Scotland, or creating a new museum for the heart at Melrose Abbey.

In the end, in accordance with Scots Law and respect for the dead, the casket was enclosed inside a time capsule, and reburied in a private ceremony. Although this heart hasn't 100% been proven to be that of King Robert it doesn't really matter. The casket and the heart are symbols of the man himself and shall always remain so. 

The pics are all related to the post, the first two are of the statue of Robert the Bruce outside Marischal College and Council HQ Broad Street in Aberdeen, you can see his hand holding up the document I wrote about, granting the lands in city in 1319. The third  pic is the said document, it reads: 

Charter by King Robert the Bruce to the Burgesses of Aberdeen, 10th December 1319.

Robert, by the grace of God King of Scots, to all good men of his whole land, greeting. Know ye that, with the advice and approval of the good men of our kingdom, we have granted and set to feufarm, and by our present charter confirmed to our burgesses and community of our burgh of Aberdeen, our foresaid burgh of Aberdeen and our forest of the Stocket with the pertinents; to be held and had by the foresaid burgesses and community, their heirs and successors, for ever, of us and our heirs in fee and heritage and in free burgage, by all their right meiths and marches, with mills, waters, fishings, petty customs, tolls, courts weights, measures and with all other privileges, conveniences, easements, usages, and their just pertinents by law and usage belonging, or which shall in future belong, to the sett of the said burgh and forest; paying yearly therefor the said burgesses, their heirs and successors, to us or to our heirs, as aforesaid, two hundred and thirteen pounds, six shillings and eightpence sterling only, into our Treasury at two terms yearly, half at the feast of Pentecost and the other half at the feast of Saint Martin in winter, in place of all other service, exaction, usage or demand. It is also our will and we grant that our said burgesses, the heirs and successors thereof, freely and without hindrance from anyone, in the fields, moors and other portions whatsoever of the said forest outwith the wood of the Stocket, hard by the foresaid burgh of Aberdeen, may perform every kind of tillage, erect dwelling-houses and other buildings, dig fuel, and exercise, carry out and regulate other conveniences whatsoever, as they shall see fit to arrange: reserving for ourselves and our heirs only the green-growth of the great trees in the foresaid wood, and game likewise, should any such chance to be found in the same forest. We have likewise granted to the same our burgh, the burgesses and community thereof, their heirs and successors, that no justiciar of the forest or any other person of our kingdom, of whatsoever condition or rank he be, shall in any way interfere with or take cognisance of the administration of the present grant and our infeftment, or of infringements thereof, save only our Chamberlain for the time being; but so that whosoever shall be lawfully convicted of such infringements, or of destroying the green wood, or the game in the said forest, shall undergo the punishment of such crime in his own person, and no other: the chief grant, however, and our infeftment remaining in full force strictly and forever. In witness whereof we have ordered our seal to be appended to these presents. Witnesses:- William, Bishop of Saint Andrews, and William, Bishop of Dunkeld; Bernard, Abbot of Arbroath, and our Chancellor; Thomas Ranulph, Earl of Moray, and Lord of Annandale and Man; Robert of Keith, our Marischal; Gilbert of Hay, our Constable; Alexander Fraser, our Chamberlain, - Knights. At Berwick-on-Tweed, the tenth day of December, in the fourteenth year of our reign.

The next two are of the original casket dug up in 1921 and the new one it placed in after it's rediscovery in 1996. The final pic is the marker at Melrose Abbey, under which is the Heart.

[the-busy-ghost]

The 1044 causes which Elphinstone heard over the period between 1478 and 1488, both as an auditor of the Session and lord of Council, are a faithful sample of the actions raised before these bodies by brieve and summons. They lay bare the feuds, complaints, protestations, and 'wrangs' of a restless, land-and-property-centred, acquisitive feudal society at its most litigious, and their wide range and variety also bring home to us how much was demanded of these auditors in terms of sheer knowledge of the law. Such causes reveal disputes concerning fee and heritage including challenges to titles, entry and non-entry, infeftment and relief; disputes over the feudal casualties of wardship and marriage; a large number of possessory actions of spuilzie, intrusion, ejection and molestation; the demand for lawburrows; quarrels over rents, tacks and the redemption of wadsets; suits for the payment of debts, and actions for damages for breach of contract; causes relating to arbitration and compromise; a surprising number of causes which at first sight appear to belong to the competence of the spiritual courts; the recognition of error whereby many decrees were required; the evidence of malversation. All of these causes, it is true, reflect the more lawless and cantankerous elements of Scottish feudal society in the later Middle Ages, but they also help us to see the almost impossible burden being borne by these auditors who, during Session, often sat six days a week, morning and afternoon, hearing on the average seven causes a day. Yet in spite of these pressures, and the fact that the Acta of these auditors record only their decisions and not the reasoning behind them, their careful insistence on the correct procedures and their constant refusal to proceed without satisfactory probation, is sufficient evidence of their desire to give fair, even if tardy, judgements, rather than hasty or irresponsible ones, as an examination of this sample clearly shows. Above all, however, these causes reveal the endemic weaknesses of the age; weaknesses by no means confined to Scotland, and common enough throughout late medieval European society itself, a number of them being the result of deep-seated economic difficulties almost beyond immediate control, such as the widespread fall in land values, and therefore in royal and magnatial revenue, and the shortage of bullion; weaknesses aggravated in Scotland by its relative poverty of production and lack of an export trade buoyant enough to affect the prosperity of few beyond the merchant class indulging in it. It will be necessary to refer to this in more detail later, but the uneven distribution of wealth, still mainly concentrated in land, and the general failure of credit at this particular period meant that the Scottish Crown and landowning classes were forced, or at any rate were liable, to exploit their feudal rights to the maximum, to let and sell wardships and other casualties to the highest bidder, and to keep the shrewdest surveillance over defaulters in the wide range of feudal incidents belonging to them. Faced with shrinking rent rolls, they were forced to or did tack and feu their lands for the quickest and most profitable returns that they could get, and to fall heavily on those who tried to defraud them of their dues. The fact that most of this was not in their long-term best interests, as their contemporary John Major pointed out, hardly seemed to matter to them. They were forced to manage their estates more efficiently, a task rendered more difficult by the fact that without a Quia emptores to keep their large estates together, subinfeudation was practised on a wide and therefore on an uneconomic scale. Widows had to watch their liferent interests, their terce, especially when their land or property had been held in conjunct infeftment. The increase in wadsetting is also a sure sign of the acute shortage of ready money, and much of the litigation of the period is concerned with their redemption and the failure of debtors to meet the terms required of them. Bishops and burghs too, kept a keen eye on their fishing rights and their other profitable sources of income.  All this has to be borne in mind before we too readily censure what appears to have been an excessively litigious society. They were in many ways victims of a difficult transitional phase in European society, clinging to economic and social structures no longer really viable for them, and much of this litigation is simply the expression of their reluctance to change, their protest against the slow dissolution of their familiar world and ways of life, and with them a number of the values they held most dear. Much of the self-conscious insistence by the baronial class, for example, on their status in society, on their closeness to the Crown, or on making the 'right' kind of marriage has to be seen in this light, as does the frequency with which supplicators for benefices refer to themselves in papal records, as 'being of the baronial class on both sides'; this being merely another manifestation of the same trait. It was the unconscious reflection of a land-owning class on the defensive against the inroads of the non-landed classes, against that growing number of wealthy merchants whom, divided from them by blood, they considered parvenus. They had every reason to be worried. There was nothing more that such merchants desired than to buy land themselves or to marry into it.

“William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland, 1431-1514″, by Leslie J. Macfarlane

[vesselluver]

Meet Tofu

Yesterday on US 19, across the street from the Atlanta Motor Speedway. It jumped out of my arms and under a concrete pillar. No one would come help and I had to go because of work.

I came back after 9 hours and the kitten was STILL under the pillar. He was trapped in wet mud and sand and couldn't move. He only hissed once but is obviously not feral. I was able to dig him out and my friend and I looked at him, He has no broken anything and nothing appears infefted, just a little sad with a few fleas.

I still want and need to take him to the vet. I didn't expect to find a kitten and I didn't expect that it would, honestly, still be alive in the time I was gone. But it happened. If any help can be given, my cashapp is $moththem

[chickencat8]

Beep beep my wisdom teeth are finally hurtin me and i just dont feel very good at all right now This is gonna not be all too grand of a week at all i feel :^)