The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices: Scottish Ecclesiastical Rentals at the Reformation ed. by James Kirk (review)

100BOOK REVIEWS berg, Nuremberg, orWürzburg, are nonetheless dense enough to support his argument for a basic uniformity in the regulation of marriage across confessional boundaries. Bringing the two lines together, Harrington finds that the programs of the reformers , especially the Protestant ones, far outran the means of contemporary states and state-churches to put them into practice. "Sixteenth-century marriage reform," he summarizes, "was typified by commonly high religious standards , with commonly inadequate means of implementation" (p. 277). This inteLligently conceived and well executed book cuts a middle way between Steven Ozment's "Protestant Whig approach" (p. 1 1) and the disinclination ofmodernists, such as Lawrence Stone, to recognize any significant change in early modern attitudes toward marriage. Harrington's battle against their equally anachronistic expectations succeeds because of his double envelopment of marriage along a anachronic, universal axis of discourse and a synchronic , local one of praxis. His approach fits very well with both the approach to Protestant doctrine as the "harvest of medieval theology" (Heiko A. Oberman ) and the approach to premodern Germany in terms of local and territorial history (Otto Brunner, Karl Siegfried Bader). It also allows him to revise very significantly Adhémar Esmein's durable but surely false thesis about the Protestant reformation's secularization of marriage. These are major achievements, and this is a very good book. Thomas A. Brady,Jr. University ofCalifornia, Berkeley The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices: Scottish Ecclesiastical Rentals at the Reformation. Edited by James Kirk. [Records of Social and Economic History, New Series 21.] (Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, New York. 1995. Pp. lxxxviii, 896.) The title needs a word ofexplanation.The Reformation Parliament ofAugust, 1560, enacted a change of religion in Scotland but took no practical steps to bring this about. Pre-Reformation holders of benefices simply remained in possession . Then, in February, 1562, an act of council ordered one-third of all church revenues to be collected annually for the benefit of the Crown and the Reformed Church,with sitting incumbents retaining the remainder.John Knox, in a memorable expression, described the arrangement as giving two-thirds to the devil and dividing one-third between God and the devil. All the same, it was a fairly statesmanlike compromise between the various conflicting interests. All holders of church property were ordered to submit a detailed account of their revenues. OnJy the West Highlands and Isles were exempt (the logistical difficulties in that remote and difficult terrain being considered too great). BOOK REVIEWS101 Given the haste and complexity of the operation, the returns came in with surprising speed and completeness (though 'rentals' is perhaps not the best word, at least in our day, to describe these declarations of income in cash and kind). There are, of course, obscurities and discrepancies and omissions of every kind, but the result is a most important document for the historian. The value of each crop and the livestock is listed in detail for each district with a record of what was leased out for cash, while the church historian finds information on almost every financial aspect of church life. One expects a scholarly introduction to an important primary source to be enlightening and helpful, but Dr. Kirk's introduction goes far beyond this. Such matters as the background to the tax, the logistics of the assessment and its errors and deficiencies might well be taken for granted,but we are also given a detailed analysis of the information provided by the text on the life of the Church. Bishops, for instance, are dealt with in a section on Episcopal Wealth. The long section on Monastic Patrimony is particularly informative, detailing such matters as the 'portions' received by the monks (deducted before tax was assessed ), the monastic officers and servants, the amounts given out in charity. One might disagree with the editor's use of the word 'titular' to denote nonregular abbots, for their jurisdiction was real, and 'titular' in medieval canon law meant "having a legal title or right." The 'league-table' of each monastery's revenues differs little from that in Cowan and Easson'sMedievalReligious Houses: Scotland, except that Arbroath and not St. Andrews...