This answer may be totally irrelevant, since it is based on English local
history, rather than Scottish, but I offer it for what it is worth.
Many English churches were founded as minsters in the Anglo-Saxon with a
number of small number of parish clergy. In the twelfth or thirteenth
century some of these were converted into houses of secular canons or were
appropriated to a regular monastery as part of its endowment; others had
the number of clergy increased, so that they became Cathedrals with a
number of cannons or predendaries, the endowments for the prebends
sometimes also being appropriations from smaller minsters. However some
minsters managed to avoid such impropriations, and remained as parish
churches with several joint rectors (as Malpas in Cheshire). In some cases
however the rectorships were themselves converted into sinecures (using the
term in its strict sense), by the rectors appointing a single vicar (as at
Ledbury in Herefordshire). The joint rectors, and after the
impropriation, the sinecurists were entitled to a defined portion of the
income of their church from tithes and other endowments, and were therefore
known as portioners. After the Restoration the two portions at Ledbury
passed into secular hands as small freehold estates, somewhat similar to
what lay rectors had.
I am unfamiliar with what happened to Scottish monastic endowments after the
Reformation save that they too were secularised. Does this fit the
context?
Peter King
----- Original Message -----
From: Sue Scott <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 07 August 2000 16:06
Subject: Sorbitor and portioner
> I have been looking at wills, sasines and parish registers
> of Scotland and have found the terms, sorbitor and
> portioner. The former appears to imply a service given to
> another i.e. James Wallace, sorbitor to Abram Newton. The
> latter seems to describe a position in the community i.e.
> George Cunningham, portioner of Balerno. I have been
> unable to find a suitable definition in any reference book
> and should be most grateful for any help.
>
> Thanks in anticipation
>
>
> Sue Scott, Liverpool.
>
>
> ----------------------
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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