The later mediaeval burgh Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen

Of all mediaeval Scottish churches it is those of the burghs that are best documented, and among these St Nicholas' of New Aberdeen is particularly fortunate. The intercessionary institution of the chantry chapel reached its peak in popularity in Scotland at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Within the parish churches of the greater burghs private chapels proliferated, founded upon the wealth of burgess and local landed families. By the mid-fifteenth century there had emerged within St Nicholas' a corporation of chaplains, possessed of corrmon endowments for the celebration of anniversaries and other special masses. The pressures imposed upon accommodation by side altars and choral services resulted in successive major programmes of structural expansion. By the Reformation St Nicholas' was one of the largest parish churches in Scotland, housing some fifty chaplainries at thirty altars, and served by a choir of thirty-four. Between the mid-fifteenth century and the Reformation the names of more than twohundred chaplains and choristers are known. Preference for kinsmen or those of local origin is clear in the regulations of both burgh council and of private chaplainries. Aberdeen possessed both sang and grammar schools. The close relationship of these and the choir is illustrated by some twenty of the sixty known choristers who later appear as chaplains. Bishop Elphinstone's foundation of a university in Old Aberdeen was followed by a significant increase in the number of graduates holding chaplainries within St Nicholas'. The activities of the staff were not restricted to the church. A succession of chaplain-notaries served as common clerks of the town, others as agents of the councilor proctors of kinsfolk and local dignitaries. By the fifteenth century the burgh council came to be the major patron of the parish church, employing many of the staff of the choir, holding the advocation of numerous altars, and taking responsibility for the maintenance of the entire fabric with the reconstruction of the choir in the later years of the century. As a major port Aberdeen's relations with the Continent were close. For the furnishing and decoration of the parish kirk the burgh council and private patrons were heavily dependent upon imported manufactured goods from Flanders. Trade was not the sole contact with the outside world. Despite the foundation of three universities in Scotland in the course of the fifteenth century, students continued to be attracted to the universities of the Continent, in particular, Paris. Whatever the local particularism of the patrons of the parish church, both the burgh and its staff were open to the influence of the wider world