MEDIEVAL St Andrews was a town dominated by its ecclesiastical connections. That it was home to a cathedral and a wealthy Augustinian priory was hardly unique: Carlisle, Dublin and many other cities housed similar institutions. But unlike St Andrews, most cathedral towns were not directly dependent on their bishops. Glasgow, Rosemarkie and probably Brechin were; and eight other Scottish burghs, including Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy, were answerable to a monastic house; but none matched the prominence or wealth of St Andrews. The legal and political consequences for towns which were directly dependent on ecclesiastical overlords have been widely recognised by historians of Scotland, though (save for Glasgow) much less attention has been devoted to the social and economic consequences of that relationship – the subject with which this chapter is primarily concerned.

Of course, all burghs had an ecclesiastical presence. In medieval Scotland, towns were the focal point of a single parish and usually the parish church was located within the town. Dependent chapels were often situated on the urban peripheries; and from the thirteenth century the urban landscape was further enhanced by the intrusion of mendicant establishments, the friars who lived in them charged particularly with care for the urban poor. In these respects the ecclesiastical topography of St Andrews was not unusual. In the early fifteenth century the parish church, originally located in the precincts of the priory, was moved to South Street. There were several chapels in or near the town (including one in the castle) and two hospitals (dedicated to St Leonard and St Nicholas) had been founded in the twelfth century. The friars came much later, which explains why they were based on the western fringes of the built environment: the Franciscans, established by 1463, were settled between Market Street and North Street while the Dominicans, whose presence did not become significant until the early sixteenth century, were located on South Street. That St Andrews housed only two mendicant houses – both founded long after the thirteenth- century heyday of the mendicants – suggests that the town was small. However, the mendicant presence was perhaps inhibited by the Augustinian canons of the cathedral priory, whose order was also noted for its engagement with the secular world. There were other ecclesiastical institutions too. Secular canons inhabited the collegiate church of St Mary on the Rock.