Magistrates of Elgin v. The Minister and Kirk-Session
Date: 4 December 1740 Case No. No 33.
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It was questioned between the Magistrates of Elgin and the Minister and Kirk-session, where lay the right of nomination to the offices of beadle, session-clerk, and precentor? Before the Reformation, the beadle was a church-officer, because the care of the fabric, and every thing belonging to it, was then solely in the hands of churchmen. The case is now different, where all churchmen are now stipendiaries only. It was therefore found, that the nomination of the beadle was not in the Minister and his Session, but in the Magistrates. The Kirk-session has a power of naming its own clerk; and they, with the Minister, have the right of nominating a precentor: But in this particular case, where a grant of certain emoluments was made by the Crown to the town of Elgin, for maintaining a music-master, who should be obliged to precent in the church, the right of nomination of the precentor was found to be thereby conferred upon the town.
