STITEND, the provision for the support of the parochial clergy of the church of; Scotland. It consists et* payments in money or grain, or both, made out of the teinds' or tithes of their parishes. The teinds (q.v.), originally the tenths of the produce of the lands drawn in kind, have become converted into a separate estate, held under a liability for stipend. In a majority of cases they have been purchased at a valuation by the owners of the lands to which they belong, stipends having first been " modified ' from them, and they are held under the burden of augmenting the minister's stipend to the extent of their value. Sometimes they have passed in tothe hands of titulars, i.e., grantees from the crown and their successors, or belong to colleges and hospitals, to all of whom payment of tithe is made by the proprietor of the lands according to a „valua tion or composition; and the teinds formerly held by bishops or other dignified, clergy are in the hands of the crown. In 1617 a commission was apointed by James VI. to Modify stipends to the clergy from the parochial teinds. The provision was at 'first limited to it maximum of 10 chalders of victual or 1000 merks (£55 11s. ld.) per annum and a minimum of 5 chalders or 500 merks (£27 15s 6d.); but the minimum was raised in 1649 to S chalders, or 3 chalders and money for the other 5, at a convejsion not ex ceeding £100 Scots or beneath 100 merks for each chalder; and it has been the practice to allow a further sum to the minister to meet the expense of communion elements. The power of assigning, modifying, and ]ocaling stipends, has, since the union, been possessed by the judges of the court of sessions, sitting as a court of commission of teinds. When the existing stipend of a clergyman is considered insufficient, and there remains any free teind (i.e., teind as yet unappropriated for stipend), the court have it in their power to award him out of it what augmentation they deem suitable. But by act 48, Geo. III. c. 133. no stipend can he augmented a second time till after the lapse of 20 years from a previous augmentation. The augmented stipend is modified in
victual; but the minister receives it..not in kind, but in value. according to the highest fiars (q.v.) prices of each year. By 50 Geo. III. c. 84, £10,000 annually was set apart from the revenue for the purpose of raising all stipends to £150, where the teinds of the parish did not provide that sum. Act 5 Geo. IV. c. '72 makes certain provisions out of the Imbibe revenue for those clergymen who have neither manse nor glebe, or who have at manse but no glebe, or a glebe but no manse, and whose stipends do not exceed £200 !t year.
The terms at which -tipend is payable are Whitsunday and Michaelnirs. If the in cumbent be admitted before Whit snntlay. is entitled to the whole year's sOpend ; and if his interest eense'before that term,:he has no claim to any part of it. If be is ad mitted between \Thitsunday and 'Michaelmas, he is entitled to a stipend. If his interest cease between these terms, boor his representatives have right to a half-year's sti pend; and if it cease after Michaelmas, to the whole year's stipend. No stipend is due till collation have taken place, and stipend continues due to a suspended clergyman. On the decease of a clergyman, a sum equal to a half-year's stipend is due to his executors, under the name of ainn or annat (a word derived from the now altogether analogous annatte, or first-fruits of the canon law), one-half of which goes to the widow, and the other half to the children or other next of kin, the whole passing to the next of kin where there is no widow. It is additional to the sum otherwise due to the incumbent; so that if he survive Whitsunday, he will have half the year's stipend, and his executors will have the other half as ann; and if he survive Michaelmas, he will have the whole year's sti pend, and an additional half-year's stipend will be due to as ann. The • stipend accruing durng a vacancy was formerly at the disposal_of the patron of the parish for pious uses, but has been given by statutes 50 Geo. III. c. 84, and 54 Geo. III. c. 49, to the ministers' widows' fund.