Thomas Green is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow undertaking research into the Commissary Courts and the Scottish Ecclesiastical Polity, 1559-1649.

He was previously a postgraduate student within the Department of Ecclesiastical History, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, most recently completing a PhD on 'The Court of the Commissaries of Edinburgh: Consistorial Law and Litigation, 1559-1576/7'. The research was funded by The Stair Society and supervised by Jane Dawson, Professor of Reformation Studies, and by John Cairns, Professor of Legal History. The thesis was examined in 2010 by Michael Lynch, formerly Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography at the School of History and Classics, University of Edinburgh, and by Andrew Lewis, Professor of Comparative Legal History at the School of Laws, University College London. The thesis may be downloaded in full, subject to copyright, at http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/5456

Dr Green's main interests are in medieval and early modern constitutional theory and ecclesiology, and in Canon law and Scots law during and after the Scottish Reformation.

In addition to his post-doctoral research, Dr Green is currently completing a volume for The Stair Society entitled The Consistorial Decisions of the Commissaries of Edinburgh, 1564 - 1576/7, which is due to be published in 2013. Following the suppression of the courts spiritual of the Catholic Church in Scotland during the early stages of the Scottish Reformation, the Commissaries of Edinburgh were appointed in 1563/4 by Mary, Queen of Scots, in order that the jursidiction of the medieval Church might continue to be administered within Scotland until such time as a settled ecclesiastical polity might be resolved upon. The Commissaries of Edinburgh enjoyed a number of national jurisdictions, which in essence represented both the centralization of the higher functions of the old diocesan Officials and the relocation within the Scottish kingdom of a number of legal functions formerly enjoyed by the papacy in Scottish ecclesiastical affairs. Noteworthy among these was a national jurisdiction over all divorce, marriage and legitimacy actions, and a national jurisdiction over all benefice actions. The forthcoming Stair volume consists primarily of a collection of edited transcriptions of all decreets pronounced by the Commissaries of Edinburgh in divorce, marriage and legitimacy actions during the twelve years following their appointment. Whilst the volume will be of use to historians with research interests in sixteenth-century Scottish and ecclesiastical history, its central value will be to legal historians with an interest in the history of Canon law in Protestant Scotland.  

The current post-doctoral research aims to develop some of the major themes of interest explored by Dr Green's recent thesis, the end product of which will be a monograph on the Commissary Courts and the Scottish Ecclesiastical Polity, 1559 - 1649. The central thesis of the work is that insofar as the Commissary system was concerned, the central event of the Scottish Reformation was not the establishment of the Protestant Kirk, but rather the 'disestablishment' of the medieval Church. The process of 'disestablishment' resulted in a prolonged period of confusion and uncertainty concerning the constitutional basis of the Commissary Courts, their jursidiction, the laws which they ought to enforce and their relations with the courts and tribunals of the Protestant Kirk.

Three distinct constitutional phases are contained within the proposed time period. The first phase arose out of the confused circumstances of the early years of the Scottish Reformation, and in effect resulted in a Commissary system which was understood to be a temporary arrangement, which despite having been established by the Crown was understood to administer the spiritual jurisdiction of the old episcopate. The second phase arose out of the episcopalian policies of James VI after his succession to the English Crown, during which he sought to impose an episcopalian ecclesiology upon the Church in Scotland. As part of this policy he 'restored' the jurisdiction of the Commissary Courts to the post-Reformation Scottish episcopate, whilst attempting to introduce what were essentially English conceptions of the spiritual authority of the English Crown into a Scottish context. The result was a re-ordering of the administration of the jurisdiction of the Commissary system in which a number of the national jurisdictions of the Commissaries of Edinburgh suffered derogation in favour of the inferior, provincial Commissaries, whose own jursdiction was made to resemble that of the old diocesan Officials. The third phase arose out of first triumph of Presbyterianism in Scotland from 1638 and the overthrown of the Scottish episcopate which this entailed. The Presbyterians sought to abolish the Commissary Courts as a remnant of medieval Catholicism and Jacobean episcopalianism, but in the event the courts were saved by the constitutional theories of the Presbyterian Commissary of Edinburgh, John Nisbet, later Lord Dirleton. Nisbet argued, somewhat ingeniously and with a total disregard for historical accuracy, that from the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Commissary system had been understood to be the result of the restoration to the Scottish Crown of a civil jurisdiction usurped by the Catholic episcopate at some point during the middle ages. From this basis he was able to argue that the jurisdiction of the Commissary Courts was a civil jurisdiction emanating from the Scottish Crown, and therefore unmoved by the abolition of the Scottish episcopate.

For further details about the Centre for Legal History at the University of Edinburgh please see http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/centreforlegalhistory/