ABSTRACT
At numerous instances Innes stressed the importance of ecclesiastical documents for illustrating the development of feudal law, tenure, conveyancing, and judicial processes. However, the most recurrent theme in Innes work with ecclesiastical sources was the contribution of the medieval church to national advancement. This urge to unearth the lines of societal progress was very much a legacy of Enlightenment. Earlier in the same volume he associated the new monasteries of the twelfth century with a 'social revolution' and argued that ecclesiastical records evidenced a direct link between the endeavours of the church and an improvement in the 'manners' of the people. The manuscripts that he used are well known to modern medievalists who describe them using the terms 'cartulary' and register'. In 1829 Tytler stated that monastic 'registers' could be divided into three groups: annals, obits, and cartularies. Innes took an even more interventionist approach with the Brechin Registrum, his final ecclesiastical record edition published in 1856.
