ABSTRACT
The kirk session was an entirely new addition to the religious and social life of Scots. Kirk sessions would meet regularly, ideally on a weekly basis throughout the year, and each year a new set of elders and deacons was to be elected to the session. The election actually took place that September, and was not repeated until 1637. The membership was not uniform, and status within the session must have depended on a number of factors, especially social and economic standing. The social composition of inland rural sessions was naturally very different in the absence of the burgh oligarchy: normally there were a few lairds, with the rest of the elders. Ministers were also essential for discipline in a more prosaic organisational sense. The final source of authority considered here, running in parallel to that of the kirk session over parishioners, or the burgh court over townspeople, was that of craft organisations over their members.
