The Archdeaconry of Lothian, located in modern-day

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, was a sub-division of the

diocese of St Andrews The Archdiocese of St Andrews (originally the Diocese of St Andrews) was a territorial episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in early modern and medieval Scotland. It was the largest, most populous and wealthiest diocese of the medieval ...

, one of two

archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

ries within the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

and in essence that part of the diocese which lay south of the

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. The

Lothian Lothian (; ; ) is a region of the Scottish Lowlands, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills and the Moorfoot Hills. The principal settlement is the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, while other signific ...

archdeaconry was headed by the Archdeacon of Lothian, a subordinate of the

Bishop of St Andrews The Bishop of St. Andrews (, ) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of St Andrews in the Catholic Church and then, from 14 August 1472, as Archbishop of St Andrews (), the Archdiocese of St Andrews. The name St Andrews is not the town or ...

Organisation

In the medieval period, the Archdeaconry of Lothian contained three deaneries:

Linlithgow Linlithgow ( ; ; ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland. It was historically West Lothian's county town, reflected in the county's historical name of Linlithgowshire. An ancient town, it lies in the Central Belt on a historic route between Edi ...

, Haddington and Merse.

Deanery of Linlithgow

Deanery of Lothian or Haddington

Deanery of the Merse

References

* McNeill, Peter G.B. & MacQueen, Hector L. (eds), ''Atlas of Scottish History to 1707'', (Edinburgh, 1996) * Watt, D.E.R., ''Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi ad annum 1638'', 2nd Draft, (St Andrews, 1969), pp. 309–14 *

Lothian {{Scotland-stub