Robert Forman

Robert Forman (died 1530) was a late medieval Scottish churchman. He was the son of one Janet Blackadder and her husband, a Berwickshire landowner named Nicholas Forman of Hatton.^[1] Sometime before 11 February 1500, he was made Precentor of Glasgow.^[2] He was Dean of Glasgow from 1505, a position he would hold until his death.^[3] Between 1506 and 1511 he was also in possession of the Chancellorship of the diocese of Moray.^[4]

After the death of William Elphinstone (d. 24 October 1514), the bishopric of Aberdeen became vacant. At Rome Pope Leo X provided Forman to the vacant see. However, the canons of Aberdeen prepared to elect a successor. According to John Spottiswoode, Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly, pressured the canons to elect his own cousin, also Alexander Gordon, a man who was at that time the Precentor of Moray.^[5] Forman was persuaded by his brother Andrew Forman, Archbishop of St Andrews, to yield his claim to Gordon upon the promise of the next vacancy.^[6]

He never, however, obtained any other bishopric. He died as Dean of Glasgow on 19 November 1530.

Notes[]

References[]

• Dowden, John, The Bishops of Scotland, ed. J. Maitland Thomson, (Glasgow, 1912)
• Innes, Cosmo, Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis: Ecclesie Cathedralis Aberdonensis Regesta Que Extant in Unum Collecta, Vol. 1, (Edinburgh, 1845)
• Keith, Robert, An Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops: Down to the Year 1688, (London, 1924)
• McGladdery, C. A., "Forman, Andrew (c.1465–1521)", in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , Retrieved 1 May 2007
• Watt, D.E.R., Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae Medii Aevi ad annum 1638, 2nd Draft, (St Andrews, 1969)