Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SUPERINTENDENT, n. Also †-ant. Sc. Church Hist.: an official appointed in the Church of Scotland in terms of the First Book of Discipline in 1560 whose duty was to supervise the administration of the newly-reformed Church in a specified district or province, to visit established ministers and to place new pastors in parishes vacated by non-reformed clergy. With the growth of the new Church the office lapsed and the term is now hist., though in freq. use in the current controversies about the introduction of Episcopacy into the Presbyterian Church.Sc. 1759 W. Robertson Hist. Scot. I. 214:
Instead of Bishops, he [Knox] proposed to establish ten or twelve Superintendants in different parts of the kingdom. These, as the name implies, were empowered to inspect the life and doctrine of the other clergy. They presided in the inferior judicatories of the church, and performed several other parts of the Episcopal function.Sc. 1800 M. Laing Hist. Scot. I. 18:
The superintendents, whose jurisdiction was limited to spiritual admonition, were themselves amenable to their provincial clergy; and their office was expressly a temporary expedient created to remedy or supply the scarcity of established clergy.Sc. 1816 J. Lee Hist. Ch. Scot. (1860) 190:
The name of superintendents was immediately borrowed from the Church of England.Sc. 1896 J. N. Ogilvie Presb. Churches 97:
Semi-Episcopal in their functions as the Superintendents were, the principle of Presbyterian parity was not transgressed.Sc. 1960 J. D. Mackie Hist. Sc. Reformation 155:
The Scottish superintendent certainly had authority, but a spiritual pre-eminence he had not.