THE MONASTERIES OF SCOTLAND

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION

THE MONASTERIES OF SCOTLAND

PREFACE

Many years ago I became fascinated by the re-introduction of the monastic life in the Church of England having in 1956 read a book by Peter Anson entitled “The Call of the Cloister”. Anson had been a novice in the community of Anglican Benedictines which had been founded in 1896 by one Aelred Carlisle as an attempt to once again establish the Benedictine way of life in the Anglican Church. His attempt subsequently failed, and his community on Caldey Island in Wales made its submission to the Church of Rome on the fifth of March, 1913.Subsequently it became, and still is, a Cistercian Abbey.

This fascination led to a life-long quest to visit the sites of medieval monasteries, and their remains be they either cathedrals, parish churches, stately or ordinary homes, various other buildings, ruins, or just a few blocks in a field. The journey began after I had lived in England in 1960-1961, and when my wife and I returned there in 1965. Over the years we have managed to visit, and photograph all the remaining monastic sites in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and the Isles of Scilly (all 691 of them), and 32 of those in France that had daughter houses in the United Kingdom. I began writing about them to give my wife something to read while I photographed what remains there were. At the same time I began a collection of books, articles, journals, and pamphlets dealing with the history and archaeology of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish monasteries, and those in France. The collection, both texts and slides (numbering some 7100 items, and 15,600 slides) now reside at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, from which I hold a degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.

Writing about the monasteries of the British Isles was to be a monumental task, so I left my writings to concentrate on the monasteries of Ireland, a quest that began in 1995, and ended 14 years and their remains. This lead to the publication, “The Monasteries of Ireland - A Christian Journey Through Time”.

It is now to attempt a second volume on the monasteries of Scotland, a less daunting task than Ireland as the number of monastic sites are less. The monasteries of England and Wales will be left to a later date, as the numbers in England and Wales, and their sites, especially in England, are more numerous and the remains more extensive as many exist as cathedrals, and parish churches. In Scotland, on the other had that situation does not exists as many of the monasteries

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were despoiled during the Protestant Reformation.

These tasks of visiting monastic sites, photographing the and collection of books, articles, and pamphlets lead to a collection, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, led to many interesting experiences, although in Ireland where it took trudging across rocky, and not so rocky fields, frightening sheep, and being frightened by horses, and cattle, wading through streams, climbing rocks, and meeting people of all stations in life. In England we were welcomed by many to see the remains on their property, or in their homes. This this was not the case in Scotland (and Wales) as there were few sites in private hands. In England, Wales and Scotland the monastic sites were much more civilized than in Ireland as many were in the ownership of the government, and had been “tidied up”.

INTRODUCTION

According to St. Bede, (the Venerable Bede – 672(3) - 675), the basis of the religious life in Scotland began with the foundation of St. Ninian (360-432) at Whithorn, a former burgh in the Royal Burgh of Dumfries and Galloway. This cannot be substantiated. Undoubtedly it began with the arrival of St. Columcille (Columba – 521-591) and his foundation on Iona in 563. Columcille, an Irish missionary born at Gartan in County Donegal Ireland, spread Christianity to Scotland in the 6th century. In the subsequent years many communities were founded on islands like Iona – Artchain founded by Findchan, and MagLuinge on the Isle of Tree. Bathine was its abbot before 597 when he succeeded as abbot of Iona on the death of Colmcille. Others were founded on Eigg by Donna who was murdered with his community in 617; Hinba on Jura, founded by Colmcille himself before his death in 597; Cella Diuni founded by Diun, on Loch Awe; and on Lismore by Moluag, who died in 592, were also founded in his lifetime. Aberdour in County Aberdeen was also founded by Columcille, and his disciple Drostan on the mainland, at the same time as the monastery of Deer- these according to 12 th century Gaelic tradition. Another island monastery founded at that time was one on Rum, in County Inverness, founded by Bechan who died in 677.

In the century after his death. Applecross (673) in Ross and Cromarty was founded by Mael-rubi, the abbot of Bangor, who died there in 722. Abernethy in County Perth was established c. 600 by Nechtank of the Picts. The date being disputed. Kingarth on the Isle of Bute was founded by Daniel, the bishop, before 660 the year that he died. These were amongst several other ancient foundations, quoted in Cowan, and Easson.

.The establishing of these monasteries in Scotland was, in reality not the major success of St. Colmcille, but rather the southward movement of Columban monasticism toward the north of England during the establishment of monastic life in Northumbria, culminating with the Synod of Whitby in 664, and the universal establishment of the Roman Rite in the English Church.

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Between 635 and that time monasteries were founded at Old Melrose, perhaps founded from Iona in the episcopate of St. Aidan or between 635 and 651 at the time of the entrance of St. Cuthbert to the monastery. Old Melrose was deserted by 1074. Whithorn may have had an existing community even before the arrival of St. Ninian who died in 642. Monasteries were also founded at Govan, in County Lanark, (founded in the late 6 th century by St.Constantine of Cornwall), although historical evidence is lacking, archaeological evidence would appear to establish the fact that a community was established there at the time of the 7 th century. Coldingham, a double monastery of monks and nuns, was founded by Ebba, the daughter of King Ethelfred of Northumbria, and destroyed by the Danes c. c. 683. There is evidence, however, that there was a community of nuns existing in 870. Tyningham, in County East Lothian, was founded in the early 8th century by Baldred, and destroyed by the Norse in 941. In the north most Columban monasteries were destroyed by the Norse by the 10th century.

The introduction of Roman monastic life began with the coming of the Saxon King Aetheling’s daughter, Margaret (St. Margaret of Scotland – c. 1045 – November 16, 1093) when she went north to become the bride of Mál Coluim mac Donnchada (Malcolme III ) in 1070, and brought with her the influences of the Roman Church. She changed monastic practices to bring them in line with the medieval type of monasticism as practiced in the Church of Rome.

In Scotland at that time there was a religious association called Céli Dé – Companions of God or Culdees) an ascetic, ermetical monastic way of life that had come from Ireland, having been expelled from Ireland by Nectan, son of Deril in 717. During her lifetime there was never a threat to these well established communities.

There has always been a matter of controversy in just what this way of life constituted – its origin, doctrines, the rules under which the adherents lived, the limits of their place in the Church, and indeed the etymology of the term “Culdee”(Ceile-De) meaning companion or spouse of God. In Irish it was written Ceile-De, with the plural Colidei, anglicized in English to Culdees. In Scots Kelidei or Cultores-Dei, from the words “worshipers of God, and cuil (shelter) or kil meaning church. It is thought that the word Ceile-De was an easy transliteration to Colideus, or Culdees.

In the Irish annals the epithet Ceile-De was appropriately given to St. John, one of the twelve Apostles, but then given to a missionary who is recorded in the in the Annal of the Four Masters in the year 806, and to Oengus, a monk (not to be confused with Aengus a mythical figure – the Irish god of love) and author of Tallaght, his penances and mortifications, humility, piety, and religious zeal marked him out as “the companion of God”. At the end of the 8th century he wrote the Félire Oengusso. He was a member of a community governed by Maelrun who drew up a rule for the Culdees of Tallagh that prescribed fasting, prayers, confession, penance, and devotions. Although there is little evidence that it was followed elsewhere it is certainly an indication of the life followed by these communities of canons.

The Culdees were an early example of the religious life for holy men who loved and lived a life

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of solitude, and lived by the labour of their hands. Gradually they came together in community, still occupying separate cells, alone and in communion with God, but meeting in the refectory and in the church, and giving obedience to a common superior, a life analogous firstly to the life lived by the monks and nuns in those communites founded by St. John of the Desert, and later in a communal life pioneered by St. Pachomius in the early church of Egypt, and Palestine. The individual houses of Culdees could not either be recognized as houses of a religious order such as those founded by St. Benedict

In Ireland this order held an intermediate position in the church between the parochial clergy and the monastic order, and were analogous to secular canons. There special function seems to have been in the realm of choral worship functioning in cathedrals, and parish churches as ministers. At the end of the 8th century one Oengus, wrote the Félire Oengusso. He was a member of a community governed by Maelrun who drew up a rule for the Culdees of Tallagh that prescribed fasting, prayers, confession, penance, and devotions. Although there is little evidence that it was followed elsewhere it is certainly an indication of the life followed by these communities of canons.

There is no record after his death in 792 when Tallagh disappears from the Annals until 919 when it appears again in the writings of the Four Masters recording the sack of Armagh. At that time communities of Culdees were documented at Clonmacnoise, Clones, Clondalkin, Devenish, and Scattery Island. Armagh was the last of the Counties of Ireland to be brought under English rule. Culdees continued to live in the Cathedral under lay abbots until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1541. When a Chapter was formed about 1160 the prior filled the office of precentor, while the remaining Cudees That of vicars coral. Their leader ranked as chancellor, and had a vote in the election of the Archbishop. They even had a resurrection, fleeting though it was, in 1627.

In Ireland houses of the Culdees where they were unwilling to reform such as Scattery Island and Monahincha, or unable to continue due to the incursions of the Danes were converted into monasteries of Augustinian canons.

Although they continued to exist in Ireland, they were more numerous in Scotland where they had been founded by the 8th century. There is no mention of Culdees in Scotland until long after the time of Colmcille. In the 12th century they were mentioned in Iona, Loch Leven where they were located on St. Serf’s Inch (in 1093 they surrendered their island to the Bishop of St. Andrews for food and clothing. There had been a settlement of Culdees years before). The bishop in turn gave their vestments, books, and other property to the new house of Augustinians. There are remains of that chapel to the north-east of the ruined cathedral. Their foundation at Kirkcaldy was granted by Malcolm III to the monastery of Dunfermline.

As well as St. Andrew’s the principal Seats of the Culdees were at Aberlady, Abernethy,Abercom, Brechin, Coldingham, Culross, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Govan, Inchcalm, Kirkcaldy, Loch Leven (Portmoak),, Mailros, Muthill, Monymusk. Omsay, Oronsay, Scone, St

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Andrews, Tyningham, and questionably one in the Orkney Islands. Of these five became Augustinian monasteries (Abernethy, Loch Leven (Portmoke), Monymusk, scone, and St Andrew’s (Kilrimont). Muthill is mentioned in Cowan and Easson as an early foundation, but not as a house of Culdees.. Brechin and and Dunblane, and questionably Dunkeld became cathedrals;.

The way of life of the Culdees of Scotland as those in Ireland could not be described as monastic Although each house was governed by an abbot, the members could be married: others were celibate clergy, and unmarried laymen. At St. Andrew’s in the year 1000 there were thirteen Culdees holding office by hereditary tenure. At Kirkcaldy the abbot was a layman, and some of the clerical members were married.

Those that did not join with the recently established houses of Augustinian canons were allowed to continue their way of life using the revenues of their houses until they were exhausted, and life took its course even to the end of the 13 th century. Other houses passed into the hands of laymen. At St. Andrews they lived side-by-side with the canons of the Cathedral, and were mentioned up to 1332 in the Cathedral records.

There was a single house of Culdees in England at York where they served in the cathedral, and ministered to the sick and poor. They ceased their connection to the cathedral under the new Norman Archbishop, but continued their commitment to the poor. When they ceased to exist is unknown. In Wales there was a houseat Bardsey recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis (c.1146 – c.1223). When it ceased to exist is unknown as well.

In Scotland Margaret requested Lanfranc to send Benedictine monks to Dunfermline in her husband’s kingdom to rectify the customs and usages of the Church there.

Her descendants carried on that work over the next two centuries. Coldingham was founded from the Benedictine monastery of Durham, and Scone from the Augustinian house at Nostell. The Tironian monastery at Selkirk was founded by her son David I. During this time of the 11 th

to 12th centuries there was an explosion of the monastic life in Scotland with communities founded from England and France:

Cistercians at Melrose, Dundrennan and Kinloss from RievaulxAugustians at Holyrood from Merton, Jedburgh from Beauvais, and Cambuskenneth from ArrouaisePremonstratensians at Dryburgh frm Alnwick

David also founded Tironians at Lesmahagow, Benedictines at the Isle of May, and Urquart, and Cistercian nuns at Berwick, and a house of the Knights Templar at Balantrodoch.

Malcolm IV founded Coupar Angus from Melrose in the mid 12th centuryThe Anglo-Norman nobility were not sluggards by any means. For instance Cluniacs were brought from Much Wenlock to Paisley by Walter, son of Alan, the Steward of Scotland; Hugh

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de Morville is credited (although insecurely) with the foundation of the Tironese house of Kilwinning. The house of Cistercian nuns at Haddington was founded by Ada, the Countess of Northumberland. The various Lords of Galloway founded houses at Soulseat, Whithorn, Glenluce, and Iona for instance. Devorgilla, the widow of John Balliol founded the Cistercian abbey of Sweetheart to house his heart. It was the last Cistercian abbey to be founded in Scotland as the General Chapter of the Cistercians bnned the foundation of new monasteries after 1251.

Malcolm’s Brother William carried on the regal foundations at Arbroath, and Lindores, while Alexander II founded Culross, Deer, Balmarino, and Pluscarden. Alexander III founded the friary of Tullilum for the Carmelite friars

The order of Friars arrived in 1230 – the Dominicans at Edinburgh, and in 1262 the Carmelites at Tullilum. The Franciscans arrived in Roxburgh in 1262.

By the end of the 13th century that mammoth religious fervour and activity of foundations of religious houses was over.

The difficulties in English-Scottish relations was rearing its ugly head. The monastic houses in Scotland were trying to sever their connections with their founding houses in England. The Friars Minor attempted to establish its own Provincial Minister when they petition the General Chapter at Narbonne in 1260 at the time of Alexander III,. Although rejected in fact Scotland became a de facto separate entity, and a Vicariate was indeed founded in 1329.

From the late 13th century to the 16th century there was constant friction, and indeed wars between the Scots and the English, and monastic houses were never immune from the problems. Those Scottish houses which had been founded from England suffered from the almost constant frictions and wars the independence movements of Wallace and Bruce. The latter’s victory in 1314, and the treaty of 1328 did not put an end to the struggles, and skirmishes at the border. Melrose, Dryburgh, Holyrood, and Kelso suffered from English incursions throughout to 14th

century.

Robert I -Robert the Bruce- (king from 1306-1329) continued royal patronage with the foundations of Stratfillan Augustinians, Carmelites at Banff, Friars Minor at Lanark in the early 14th century despite the fact that the 14th century was a time of decline in the monastic life. After him was a time of unstable government and weak kings, a time of insecurity and wars. A few houses of friars were established from James I , and during the reigns of his successors. James II through to James V- James I founded the Carthusian house at Perth, and James II the Observant Franciscan house in Edinburgh in 1462, and St. Andrew’s Dominicans in 1458.

The first phase of the decline in monastic life began in the 14th century. Two factors led to this beginning, the Hundred Years War which began in 1337 and lasted until 1453, and especially the Black Death, the most devastating pandemic the world has ever seen. Originating in the plains of Central Asia, and reaching the Crimea in 1453. Carried by rats, the frequent travellers

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on merchant ships, it spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin and Northern Europe killing from 30-60 % of the European population killing, monks, nuns canons, and friars in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles. It virtually wiped out the Cistercian lay brotherhood.

The reign of the five James’es from 1406 to 1542 saw the last phase of monastic life in Scotland. The exception was the foundation of the houses of Observant Friars, at Greenside in 1520, Kincardin in 1443, Kingissie in1521, and Queensferry in1440; and some houses of nuns – Cistercian at Kircudbright in 1453; Augustinians at Perth in 1434; Dominicans at Edinburgh in 1517; Franciscans at Aberdour in 1486, and Dundee in 1501.

James 1 in 1425 spoke to the condition of life being led in the monastic foundations. It being decayed and immoral, and undisciplined, with the need of reform. A threat was made that their endowments would be withheld.? In 1587 it was decreed that as the monasteries were either established by the Crown, or permitted by the Crown for others to establish them, they indeed were the property of the Crown, and could be deposed by it’s wishes. In spite of these decisions James I had a sincere wish to reform the monastic life, unlike his English counterpart Henry VIII, who at the same time was eyeing the riches of the monasteries in England, Wales, and Ireland as a source to replenish his treasury.

Although this was his aim the way he began led in the end to the destruction of monastic life in Scotland. In order to set about this in his eyes needed reform, he set about a measure of granting to a “religious persona the monastic house I commendam whereby that individual took over the financial affairs of the monastic house. In the beginning it was to occur only when a vacancy occurred, an exceptional measure. Although Parliament ruled against the measure, Royal prerogative ruled it to be so. The practice flourished as it became a lucrative source of fundsfor the crown and those who managed to purchase the commendatum. The effect of the monastic life was demoralizing and devastating. It lead to a confrontation between the Crown and the Pope, who held the right of appointment to benefices, a provision established by Pope John XXII (1316-34) in the early 14th century. The Royal decrees were likely motivated to stop the flow of monies to the Papacy. A royal licence was required after 1466. In 1491it was ruled that no person , lay or religious was allowed to purchase a commendatum.. In the reign of James III (1460-68) there was to be no further annexations. Any that had been made were revoked’, and any that would be established or attempted to do so would suffer the pain of treason. The Act of 1496 forbade any resort to Rome without the King’s licence. As a result of all this manoeuvrings regulations were established that royal nomination was required for a commendatum, and could be granted. This was to counteract any Papal interference. As a result these commendations secular persons became the commendtors by the king’ nomination, and religious life withered on the vine of royal pleasure. \the king was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.The policies were continued by James V who was urged by Henry VIII to follow his example, but James preferred his own method of “stripping the altars” of the monasteries which in time led to what Dom David Knowles described as “Bare Ruined Towers”. The monasteries of Scotland became architectural ruins, domestic houses, earthworks, or field names. The houses of Friars because they were in urban locations were mostly destroyed, those of the monastic orders, Benedictines, Cistercian, Augustinian, Premonstratensian, and Carthusian which were built in the countryside,

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built in places of contemplation survive as those “bare ruined choirs”. Monastic property was stripped of its wealth, its possessions by the crown, and those to whom the crown granted them to commendators. But the triumph of Protestantism spelled the end of the monastic life in Scotland.

James V (1512-1542) obtained rom the Pope Paul III (1534-1549) a bull that recognized the Royal prerogative of nomination, and the right to use the temporalities of a religious house during prelacies, and the houses of Cluniacs, Cistercians and Premonstratensians. He also obtained a bull sanctioning the taxation of the Church in order to replenish the coffers of the royal treasury.

Monasteries were driven to maintain financial status by feufing. (Feu = tenure in exchange for a fixed rent) which led to a rapid decline in monastic revenues.\it was this, and the secularization of monasteries, regal demands, and the sequestrations of monastic revenues by commendators, and that lead in the end to the end of monastic life in Scotland. In the beginnings of the system of commendation those that received the title took on a monastic persona.

The purpose of the institution of commendam was in the first idea one of restoring morale repairing the decay, both in the condition of the moasteries themselves, and the monastic life in general. Some of these commendatory abbots were contentious and tried to reform what was taking hold in some of these monasteries, to recover their lost patrimony, and raise the standards of life and observance. However, despite these good intentions, although praiseworthy the policy had the opposite effect, and as was ever thus, it took little time for those that were to take on the life of greed.

During the reign of James V war between England and Scotland was ever present, and the incursions between the Tay and the Tweed in the 16th century was ever present. Many of the great houses, Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh were repeadily destroyed as were the houses of lesser monasteries, such as Balmarino, and the house of nuns at Elcho, nunneries the friaries of Dundee. All this at the time of the Reformation with its tide of resentment against the Church, and the monastic life.

In 1546 an act was passed by the Lord of Council. And subsequently endorsed by parliament that anyone that had a part in an act of attack on a monastery would be charged with treason. Considering the reformatory zeal at the time we can surmise that this was not to protect the monastic life but rather to protect the physical state of the monastic sites themselves. The properties of the friars, being in towns had little value, and were disposed of by settling them to the burghs. Being in towns they were a ready target for the mobs aroused by the reformers and were destroyed. Not those of monasteries, being away in scarcely populated areas, and under the protection of those that had come to own them. The avarice of the commendators was enough to protect. Of the 15 houses of nuns in Scotlad 4 had disappeared before the Reformation, the other were small and inconsequential, and some were personal fiefs of families, and passed to them.

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The hospital that were run by religious houses did not survive the reformation Unlike the rest of Britain here was no organized destruction by the crown of monasteries as there was in the rest of Britain.

After the death of James V in 1542 there was not a ruler who was strong enough to resist the will of the people, especially those who had obtained a vested interest in monastic property. At the eve of the Reformation in 1556 Cardinal Sermonetta presented Pope Paul IV a gloomy picture of the state of the monasteries. It outlined the alienation by the ruling class of the monasteries and their deplorable physical state.

By 1562 monastic life had ceased to exist. In 1587 all monasteries that had not already been sold or disposed of were annexed to the crown, and sold off. There was no concerted effort to destroy the buildings as there as there was under Henry with the fear that the monks and nuns might return. The religious were allowed to stay in what was left or in the community until they died off. In Scotland the crown saved to expense of granting a stipend as did Henry VIII in England, certainly a more shrewd way of handing of its finances.

The history of the religious houses in Scotland is troubled by the lack of documentation. The way of life led in them is sparse and fragmentary with great gaps in the historical record.

There were acts of preservation as these ruins in the 18 th century and the times that followed. The writings of clergy, and laity in the 19th century lead to the romanticizing of monastic life and the ruins that dotted the landscape. The study of monasteries, and the monastic life has a long history in the British Isles both by professional historians, archaeologists, art historians, and laity. The study and analysis of architectural plans and buildings, the excavations of sites, the reconstruction of economic landscapes through surveys and documentary study over the last fifty years by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, The Commission of Ancient Monuments, and the National Trust for Scotland. This “monastic” interest led to the founding in the 18th and 19th centuries of societies founded to study not only this field but all fields of antiquarian interest – the Society of Antiquaries of London (1750); that of Scotland in 1780; the British Archaeological Association in 1843; and finally the Society for Medieval Archaeology in 1962.

What follows is an attempt to bring to the reader an outline of some of the history of these houses of religion, and what of their remains seen by the writer when they were visited in the late 20th century. Undoubtedly there would have been little change in the interval of those properties administered by the State. Those that are not the author cannot vouch that there are none.

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MONASTERIES BY COUNTY

Aberdeen – Deer,Fyvie,MonymuskAngus – Arbroath,RestennethArgyll – Ardchatten,Iona,Oronsay,SaddleAyr –Crossraguel,Dalmilling,Fail Kilwinning Berwick Coldingham,Dryburg,Eccles, St.Bothan’s,

Carmarthen - East Lothian – North Berwick LuffnessFife-Balmarino,Dunfermline,Inverkeithing,Inchcolm,Lindores,May,Pittenweem, St.Andrew’s,St.Monan’sInverness - BeaulyKinloss – Loch LevenKirkcudbright-Dundrennan,Kirkcudbright,Lincluden, SweetheartLanark- Blantyre,LesmahagowMidlothian-Balantrodoch,Holyrood,Newbattle,Soutra HospitalMoray- Elgin, Kinloss,PluscardenPeebles- PeeblesPerth-Coupar Angus,Ichmaholm,Inchaffray,

Luffness,Perth,SconeRenfrew - PaisleyRoss - FearnRoxburgh – Jedburgh,Kelso,Melrose Sterling - CambuskennethWest Lothian -TorpichenWigtown – Glenluce, Whithorn

THE MONASTERIES OF ABERDEENSHIRE

DEER ABBEY, ABERDEEN

There were two monastic houses at Deer. First an early foundation which according to 12th century Gaelic tradition was founded by Colum Cille who died in 597 and his disciple Drostan, the son of Cosrach. It is uncertain whether this early foundation ever existed however. There is a reference to clerici of Deer in the mid 12th century. This rather points to the existence of a community of secular priests. In any case some of the property passed to a cistercian abbey founded by William Comyn the Earl of Buchan. The community was established in 1219

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although monks may have been present here before that date. The founding community came From the abbey of Kinless. Whether the community of Celtic monks or secular priests was suppressed to make way for them, we do not know. We are only told the name of three brothers, Hugh, Arthur and John who came from Kinless. This gives reason to think there must have been priests or monks who were forcibly transformed into cistercians as the numbers usually sent to colonize a new foundation were twelve.

Although the abbey remained subject to Kinloss, the abbot was mitred and sat in parliament. When the Comyns fell during the War of Independence, the abbey was wasted at the hands of King Robert Bruce, however he did confirm the monks and their property and gave them more.

There is not much known of its history at all until the 16th century when the abbots of Kinless and Glenluce preformed a visitation and instructed the abbot to relax some of the austerity of his rule. He was also instructed to repair the buildings.

Secularization began with the appointment of Robert Keith a brother of the fourth earl Marischal in 1543. On his death in 1551 he was succeeded by his nephew Robert, aged fifteen, as commendator. In 1587 the abbey was erected into a barony of Altrie in his favour. About this time the buildings were dismantled until there were hardly any remains left. In 1809 the ruins were cleared of rubbish and laid out as a pleasure ground by the then proprietor James Ferguson. In 1854 Admiral Ferguson destroyed what was left of the abbey church and erected a mausoleum on its site. In 1930 the abbey was acquired by the Roman Catholic Church and the remains given to the ministry of works.

The remains consist of little more than foundations except for the south range which stands to considerable height. This would appear to be the result of the monastic buildings having been repaired in 1809.

The church consists of a nave with a north aisle, north and south transepts and an aisleless presbytery. A typical Cistercian layout in the early centuries. The cloister lay to the south with a western range containing the cellarium, the lay brothers range. There was not however, a lay brother=s walk behind the cloister walk. In the south range contained the kitchen and refectory which was the usual arrangement in an early Cistercian monastery. It was only later when the monasteries grew larger that the refectory was set at right angles to the cloister walk.

The eastern range consists of the chapter house being next to the south transept to followed by a slype which led to the infirmary to the east. South of this was the parlour and eastwards from the parlour was the abbot=s house. Between this and the parlour, however, was the reredorter and drain which can be seen with its lintels which cover it. In the interval between the slype and the north wall of the abbot=s house is a sloping stone covered courtyard.

The abbot=s house had at its west end a kitchen. Then came a passage leading through the building. Beyond this were cellars. The outside door of this passage has the most interesting of the architectural remains of Deer. It is a keystone of granite which has carved on it foliage.

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This belongs to what is called the granite interlude in Aberdeen, dating from the first half of the 15th century when granite was used for carving rather than free stone which normally used.

North of the abbot=s house are the remains of the infirmary.

Northwest of the ruins are some architectural fragments of interest. Two finely moulded arches of the sedilia and piscina which is also of interest because when first cut the drain would not work, so the stone was turned over and a new base was cut on the underside. There is also a portion of an altar showing three consecration crosses and the cavity for the mensa stone. There is also part of an effigy of a knight and two coffins.

FYVIE PRIORY ABERDEEN

The Parish Church of St. Peter was granted to Arbroath Abbey by William the Lion between 1189 and 1194. The confirmation charter was given by Henry, bishop of Aberdeen. In 1285, mentioning the founder as Reginald le Chen. N 1459 the Pope Pius X united the priory to the Abbey of Arbroath. In 1507 the then Pope Julius II regranted the priory to Arbroath in perpetuity. In 1508 a procreator was appointed by the then abbot. There was a dispute over the priorship in 1531, and the benefices of the priory were taxed for the College of Justice. When it was dissolved is unknown.The New Statistical Account of 1845 claims that the outline of the priory chapel could still be seen in the middle of a field, and the Ordnance Survey marked this as a rectangular feature on its 1871 map. However, this claim has never been proven. RCAHMS found no trace of building remains when it recorded the site in the 1970s, only modern field clearance boulders, and the 19th century cross that marks the site were extant. 

MONYMUSK PRIORY ABERDEEN

The priory of Monymusk which ended its life as a religious foundation as part of the Augustinian order, had its beginnings as a culdee monastery. Grants were given throughout the 12th century to Cell De. There is a reference to the building of a monastery there at about the end of that century, by Gilchrist the Earl of Mar which states that a monastery was founded in the Church of St. Mary in which the culdees formerly were established. He, then, can be considered as the founder of the Augustinian house.

The Bishop of St. Andrews, William de Malvoisin complained that the culdees there were professing to be canons and that a monastery had been established there in opposition to him. The Pope Innocent the Third appointed a commission to reach an agreement between the bishop

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and the culdees. There were to be thirteen in number including the prior and the community had the right to choose three of their number, but the bishop had the right to appoint one of these as prior in the event of a prior's death. The culdees, however were specifically instructed not to adopt the life of monks or canons regular and they were not to exceed the number of thirteen.

Sometime before the 19th of May 1245 the culdees had been transformed into canons regular for at this time a bull of Innocent the Fourth was addressed to Athe prior and convent of Monymusk of the Order of St. Augustine@.

Although nominally a dependency of St. Andrew's priory, the house certainly did not have the usual arrangement of a priory with its mother house in that the priors were not selected by the prior of St. Andrews, but rather by the bishop. This led to continual problems throughout the history of priory. Numbers decreased so that by the mid 15th century there were only two canons in the house and by the middle of the 16th century the monastery was described as being ruinous. There were five in 1549-50 and the last surviving record of a member of the convent is in 1574.

On the death of the last prereformation prior, John Elphinstone, the priory was gifted to John Hay, the parson of Monymusk who was also the commendator of Balmerino. On his death it was given to William Forbes and he in turn granted it to his kinsmen William with the intention of the ruins being restored and used as a school. However, the ruins seemed to have supplied stones for the building of the Forbe=s castle of Monymusk. The Forbes continued to remain commendators until 1617 when the priory was annexed to the bishopric of Dunblane.

There are some remains of this ancient house built into the modern church on the site. The Norman remains consist of the lower part of the tower and the chancel arch. To the east of this arch is a room about fifteen foot square which was used as a vestry and now is the chancel of the (...) church. The Norman remains are undoubtedly those which were erected by the Earl of Mar in the 13th century.

THE MONASTERIES OF ANGUS

ARBROATH ABBEY ANGUS

The abbey of Arbroath was founded by King William the Lion in 1178, three years after his return from captivity in Normandy. It was dedicated to St. Thomas, Archbishop and martyr. St, Thomas of Canterbury had been a friend of Williams and according to an old tradition from his school days, three years after Beckett became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, William

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succeeded his brother as King of Scots. Beckett was murdered in 1170. Four years later King Henry the Second had embarked for England leaving behind him Normandy which was in rebellion and arriving to England which had been invaded by King William. He went in pilgrimage to Canterbury and there took place his famous scourging. It was four days later that he learned that at the very hour that he left the cathedral, William had been captured at Alnwick. When William returned in 1178 he brought Tironian monks from Kelso to found a new abbey at Arbroath. The house was not dependent on its mother house, but independent from its beginning. The dedication of the church took place on the 8th of May 1233. To the church he granted the custody of the Brecbennoch of St. Columba which is now identified as the Monymusk reliquary. The king unfortunately did not live to see the abbey church finished before he died in 1214.

The abbey suffered much from fire, either from natural causes or from warfare. In 1272 the towers were destroyed as were the bells. In 1378 the abbey suffered from English attacks. In 1380 lightning and fire destroyed so much of the abbey that the community had to be temporarily removed to other places during its repair.

On the 5th of April, 1320 the Scottish nobels assembled in the abbey and sent a letter to Pope John the Twenty-second which declared Scottish independence. Unfortunately Robert Bruce and his nobels gathered here at this time did not get all that they hoped for from the Pope and it wasn't until nine years later when Bruce was dying that Pope John granted all that they had asked.

On the 26th of June, 1396 the abbey became mitred. The community was quite large. There were Twenty-seven monks in 1512 although only seventeen besides the abbot and sub-prior in 1527. Though the community at this time numbered some twenty-six. At least twenty-two survived to the reformation.

The abbey did not only see blood shed and destruction from the English. On the 29th of January, 1446 when the son of the third Earl of Crawford, Alexander Lindsay, furious with the abbot because he had appointed an Ogilvy as Bailie, attacked the abbey. The Earl of Crawford who had come to try to prevent blood shed, was struck down and killed as he attempted to talk to the Ogilvys in front of the great abbey gate. The Lindsays then attacked the Ogilvys with such devastation that it has been calculated that five hundred of the Ogilvys died and at least one hundred of the Lindsays.

When Abbot Lychtone died in November of 1502, King James the Fourth appointed his younger brother as commendator. He already was the titular Archbishop of St. Andrews and commendators of Holyrood in Dunfermline. When he died George Hepburn, the provost of Lincluden, became commendator as well as being Bishop of the Isle. He was killed at the battle of Flodden. After the battle James Stewart, Earl of Moray, the illegitimate son of the late king, became at the age of fifteen its first lay commendator.The Last abbot to reside in the monastery was David Beaten who had become in rapid succession, Bishop of Mirepoix in France, a Cardinal and in 1539 the Archbishop of St.

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Andrews. He continued to hold the abbey in commendum after he had become Archbishop and gave liberal grants of its lands to his mistress, Mariot Ogilvy, the mother of seven of his children. Two of its churches were bestowed upon his illegitimate sons.

At this time the abbey ceased for all intense purposes to be a religious foundation. James Beaton, who succeeded his uncle, became Bishop of Glasgow and the abbey at that time, came into the possession of Lord John Hamilton who kept the title of abbot despite the fact he was a Protestant. During his exile the king's favourite, Esme Stewart Duke of Lennox, resided in the abandoned dorter. Upon Hamilton's return, however his fortunes were restored to him and in 1600 after being created Marquess of Hamilton, he gave the abbey to his eldest son James. On the 6th of July, 1606 parliament erected the lands and revenues into a temporal lordship in favour of James who was now Marquess.

For a few years the Lady Chapel was used as the parish church. In 1590 the parishioner left it for a new edifice built out of the remains of the dorter. The abbey then became the local town quarry. There was no attempt made to preserve it until the early part of the 19th century and it was not until 1924 that the office of works obtained the land of which the conventual buildings were built. As one approaches the church from the west, one is greeted by the 12th, early 13th century western facade of the church from which, at its southwest angle, projects to the west - the late 13th and early 14th century gatehouse range. The two western towers are unusual in Scotland. There are only two or three other examples, one of which is Holyrood. They also occur at Eglin, St. Machar's in Aberdeen and at Glasgow. Originally the towers were of equal height. The north tower was damaged by lightning in 1272 and when rebuilt was carried a stage higher than the southern one. The blind wall arcading on the lower parts of the northern tower and above the entrance is to be noted. An arrangement of two overlapping arcades with the arches staggered. It was not part of the usual arrangements arcading used by medieval architects.

There is another feature of note - the western towers do not descend as solid walls to the ground on the inside, but are supported upon arches opening to the nave and to the aisles respectively. Thus, the towers were in effect, a bay in each aisle. There were no floors in the towers and their windows were served by timbered gallerys. The western bay of the triforium arcading is only a screen. A piercing in the south wall of the tower intended to give the appearance of a gallery where none existed.

The south transept is largely complete, but the north has been reduced to foundations. The inside of the south wall is treated as as piece of sculpture with its three tiers of wall-arcading, each one different. Originally there were shafts, but these have long since disappeared. Access to the windows are by stair turrets in each of the southern corners of the transept. The western of the south light is shorter in order to accommodate the roof of the dorter. There was no vault and the roof was covered with open timbers. The roof space being lit by the round window in the gable. On the east side of the transept were two stone vaulted chapels separated by a timber screen.

The south wall of the church is complete and has at either end a processional doorway.

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The east end of the church was the first part that was completed. Around the walls runs a stone bench and from it arose blind arcading. Much of this is original, but not all of it. There has been considerable re-facing during the 19th century restoration. Over the blind arcading on the east wall are three simple lancet windows and above it another. These too, have been restored. The north and south walls are lit as well by two lancets. West of the presbytery was the choir of three bays.

The south aisle of the choir was restructured in the 15th century in order to build the sacristy which projects from it to the south. The original 12th century windows were removed and the wall was rebuilt and a doorway and window inserted. There was, in this south aisle, an altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, Mary. There is a double piscina and aumbry which served this altar.

The sacristy is the most complete, surviving part of the church. It was of two floors in height, the ground floor being the principle part of the chamber. It is vaulted, carried on ribs which spring from corner shafts. There is a shield on the aumbry on the west wall. The arcade on this wall is asymmetrical . Originally the chamber was lit by two lancets in the east wall, however after the vault of the choir aisle collapsed, the present window over the door was inserted and the north wall refaced on the inside. There are three wall presses to be noted. In these were kept the altar plate and other valuables, such as reliquaries and it was perhaps here that the famous reliquary of Arbroath, the Monymusk, was kept. At the southwest earner of the sacristy is a small, well constructed room which was probably used as a strong room. Above that, the doorway to this room is another doorway reached by a Ladder, gives access to another small room above the latter. Probably the treasure house. The upper room of the sacristy has large windows and window seats. A doorway in its north wall connected it with the chamber above the vault on the south choir aisle and with the triforium passage.

The cloistral buildings had the usual arrangement of east, south and west ranges with the appropriate rooms contained in each. the south transept and then the chapter house. southeast corner which has been much restored. A stone bench ran around the chapter house and upon it was a blind arcade. South from this extended a dormitory range with the rear dorter and shallow drain at its southernmost end. The monks reached the south transept for the night office through a doorway in the transept gable and from there to a stair within the gable wall. The doorway is round-headed and has been blocked up.

The south range from its east consisted of a slype which led into the kitchen court south of the frater. The kitchen, itself, was in the western most part of the range. The under-croft of the western extension of the south range was incorporated into the abbot's house and as such survived. It is of three bays divided into two aisles by a central row of pillars and dates from the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The fireplace dates from the time of its conversion into the abbot=s house.

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The abbot's house, itself, was built in the late 15th and early 14th century and had a long life as a home - up to the 20th century. As such, there are many building styles and its character has been altered a number of times. It is now a museum. It contains two of the most notable relies of the abbey. The frontal of Abbot Paniter's tomb-chest and an headless effigy said to be that of St. Thomas Becket. The latter is 15th century work with very delicate carving. The other is typical of a tomb-chest with its angels, weepers and cowled monks.

Returning to the front of the church one is confronted by the gatehouse range. It is one of the few remaining gatehouses to remain in Scotland. It dates from the late 13th or early 14th century. The gatehouse is vaulted in four bays and has a room above the vault. The chamber having large windows and window seats. The outer gate is arched and was protected by a portcullis which was operated from this chamber. The southern end of the gatehouse was open. On the outside of this opening on the left can be seen the bonding stones for the old precinct wall which ran from this point to where the old parish church now stands in Kirk Square.

The building between the gatehouse and the church is of two storeys containing vaulted chambers of the 13th century on its ground floor. The eastern chamber is of three bays and is divided from the western by a modern wall. The fireplace in this has been restored. It has a garde-robe in its eastern wall. The chamber over these vaults communicated with upper chamber of the upper gatehouse.

West of the gatehouse a range runs to the west terminating with a high tower which over looks the High Street. It is entered by a doorway on its south side which gives access to a long chamber covered with a barrel-vault. The range between the gatehouse and the tower is buttressed. The buttresses having been lost between that, the gatehouse and the church. The tower is of three storeys. The top of the tower has projecting corbels which carried an over-hanging parapet walk.

AYR OBSERVANT FRIARS ANGUS

The friary was founded as late as 1472 , and was attributed to James IV (1488-1553) It first appears on record in the 14th of March 1497/8. was secularised 29 December 1559; the friars resigned the entire possession over to the Town Council; granted to the Town Council by James VI 30 December 1567 for conversion into a hospital, the extant buildings passing to George, Earl Marischal on the 22nd of September 1593. The church became derelict until 1624, and was restored in 1624 by the citizens, and was in parochial use until 1903.

AYR DOMINICAN FRIARS ANGUS

The friary was founded by Alexander II before 1242. The house was leased to the Crown on 14th of April 1567, and secularised between 1560 and 1587. The buildings were demolished, and in 1587 were granted to George, Earl Marischal on the 17th 1587. The site was currently occupied

by Robert Gordon's College, Schoolhill. On Parson Gordon's 1661 map the site shows "Blackfreers.

RESTENNETH PRIORY ANGUS

The early history of Restennth Priory is shrouded with mystery as it is so often the case with these early foundations. There is an unsubstantiated tradition that in 710 Nechtan WacDerile the high King of the Picts, wrote to Ceolfrid the Abbot of Wearmouth asking that he send monks to instruct him in the Roman Catholic faith and masons to build him a stone church. He promised to dedicate that church to St. Peter. The leader of that expedition was St. Boniface, the future apostle of Germany and he established in Pictland the earliest churches dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle. One of these was at Restenneth.

Of one thing we can be sure, there was a religious establishment here at an earlier date than the priory. This is testified to by architectural fact in the remains of the central tower of the priory church.

It was the church of St. Peter, here, that Malcolm the Fourth granted to Jedburgh Abbey between 1161 and 1162. The priory remained dependent on Jedburgh until it was united by the Pope in 1476. The union was not complete however as a small community under a prior remained here during the 16th century. In 1501 the revenues were granted to the Chapel Royal at Stirling by Alexander the Sixth with the proviso that six canons be maintained here. This, however, apparently did not take place because James the Fourth in 1508 requested that the priory be incorporated to the Bishop of St. Andrews. Of this nothing came and priors continued to remain on record although there is no record of a community at the reformation, it was still considered a dependency of Jedburgh. It had been held by a series of commendators and was erected into a temperal Lordship for Viscount Fenton later Earl of Kellie in 1606.

The church was inuse as a pariah church until 1591. After this it became ruiness and passed through the hands of a series of owners. Later in the 19th century because it was discovered that the lower part of the tower was indeed part of the original church of St. Boniface that repairs were carried out by the owner. The tower which had been hit by lightning was strengthened, In 1919 the then owner, Col. Reginal Hockings-Hall-Dempster placed the remains in the care of the ministry of works.

The most imposing remain of the priory is the tall central tower of the church with its broach spire rising to a height of some twenty-one metres. The character of the lowest part of the tower indicate that it represents a porch of the Northumbrian type which must have given access to the earliest church. Above this the church is more "modern" Above the chancel arch is a round hole cut in the yellow stone. It is believed that this was a smoke vent and maybe of re-used material. There are other parallels of this in Saxon work. Particularly in the tower of St. Benets in Cambridge. The broach spire which is octagonal dates probably from the 15th century.

Of the nave only the foundations remain and it is doubtful whether the nave was ever completed. The tower was incorporated into the nave. The north wall of the chancel being 13th century, stands some two metres to the north of the north wall of the tower. The roof line as outlined on the tower makes this clear. The chancel walls stand to roof height and are a good example of 13th century architecture with pointed windows. (A portion of the north wall has been rebuilt in modern times.) Outside of this one can see the foundation of an earlier side chapel. On the exterior south side of the chancel are a row of corbels some of which represent face masks. There are on the south side as well, a piscina and next to it a recess which would have housed wooden sedilia. Next to this again is an aumbry and a tomb recess. Part of the south wall of the choir next to the tower is older, 12th century work, it has round headed door which is now built up. This door led to the dormitory by which the canons entered the church for the night office. The marks of two successive roofs of the dormitory remain on the chancel wall and on the tower.

There are little remains of the conventual buildings. In the east range, foundations of the chapter house including part of the stone bench. Of the western and southern ranges only the east and north walls remain. Of the latter which forms the northern wall of the refectory, the corbels which carried the cloister roof remain. These are at an unusual height of about six metres. The doors in each range are modern.

Notes should be taken of the late medieval gravestone of a priest affixed to the inside north wall of the tower. There are several other tombs and a coffin.

In the episcopal mission church at Carsebarracks near Forfar, is to be found the old font of the priory dating from the 13th century.

THE MONASTERIES OF ARGYLLSHIRE

ARDCHATTAN PRIORY ARGYLL

Duncan Mccowll or McDougall founded this priory as a direct dependency of the abbey of Val des Choux in Langres in France. It was one of three dependent houses, the others being Beauly and Pluscarden, in Scotland. The other two became cistercian and benedictine respectively, but Ardchattan remained under direct control of the abbot of Val des choux at least until 1506 when it was so stated.

From the 27th of February 1545 it was held in Commendam by John Campbell who later became bishop of the Isles. He resigned in favour of his son Alexander in 1580 on the 5th of June and in 1602 the priory was erected into a tenantry for W2S21` Alexander Campbell who was at that time its commendatory prior. There was an attempt to annex it to the Bishopric of the Isles in 1615, but nothing came of this and it remained as a property of Alexander=s heirs.

There are only slight fragments remaining of the church. Thee are north, east and south walls of a rectangle which was apparently the choir of the church. It measures only sixty-six feet by twenty-eight. There is a (...). In the eastern part of the south wall is a Sedilia. The fragments built into the backs of the seats are modern additions. In the eastern wall was an aumbry.

At the west end of the building a double wall, nine feet in thickness, has been erected in past dissolutional times. It is pierced by a round headed arch which leads into an open courtyard connected with the mansion which is built on part of the nave. South of the choir is an open walled space enclosed by a wall which has been erected as a burial place in the 17th century.

This house, like all Valliscaulian houses was dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the Baptist. There was no abbot of the order. The head residing at the priory Val des Choux in France was the prior general. This order began when a lay brother Viard of the Carthusian monastery of Luvigny near Langres in Burgundy, obtained permission to leave his house and settle in the neighbouring valley of Choux. The Duke of Burgundy founded about the year 1200 a monastery for him and in 1206 papal sanction was obtained and new monastic order of monks

combining elements of the Carthusian and Cistercian orders was founded. The order grew rapidly in central and northern France and came to number some twenty houses, but never spread outside that country except for three houses founded in Scotland all in the same year 1230.

A nun from Kilmaroning Convent was smuggled in and hidden under the floor of the oratory where she remains until today.

Oronsay Augustinian Priory Argyll

a monastery of canons regular on the island of Oronsay, Inner Hebrides, Argyll, off the coast of Scotland. It was in existence by 1353, perhaps founded by John of Islay, Lord of the Isles. It was dedicated to St.Columba, and perhaps was a continuation or a re-activation of an older foundation. Very little is known about it because of the absence of records and its remoteness from the Scottish Lowlands, but on occasions some of the Priors of Oronsay come into the records. the Austin Priory of Oronsay must have been founded long after, most likely in the 14th century by a Lord of the Isles as a cell of Holyrood. Early English in style, its roofless church measures 772/3 by 18 feet, and contains a number of curious effigies, figured in Gordon's Monasticon (1868). Near it, too, are a beautifully sculptured cross, 12 feet high, and the mutilated fragments of another. From the Macduffies, their ancient lords, the islands passed in the 17th century to the Macdonalds of the Colkitto branch, and next to the Duke of Argyll. The priory continued in operation until at least 1560, the year of the Scottish Reformation, with the last known prior, Robert Lamont, having been elected in 1555. The lands and property of the priory were given in commendam to Maol Choluim MacDubhthaich in 1561. They were later given to the Bishop of the Islesby King James VI of Scotland after his ascendancy to the throne in 1583. It was secularised in 1616 when the lands were granted to the Bishop of the Isles. 

The remains of an Augustinian priory, said to have originated as a Celtic monastery founded by St Columba and refounded by John, Lord of the Isles (1330-87) for canons regular. There is no proof of this, but the priory first appears on record in 1353. The plan of the priory is unusual in that the monastic buildings lie on the N side of the church which is simple rectangle with a narthex on the W and a mortuary chapel on the S. The E side of the cloister range includes the chapter house and the N side, domestic buildings. The W side is enclosed by a massive wall still intact. The arcading of the cloister is of two different types indicating restoration, the round-headed arches being earlier than those with the angular heads. Protruding eastward from the NE

side of the monastery is a small chapel of very early character, built of rubble and slightly differently oriented from the rest of the buildings. Immediately N of the chapel is an excellent example of a monastic barn and byre built in the same style as the church, and still roofed. The remains generally exist to gable height except on the N side, which has been badly robbed. The celebrated Oronsay Cross - a late medieval disc- headed high cross bearing the Crucifixion and interlacing, stands in a stepped base close to the SW angle of the narthex. It bears an inscription to the effect that it was the cross of Prior Colin, who died in 1510. At the E end of the church is a small mound surmounted by a broken cross consisting of a head and a shaft clamped together although they did not necessarily originally belong to the same cross. At the time of Martin's visit about 1695 there were three crosses near the church, and the Great Cross at Campbelltown is said to have stood originally at Pairc- na-Crois near Oronsay House, before its removal in the 18th century. Sanctuary crosses associated with the priory stood in the Strand (NR39SE 37). The present enclosure of the burial ground is obviously a contraction of the original as human remains have been found for a considerable distance outside it. Many carved slabs from the site are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS), purchased in 1899. The Priory and the high Cross are scheduled. D E Easson 1957; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1897; I B Cowan 1964; J S Richardson 1927; S Grieve 1923 

The Priory, broken cross and the sculptured cross are as described. The burial ground is now disused. There are some thirty medieval grave stones on display in the byre. There is no trace of a bank or wall defining the limits of the original burial ground. Visited by OS (BS) 3 April 1974.

The ruins of this Augustinian priory are situated towards the W end of the tidal island of Oronsay, some 280m NE of thenarrow sea-inlet of Port na Luinge. The craggy slopes of Beinn Oronsay, rising to the NE of the priory, provide anatural water-supply which in medieval and modern times made this the principal area of habitation on the island.Oronsay House, an altered and extended tacksman's house of late 18th-century origin, stands about 25m SW of thepriory church, and 19th-century farm-buildings occupy the area immediately to the W. The monastic buildings areenclosed by a 19th-century drystone dyke which circumscribes a roughly circular area to the E and S of the

church; the line of the boundary-wall corresponds with that shown on a plan of 1910, but photographs, taken mainlybetween 1861 and 1872, show it enclosing a smaller area on the SW and NE.(Survey-drawing by D MacDonald [original plan in the possession of Lord Strathcona, Colonsay House; copy in the NMRS]. Photographs by Revd. J B Mackenzie, minister of Colonsay 1861-72 [original prints in NMRS, PA 186-187]; E Beveridge, 1922, vol.1) The foundations of two roughly parallel walls run southwards from the s wall of the priory church across the associated burial-ground, but these do not relate to the earlier alignment of the boundary-wall, and illustrations made in 1772 show no traces of enclosure-walls of any kind at that date. (Pennant 1772) At least one cist-burial has been recorded from the area occupied by the later farmstead. (W Stevenson 1881)SummaryThe earliest identifiable work is in the E range, parts of which can probably be ascribed to the period of the foundation of the priory by John I, Lord of the Isles, some time between 1325 and 1353. The precise extent of this original work isuncertain, but the surviving evidence seems to indicate an E range with a bicameral or unicameral chapel set out on the N side of the cloister in accordance with usual practice. The rest of the claustral layout, incorporating a screen-wall to the W, (A later farm building was erected against its outer face; see J B Mackenzie photographs, loc. cit.) formed a subsequent stage in this first scheme. The original cloister-arcade, of which only the S portion survives, consisted of simple round-headed openings. The 'Prior's Chapel', which abuts the E end of the N range, and the two-storeyed 'Prior's House', which stands detached at the NE corner of the site, probably also belong to this phase of building, the latter originally being linked to the E range and serving partly as a reredorter.The construction of the existing unaisled church on the S side of the cloister, possibly incorporating part of an earlier Srange, marks a second and revised phase of building. This work can be ascribed to the late 14th or early 15th century,while the sanctuary was extensively remodelled in the late 15th century. Other significant modifications made to the church in the late 15th or early 16th century included the addition, on the S side of the choir, of a lateral chapel knownas the MacDuffie Aisle, and the commencement of a thick-walled and buttressed W annexe which may have beenintended as the lower stage of a tower. The Oronsay Cross, which was probably erected shortly before1500, stands on its original pedestal 4m W of the church, while in modern times fragments of two other later medievalcrosses have been mounted on a rocky knoll on the NE side of the priory.

Three sides of the cloister-arcade were reconstructed with triangular-headed openings in the early 16th century by themason Mael-Sechlainn O' Cuinn. He is named on one of two inscribed pier-slabs incorporated in the existing W arcade,which dates from a restoration of 1883. During the first half of the 16th century the 'Prior's Chapel' was extended almost4m to the E, and the 'Prior's House' shows evidence of alteration at the same period.There is no evidence of continued domestic or ecclesiastical use of the site, except for burials, in the immediate post-Reformation period, and by the 1620s the church had already reached a partly ruinous condition. Theearliest illustrations of the priory, which date from 1772 and 1775, show three sides of the cloister-arcade still intact andthe E range as a fairly complete masonry shell. In the late 18th or early 19th century the S half of this range was subdivided to serve as a McNeill of Colonsay burial-place, and a burial-aisle was added to the E wall in about the middle of the 19th century. Further dilapidation occured in the later 19th century but effective works of repair commenced with the restoration of the E wall of the church and the W cloister-arcade in 1883. The 'Prior's House', which had been reroofed some time after 1772, was further restored in 1927 to house the numerous effigies and graveslabs that had previously lain about the priory.(Loder 1935)RCAHMS 1984, visited June 1977.

IONA BENEDICTINE ABBEY ARGYLL

In the year 563 St. Columcille left Ireland for the territory of Dalriada where he founded two years later what was to become a centre of Christian piety up to the present time, although with a hiatus of some 400 years lasting from the time of the suppression of the monasteries in the 16th century until its reawakening in the 20th.

As the years past this monastery on Iona became a centre of Columban monasticism in Scotland, England and Ireland. What we know of the early history of Iona was written by his two biographers Cummine, and Adomnan who were both abbots of the monastery. Iona continued to be the spiritual centre of Scotland even after St. Columcille’s relics were shared by his monastery of Kells in Ireland, and what became the administrative centre of the Scots at

Dunkeld. As an indication of the holiness of this place it is said that all the kings of Scotland were buried there until the end of the 11th century despite the incursions of the Vikings from the late 8th through to the 10th century when the community was slaughtered on Christmas Eve 986.

The community continued, perhaps divided into two with a Céli Dé presence in the 11 th century. In 1203 Reginald, son of Somerled, lord of the Isles refounded the abbey as a community of Benedictines. At that time the abbey was in the diocese of Sodor in Norway , but the abbot was given Episcopal privilege, and the abbey became independent of the diocese in 1289. Two hundred years later in 1499 the Pope granted the abbey in commendam to the bishop. Despite this there is no evidence that the abbey ever became a cathedral even though successive bishops continued to hold it in commendam.

At the time of the Reformation the island, the abbey, and all its possessions became the property of Alexander Campbell, granted to him for his lifetime in commendam by King James VI. Before his death it was annexed to the bishopric of the Isles in 1615.

In time the buildings became derelict.  It remained so until, in 1899, the Duke of Argyll transferred ownership of the buildings to the Iona Cathedral Trust (linked to the Church of Scotland). There was, however no endowment and funds had to be raised by the Trust.  It was a time of financial restraints in the UK, and the first appeal for the restoration fund was not made until 1901.  Work began the following year with reroofing and reglazing. Rebuilding continued of and on as funds allowed. Restoration of the Abbey buildings began in 1938 when Rev George F MacLeod established the Iona Community which had as its purpose to prepare the young ministers to achieve spiritual renewal when they returned to their inner city parishes, by the experience of uniting craftsmen and trainee ministers in the task of renovating the historic site, an experience of spiritual renewal coinciding with the physical renewal of the Abbey. The Abbey restoration was completed in 1965, from which time The Iona Community have run it as a residential centre, and continued daily worship in the Abbey Church. The financial burden became too great for the Trust, and in recent years the responsibility for the Abbey has been taken on by Historic Scotland.

A restored 13th-century medieval abbey now stands on the site of Columba’s church. Beside it stand tall, intricately carved preaching crosses, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries. All that remains of his monastery is the great vallum, or enclosure bank, that defines the holy site, and Tòrr an Aba, ‘hill of the abbot’, where Columba is believed to have died in 597. The little stone building called St Columba’s Shrine, beside the door leading into the later abbey church, may date from the 9th century.

The abbey is unusual but not unique in having its monastic buildings to the north of the church, because of the water supply, and in having three detached buildings. Those on the east - now the Michael Chapel, and the Museum - may have been a chapel, and the infirmary while that on the west was the Old Guest House. The church, because of much alteration and additions as was the case in almost all monastic churches dating from the Middle Ages, and because these were made in the same type of red stone there is a great difficulty in dating. A suggested time line would be

that a Romanesque church, built about 1190, had added to it an addition in the 13th century. It was then rebuilt, or enlarged about 1420, and finished at the beginning of the 16th century.

The precinct wall of the monastery which ran between the monastery and Tor Abb has been found by excavation. During the excavation a gateway was exposed.

There are three major crosses of 8th to 9th century date: St John's, St Martin's and St Matthew's. All are apparently in situ, suggesting that the site of the early monastery was on the site of the medieval church, and immediately to the west of it.

IONA AUGUSTINIAN CANONESSES ARGYLL

The founder of the priory was Reginald, he who founded the abbey. Apparently this religious house was founded for his sister, Bethoc, who became the first prioress. There is some controversy as to whether the priory was not Benedictine which perhaps it was when it was founded. The question raised was whether the house existed until the Reformation as prioresses were appointed up to that time, although there are no mentions of a convent. However in 1574 the priory was granted by the prioress and convent to Hector McLean of Duart.

The nunnery remains one of the best-preserved medieval nunneries in Britain, and one of only two houses of Augustinian nuns established in Scotland, the other being Perth.

The site is a quarter of a mile south west of the site of the abbey, and lies on the edge of the village Baile Mòr.The nunnery church is in the usual place with the cloister to the south. It had neither a tower or spire, but is one of the two best preserved areas of the nunnery, with the west gable wall with its doorway of the 12th century, and the south arcaded wall of the nave. The north transept now forms the only "enclosed" space in the nunnery. As originally built the nave was use by pilgrims. The chancel as was usual was used by the nuns.

The south range of the cloister was the refectory. The east range is little more than low walls which serve as a viewing frame for the remainder of the nunnery from the path through the grounds. The west range is represented by a single wall that backs onto the modern road. Much of the west range was lost when the road was built. A little to the north of the nunnery is an oblong building constructed of the same mix of red and

grey stone used in the nunnery itself. This is St Ronan's Church which served as the parish church from around 1200 until the Reformation in 1560.

SADDELL ABBEY ARGYLL

The Cistercian abbey of Saddell was founded sometime before 1207 by Reginald son of Somerled Lord of the Isles. It is possible that the father planned the foundation and that his son carried out his wishes, for it was indeed the son who endowed the house and saw it settled with monks. The monks came from Mellifont Abbey in Ireland.

There is very little history of the house. In about 1507 James the Fourth, in a letter to the Cardinal of St. Marks, states that there have been within living memory no monastic life there and asked that a commission to the Archbishop of Glasgow be sent to investigate and with the approval of the Pope, to unite the place in perpetuity to the Bishopric of Lismore. This was indeed carried out after the 26th of November 1507 and on the first of January 1507-08 James the Fourth confirmed the grant to the Bishop and his successors. On the 22nd of April 1512 he made a request of Pope Julius the Second that as the cathedral of Lismore had now fallen to ruin and there was no Bishop or chapter that the See be transferred to Saddell and the cathedral erected and endowed there. Unfortunately, this had no result. After 1508 the Bishops of Lismore were occasionally styled Commendators of Saddell.

There are few remains, but what there are showed that the church was cruciform.

It is stated that some of the most interesting tombstones in Scotland are still to be found here in the churchyards. The best of which is the abbot=s tomb. Near the burial ground is a holy well.

Haunted, but not by monks - the castle fireplaces are built with headstones - hauntings of Abbey and castle.

THE MONASTERIES OF AYRSHIRE

CROSSRAGUEL CLUNIAC ABBEY AYR

The remains of the abbey of Crossraguel are one of the most extensive, and best preserved of the Scottish monasteries. The situation is two miles south of Maybole. The gatehouse is on the west of the site and stands almost its full height of two stories, and has a single entrance. It dates from the ear ly 16th century and was built by Abbot William Kennedy. Through it one enters the south court with the foundations of the domestic buildings – barns, bakehouse and dovecot. Of the monastic buildings there are only foundations of the west range, and parts of the south range which contained the warming house at its east end and the stairs to the refectory on the first floor. The east range contained the treasury, the novice’s room, with the dorter above. The chapter house had a single doorway has a fine vaulted ceiling, and a canopied abbot’s chair. The church is the most complete with walls standing to roof height. The single chambered nave is divided by a wall, a 16th century insert with a single doorway into the choir. In the nave is a tomb of Lady Row which dates from 1530. On the south side of the choir and presbytery which is a fine example of the 15th century with a polygonal apse, and excellent examples of the piscina and sedilia on the south wall. The sacristy has an attractive vaulted ceiling with sculpted decoration.

To the south-east of the site are the remains of the abbot’s house built in the 14 th century, of two stories. Further is a tower house built in 1530 fro abbot Kennedy. Its four stories stands in part to roof height.

There is considerable confusion about the founding of Crossraguel. It has been stated that it was by Duncan of Carrick, who later became the Earl of Carrick, for Cluniac monks as a daughter house of the Abbey of Paisley. An outline of this cofusion is best given by Cowan and Easson (p. 64). It would appear that the foundation may have been before 1265. In any case there were apparently abbots there c. 1270, but the first abbot attested by a charter was mentioned in 1286.

At the time of the Reformation there were eleven monks, a sub-prior, and a commendatory abbot. From 1520 the abbey was held in commendam by the Kennedy family. In 1617 the abbey was annexed to the bishopric of Dunblane.

Dalwilling Gilbertine Friars

Paterson's "History of Ayrshire" states that the Church of Sanquhar was a rectory and existed prior to 1208. That information derived from the earliest record of the Church. It is mentioned in

connection with the founding of the Gilbertine Priory of St Mary at Dalmulin within the Parish in 1219. The Priory continued until 1238 when the monks left Dalmulin and the Priory came under the ownership of Paisley Abbey. It continued in this position until the Reformation.The existence of this, the only Gilbertine house in Scotland, is conjectural. In an undated letter from Walter,the son of Alan, the Steward of Scotland, to Roger, the Master of the Gilbertine monastery of Dalmilling Gilbertine PriorySempringham intimated the prospect of this house. His ffer of foundation was accepted, but although it was it has not been accepted that the priory was ever established, or that the Gilbertine ilfe was ever lived there. At that time the present Master, Gilbert, and a group of canons visited the site it seems that conventual life was never established. The lands given by Gilbert were bestowed upon Paisley Abbey before November 29th 1238. Two monks at Dalmilling were ordered to hand the charters to and return to England. The proviso was tht Paisley was to pay 40 marks yearly to the Gilbertines. The suit continued for years. In the mid 15th century there were stll ruins of theastery extant according to Spottiswood

FAIL TRINITARIAN FRIARS AYR

The date of the foundation of this house is quite uncertain. It is known, however, a charter was granted in 1335 and that in 1337-38 and in the month of January the minister and brothers were granted the church of Tarbolton, so it must have been established before these dates. It has been stated that the founder was Andrew Bruce. James the Fifth, in 1538, claimed that it had been founded by his ancestors, however, the Stewarts of Kyle had probably the strongest claims as founders. In 1459 James the Second claimed that the friars were decadent. The Pope appointed a commission who were charged that if they found the allegations true, the minister and friars were to be removed to other houses, that the order was to be suppressed here and given to the new royal foundation of Trinity College and Hospital, Edinburgh. No such steps were taken, however, and in March of 1476 John Mure O.P. was made commendator. He became the first Scottish provincial of the Black Friars. After his death fifteen years of litigation followed and in 1507 James the Fourth asked the Pope that the new provincial be provided as commendator, in the interests of restoring the discipline. The house continued to exist until 1561 when it was destroyed by reformers. However, in the next year two poor men are still found living there while four lived outside the convent. The benefice was given to Robert Cunningham, the natural son of the Earl of Glencairn, in 1540 and it was retained by him in his position as a reformed minister. Successive ministers held it until it was acquired in 1638 by Sir William Cochrane of Cowdoun.

It is stated in one source that there are remains here and in another, that there are non. There were apparently united after the Second World War when the stone was removed to build the long runway at Prestwick. There is (...) the site now behind a (...) Of farm out buildings at Fail.

KILWINNING TIRONIAN ABBEY AYR

The date of the foundation, and indeed the founder of this abbey of the Order of Tiron is obscure. That somewhat matched the remains as they are as well scanty. Perhaps the founder was Richard de Morville, and the foundation somewhere about 1160. It was not until the church, dedicated to St. Vinin, was noted in 1184, but the abbey was not until 1202-7. Little is know of its history. The abbot was granted the mitre in 1409. The end of the abbey came in 1561 when it was “cast down” by the reformers. The abbot, Bunche, would not resign, but after his dismission from office the title was held by commendators. The last of these, Gavin Hamilton, was nominated by the crown in 1550. Although he favoured reformist doctrines he was a strong partisan of Queen Mary. After his death in a battle outside Edinburgh, in June 1571, it passed through the hands of Alexander Cunningham, and was in 1592 created a free barony in favour of William Melville.

There are few remains of the apparently 13th century church: part of the façade being the south east tower base, and a modern tower; the south wall of the nave aisle, and the east processional doorway to the church, and the south wall of the south transept standing to roof height with three lancets, a circular window and lancet above, and part of an east chapel; part of the east range with the chapter house arcade, and north and south walls, the slype; and part of the west wall of the west range.

The modern church is built on the site of the choir, and presbytery. Part of the church had been repaired, and was used as the parish church until 1775, when it as removed and the present parish church was built. The tower of the abbey fell in 1814; it was then rebuilt on a smaller scale.

THE MONASTERIES OF BERWICKSHIRE

COLDINGHAM PRIORY BERWICK

The monastery in Coldingham has suffered, as so many of the monasteries in Britain from being a stone quarry. The result of this has been that little of the monastery now remains. Only the north and east walls of the choir and some fragments of the south transept. The nave was totally removed and the great tower collapsed in the late 18th century.

In 1662 the west and south walls of the choir were rebuilt in order to create a place for worship. All this was restored in the mid 19th century when the west and south walls were again partially rebuilt and a porch added to the south. The corner turrets were carried up to their present height. The important remains are externally the north and east walls of the choir.

This choir never had aisles, being a long narrow rectangle and measures 26 metres by 7 metres. The walls are divided into two levels. On the exterior this consists of on the lower level a series of double rounded arches separated by flat buttresses. The arches being carved with chevron ornaments and springing from slender shafts. The upper storey, the spaces between the buttresses contain a single lancet window. This continues all the way around the north and east sides except for the two bays at the west end of the north side where the design is not present as there appears to have been a doorway here in the past.

On the interior there are as well two levels. The lower one consisting of a continuous pointed arcade with the arches arising from single detached shafts. The bases of which rest on a stone bench and the capitals of which have fine carvings. The upper storey consists ss well of a detached arcade with alternating high and low pointed arches. Two of the low occurring between every two of the high. The high arches containing single lancet windows. All the arches on the interior above the eight foot level where rebuilt in the 1850's by Balfour Balsillies as the work had been destroyed by the 16th century galleries placed in the cloister after the Reformation. There are only fragmentary parts of the south transept left and none of the north. At the northwest angle of the south transept is an arch which has been much rebuilt from old fragments in its upper parts. This led from the south nave aisle into the transept.

Some 23 metres south of the church and at a lower level are the walls of the refectory. There are three doorways in the northern wall. The cloister lay in an unusual position to the south of the choir.

There was an early foundation at Coldingham where a double monastery of monks and nuns was founded by Ebba, the daughter of King Ethelfred of Northumbria, sometime before the year 661. It was here that Etheldreda the queen of King Egfrid became a nun. It was afterwards that she

founded the monastery at Ely.

Like so many other monasteries in the late 7th century it was destroyed by the Danes c. 683. After this most of the community departed but it did continue its life as a monastery. In 854 it was associated with Lindisfarne and by this time it was solely a community of nuns. This too was burned and sacked by the Danes c. 870.

About 1098 King Edgar granted lands at Coldingham to the monks of Durham. He was present at the dedication of a church c. 1100. From this gift of the church grew the priory of Coldingham. It took some time for the community to be established there although it is known that there was a monk there sometime before 1136. By 1139 there are references to monks serving the church of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert at Coldingham. The first prior is mentioned c. 1147.

During the Anglo-Scottish war in the early 14th century the monks for sometime abandoned the priory. Stability returned in 1340 but in 1378 Robert the Second expelled. the monks of Durham and replaced them by other Benedictines from Dunfermline.

From 1378 until 1422 the struggle between the monks of Durham and Dunfermline continued for the priory. In June of the latter year, James the Second admitted John 011 to the cell. Even in the next year, 1379, the priory of Coldingham is considered as a cell of Dunfermline. Despite reassurances by Robert the Second and a charter by Robert the Third the priory does not seem to have been returned to Durham until the release of James the First in March of 1424 when English monks returned there on a more permanent basis. The monks of Dunfermeline however did not give up and carried there litigation to the Curia. In 1436, Henry the Sixth of England took the priory into his special protection but five years later on the death of the prior, Dunfermline made another attempt to establish sovereignty over the house. Unfortunately, James the Second in 1442 on the 11th of June allowed the admission of another English prior.

Not only were the monks attempting to pain control over the priory but there also was a contest between the laity for the office of bailie. Sir Alexander Home was given that for life in 1422. In 1461 a relative Patrick Home obtained a Papal mandate to deprive the prior. Durham monks however continued to live there until 1462 when they were expelled. They continued trying to reobtain possession of the priory until 1478 when they finally gave up. During this time, the struggle for the bailiary continued with the result that Patrick was expelled and Sir Alexander's son John appointed as commendator.

In 1473 James the Third converted the priory into a collegiate church with Patrick Home as dean. Sometime between 1474 and 1478 Patrick resigned and John Home became dean. Appeals were made to the Pope, first of all to restore the priory and by others to complete the erection of the collegiate church. But on the death of James the Third, on the 11th of June 1488 the scheme to complete the church failed and from that point on John Home appears as prior. From that point on the office of prior remained in the Home family. By the turn of the 16th century James the Fourth revived the claim that the priory was dependent on Dunfermline and asked that it be held in Commendam by his son who was then archbishop of St. Andrews, and

commendator of Dunfermline. This request to the Pope was successful. In 1513 with the death of the commendator at Flodden, Henry the Eighth of England asked the Pope to reunite the priory to Durham but the Scottish crown's nomination of David Home was accepted and he held it until his death in 1517. Two years later a struggle broke out between the Home's and the Douglas=s which lasted until 1528. From then on the commendators were drawn from a number of different families until finally Alexander Home obtained it in 1592 and had this house along with Jedburgh erected into a temporal lordship for him in 1606. One would have thought that this would put an end to all the various struggles between the Home family and others but this was not to be the case. The Stewart family reobtained the priory between 1620 and 1643 after which time it went back to the Homes.

The last monks to inhabit the priory were in 1543.

DRYBURGH ABBEY BERWICK

Dryburgh Abbey belonging to the canons of the Premonstratensian Order, an order which was also known as the Norbertine Order, or the Order of White Canons.. It was founded as a daughter house of Alnwick in Northumberland on the 10th of November 1150 by Hugo de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and Lord of Lauderdale. The church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Although Dryburgh became the premier house of the Order in Scotland it never reached the heights of splendor of its neighbours, Kelso, Jedburgh, and Melrose. The monastery was burnt to the ground by Edward II, who encamped in the grounds when retreating from Scotland in 1322. It was restored under Robert I. Again it suffered at the hands of the English in 1523. After the death of Abbot Andrew Liderdale in 1506-7 the abbey was held by a series of commendators. Thomas Erskine in 1541 succeeded to the post, and it remained in that family until it, along with Cambuskenneth, and Inchmaholme came into the lordship of Cardoss in favour of John Erskine, the Earl of Mar, conferred by James VI.

The general style of the existing remains of Dryburgh is Early English, with some older (Norman) work. Of the church only the western gable, the ends of the transept, and part of the choir remain; but considerable portions of the conventual buildings have been preserved, including the refectory, with a beautiful rose window. Thew 13th century chapter house has some painted wall plaster. James Stuart, of the Darnley family, is buried under the high altar; and various members of the Buchan family lie in one of the chapels.

In the 18th century the ruins were purchased by David Erskine, the 11th Earl of Buchan. It was he who founded the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He created as was often the case, a romantic landscape featuring the ruins. When he died in 1829 he was buried in the sacristy. Three years later his close friend Sir Walter Scott was buried in what he called St. Mary's Aisle (part of the north transept). Sir Walter's maternal ancestors, the Haliburtons, at one time owned Dryburgh. His wife and eldest son are also interred here. A third great Scot, Field-Marshall Earl Haig and his wife are buried next to Scott.

ECCLES PRIORY BERWICK

This monastery of Cistercian nuns was founded in 1156 when it is stated that a convent of nuns came here for the second time. The founder is not known exactly, as Earl Gospatrick, an unnamed countess of March and David the First are all listed as founders. The first prioress mentioned is as late however as 1297 and there is very little history of the priory until the 16th century.

We do know however that the nunnery did suffer from the English invasions as so many other houses in the lowland of Scotland did. Especially in the 16th century. We know it was threatened to be burned by Dacre in 1523 and in 1543 the corn was burned. Again in September

of 1545 it is stated that the place was burned and destroyed. There are no records of any nuns during this time at all. Although it is stated that Marion Hamilton was elected by the convent but as she was only given the temporalities and the spiritualities of the office of prioress it is possible that in 1548 she was not at all a religious superior. She was still in possession in 1566. In 1575 the priory was confirmed on James Hume the second son of Sir James and was erected into a temporal lordship for Sir George Hume in 1609.

There are remains of Eccles priory in private hands to the west of the parish church. Apparently they are the remains of the (...) of buildings - a vaulted room to the south of a flight of stairs with the remains of another vaulted room to the north of the bay stairs.

ST. BoTHAN=S PRIORY BERWICK

The most than can be said of this priory of Cistercian nuns is that it was founded sometime in the 13th century. Likewise the identity of the founder is uncertain. One of the countesses of March in the reign of William the Lion is stated to have been the founder by tradition Ada a daughter of William the Lion who married Patrick, Earl of Dunbar. It has also been attributed to Christiana the wife of the same Earl, and also to Euphemia the wife of Patrick, the sixth Earl of Dunbar.

Virtually nothing is known of its history apart from the fact that it was burned by the English in 1545. Elizabeth Lamb was the prioress when the lands were leased to Alexander, Lord Home in 1565. She died the same year however and the priory was granted to Elizabeth Hume. In 1617 it was granted to David Lindsay and erected into a temporal lordship for him in 1622.

The remains are to be found at the parish church of St. Bothan. The modern parish church is built on the site of the ancient church and the only remains are the eastern wall with its eastern two light window and a small portion of the north wall with a blocked doorway. The claustral buildings probably occupied the site of the present churchyard to the south of the church.

Within the interior of the church is a modern recess with the recumbent figure of a prioress almost two metres in length. A quarter of a mile to the south of the church on the slope of a hill, in Chapel Field, are the foundations of a chapel which may be the remains of a capella ad portas or perhaps it is (...) of the original chapel of South Bathan dating thus from the 6th century.

THE MONASTERIES OF EAST LOTHIAN

LuffNESS CARMELITE FRIARS EAST LOTHIAN

Little is known of this house of White Friars except that it existed in 1293 so the foundation was somewhat before that. A provincial chapter was held there in 1480 and we know that John Heryng was prior in 1497-1498. There are other mentions of the priory in 1504-1505 and 1512 as the king gave alms there. John Rankine was prior in 1560. There are no other references to the house but lands formerly belonging to it were leased by the crown in 1609.

The remains are to be found in the private grounds of Luffness House about one-half a mile from the Village of Aberlady. The church consisted of s nave and. choir without aisles. The choir being slightly longer than the nave. There were buttresses at the eastern and western ends and there are the remains of a wall between the nave and choir. In the north wall of the choir near the east end in an arched recess are the remains of an effigy supposed to be that of the founder. A doorway leading into the choir is beside it and the altar steps are just beyond it. Part of the pavement remains at the eastern end and there is a monumental slab inserted in it.

NORTH BERWICK PRIORY (CISTERCIAN NUNS) EAST LOTHIAN

The founder of this house was Duncan the First, Earl of Fife, but there is considerable doubt as to the date. Various dates are given, such as about 1136, the third quarter of the 12th century, 1216, 1218 but it was certainly founded between 1147 and 1153. It is even listed as being Benedictine by some mediaeval writers and is also stated to be such in papal letters of 1375 and 1384 but it undoubtedly Cistercian. Perhaps it was founded as a Benedictines house and later claimed to be Cistercian in order to gain the privileges of the order.

It was a priory and not an abbey. In the mid 16th century there were at least 21 nuns here and there were 16 at reformation. The last prereformation prioress was Margaret Hume. In 1587 the buildings were said to be in a ruinous condition and the lands and revenues were resigned by Margaret in favour of Alexander Hume and on the 20th of March 1587-1588 James the Sixth granted the lands to him as a free barony.

The remains of this house are those of the west range. There were built into a dwelling by Alexander Howe in 1568-9. He called his house the ANewark@. The ruins of this house are to

be found in AThe Abbey@ now a House for the Aged.

There are also some seminaries - (...) charters and (...) to be seen in the Museum.

THE MONASTERIES OF FIFESHIRE

DUNFERMLINE BENEDICTINE ABBEY FIFE

Queen Margaret, after her marriage to Malcolm III, built a church here dedicated the Holy Trinity c.1070. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury sent Goldwine and two companions to form the beginnings of the community. The dedication was Christ Church of the Holy Trinity of Dunfermline. Further brethren were sent by St. Anselm at the beginning of the 12th century at the request of King Edgar. In 1128 Geoffrey, the prior of Canterbury, was sent, at the request of King David I, to be the first abbot.

For most of the early 16th century the abbey was held in commendam by the Archbishops of St. Andrew’s. This lasted until the death of James Beaton in 1539. He was succeeded by George Drury, and by Robert Pitcairne who held the office until 1583 when it passed to George, Earl of Huntly, and finally in 1589 to Queen Anne of Denmark, the consort of James VI.

The abbey had three dependencies – Coldingham, Urquhart and Pluscarden.

The church as it stands to day is made up of two parts – the medieval nave which in essence as it was in many other Benedictine abbeys the parish church. As such it survived the Reformation. AT the beginning of the Reformation the abbey was sacked, and the entire church was laid waste. In the 1590’s, as part of the conversion of the abbey into a royal palace for Queen Anne, the north-west tower was rebuilt. In the 17th and 18th centuries the eastern parts were gradually destroyed by storms and neglect. In 1817 work began to rebuild the abbey church, and the first services were held on the 30th of September 1821.

There are four doorways into the church, (the western one on the south side of the nave is not original dating from the 15th century). The other three are Romanesque in essence. The most elaborate are the great west doorway into the church, and the eastern processional doorway from the east cloister walk which has the finest carving. The parish doorway on the north side of the nave is less elaborate. The ceiling of the north aisle has a preserved painting of the 16th century in the vault. Depicted are Ss Peter and Paul, and the cross of St. Andrew. The two most easterly piers of the nave have chevron decorations probably meant to emphasize the nave, or parish altar

that stood between them. The lower part of the rood screen with its two doorways survives.

The abbey church was the burial place of many of the kings and queens of Scotland. To the east of the modern rebuild of the church is the plinth on which St. Margaret’s shrine stood until it was destroyed at the reformation. So too was Robert the Bruce buried there in 1329 minus his heart which was taken on pilgrimage to the Holy Land before being buried at Melrose Abbey. The last was Robert, the infant son of James VI and Anne of Denmark in 1602. Of course there are now no indications of any of these burials apart from the base of the plinth. During the rebuilding of the church in 1819 some bones were discovered thought to be those of the Bruce as the sternum was split (as to remove his heart). These were re-interred 560 years after his death.

Dunfermline Abbey was a royal mausoleum. Other royal burials are thought to be those of Malcolm III (1115), Queen Margaret (1093),and their children – Edward, King Duncan II, Aethelred, Edmund, King Edgar, King David I; King Malcolm IV; King Alexander III and Queen Margaret, and their children Alexander and David; King Robert I, and Queen Elizabeth and their daughter Matilda; Christian de Bruce: Queen Annabella, wife of King Robert III; Robert, Duke of Albany (Scotland’s uncrowned king); and finally Robert the infant son of James VI in 1602. None remain, nor are there any indications where the burials might have been.

Of the monastic buildings the best preserved is the gatehouse, called the Pends Gate, which gives entrance by both carts and on foot by two separate entrances to the monastic precinct. It was built in the 14th century. On the first floor are two chambers, one of which is a passage joining the monastic kitchen to the refectory. The room on the top floor has a fine canopied fireplace indicating that it must have been a room for some important official such as the cellerar. To the south and east were the kitchens on two floors, and to the west was the guest house. Both of these were built on the side of the glen.

The guest house was converted as a royal residence at the time of Queen Anne the wife of James VI in the late 16th century. Several monasteries had guest houses that were in essence royal palaces – Perth, Scone, and the most famous of all today Holyrood which has been totally rebuilt. It is only the one at Dunfermline that survives, although a ruin, as it was. Indeed it may have always been that from the time that it was first built. Both David II, and James I were born here. The building towers over the side of the precipice falling into the glen below. Its construction began in the 14th century at the same time that the refectory was commenced. The ground floor, a two aisled hall, is built into the side of the glen. In the 1540’s and in the 1590’s the guest house was considerably remodelled as it was converted into a royal palace. On the top of the south front is an oriel window in a room that was in all probability the Queen’s chamber, and may indeed have been the room where King Charles was born.

To the north-east of the gatehouse was the refectory. It was built in the 1320’s after the destruction of the abbey by Edward I in 1303-4. This wing of the monastic complex consists of the two-storied undercroft of the rectory itself. The glory of the remains of the refectory is the great traceried west window. To the east through a basement to the east is all that remains of the east range of the cloister buildings. The block further east must have been the reredorter as it straddles the monastery’s great drain.

Across the cemetery on the north side of the abbey church is a house that was at the time of the abbey the abode of the abbot. The house formed part of the abbey wall. The house obviously dated from well before the first mention of it in 1526 at the time of Abbot George Durie. In 1540 he decided to make part of the royal palace his residence. He stayed there until the Reformation in 1560. When the abbot vacated Abbot House it was sold, against rules of private property to the sacristan of the abbey, James Boiswell. He made little use of it, and it was partly ruinous when James Murray of Perdieu acquired it. He had it rebuilt as a residence of the commendatory abbot Robert Pitcairn. Over the centuries it passed through many hands until it was acquired by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust in 1909 which established it as an art and craft school. Then passing again through a number of hands by 2008 it had become a museum and café.

ISLE OF MAY PRIORY FIFE

The history of the foundation of the priory on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forthis as often the case frought with difficulties. It is said to have been established for nine monks from Reading Abbey by David I. It was confirmed to reading by Pope Alexander III (1159-81) as a community of thirteen Cluniac monks. From c.1270 onwards the history becomes confusing as stated by Cowan and Easson (p.60). The priory in the later 13th century passed into the control of St Andrew’s Cathedral Priory, an Augustinian foundation, from the overlordship of Reading Abbey, which was Ben3edictine. Perhaps by 1318 it had been relocated to Pittemweem (and this too is confused).There are some excavated remains on the island including foundations of the early church, the south and east cloister ranges, and of St. Ethernan’s chapel.

Traces of this, one of the earliest Christian churches in Scotland , certainly the earliest yet found on the east coast may date from the 9th century. It is the first in a sequence of buildings on the site of the island's later medieval Benedictine, and Augustinian monastery. It is a small, square building with drystone foundations similar to dated 7th-10th century churches on the west coast and in Ireland. It may have been built as a chapel to house the remains of St Ethernan, an early evangelist who is believed to have lived and died on the island. It was the supposed existence of St Ethernan's relics on the site that drew thousands of pilgrims to the Isle throughout the later medieval period. The saint's grave, however, has never been found.

The excavations have thrown new light on the life of the 12th century Benedictine abbey itself. The abbey's cloister was built into a burial mound, bringing numerous bones to the surface which were simply left littered around the area with some very half-hearted attempts at reburial.

The burial mound contained mostly early medieval graves. However, artifacts found in the mound suggest it may have originated as long ago as the Bronze Age.

An unusual ten-seater communal lavatory has also been found at the rear of the monastic dormitory - probably too large for a community of monks who never numbered more than nine or ten, suggesting that the abbey could have been a major focus of pilgrimage as early as the 12th century.

The priory of St Adrian on the Isle of May is traditionally thought to have been founded by David I for monks of Reading Abbey, sometime around 1135. Henry I, David's brother-in-law, was buried at Reading, so the association seems plausible. The priory was established on a site where St Ethernan (who later became known as St Adrian) and several of his followers settled and established a monastery sometime before 669 AD. Ethernan was probably trained on Iona, and also established a monastery at Kilrenny, on the Fife mainland.

The site was one that had been in use for hundreds of years, as excavations at the north end of the monastery have unearthed skeletons of Picts and monks ranging from the 5th to the 11th centuries. The original monastic buildings were of timber, but by the 9th century these had been replaced by stone buildings. The remains of the earliest stone church can be seen as an outline of rubble within the later medieval church foundations. It is quite astonishing to see how tiny that first church was; it looks like an extremely simple single cell building scarcely larger than a wendy house for a small child.

The monks on May were killed by Viking raiders in 875, after which the island gained a reputation as a place of great sanctity. 

King David granted the monks from Reading estates on both sides of the Firth of Forth to support the new priory. The monks initially reused Adrian's original monastic buildings, but they soon rebuilt on a larger scale, incorporating the original 7th century church into their complex of buildings.

The historical records are contradictory when it comes to the order of monks; both Reading Abbey and St Adrian's Priory are called both Cluniac and Benedictine. We do know that the priory was granted to St Andrew's Abbey in 1318. The number of monks on the Isle of May was never very large; records indicate that between 9 and 13 monks were normally resident on the island. It seems likely that the Prior spent much of his time at a comfortable residence in Pittenweem, rather than on the Isle of May!

The priory is located just up the hill from the main ferry landing on the Isle of May. The roofless chapel is the most obvious remain, and it is surrounded by the foundations of numerous outbuildings.

This must have been a desolate site in winter, or when storms cut the island off from the

mainland, so it is no surprise that in the 14th century the monks relocated from the island to Pittenweem. A solitary hermit was left on the Isle of May to tend St Adrian's shrine. The shrine continued to be a destination for pilgrims, and James IV visited May on several occasions between 1490 and 1508. The monastery was essentially deserted after the Reformation, and was sold into private hands in 1549. Part of the monastic buildings were transformed into a residence for the new laird. 

Technically, St Adrian's is an open site, accessable 'at any reasonable time -' take one of the regular boat trips from Anstruther (weather permitting).

LINDORES ABBEY FIFE

This once important abbey of the order of Tiron was founded about 1190 by David, Earl of Huntingdon. David was the grandson of David the First and the brother of King William the Lion. The first colony of monks came from Kelso Abbey and the first Abbot Quida had been the prior there.

The abbey was of considerable importance and the kings often stayed there. Alexander the Third in 1265, Edward the First in 1296 when he received the allegiance of the nobles in the district. David the second lived there. The Duke of Rothesay was buried there.

The numbers of monks remained about the same in the 16th century about 25. The buildings were enlarged in the early 16th century but shortly after reformers laid waste to the abbey and threw out the monks. Again in 1559, reformers attacked the abbey, burning books and vestments.

The second but last pre-reformation abbot, Henry Orme resigned in 1522 in favour of John Philp. He was a member of the order and unlike most Soottish religious houses, this house did continue to be ruled by a member of the order. Philp resigned in 1566 and John Leslie who was later Bishop of Ross became commendator. The commmendatorship was transferred to Patrick Leslie who became Lord Lindores when the abbey was erected as a temporal lordship in 1600.

The remains of this abbey are to be found not far from the south bank of the Tay to the east of Newburgh. The buildings like so many others had fallen into ruins and were used as a local stone quarry for the populous. The ruins were cleared of their entanglements in the mid 19th century.

The precinct wall remains in part with a large entrance archway. There is a smaller footway at its east side now (...). Little of the church remains but foundations and parts of some walls. It can be seen to consist of a long nave with a north aisle, transepts with eastern chapels and an

aisleless presbytery. At the northwest angle of the nave was a buttressed tower. The north nave aisle which was added later does not extend to the western facade of the church because of the presence of that tower.

To the south of the nave was a usual cloister arrangement. The best preserved of the cloister buildings are those of the east range. South of the south transept first is the vaulted slype leading to the east. Next comes the chapter house with all three walls north, south and east to roof height. Immediately to its south are the day stairs. South of this stretches the remains of the undercroft of the dorter. In the church, in the north transept are to be found the remains of a double piscina and aumbry.

The eastern processional doorway entered the south transept in its west wall rather than the south wall of the nave.

BALMERINO ABBEY, FIFE

The cistercian abbey of Balmerino was dedicated to St. Edward, a rather odd dedication for a cistercian abbey as all were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It was a royal foundation and from 1225 onward Queen Ermengarde, the widow of William the Lion, was acquiring land on which to build a monastery and to form its endowment. In 1227 the cistercian general chapter sent the King of Scotland, Alexander the Second, petition to the abbots of Rievaulx and Coupar Angus for them to determine whether the purposed endowment was sufficient and if it was to grant him a colony of monks from the abbey of Melrose. In the year 1229 this convent was sent from Melrose on the Day of St. Luci, the 13th of December. The foundation charter was granted on the 3rd of February, 1230-31 by Alexander. Thus, the foundation was another of the daughter houses of Melrose.

In the mid 16th century the abbey suffered two desecrations. In December of 1547 it was burnt by the English and in June of 1559, partially destroyed by reformers. The last pre-reformation abbot, Robert Foster, was consecrated on the 30th of January 1511 - 12 and held office until he died in 1561. In September of that year the abbey was gifted to John Hay, the parson of Monymusk. At his death in 1573, Henry Kinneir, was made commendator. It passed from him to his son and on his death it was erected into a temporal lordship for Sir James Elphinstone, later Lor~ Ba~merino in 1603.

The abbey was known to have had a dependency at Cadvan of which there are no remains, or documented history.

The remains are to be found over-looking the Firth of Tay. The church consisting of a nave with a south aisle. An unaisled presbytery and north and south transepts has the cloister garth to the north. The north and west walls of the church remain above ground - the north to about 2m in height.

The major remains are those of the east range of the cloister. Immediately to the north of the north transept and entered from it is the sacristy. A chamber nine and a half metres long by seven metres wide is covered with a round barrel vault. To the north of this is the chapter house with a doorway between them which is not original. This is divided into two compartments. Eastern part being that of the chapter house and the west the vestibule. The whole measuring some sixteen by eight and a half metres. The vestibule retains its vault, but the eastern part has lost its. The center pillar is lost and only the wall ribs with corbels remain. The western section has two octagonal centre pillars with the vaulting springing from rounded corbels on the walls. The western wall has disappeared. However, the east wall of the chapter house remains. It contains two square headed 16th century windows. The southern most was converted into a doorway during the time when this part of the abbey was used as a manor house by the commendators. Also from this time the wheeled staircase, projecting into the east cloister walk, was also built.

All the details of the chapter house are early 15th century. To the north of the chapter house is

the slype. To the north of this is another building containing three cells believed to have been a penitentiary, but almost certainly not in this position. Just what they are is not determined.

To the north of this there are remains of a barn which has two doorways in the southern wall - one original, the other now enlarged.

To the east of the chapter house are the ruins of what is called the abbot's house. These remains consist of a vaulted cellar some six by four metres.

ST. ANDREWS CATHEDRAL PRIORY FIFE

The ruins of the Augustinian Cathedral Priory of St. Andrews can give some idea of the once greatness of this administrative centre of the church in Scotland. Although the church itself is not as big as Canterbury one can imagine what it once must have been like surrounded by its enclosure wall with the backdrop of the North Sea. One enters the cathedral precinct from the west through the entrance gateway called the Pends, some eighty feet long by twenty-three feet wide only the shell remains with the springers of the vaulted archway. From the entrance gateway runs the enclosing wall which is still a very extensive structure and in good preservation. It is some seven metres high and over a metre thick. The length of the wall is some eleven hundred metres. Originally there were sixteen towers of which thirteen are partly standing. In the south part of the wall is another entrance way flanked by two towers. This is called the (...) and gave access to the (...) barns. In the east wall another close to the harbour called the harbourgate or mill court of which considerable remains are to be found. The wall continues around to the northeast corner of the cathedral.

The cathedral church itself of which there are considerable remains of the west front and south nave wall and east end, consisted of an aisled nave of twelve bays, North and south transepts with three eastern chapels, an aisled choir of five bays and a short aisleless presbytery. The total length of the structure being some ninety-five metres. Much of the cathedral has been ruined but there are parts which have escaped destruction by reformers. The east wall stands entire except for its gable, divided into three storeys, each having windows, originally rounded lancets, three in each. In the first half of the 15th century the windows in the two upper storeys were replaced by a large decorated window. The Norman windows being replaced in order to bring the architecture of the cathedral in line with "modern eastern facades@. The northeast corner of the eastern facade has attached to it a large buttress, the purpose of which is unknown as the wall does not appear to be weakened. The presbytery had a groined vault.

Several of the piers of the choir still remain to a considerable height. The presbytery floor is two steps above the choir and these steps still remain between the two eastern most pillars. There is a very unusual large and deep well in the nave of the church, presumably used when the church was being constructed. The great slab of (...) marble in the sanctuary and the graves (...) it are not in site. It was made to hold (...). The south transept remains to some height as well. The west wall has an interesting arcade in its lower storey with three round headed windows above it. Similar windows are continued along the south wall of the nave. Westwards of this the nave windows become pointed indicating a later construction period. The south wall of the nave extends west beyond the present western facade indicating that at one time the church was longer than it now is. The north wall also projects a few feet beyond the western front. When the original western facade fell it may have destroyed with it a few of the western bays and when rebuilt the decision was made to shorten the nave and build the west front where it now is. The remains of vaulting shafts and arches which can be seen in the west front and indeed in the southwest corner are the springers of arches which indicate that the design of the west front was changed. This facade does not (...) with the side walls. There are these indications over the central doorway and again over the blind arcading in the southwest part of the facade. The

intention was to have a wide porch extending along the whole of the west end. These (...) the damaged east bays of the nave.

Above the blind arcading above the entrance doorway are the remains of one of the two pointed windows. There was another single window above this apparently and above these twin turrets of which the one at the southwest corner remains.

The cloister lay to the south of the nave in its usual arrangement. There are eastern and western processional doorways to the (...). The west doorway was enlarged in the early 13th century. The east jamb on the south side is modern. The eastern one has a holy water stoop in the southwest corner of the nave and south transept walls. There are two (...) cupboard on the west wall of the south transept. Inside there is a piscina just to the west of the doorway. On the west wall of the east cloister walk are the remains of the corbels which carried the cloister roof. The eastern range had the usual arrangement, south of the south transept came the slype and then the chapter house. The latter was vaulted with four central pillars. The opening had the usual arrangement of a central opening with two flanking windows. All this is in the early pointed style and in an excellent state of preservation. Only the central pillars of the side openings having been lose (all dating from about the middle of the 13th century). Between 1313 and 1321 a new chapter house was erected to the east, only the south wall of this remains showing thirteen seats in arched recesses. The old chapter house became the vestibule for the new one. There are several trunks - all with its lid - still contains the remains of a prior. The buildings continued to the south with a chamber then the day stair with the undercroft of the dorter - the warmup house six by two (...) - ending in the reredorter projecting to the east with the remains of the great drain.

The night stairs leading from the dorter into the south transept consisted of a wheel stair in the southwest angle of the transept. The south range consisted of kitchen and refectory. These remains and those of the south and of the east range have been rebuilt in the last century. The latter now houses a museum.

Of the west range, some barrel vaulted cellars remain at the south end. The western range was occupied by the sub-priors house known as Senzie House. In the 16th century this was enlarged to form a library for the adjoining college of St. Leonard. The extension of this range blocked up the west windows of the refectory. At the north end of the range is evidence of a range of 5 bays running to the west as far as the original west facade. It was revaulted when the church was shortened.

Of the buildings in the remainder of the precinct there are remains of the priors house to the east of the eastern range. This building was also called the Hospitium Vetus or the Old Inn. It was at some times the residence of the bishop. Part of the wall of the guesthouse which is within the precinct of St. Leonard=s College, built in the middle of the 13th century, remains.

The entrance gateway of the New Inn also remains much altered. It contains the arms of Prior Hepburn. This apparently was the last building to be built before the reformation and apparently also was built as a retreat for Magdalene, the queen of James the Fifth. She however did not

visit it and it afterwards became the occasional residence of the archbishop. There is a bit of walling in the house on the site (part of the eastern wall of the granary stands to the northeast of the New Inn - can=t locate).

[The abbey mill with the dam is still in use and the tithe barn in the neighbourhood of the mill is still also in use.] The story of the cathedral church and priory of St. Andrews begins in legend.

Cill-rigmonaib or Cenn-rigmonaib was traditionally founded by Ungms the son of Urguist in about the 8th century. Tuathalan is listed as being an abbot who died in 747. Constantine, King of the Scots (900-943), abdicated to become abbot of the Celi De by which time Kilrimont had become the administrator's centre of the early church in Scotland replacing Dunkeld. There are known to be a succession of bishops associated with Kilrimont beginning in the 10th century. These carried the title of Bishop of the Scots or Bishop of Scotland. These are similar titles to those carried by the bishops of the monastery of Armagh which was the centre of the church in Ireland. The office of abbot was held by laymen. There were two groups of clergy both serving what was then the cathedral and is now known as the church of St. Rule.

This early foundation came to an end with the foundation of the Augustinian priory in 1144. The Pope Eugenius the Third ordained that as the Celi de died their places were to be taken by regular canons. David the First in 1147 gave a mandate to the prior to receive the Celi De of Kilrimont with all their possessions and revenues as canons if they so desired. If they did not wish to become regular canons they could retain their possessions during their lifetime and after their death these were to revert to the Augustinian priory. However, the community did maintain its existence and, in 1250 was converted into a college of secular canons.

St. Andrews was one of the two Scottish cathedrals who had regular clergy. The other being Whithorn. The evidence as to whether the bishop of St. Andrews acted as abbot as was the case in English cathedral priories is tenuous and the relationship between he and the community is uncertain. In the 12th and 13th century the free election of the prior of the community was granted. by the bishop and indeed the prior became mitred in 1418.

Just how the buildings became ruined is unknown as there are no records but by 1597 they were described as being decayed. The last prereformation prior was Patrick Hepburn, he held this office until he was erected as bishop of Moray in 1538. The commendatorship passed to James Stewart, the illegitimate son of James the Fifth in 1538. He later became Earl of Moray. Robert Stewart became commendator upon his assassination and held it until his death. The Duke of Lennox, Ludovic became commendator in 1586 on the 21st of August and the priory was erected into a temporal lordship for him in 1592.

To the southeast of the ruins of the cathedral church of St. Andrews stands the ancient church of St. Regulus. This undoubtedly was the early cathedral church of St. Andrews before the present ruined cathedral came into existence. The church consists of a chamber some eight metres by six metres in extent whose walls stand almost ten metres high. The most imposing part of the ruin is the lofty square tower at its western end standing some thirty-three metres in height. The tower has an arch in its eastern and western walls. The whole style of the tower links itself with

Northumbrian churches. The western arch supposedly lead into a nave, The eastern arch leading into what was probably the apse.As this church was once not only a cathedral but monastery and probably served as well as a parish church it must have been larger than the present would rather indicate. Just what form this took is not known.

ST. LEONARD=S COLLEGE ST. ANDREWS FIFE

Prior John White in the 13th century built the guest hall of St. Leonard=s for pilgrims and guests to the cathedral priory. The remains consisting of a (...) of walling are to be found east of St. Leonard=s church. This church consists of a chapel with no division between the nave and chancel, some twenty-four metres in length. The windows are square headed and are of typical 16th century date.

On the north side of the church is a room with a round barrel vault which was probably the sacristy. From the door to the sacristy a narrow passage runs along the east end of the church in the thickness of the wall. Above this and also in the thickness of the wall is another passage. There is a shallow piscina in the east window sill.

The west facade has a door in its centre with three niches above it. These are probably a modern insertion put in when the east end was rebuilt. There are no windows in the north wall.

After its use as a hospital intended for pilgrims visiting the shrine of St. Andrew it was converted by Archbishop Stewart and Prior John Hepburn into a college. The college was intended for the education of novices of the priory. Of course, that didn=t last a long time. In 1544 it became essentially autonomous. After the reformation it was long used for public worship but after the College of St. Leonard=s was united to that of St. Salvator in 1747 the former was abandoned.

The range of buildings on the south side of the church were used as student=s lodgings and have now been converted into private residences.

In 1964 the Kirk was renovated from its state of dilapidation.

ST. ANDREWS BLACK FRIARS FIFE

The foundation of the Dominican friars at St. Andrews is complicated by the fact that an alleged charter of Alexander the Third is spurious. This stated that the house was founded in 1274, however, it appears that the facts are that a small oratory or hospice was founded sometime before the 22nd of November 1464 for it is at this time that there is the first mention of a prior of the foundation. In all probability the bishops of St. Andrews were founders. A bull of Sixtus the Fourth on the 18th of March 1476-1477 was given in response to a petition by King James the Third and the Vicar General of the order in Scotland. This granted that the friars of St. Andrews could erect themselves into a conventual house and build a church and buildings. It is mentioned that heretofore this house was known as an oratory or hospice. However, it would appear that only one or two friars came at that time. On the 16th of November 1514 the executor of the estate of William Elphinstone, the Bishop of Aberdeen, bestowed upon the Friar Provincial a sum of money for the building of a convent within the university of St. Andrews. This stated that a community of friars living according to the rule should be established where formerly there had only been one or two friars in the dwelling. Thus, the incentive for forming a friary here was the presence of the university. The genersl chapter in 1518 approved of the foundation for students at the university. John Adamson, a profeseor at the university and provincial shou1d be credited. with the establishment of the new foundation. In 1519, Cupar and St. Monan=s priories were united with the friary, likewise in 1529 the hospital of St. Nicholas.

At the reformation the house was burned, by Norman Lesley and destroyed by the reformers on the 14th of June 1559. The prior and convent having been expelled. On the 17th of April 1567 Queen Mary gave the property to the municipality of St. Andrews.

In the grounds of Madras College close to South Street stands the remains of the church of the Black Friars. The only remains of the convent is an apsidal chapel. This projected from the north side of the church. The form of the chapel is somewhat unusual for that of a side chapel. There is a window in each side of the apse. Those on the side of three lights, the northern one being of four. The tracery is modern. On the west wall is an aumbry which probably means that the altar stood here. Part of the vaulting remains. There are shields bearing the Hepburn arms, giving rise to the theory that the chapel was erected by Prior Hepburn as his burial chapel.

ST. ANDREWS GREYFRIARS, FIFE

The founder of the House of Observant Franciscan friars at St. Andrews was James Kennedy, the bishop of St. Andrews. His successor, Patrick Graham, also conferred a larger house within the city to the friars. These donations were attested and confirmed by James the Third on the 21st of December, 1479. The date of foundation, therefore, is uncertain. There was a petition by the vicar and the friars of the order in Scotland on the 14th of March, 1466 asking for confirmation of the foundation, thus, it must have been prior to that date.

In July of 1547 the house was burned by Norman Leslie and on the 18th of May, 1559, resigned to the magistrates of the burgh. One month later it was destroyed by reformers. By September when the magistrates were given the property officially, the buildings were described as ruinous.

It is stated that there are ruins of the friary but there are indications the site is occupied by (...).

PITTENWEEM PRIORY FIFE

The remains of the priory at Pittenweem consist of the church, a long narrow rectangle which has been much restored and extended in the 19th century. At its northwest angle is a tawer, a mixture of Gothic and classical features, which is the most original part of the structure. It is about six metres square. There is a turret stair on the angle between it and the north wall of the church. In appearance it looks like the keep of a castle and, indeed, the stair turret makes it look more so. The balustrade is reminiscent of domestic architecture. After the reformation, the buildings of the priory passed into the hands of laymen. As was the case of other religious houses In became the manor house of Pittenweem. In 1588 a portion of the grounds were given to the burgh in order that a church be erected, there. The cloistral buildings had the usual arrangement. However, on the south side was the prior's house. This is now restored and apparently occupied by an episcopal clergyman. The west side, according to the information here, was the refectory and has now been converted into the town hall. On the east was a gatehouse complete with battlements with a round archway. The house at Pittenweem began its existence as a Benedictine priory. It is said to have been founded by David the First and granted to Reading Abbey, sometime after 1135 when Henry the First, King David=s broth-in-law was buried at Reading, At this time the priory was known as May Priory and located on the Isle of May.

The history from about 1270 on is very confused. Throughout the 13th until the early 14th century there is conflicting evidence as to whether the abbot of Reading remained in possession of the priory of May or not. On the 2nd of September 1306 the king writing to Aymer de Valence stated that the abbot of Reading had complained that the bishop and prior of St. Andrews had invaded the island and taken away the monks goods and beaten the monks. It is not possible to trace exactly what happened or what lead to the transference of the priory to the jurisdiction of the Augustinian Priory at St Andrews. It suffices to say that sometime in the late 13th or early 14th century the priory of May passed into the possession of the Augustinians. It may be that St, Andrews did take possession with the consent of King Edward the First. By the 1st of July 1318 William de Lamberton the Bishop of St. Andrews granted to St. Andrews an annual pension, formerly paid by the priory of Nap to Reading. Apparently Pittenweem was used as an alternative designation for May Priory even before the priory was transferred from the island to the mainland. From the time of the transference of the pension, the priory is sometimes called May and other times Pittenweem and May but by the 16th century usually Pittenweem.

The house was held in Commendam by a number of bishops and archbishops of St. Andrews, beginning with James Kennedy who obtained it about 1447. In 1593 James the Sixth confirmed the grant of the monastic buildings to the magistrates and community of the burgh of Pittenweem. The lands were erected into a temporal lordship for Fredrick Stewart in 1606.

ST. MONAN’S BLACK FRIARS, FIFE

David the Second founded the parish church of St. Monans as a chapel on the 3rd of April 1370. To the chapel were assigned. a number of chaplains. On the 15th of November 1471 James the Third refounded the church for the Friars Preacher. It is stated that this was done through the influence of John Muir, Vicar General of the order of Dominican Friars so that the number of houses in Scotland would justify the existence of a separate province there. Indeed, in 1481 Scotland was erected into a separate province and John Muir became the first provincial, by a bull of Sixtus the Fourth in 1476-1477 the community was given the status of a convent. In 1519 the chapter gave the house to St. Andrews Cathedral Priory on the understanding that the two friars who were elderly and living there at the time would continue in residence.

The church remains in use as a parish church. It consists of a chancel of four bays, north and south transepts without aisles and a central tower. The nave, though originally intended, was never built.

The chancel is lit by four windows to the south and north of four lights and dating from the 15th century. The eastern window is paired and of three lights. The whole of the choir being covered by a groined vault. The north transept is also vaulted. It has a window to the west and one to the north. The south transept has two windows to the south and one to the west. The tower and spire is supported by arches consisting of large clustered piers.

The west end is built up by a solid wall with no indication of an arch to the nave. There is a turret stair in the northwest angle leading to the tower.

INVERKEITHING GREY FRIARS, FIFE

In the burgh of Inverkeithing stands the Palace of Queen Annabella, the wife of Robert the Third. This however is not a palace but rather is the former hospice of the grey friars.

A bull of Clement the Sixth Bated the 29th of November 1346 authorizes the erection of a friary in addition to Lanark Priory on a site granted by David the Second. This probably refers to Inverkeithing. The first specific reference to the friary is dated 1384-1385 when the bailies of Inverkeithing, in accordance with a grant of Robert the Second, gave the friars a sum of money. On the 4th of July 1559 the friary and its garden was given to John Swinton.

Of the remains are a two-storied building to the north of the site. There are some remains of vaulted undercrofts in the garden.

INCHCOLM ABBEY FIFE

Traditionally the island of Inchcolm has been said to have originally been the home of a hermit. Alexander the First is believed, to be the founder of the Augustinian Priory.

An early charter of the house states that Gregory, Bishop of Dunkeld surrendered the island and lands to the canons under the direction of David the First but there are indications that the foundation was not completed, until after the death of David in 1153. It is possible that Alexander intended to found the house at Dunkeld but when the project fell through the foundation was diverted here. In 1235 on the 22nd of May the foundation was erected into an abbey.

The community suffered the depredations of the wars between Scotland and England being attacked in 1335 and again in 1385. The community even had to spend part of 1421 on the mainland because of the wars. In the 16th century the island was occupied in turn in 1547 by the English and 1548 by the French at which time the monks went to Dunfermline. Finally in 1564 the convent was moved from the island. James Stewart had become titular abbot in 1544 and commendator on the death of the real abbot, Richard Abercromby on the 26th of March 1549. The oommendatorship passed to his second son Henry when James was created Lord Doune in 1581. The lands and the abbey were erected into a temporal lordship for Henry when he became Lord St. Colme in 1609.

The remains of the abbey have a magnificent setting on one of the most beautiful islands in the Firth of Forth. Before the abbey was founded the island was called Aemonia. It is thought that this word means either solitary or isolated, however other authorities have called it "the Isle of the Druids".

After the foundation the island was called St Columb=s Inch and finally Colm. This being a corruption of the great Northumbrian St. Columbs.

The earliest building on the island is a small cell believed to have been occupied by the hermit Irregular and built of stone some six metres high and one and one-half wide and is situated at the northwest corner of the present garden. The pointed vault is unusual for Celtic work, in that it is formed out of radiating stones, forming a true arch. It is therefore likely that it has been entirely rebuilt.

The first church which was erected shortly after the foundation was later abandoned as the church and incorporated in the domestic buildings. It consisted of a short nave and chancel and is typical of church buildings of this time. There were three Coors, a western, northern and southern. The northern leading to the cemetery and the south to the cloister. Before the end of the 12th century a new choir was built to the east and the south wall of the old chancel was then lined up with the nave. As the abbey prospered further in the 13th century a tower was built over the first chancel and a chapter house was erected to the east of the cloister buildings. When the tower was built the north wall of the old chancel was retained but the south wall which had

been altered was entirely rebuilt. The west wall of the old chancel nave division becoming the rood screen and the old east wall becoming the pulpitum. A north transept and a western aisle was then added. That it did not form part of the original plan is shown by the blocked windows in the tower. The choir was extended and the high altar stood on a raised floor at the end of the presbytery. The remains of the sedilia are on the south wall. The choir stalls were placed in two rows facing the passage from the pulpitum. When the excavations and investigation of this part of the monastic church were made an important large 13th century mural was discovered. The recess which contained the mural was 18 inches deep and had been built up with masonry when the church was extended eastwards in the late 14th and 15th centuries. It is three metres long by three-quarters of a metre high and consists of a bishop and nine clerics, one holding the primatial cross, another a censer. Unfortunately, the heads of the people are missing.

The chapter house built in its odd position, not at right angles to the cloister nor parallel with the church, was built in an octagonal shape in the 13th century. In the interior were seats for the canons on a raised bench with triple seats for the abbot prior and sub-prior in the eastern wall.

When the church was extended, the original nave and tower area became redundant and were absorbed into the domestic quarters by dividing them into two floors with barrel vaults. The three sides of the cloister were occupied by buildings of two storeys. The ground floor occupied by the cloister walks only. The eastern range abutting against the chapter house.

At this time the north transept was taken down and replaced by another building which probably was used as a sacristy. The church was shortened by the erection of a wall some seven metres east of the tower. This allowed a continuous walk all the way around the cloister. The northern range therefore being the old church.

The cloister had on three sides seats for reading and study. On the south wall a former doorway was converted into a lavatory as there was gravity water supply at Inchcolm. The water was obtained from the roof passing through a channelled stone gutter to a cistern from which it was drawn through three taps, the holes of which are present. The sink is connected to a drain which discharges into the sea.

On the upper floors of the cloister the usual arrangement was present, namely the guest hall in the west wing, the frater in the south and the dorter in the east. The upper part of the chapter house had a warming house constructed into it. The abbot's lodging was formed in the north range then out of the old nave. It consisted of a camera, garderobe and a lobby which gave access to the guesthouse in the west range. The dorter in the eastern range connected with the church via a high stair in its north wall. The warming house was entered through the eastern wall via a stairway of a dozen steps. The floor of the warming house being at a higher level as it was constructed over the chapter house. The fireplace was in the north wall.

The south range contained the frater. The dias being at the eastern end. To the left of this is a cupboard, where dishes were stored and to the right the pulpit, a stair in the wall leading to it. The western enl of the room was used as a kitchen. At first it had an open hearth in the centre of

the floor and there remains a smoke hole in the vault. This was later replaced by a stone fireplace.

The western range contained the guesthouse with an outside stairway giving access to it.

The roof of the cloister buildings was originally slate but stone was substituted later, many of which remain.

The first reredorter was at the south of the east range and was connected to the dormitory by a narrow timber bridge. Two semicircular arches allowed the sea to enter under the reredorter and to flush out a trench. As the sea began to recede it was extended further south in the 14th or 15th century. The sea is even further receded at the present time and now only exceptional tides reach the level of the drain which was built in the extension. The timber bridge at this time was replaced by one of stone.

In the 15th century infirmary buildings were added to the east of the reredorter, the lower storey of which consisted the kitchens, the upper of the infirmary hall itself. Originally, the chapel was at the eastern end and the hall an open one. Soon however as infirmaries had all become divided up into chambers, so did, this one.

[When the pulpitum had been moved to the east the choir became quite small, it was decided in the 15th century to extend the church to the east end in the an entirely new church was built consisting of north and south transepts, presbytery and choir.] At this time also a new cloister walk was added to the north of the cloister garth contracting it even further as well. The old walk below the abbot=s quarters was then used as cellars. It was probable that the part of the building east of the tower then became an open court. [A new night staircase built along the south wall of the church was added to suit the altered position of the pulpitum. There are little remains of the church.

The abbey as it reached its final architectural proportions is unique in that it consists of a church built to the east of the cloister buildings which had their usual arrangement except that there was now a north range occupying the position usually occupied by the nave of the church. This consisted of the abbot's quarters.

THE MONASTERIES OF INVERNESSHIRE

BEAULY PRIORY, INVERNESS

The only remains of this Valliscaulian house is that of the church. It consists of a long, narrow rectangle without aisles consisting of nave and chancel with north and south transepts. These latter are closed off by walls from the nave. There was to the north a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross which is mostly demolished. At the northwest corner of the north transept is an octagonal stair turret. The church is typical of early cistercian architecture.

The west front consists of a pointed doorway and three lancets. The central one raised above a trefoiled niche which displays the shield of Abbot Reid who rebuilt the western facade.

On the north side of the nave are the marks on the walls of the former chapel of the Holy Cross. The doorway from the nave is still in existence and there is a piscina to its left. To its left is a north transept which has been restored. The upper part was added to in the 15th century when the staircase turret was built. The chancel to the east is heavily buttressed. The traceried east window is of the early 15th century. Inside the church one is confronted with a long, narrow nave and choir. As stated before, the north and south transepts are blocked by walls, that in the south transept has in its upper part a large arch (pointed) allowing light from the south transept to enter the nave. The choir stalls stood to the west of the transepts and their eastern seats overlapping onto the wall, separating the transepts from the nave.

On the eastern wall of the church is a double aumbry showing that the high altar was free standing and no against the gable wall. There is a fine double piscina on the south wall.

In the wall dividing the nave from the south transept is the arched tomb of Prior Mackenzie which has been reconstructed in the 16th century. The north transept is now a burial aisle of the Kintail=s and is not open to the public. In it is a fine monument of Sir Kenneth MacKenzie of Kintail.

On the south side of the church the broken ends of the walls of the west range of cloister buildings are to be observed. The windows in the south wall of the nave and the west wall of the south transept are high in order to allow the roof of the cloister walk to be accommodated beneath it. The corbels of this still remain. There is a western processional doorway, but the eastern processional doorway gives access to the south transept.

The founder of this priory and its date of foundation is difficult to determine, but as much as can be determined from the various documents it would appear to be Sir John Bisset of the Aird and the foundation date of 1230, the same foundation date of the two other VallisCaulia priorys in Scotland Ard Chatten and Pluscarden.

The house remained part of the Valliscaulian order until 1510 although in certain documents namely a bull of Pope Alexander the Sixth in 1497-8, it is described as being part of the Cisterian Order, but a dependency of the monastery of Val des Choux. Between these two dates there are documents referring to the independence of the house, however, and it would appear that it is not until the bull of the 10th of May 1510 which was directed to the prior and convent at Beauly that the order of Valliscaulium was extinguished and the Cisterian Order inserted in its stead. It remained independent and part of the Cisterian Order from that date. However, as the priorship was vacant Robert Reid the Abbot of Kinloss and later in 1541 the Bishop of Orkney, was provided to Beauly as commendator on the 1st of November 1531 after being nominated by James the Fifth on the 1st of August of that year. It was he who rebuilt the western front of the church. By 1568 there were still six monks and three years later there were four. On the 29th of October 1572 the commendatorship was relinquished by the nephew of Robert Reid, Walter, who had succeeded him at Kinloss. He resigned in favour of John Fraser of Lovat. On the 20th of October 1634 the priory was granted to the Bishop of Ross.

THE MONASTERIES OF KINROSS

LOCH LEVEN PRIORY (PORT MOAK) KINROSS

The early religious foundation at Loch Leven was traditionally founded by Brude the son of Dergard, the last king of the Picts. Grants by the early Scottish kings and the bishop of St Andrews to the community of Celi De are recorded from the middle of the 11th century to around 1107. The site was granted to the canons regular of St. Andrews by David the First around 1150. In the grant was the permission to expel those members of the community who refused to become canons. Thus David granted the former house of the culdees on the island and its church to the canons of St. Andrews on condition that a priory be founded there. The full grant was given by Robert, Bishop of St. Andrews in 1152-1153. In May of 1268 the priory and convent of St. Andrews granted the island priory and all its dues to the church of Port Moak. At the death of the prior of Loch Leven, the chapter of St. Andrews was to provide a new prior from amongst the St. Andrews community, thus the priory was totally dependent upon St. Andrews and did not have the right to elect one of its own members as prior.

The fact that the community was thereafter called Port Moak probably means that the canons resided there rather than on the island itself. From the middle of the 15th century it could appear that there was no resident community at all as the names of canons associated with Port Moak continually refer to themselves ss canons of St. Andrews. In 1570 the chapter of St. Andrews united the priory of Port Moak to St. Leonard's College and this vas confirmed by the crown in 1580.

On the island in the mouth of Glencoe there are the ruins of a church with two flatheaded windows in the south side and one in the north. The east end is blank.

THE MONASTERIES OF KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE

DUNDRENNAN CISTERCIAN ABBEY..KIRKCUDBRIGHT

The Abbey of Dundrennan which lies about a mile inland from the Irish Sea and the monastery commands a fine view of the Solway Firth. The Cistercian community was founded in 1142 by King David I, and Fergus, Lord of Galloway, for monks who were perhaps brought from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. The name (Dun-nan-droigheann) means "fort of the thorn-bushes". The history of the abbey is obscure, but it is known that in 1299 the abbey sought compensation for loss and destruction of £8000, and in 1328 from Edward III for the loss of their lands in Ireland from which they had been ejected. The abbey was in the hands of a commendator by 1545. That passed through several hands until it came into the possession of John Murray (afterwards Earl of Annandale) for whom it was made a temporal lordship in 1598. The abbey had two daughter houses – Glenluce and Sweetheart.

Queen Mary fled to Dundrennan after the battle of Langside and spent her last night in Scotland there, probably in the west range which had been converted into the commendator’s house, before embarking for England from the neighbouring Port Mary. In 1587 the abbey and lands passed to the Crown, and in 1621 it was annexed to the royal chapel at Stirling. As was the case everywhere after the dissolution of the monasteries in England, and their end in Scotland the buildings were used as a quarry for the erection of houses in the vicinity.

The building styles range from the Romanesque to the Gothic. Parts of the transepts and presbytery remain, the north transept being the most complete. Little of the nave survives above the foundations. The west face of the chapter house remains. A number of vaulted rooms of the west range are still relatively complete, and are used to display some of the attractive stonework found in excavations, including two interesting grave slabs, one of an abbot, the other of a nun, the latter having been restored.

The cruciform church has a nave of six bays 130 feet long, and choir 45 feet long, 175 feet in all; and there was a central tower 200 feet high. The style is transition between Norman and what is referred to in England as Early English. Among the tombs which remain is that of Alan Lord of Galloway (c. 1250), much mutilated, in the east aisle of the north transept, as well as those of several of the abbots and priors. The finest remains architecturally are those of the chapter-house, with its beautiful cinquefoil arched doorway between two windows, and its roof supported by octagonal columns, of which only fragments are left. Of the other domestic buildings of the abbey nothing but a remnant has been preserved. The remains of the south-west corner of the cloister have been excavated to reveal elements of the warming house, the novice’s day room, and the latrine block undercroft.The abbey church continued in use into the 1600’s, but was then gradually used as a source of building material until the state took possession of the site in 1842.

KIRKCUDBRIGHT GREYFRIARS KIRKCUDBRIGHT

The house was founded by James II for his prosperity and soul, and that of his queen sometime after 1449. The name comes from "Kirk of St Cuthbert" (Cille Chuithbeirt), which reflects the town's early importance as an ecclesiastical centre. A monastery had been established here by 1000, and a Franciscan friary followed in the 1200s. The end came in 1569 when James VI gave a charter of the place, which for a “long time’ had lain waste, to Thomas MacLellan of Bombie. He in turn, in 1570, gave them over to the Town Council to become the parish church which it remained until 1730. It was located near the Moat Brae. By 1730 the old friary church had become so dilapidated that it was demolished and a new church was built in its place. So it is only the site of the convent that survives.

LINCLUDEN BENEDICTINE NUNS KIRKCUDBRIGHT

One and a half miles from Dumfries on the right bank overlooking Cluden Water near its confluence with the Nith, stands the ruins of Lincluden College. It was here in the middle of the 12th century that Uchtred, son of Fergus, Lord of Galloway, founded, in the reign of Malcolm IV (1153-65), a house of Benedictine nuns. It is said in one source that the nuns belonged to the Cluniac Order. The nunnery was suppressed in 1389 on a petition of Archibald Douglas, Lord of Galloway, who held the patronage of the nunnery. The nuns were transferred elsewhere, and the church and convent were converted into a collegiate church with a provost and 12 canons.

The provosts of Lincluden were in general men of considerable eminence; and several held high offices of state. Among them were John Cameron (d. 1446), who became secretary, lord-privy-seal, chancellor of the kingdom, and archbishop of Glasgow. Others were John Methven, secretary of state and an ambassador of the court; James Lindsay, keeper of the privy seal, and an ambassador to England; Andrew Stewart (d. 1501), dean of faculty of the University of Glasgow, and afterwards bishop of Moray; George Hepburn, lord-treasurer of Scotland; William Stewart (d. 1545), lord-treasurer of Scotland, and afterwards bishop of Aberdeen; and Robert Douglas, the eighteenth and last provost, a bastard son of Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig, who was appointed in 1547, and was allowed to enjoy the benefice for 40 years after the Reformation.

What remains are parts of the provost’s house, the choir and the south transept. The choir is

aisleless, and three bays in the Decorated style. The vault is similar to that of the well known King’s College in Cambridge. The brackets are decked with armorial bearings. Over the sacristy doorway are those of Grim Earl, the founder of the Provosty. Both he, and Uchtred are buried in the church. In the choir is the much mutilated tomb of Margaret, the daughter of Robert III, and wife of Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas and first Duke of Touraine.

Of great interest is the fact that, although the church is modest in size, the architectural features are larger than one might expect, exemplified by the moulding around the priest's door which itself is quite small, and the broken tracery of the window above it. Over the interior of the small square door by which this part of the ruin is entered, there is a moulding of oak wreath, or perhaps, more correctly speaking, a series of crockets, so grotesquely large as to appear as if they had been intended to be raised to a great height, so as to be diminished by distance. This is noted in the bold and massive corbels and capitals of the vaulting shafts from which the groined arches, now fallen, had sprung. Notable also is what remains of the rich and beautiful tracery of the windows. On the south side of the chancel, opposite to the tomb and door, there are three fine sedilia decorated with the dignity of the Earliest Pointed style and partly destroyed. Beyond the sedilia is a beautiful piscina of the same character.

SWEETHEART ABBEY KIRKCUDBRIGHT

The abbey of Dulce Core was also known as New Abbey. It was founded by Devorgilla, the widow of John Balliol. In 1270 the Cistercian General Chapter commissioned the abbots of Furness and Rievaulx to inspect the site which Devorgilla intended to found an abbey on. April 10, 1273 she granted a charter of endowment in order that the abbey be built by the convent of Dundrennann. The church was to be known as St. Mary of Sweetheart. Devorgilla was the granddaughter of Maud and the daughter of the Earl of Chester. She was devoted to her husband John Balliol who was vastly wealthy with huge estates in England, France and was also one of the regents of Scotland. When he died she had his heart embalmed and placed in a casket. She kept this with her until her death in 1289 when it accompanied her to the grave in the sanctuary of the Church of Sweetheart which she had founded. Devorgilla also founded in Scotland two houses of friars at Wigtown and at Dundee. The former of the black friars and the latter a Franciscan house. In England, Balliol College at Oxford was founded as an act of penance by her husband and in 1282 she confirmed and endowed the college.

The abbey was in that area of the British Isles, bordering Scotland and England which brought it into the arena of conflict between the two nations. Indeed John the first abbot paid homage to Edward the First, King of England in 1279 at Berwick-upon-Tweed. In June of 1300 the king and the Prince of Wales invaded Galloway. On his return he halted at the abbey and it was here that the archbishop of Canterbury, Robert the Emissary of the Pope handed a letter, a Bull of Boniface, the eighth to the king. This demanded that the army should withdraw from Scotland and indeed in did a few days later. When Edward moved the army to Carlisle. Here the truce

granted to the Scots at the mediation of France was granted.

Edward was unsuccessful in defeating Scotland. These wars of independence impoverished Sweetheart. As peace settled on the land and conditions improved and the abbey came under the jurisdiction of the Scottish monarchs, King David the Second, after his liberation from imprisonment in England, confirmed the chapter. A patron, the third Earl of Douglas, the Earl of Wigtown and the Lord of Galloway became the patron. He was described in 1381 as the founder and reformer of the monastery. In 1397 the chronicle states that the abbey buildings were burned by lightning. On July 4, 1398, the abbot was granted the mitre.

At the dawn of the 16th century and after the battle of Flodden in 1513 the monks realizing that the reformation was upon them began to dispose of their lands to people who would protect them. Part of the lands were feued to Robert Maxwell. In 1548 four years later the abbot constituted his father, Lord Maxwell, as hereditary bailie over their lands. The last prereformation abbot John Brown resigned. Shortly before the 23rd of May 1565, at which time the abbacy was granted to Gilbert Brown who became commendator. He enjoyed the protection of Lord Herries who was warden of the West Marches. A pious Catholic, it was reported that he still let stand the high altar in the abbey. After his forfeiture the abbey was granted to William Lesley in 1586. The abbot retired to France but returned in 1589 to defend his rights against John Welsche, the brother-in-law of John Knox. He was arrested in 1603 and imprisoned. Later deported to France he would not take no for an answer and in 1608 was back at the abbey and although defended by the local people he was eventually arrested, but allowed to stay at the abbey. The following year the archbishop of Glasgow, Spottiswoode broke into his accommodations at the abbey and removed Aa great number of popish books, copes, chalices, pictures, images and other popish trash@. They were all publicly burned on market day in Dumfries. The last abbot died apparently in France in 1612. In 1624 the abbey with its lands and revenues was granted by the king to Sir Robert Spottiswoode and Sir John Hay. In 1633 they returned it to the king, who in turn gave it to the bishop of Edinburgh. However, when this bishopric was suppressed the revenues were returned to Spottiswoode who took the name Lord New Abbey.

The abbey precinct of 30 acres was sited on fertile land drained by what is now called the abbey Pow. This drained into the tidal estuary of the Nith a mile from the abbey. The southern boundary of the precinct was this ditch. The remainder of the precinct was enclosed by a boundary wall, a considerable portion of which still remains and is one of the few remaining boundary walls in Scotland. Traces of one of the two gateways that on the west can still be seen.

The only remains of the buildings of the Abbey of Sweetheart are the ruins of the Church of St. Mary. The lower walls of the east range and an outline of the cloister. What remains of the southern half of the cloister buildings is now buried under the stable and garden of the Church Manse.

The church has a nave of six bays. This is aisled. The transepts both north and south have two eastern chapels. The presbytery is aisleless. All of the aisles were vaulted. The crossing was capped by a tower which had a bell chamber.

The nave was approached through the western door by an outer porch. The doorway is small and befits a Cistercian Abbey where the door would not be used as a public thoroughfare. The great west window was altered in the 14th century after a storm sometime before 1381.

At the west end of the south aisle of the nave is a doorway leading to the night stair of the lay brothers dorter. There is no triforium arcade, only a clerestory which does not have a passage. This clerestory is one of the finest features of the church. All the windows are the same except those of the two eastern bays which have triple lights with trefoil arched heads. The others have five lancet lights fitted within a semicircular arch. The last bay of the nave in the south aisle contains a doorway leading to the cloister. The monks choir extended two bays west of the crossing at which place the pulpitum stood, separating the lay brothers church from that of the monks.

The eastern chapels of the transepts were separated by screens of wood. The first chapel in the north transept has a mural piscina which is of an unusual form. In the northwest corner of that transept is a wheel stair. The turret of which projects outwards and is an unusual feature of the north gable. This gave access to the passage of the clerestory of the transepts and presbytery and to the stair in the tower which communicated with the bell chamber. On the south wall of the south transept is a book cupboard and a doorway leading to the sacristy, above these to the right is the doorway of the night stairs of the monks.

The high altar stood on a raised platform at the eastern end of the presbytery against the east wall of the church. The piscina was on its south side, on the east wall. On the south wall to its right is a sedilia. Directly in front of this is the grave of Devorgilla which was desecrated at the time of the suppression of the monastery. The lighting of the presbytery was by clerestory windows in the north and south walls and the large geometric window in the east above which was another large window of seven graduated lancets, contained within a semicircular arch.

The cloister is attained by the eastern processional doorway in the last bay of the nave. The north cloister walk had benches on its north wall. The eastern cloister buildings, the first consisted of immediately south of the south transept* a compartment divided originally be a screen wall. The eastern part of this was the sacristy and entered from the cloister. Immediately to its south was the chapter house. Benches were set against the walls and to the east the lower parts of the abbot=s chair can still be distinguished. The window which exists here was taken from the old parish Kirk. This window was placed here in 1977 when the new parish Kirk was built. The old Kirk which in 1731 had been built against the south wall of the nave over the foundations of the western range. The first Kirk after the reformation having apparently been housed in the ruins of the refectory.

The next doorway gives access to a passage leading to the infirmary. This was also used as a parlour, the only place in the abbey where the monks were permitted to converse freely, being under a vow of silence in other parts. In the north wall of this is a doorway leading to a very narrow chamber which may have been the treasury. Next comes the doorway to the warming house which contained the only fireplace in the monastery, the remains of which are in the east

wall.

As has been stated the remains of the south range are under the stables and domestic buildings of the Manse. As far as the west range is concerned, the only remains are the arched doorway which stands isolated in its west wall, this being the entrance to the cloister from the outer court. On the inner side of this structure can be seen the remains of the corbels which supported the lean-to roof of the western cloister walk.

Another monastic remain is to be found a mile to the northeast of the ruins of the Kirk. This is called the Abbot=s tower. It was probably built in the second half of the 16th century by John Brown.

* In the south transept is to be found the reconstructed tomb of the foundress Devorgilla, beside this is the coffin lid of John the first abbot. There is also a fragment of a grave coverstone of another abbot to be found here as well.

THE MONASTERIES OF LANARKSHIRE

BLANTYRE PRIORY, LANARK

The Augustinian Priory of Blantyre, a dependency of Jedburgh Abbey was founded between 1238-1249 by Patrick the Second, the Earl of Dunbar and his wife Euphemia. Its dedication was to the Holy Cross. It was a small priory and indeed on the 24th of May 1476 it was stated that there were no canons there except the prior. Early in the 16th century it was stated that the priory was held by a canon of Jedburgh and was non conventual. It was at this time that its connection with Jedburgh became tenuous. The prior of the Augustinian house at Pittenweem had resigned by 1549 and thereafter, the house was held by secular priests. In 1580 Walter Stewart, the son of Sir John Stewart of Minto, was commendator.

The ruins are to be found near Bothwell at a bend in the river Clyde. The eastern parts of the priory stood on the very edge of the cliff overhanging the river, some one hundred above water level. The land falls away from this so that to the west the cloister is at a lower level than this range of buildings. The western enclosing wall stood to a height of five to ten feet in the late 19th century. Part of the north wall existed and small parts of the south. All buildings to the south are gone.

At the northeast corner of the precinct stood a two storied building which was probably the prior=s house. It contained two rooms and sat directly on the precipice. To the south of this is a western wall, but nothing else remained. There is a holy water stoup projecting from the inner wall. Thus, it is said to have been a chapel. Further to the south again was a vaulted room again on the precipice.

At present, there are only a few stories with part of a wall which has been cleared. All else is much (...) and little else except the flat open cloister area is definable.

L esmahagow Priory Lanark

Lesmahagow Priory was a medieval Tironensian monastic community located in modern South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was founded after John, Bishop of Glasgow and King David I of

Scotland who granted lands at Lesmahagow to Kelso Abbey with which to establish a new priory. It remained a dependency of Kelso Abbey. Control of the abbey was gradually secularized in the 16th century. Along with Kelso Abbey, it was turned into a secular lordship in 1607 for Robert Ker of Cesford, later earl of Roxburghe. Lesmahagow however passed into the hand of James Hamilton, 2nd Marquess of Hamilton in 1623.

Buildings are represented as low lying walls. is opposite Glebe Park. Beside the Church of Scotland Kirk, the Abbeygreen Church which was opened in 1844.

THE MONASTERIES OF MIDLOTHIAN

BALANTRODACH KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

MIDLOTHIAN

This was the main seat of the Templars in Scotland. There is no record of its foundation, but it was during the time of David I (1128-53), and may have been due to him. The earliest reference is in 1175-99 when a Brother Raan Corbet, who was said to have been master of the Temple in the lands of the Scots, gave a charter to Plentidoc (a likely corruption of Balantrodoch). After the suppression of the Order the temple and its church passed to the Hospitallers. The church became parochial.

The church continued in use until the 19th century, and still exists as a ruin. The present church was built in 1832. The Templar’s church was a single chamber oblong structure. The eastern part dates from the 13th century. The western part has been rebuilt. It is roofless, but the walls are complete. The east gable is topped by a 17th century belfry. The Manse was built on part of the claustral buildings on the north side of the church. The foundations of a wall and buttress south of the Manse at a bend in the river may be the remains of the reredorter. A cellar of the house with a small wheel stair probably indicates the north range.

NEWBATTLE CISTERCIAN ABBEY

MIDLOTHIAN

David I, and his son Earl Henry made the first endowments of the abbey, a daughter house of Melrose. A great council of earls, barons, and freeholders was held here in 1320, and it was after that that the Abbot of Arbroath wrote the famous declaration on “Behalf of the Community of the Realm of Scotland”, called “The Declaration of Arbroath”, the noblest statement ever written on Scottish sentiment with its claim to freedom. The abbey, like so many others, and its proximity to Edinburgh, suffered from the trials and tribulations of the wars with the British having been burned in 1385 in the campaign of Richard II, and again in 1544 and 1548 during an attack by the Earl of Hertford. By the time of the reformation there was little left standing of the abbey. James Haswell was the last abbot. He resigned in 1547 in favour of Mark Ker, but continued to administer the abbey until 1554 while Ker remained as commendator until 1556. His son succeeded him until the abbey was erected into a temporal lordship in 1587.

The name derives from an old Saxon word – “bottle”, or residence. Hence the “new residence”. Ker’s son, also Mark, became Lord Newbattle (1596) and Earl of Lothian (1606) and built a

house on the site. The only remains of the abbey are a vaulted undercroft of the 19th century chapel which incorporates the south end of the east range (the dorter undercroft), and perhaps its 16th century font..This house was modified and rebuilt successively by John Mylne (1650), William Burn (1836) and David Bryce (1858). The drawing room represents one of Scotland's greatest rooms, decorated by Thomas Bonnar c.1870. Newbattle Abbey remained the home of the Marquesses of Lothian until it was given to the nation in the 1937 by Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, to be used as a College of Education.

SOUTRA HOSPITAL

MIDLOTHIAN

The hospital of Soutra dedicated to the Holy Trinity is said to have been founded by Malcolm the Fourth in 1164, the four travellers. Probably the foundation was somewhat before this as much a two years. A bull of Gregory the Ninth, the 20th of September 1236 makes specific mention of the rule of St. Augustin being followed at this hospital. In 1420 the master and brothers asked for the right to wear the same habit as Augustinian canons. Twenty-four years later doubt was expressed as to whether the foundation should be accepted as a religious house or just as a hospital In 1449 the hospital vas the next to the chancellor of St. Andrews Cathedral. In 1460 the widow of James the Second, Mary of Gueldres, petitioned the Pope that the hospital be united to her new foundation of Trinity College and Hospital in Edinburgh. It ceased to exist as a regular hospital by the end of the 15th century although references are to be found to residents here as late as the end of the 16th century. It is described as being in ruins by the 17th century.

The remains of the hospital consist of a rectangular, barrel vaulted building with a turf roof.

HOLYROOD ABBEY

EDINBURGH

The foundation of the Augustinian Priory of Holyrood began in 1128. The founder was David the First. According to legend the foundation of the abbey came about ss follows. The king who was in residence at the Castle at Edinburgh on the feast of the Holy Cross September 14th after attending mass was convinced by his followers to be hunting. The group rose off to the east, down the valley of Abergare now Canongate. As they rode towards Salisbury Crag a stag turned on the king, threw him from his horse and, wounded him. The king in order to save

himself reached up and grasped at the antlers of the stag. Much to his surprise what he grasped was a crucifix. The stag rode off leaving the king holding this miraculous sign. That night in his dream the king was urged to found a religious house of Augustinian canons dedicated to the Holy Cross. A spring sprung up at the site of this miracle and it was there that the monastery of the Holy Rood, was erected. The king created his secretary and confessor Alwin, an English Austin canon as the first abbot. It is known in fact that Holy Rood was a daughter house of the Merton priory in Surrey.

The abbey was twice destroyed by the British in the 14th century and again in the 16th century on two occasions. The latter of which in 1547 the abbey was found to be deserted of its community and the lead and the bells were stolen. Reformers destroyed the altars in 1559.

In the 16th century the abbey was frequently held in Commendam and, the infant son of James the Fifth, Robert Stewart, was placed in perpetual commenda in 1539. In 1569 this was exchanged for the temporalities of the Bishopric of Orkney.

The abbey was erected into a temporal lordship for the bishop's son, John Bothwell in 1606.

From the foundation of the abbey it was associated with royalty. The guesthouse was to the west of the claustral buildings. The kings of Scotland made their domain in this building and it became the nucleus of a later royal residence. Culminating in the direction of the existing palace of Holyrood House.

In prereformation days the nave of the abbey church was used as a parish church for the parish of Canongate. This continued until 1686 after the reformation. Thereafter the nave served as the chapel royal until the middle of the 18th century. The nave now lies in ruins. The transepts and their chapels, the choir and the presbytery were destroyed about the year 1569 by order of the General Assembly of the Reformed Kirk. The vault of the nave fell in 1768, thus ending its use as a chapel.

The ruins of the nave are those of the transitional stage of architecture between the roundheaded windows of the Norman and the pointed windows of the Gothic. The nave originally had north and south aisles. The northern arcade was destroyed when the vault of the nave fell in the later 18th century. The south nave arcade remains.

The present eastern window is built on the site of the rood screen.

Only the northwest tower remains. The southwest tower was destroyed when the present palace was built. Likewise, the present palace has obliterated the site of the west processional doorway. That of the east being blocked up to form in the last bay of the south choir a royal burial vault. This blocked doorway is the only remains of the 12th century Norman church which was taken down when the present 13th and 14th century church was built. The nave of this new church was the first part that was completed. When it was so the transepts and presbytery of the first church were taken down and the present transepts, choir and presbytery built. Of these only the foundations remain to the east of the present ruins.

The north wall of the church is different than the south wall. The north being of late 12th century transitional architecture while the south wall is early 13th century Gothic. The buttresses in the present cloister garth were added in the 15th century. The buttress supporting the late 12th century north wall were also added in the 15th century. These were erected by Abbot Crauford whose coats of arms can be seen in different places upon them.

The two other doorways into the nave, the western portal with its open gallery of two compartments forming an ambo from which people standing in the court to the west of the facade could be addressed is noteworthy. The north doorway is 15th century and was also built by Abbot Crauford. To the east of the present remains are the foundations of the choir, presbytery and transepts. To the south are some remains of the buttresses and central pillar of the octagonal chapter house.

THE MONASTERIES OF MORAYSHIRE

KINLOSS CISTERCIAN ABBEY MORAY

The Cistercian abbey of Kinloss was founded by David the First on the 21st of May 1150. The colony came from Melrose. In 1395 on the 24th of September it became mitred. It remained a large monastery throughout the middle ages, there being twenty-three monks in 1229 - twenty in 1537 and at least eighteen at the reformation. Robert Reid who was also sub-dean of Moray, was the second last prereformation abbot. He continued to hold the abbey and the commendam of the priory of Beauly when he was elevated to the See of Orkney in 1541. Before the 6th of April 1553, however, he had resigned in favour of his nephew Walter. He, that is, Walter granted a deed of demission in favour of Edward Bruce on the 5th of July 1583 and by charters of 1601 and 1608 the abbey was erected into a temporal Lordship for the same Edward Bruce who became Lord Kinloss.

Those are the facts, of course there are always legends and there is a legend regarding the foundation of Kinloss by David the First. Apparently, the king had lost his way in the woods while hunting, was guided by a deer to an open place where as afterwards revealed to him by the Blessed Virgin, he was to establish a monastery dedicated to her.

Until about 1650 the buildings of the abbey are believed to have remained in their entirety. In 1645 however, they had been conveyed to Brodie of Lethen and he sold the materials which were used in the construction of the castle at Inverness, built by Cromwell. Up until that time the chapter house had been used as a place of worship. There are a few remains. The outline of the cloister garth can be seen. The walls of the south and west side of which are fairly preserved. On the north can be seen the remains of the south wall of the nave and on the east side, part of the south transept stands. The transept had an eastern chapel - which retains its vault but the east window is gone. South of this and at a lower level is a long, vaulted chamber which was probably the treasury. To the north of the site is a line of walling representing the north wall of the north transept.

The line of walling on the south side of the cloister contains the archway that led into the refectory and to its left, the remains of the lavatorium.

To the south of this stands the remains of the abbot=s house. It consists of a high east gable and a round tower at the southeast angle. This contains the entrance doorway and a staircase. Over the doorway is a panel containing the shield of Abbot Reid and his initials and crosier. The plan of the house resembles a baron=s house of the 16th century. The basement contained the kitchen with cellars. On the first floor would have been the hall, with bedrooms on the upper floor. This was built by Robert Reid who was also Commendatory Abbot of the Abbey of Beauly and had built considerably there. He is also noted as to having built a spacious, fire-

proof library at Kinloss and enriched it with many volumes.

As is so often in former monastic sites in Scotland, the site has been used as a sanctuary. Since the Second World War, it has also served as a burial place for the nearby (...) station at Kinloss. There are many (...) of Commonwealth airmen killed during the war, especially Canadian.

ELGIN GREYFRIARS MORAY

The Greyfriars church is all that remains of this house of Franciscan friars. It is a simple, long rectangle with the usual walking space as a division between nave and chancel. The entrance door for the public is in the north wall of the west end which at one time had a wooden porch covering it. The church was lit by two large traceried windows at its east and western end, six pointed windows in the north wall and one in the south. In both walls there are, near the centre of the structure, two small windows, one over the other. These were evidently used to light the rood screen and loft (now (...)) with the lower windows lighting the space under it. The corbels which carried this loft can be seen on the inside of the church. The conventional buildings were built on its south side. On the south wall can be seen the corbels which carried the cloistered roof.

Apparently, there was an early settlement of the Conventual Greyfriars here in the 13th century, but nothing much came of it and it was soon abandoned. However, in 1479 John Innes of Innes founded a house of Observant Greyfriars here. The house may not have been erected until the rein of James the Fourth, for the foundation has been attributed to him. At some time the buildings came into the possession of the burgh and from 1563 were used as a court of justice. The lands were leased by James the Sixth to Robert Innes of Invermarky on the 20th of April 1573. At some time after the 17th century it became again used as a place for episcopal services and in the 19th century became the property of the convent of St. Mary of Mercy which it now is. The conventual buildings were (...) rebuilt around a cloister by the Marquess of Bute in the late 19th century.

PLUSCARDEN PRIORY MORAY

Six miles to the southwest of Elgin along a windy road through wooded countryside stands the present abbey of Pluscarden. The present community of white habited monks have been established here since 1943. It was at that time that the son of the third Marquess of Bute, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart gave the land and the ruins of a former benedictine priory to the benedictine community of Prinknash. This community which had its beginnings as the Anglican benedictine community of Caldey Island, was received into the Roman Catholic church in 1913. Benedictine though they were, their tradition was to wear white habits given to them by their founder Dom Aelred Carlyle and so it is once again that white habited monks inhabit this abbey.

The beginnings of Pluscarden priory date from its foundation by King Alexander the Second in 1230. It was at this time that he gave lands here to the priory of Val des Choux in France. His charter of the 7th of April 1236 grants endowments, privileges and protection to this order at his place in the forest of Elgin in the valley of St. Andrew. In 1263 a bull a Pope Urban the Fourth placed the priory under apal protection.

On the 12th of March 1453-4 Pope Nicholas the Fifth responded to a petition on behalf of the Benedictine prior of Urquhart who had asked that his priory and Pluscarden priory be amalgamated as there were not more than two monks in his house and six at Pluscarden. The Pope consented to the separation of the priory from Val des Choux and it became a dependency of Dunfermline Abbey and was united to Urquhart. The monks of Urquhart leaving and taking up residence here. The abbot of Dunfermline on the 8th of November 1454 appointed a commissary to take possession of the property and to receive the vows of the monks as benedictine. The last pre-reformation prior Alexander Dunbar foreseeing the reformation alienated much of the monastic lands and wealth to members of his family. He had been appointed on the 20th of May 1529 and held office until he died in 1560-61. On the 17th of April of that year George Lord Seton was appointed commissar. The site was gifted to William Cranston, the provost of Seton Collegiate Church, in 1561, but thereafter in 1565 given to Lord Seton=s third son, Alexander Seton. It was erected into a free barony in parliament in 1587. In 1594 this Alexander Seton, now Lord Urquhart, sold the lands to Kenneth MacKenzie of Kintail, a privy counsellor of James the Sixth. The lands passed out of the MacKenzie hands in 1662 to the Brodies of Lethen and from them to the Duff family and it was they who eventually became the Earls of Fife. In the 18th century the former granary buildings near the east gate were fixed up for local worship as a free church. In 1821 Lord Fife altered the original calefactory again to be used for worship. Parts of the priory church continued to be used as a burial place for local families, but the remainder of the buildings were not maintained and fell into a ruinous condition until 1943 when we have seen that the Marquess of Bute re-established the benedictine community here.

Today one approaches the abbey from the east gate where the parking lot is, but in medieval times, it was from the north gate that the visitors first saw the abbey. This north gate was protected by a large gate house, the inner arch remains. On the east side are remains of a prison, probably as the main road from Inverness to Elgin passed by the boundary wall - not a porters

lodge as the only window, a squint, faces inward - the ruins of which are still there. When approached, the abbey buildings or priory, as it was then, from the gateway, down an avenue between two walls. What is to be seen now is the remains of the eastern parts of the church including the north and south transepts and choir, all of which have been now re-roofed and restored for worship. To the south of the south transept is the former sacristy and lady chapel with the prior=s chapel above it. South of this, again, is the chapter house to be followed by a slype and the calefactory. This whole eastern block was re-roofed in 1960 and now contains the chapter house, library, refectory and dormitories.

Passing the church on its north one comes to the present western entrance to the monastic church by a refaced doorway in the western wall of the tower. The foundations of the nave can be seen running across the grass to the west of this. It is doubtful, however, if the nave was ever built beyond the foundation level. At the present time a modern building accommodating parlours and a new bookshop marks the line of the south aisle and the northern side of the cloister.

Entering through the north door in the north transept one stands beneath the central tower with the north and the south transepts to the left and right respectively. It was not until 1960 that the ruins were re-roofed and (later, at the same time) the stained glass windows in the north wall and the great rose window. It is a 13th century work and thus one of the oldest parts of the priory. The south transept is obviously later in date. In the clerestory the passage within the walls is carried past the windows by a series of archways which are unique in character.

On the chancel arch there is some traces of 15th century fresco the northern part of which shows the figure of St. John the Evangelist in a monk=s habit. The location of the former rood screen can be seen also on the chancel arch with traces of a small staircase leading to it. It has lately been replaced by a modern rood which came from the (...) convent of (...) in 19.

On the north and west walls of the north transept there are several memorial stones. One of which dated from 1480 is the memorial slab of a priest, William of Birniekirk.

Both north and south transepts have eastern aisles. Originally each containing two chapels. Again, here one can see the earlier, simple work of the north as against the later, more flamboyant work of the south transepts. The eastern walls formed the reredos behind the altars and there are to be found faint traces of mural decorations here as well. At the south end of the aisles there is a squint allowing a view of the altar of the Lady Chapel. This squint was also covered with fresco and remains can be seen. The present stained glass window of Our Lady in the west wall of the north transept was made in the workshop of the priory. At present (>80) the south transept=s east chapels serve as the monks (...) while those of the north serve as a (...) chapel.

The choir of the priory church has recently been re-roofed. In the north wall there is a finely, carved sacrament house showing figures of two kneeling angels. Also there are reasonably well preserved sedilia. Below the windows can be seen consecration crosses. They are also to be found in the west and north walls of the transepts. Here as elsewhere alterations can be seen which probably followed the great fire of 1390. The windows of the choir are to be noted for

their ambitious planning - filled with glass. It is claimed that they are the first glass of this scale to be found anywhere in Scotland. It no doubt was over ambitious in that the windows had to be replaced on the northern side by solid masonry, probably to bear the weight of the roof or to protect against the cold. In the 17th century the choir was used as a burial place for the Ogilvie family.

Between the choir and north transept is a vestry called the Dunbar vestry. Attributed to the last pre-reformation prior, Alexander Dunbar, whose arms appear upon the roof - boss. A stairway turret on its north side now only marked by foundation gave access to the rooms above.

Passing to the cloister buildings which occupy the east range of the cloister and have been restored - one first comes to the apartment immediately south of the south transept which in its western parts was originally a vestry - its eastern parts the Lady Chapel. This has been seen through the squint from the eastern aisle of the south transept. The stain glass window behind the altar has been executed in the abbey. On the floor of the chapel is a memorial stone of 1527 to Alexander Dunbar of Durris. South of this is the chapter house with its fine doorway and on a lower level than the cloister walk. There are some medieval roof bosses which survived, divided into two - the north half serving as the (...) chapter house and the south as a vestry. One with a representation of the Agnus Dei. Next comes the slype which now forms part of the library and south of this calefactory which is now the refectory. The kitchen is to the west in the south range. Above this wing are the dormitories.

The south cloister range originally contained the refectory of the priory, its doorway arch remains in site. The foundations of the remainder of the claustral buildings can be seen. The present guest rooms occupy the western site of the cloisters and a suite of parlours lies to the north.

The precinct wall is second only to that of St. Andrews and encloses a space of ten acres. We have originally seen the northern gate house. It contained a prison cell at its ground level. The courtroom being on the upper floors. In the northern precinct wall are recesses which originally housed wicker beehives.

The ruins of the prior=s house also remain to the south and east of the east range as well as ruins of the priory mill.

THE MONASTERIES OF PEEBLES

PEEBLES TRINITARIAN FRIARY PEEBLES

The nave and west tower of this friary founded in the late 13th century, and now called Cross Kirk, still exist. There are some foundations of the claustral buildings.

The earliest mention of the friary was in 1296 when the master swore allegiance to Edward I. However the Christian presence here dates from at least 1261 when in the reign of King Alexander a cross believed to be that of St. Nicholas was found. Alexander III in 1262 had a church built here in the honour of the Holy Cross, although not unusually there is some confusion of dates. About the year 1448 a community of friars was established, but in 1464 they were expelled for not doing their duty, and part of the relic had been cut off, or so it was said.

However the community continued to exist, and in the Minister-General of the order consented to the annexation of the house at Berwick at the petition of James III, and his queen to erect a convent in the church of the Holy Cross. Dunbar and Houston were also annexed to this new house. In 1560 the Privy Council granted a petition of the burgesses that the church of the friars be taken over as the parish church as it had been destroyed by the English. It took a hundred years before a charter confirming the rights of the community to the church was given in 1621. Three years later the church and lands were erected into a barony for John Hay of Yester. The church was still in use until 1784.

THE MONASTERIES OF PERTHSHIRE

COUPAR ANGUS CISTERCIAN ABBEY PERTH

Waltheof of Melrose Abbey recommended that a foundation be made at Coupar and it was thus planned by Malcolm the Fourth to establish an abbey there. The foundation may have even been planned by David the First. The Royal Manor of Coupar in Gowrie was assigned as a site of the abbey in 1159. There however, was a delay. Although the first monks from Melrose may have settled there as early as 1161, it seems that they did not arrive until around September 1162. The foundation date is given as the 12th of July 1164, when the full convent arrived and an abbot was appointed. The church was not completed and dedicated until 1233. The abbey became mitred in June of 1464.

Throughout the 16th century the monks remained in constant numbers, between twenty and twenty-four. The last pre-reformation abbot was Donald Campbell who was appointed 1529, After his death between 1562 and 1563 the abbey was given to Leonard Leslie in 156~. It was later gifted to Andrew Lamb in 1603. In 1606 it was erected into a temporal lordship for James Elphinstone with the title of Lord Coupar.

Almost nothing remains of the abbey. The present parish church occupying the site of the monastic church. The site of the claustral buildings and the cloister is now occupied by the church yard, At the south corner are the remains of the gateway which consists basically of the arch and a corner buttress. It has been stated by one 17th century writer (there is no other evidence) that the abbey was burned and destroyed by reformers who wrecked the religious houses at Perth and its neighbourhood in 1559. However, a portion of the buildings seems to have been occupied by Leonard Leslie who was the first lay commendator. James Elphinstone also appears to have made part of the abbey his residence, but it was destroyed by soldiers of the army of Montrose apparently in revenge for the support that Elphinstone gave the Covenanters. In 1~82 the place is described as "nothing but rubbish".

Besides the fragment of the gatehouse there remains at the west end of the present church on the south side, the remains of one of the piers of the nave. There are also some bits of sculpture round about. In the church, one of the nave pillar bases and parts of a pillar have been reconstructed and a bowl (which looks original) to form a font. There is also a much damaged figure of a knight in the church. In the gable of the porch entrance in the south side of the nave is a niche with the medieval statue of a prayer figure.

INCHAFFRAY AUGUSTINIAN ABBEY PERTH

When Gilbert, the Earl of Strathern, founded an Augustinian priory around the year 1200 on this

site, he provided that Mael-isu, the priest and hermit, would administer the new foundation. Those- who were with him in what was presumably a community of clerics and not monks, were to be instructed in the Rule of St. Augustine. The first prior Mael-isu was responsible for selecting the new community some of whom came from Scene. In 1220 or 1221 it was raised to the rank of abbey, A bull of Gregory the Mineth in 1237 mentioned the transference of the episcopal See of Dunblane to here, but this did not take place.

The first lay commendator was Laurence Lord Oliphante He became commendator on the 16th of November, 1495. Originally he had been bailiff in the time of Abbot George Murray and on his resignation became commendator. After that there were no more resident, clerical abbots. A community continued to exist however, and there were fourteen canons at the reformation. In 1565 James Drummond became commendator and the abbey was erected into a temporal lordship for him as Lord Maddertie on the 31st of January, 1609, This however, did not take place and it wasn't until 1669 that William Drummond later Viscount Strathallan became temporal lord.

The ruins of the abbey are to be found six miles east of Crieff, not far from Madderty station on a wooden mound the ancient Ainsula missarum@. The valley, in olden times, was an extensive marsh which was reclaimed by the monks.

The existing remains are the western cellarium. Of this the northern gable stands to roof height and its entirety. (The walls of the range extend along the entire length to a height of seven or eight feet. There is a doorway entering from the cloister at the northwest corner.) The chimney and the top is 16th or 17th century. There was a large fireplace on the first floor. A portion of the south wall of the church remains extending to the east. There is an opening in it which is undoubtedly the western processional doorway, Further to the east was one of the great piers of the central tower. This description is about ninety years old. At present all is grown over by vines and trees. The north gable and the south wall of the west range can be identified. To the immediate south of the north gable is a vaulted undercroft retaining its barrel vault. All of the other walls of the range are buried and overgrown. The (...) pier of the tower can be identified but the south nave wall cannot.

INCHMAHOME PRIORY PERTH

This Augustinian house was founded sometime after 1238 by Walter, Earl of Menteith. It was an independent priory. However, on the 3rd of June 1508 Pope Julius the Second annexed it to the Chapel Royal of Sterling, but by 1529 this union was dissolved. In 1536 James the Fifth wrote to the Cardinal of Ravenna resisting the union of the priory to Jedburgh, but by this date Robert Master of Erskine was commendator and the priory was firmly under the control of the

Erskine family which in the future provided commendators for it. At the reformation it was erected with the Abbeys of Dryburgh and Cambuskenneth into a temporal lordship for John Erskine second earl Mar.

The ruins are in the care of the Department of the Environment. They stand on an island near the north shore of the lake of Menteith. The site is one of great beauty and gives credit to the name Inchamahome which means the isle of rest. The great state of preservation is no doubt due to the fact that the earl used them as a pleasure ground for his castle on the adjacent isle of Talla. It no doubt was constructed out of some of the ruins of the priory.

The plan is the usual arrangement of monastic buildings. A church to the north, a cloister and its buildings to the south. There are however, several very interesting facets to the plan.

The church consists of a nave with a northern aisle and a tower incorporated into the thickness of that aisle at its northwest corner. To the east is a sacristy built in lean-to style. The earliest part of the building is of the mid-thirteenth century. The bell tower is of late medieval date. It was built into the width of the aisle at its western end occupying one of the four chapels that originally existed there which had been divided from each other by oak screens. Apparently when the western end of the building was constructed after the east the western range which already existed was not taken into consideration, hence the angle of the south wall of the nave. The southwest angle buttress also indicates this. The south wall of the nave has the two usual eastern and western processional doorways leading into the cloister.

The guire is aisleless and is a narrow rectangle separated from the nave by a solid screen. To the west of this one bay was the rood. The choir stalls occupied the space between the screen and the two doors, the northern one leading into the sacristy and the southern one leading into a penthouse passage which led to the night stair which gave access to the dormitory which was on the first floor of the eastern range of the claustral buildings. This is the most unique arrangement to be seen here at Inchmahome and is found nowhere else.

Beyond this was the presbytery. The sedilia in the south wall is to be noted. The eastern gable contains five stepped lancets. There are two graves to be noted in the choir, one of which that of Sir John Drommond is a good example of western highland monuments.

Turning to the cloister buildings and entering them from the west processional doorway it is to be noted that the western walk is under the first floor of the western range. This arrangement is also to be found Inchcolm and was typical of friary architecture in England. The other cloister walks, that is to the north and south, are under the usual penthouse roof. The prior=s lodging was over the northern part of the range with the guest house over the southern cellars occupying the part of the range not occupied by the cloister walk. The range is at about a twenty-five degree angle out of the perpendicular from the church and thus in order to keep the cloister square, the south wall of the nave is on an angle as well.

The frater occupied the entire south range. The eastern range has the same arrangements as the western range in that the cloister walk is enclosed in the range itself and not built in a penthouse fashion. The first door is the door into the chapter house. This was partially rebuilt in the 17th century when it became a burial vault for the body of Lord Kilpont. The other effigies and grave slabs which are here have been removed from the church for protection. To be noted is the tomb of Walter the first Stuart earl of Menteith and Countess Mary.

The next door leads into the inner parlour which also gave access to the ground to the south and east of the church. South of this was the warming house with the canons dorter over it. The day stair is enclosed within the building itself and to its south is the rear dorter. The western wall of the eastern walk contains window seats.

On the west side of the ruins is a small knot garden associated traditionally with Mary Queen of Scots who was in the safe keeping of the commendator of the priory after the battle of Pinkie on the 10th of September 1547. At this time the castle at Stirling was thought to no longer offer sufficient security and the Queen and her mother were removed here. They however only stayed three weeks.

As stated above, this priory with the abbeys of Dryurgh and Cambuskenneth had been erected as a temporal lordship for John, Second Earl of Mar in 1606. He granted the priory of Inchmahome to his second son, Henry Erskine who managed his estate until he died in 1628. Towards the end of the 17th century the property came into the hands of Marquis of Montrose and it was 1626 that his descendant, the Duke of Montrose, gave the guardianship of the priory to the government. The island itself was purchased by Mr. Stewart in the 20th century.

Perth Carthusian Priory Perthshire

Perth Priory, known in Latin as Domus Vallis Virtutis ("House of the Valley of Virtue"), the only Carthusian house ever to be established in the Kingdom of Scotland, and one of the last non-mendicant houses to be founded in the kingdom. The traditional founding date of the house is 1429. Formal suppression of the house came in 1569, though this was not actualised until 1602. on May 11, 1559, the Charterhouse and the other religious houses of Perth were attacked

and destroyed by Protestant "reformers"; one of the brothers was killed, four others fled abroad, while six monks chose to remain; two of those, the prior Adam Forman and a brother, fled in to foreign Carthusian houses in 1567.[14] Of the four who remained in 1567, one was Adam Stewart, illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland, who for some time styled himself "Prior".[13] King James VI of Scotland granted the buildings and the gardens of the house to the burgh of Perth on August 9, 1569, though the house remained in notional operation, being held by commendators until 1602.[13] The final suppression of the monastery in that year probably relates to the reissuing of King James VI's 1569 charter in 1600. [13] on May 11, 1559, the Charterhouse and the other religious houses of Perth were attacked and destroyed by Protestant "reformers"; one of the brothers was killed, four others fled abroad, while six monks chose to remain; two of those, the prior Adam Forman and a brother, fled in to foreign Carthusian houses in 1567. [14] Of the four who remained in 1567, one was Adam Stewart, illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland, who for some time styled himself "Prior".[13] King James VI of Scotland granted the buildings and the gardens of the house to the burgh of Perth on August 9, 1569, though the house remained in notional operation, being held by commendators until 1602.[13] The final suppression of the monastery in that year probably relates to the reissuing of King James VI's 1569 charter in 1600.N othing survives above ground.[citation needed] The name Pomarium Flats, for a modern housing scheme near the site of the medieval buildings, recalls the site of the house's orchard.

Scone Abbey Perthshire

 in the 9th century that Kenneth MacAlpin came east to Scone bringing with him a holy relic and coronation stone which being housed at Scone acquired the name, the Stone of Scone over time. In the 12th century, various foreign influences prompted the Scottish kings to transform Scone into a more convincing royal center. Many historians have argued that the monastery or Priory was founded specifically in 1114 by Alexander I of Scotland. This is strictly speaking correct, however, it seems clear that this charter was simply a reaffirming of Scone's status, and of the religious institutions there, rather than a sudden founding or establishment. There is growing evidence that there had been an early Christian cult called the Culdees based at Scone dating from at least the 9th century and possibly earlier. The Culdees Céli Dé) were eventually merged with the Augustinian canons who arrived from Nostell Priory in Yorkshire as part of the 1114 "re-establishment".  the Vikings came across the North Sea to launch their lightening raids. Using the River Tay as a water route into the heart of Scottish held territory throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, the Viking raiders pillaged towns and villages as well as religious houses such as the abbey at Dunkeld. In 904 a battle was fought in the vicinity of Scone, often referred to as the Battle of Scone, Like Tara, Scone would have been associated with some of the traditions and rituals of native kingship, what D. A. Binchy describes as "an archaic fertility rite of a type associated with primitive kingship the world over". [12] Certainly, if Scone was not associated with this kind of thing in Pictish times, the Scottish kings of later years made an effort do so. By the thirteenth century at the latest there was a tradition that Scone's famous inauguration stone, the Stone of Scone, had originally been placed at Tara by Simón Brecc, and only taken to Scone later by his descendent Fergus mac Ferchair when the latter conquered Alba(Scotland).[13] Indeed, the prominence of such a coronation stone associated with

an archaic inauguration site was something Scone shared with many like sites in medieval Ireland, not just Tara. Although Scone retained its role in royal inaugurations, Scone's role as effective "capital" declined in the later Middle Ages. The abbey itself though enjoyed mixed fortunes. It suffered a fire in the twelfth century and was subject to extensive attacks during the First War of Scottish Independence including the theft of Scotland's most revered relic, the Stone of Scone. It also suffered, as most Scottish abbeys in the period did, from a decline in patronage. The abbey became a popular place of pilgrimage for St Fergus, whose skull the Abbots kept as a relic in a silver casket by the atlar. In June 1559 the abbey was attacked by a reformist mob from Dundee having been whipped up into a frenzy by the great reformer John Knox. The abbey was severely damaged during this attack despite Knox's apparent efforts to calm the mob. Some of the canons continued on at the abbey and there is evidence suggesting that the spire of the abbey church was repaired in the aftermath of the reformation. Monastic life at Scone persisted until about 1640 at which point the Monks of Scone finally dispersedn either 1163 or 1164, in the reign of King Máel Coluim IV, Scone Priory's status was increased and it became an abbey. Despite this setback the Abbey was repaired and continued to function for a further 80 years. In 1580 the abbey estates were granted to Lord Ruthven, later the Earl of Gowrie, who held extensive estates in Scotland: he Ruthvens rebuilt the Abbot's Palace of the old abbey as a grand residence in 1580.

THE MONASTERIES OF RENFREWSHIRE

PAISLEY CLUNIAC ABBEY RENFREW

The origins of the abbey date back to 1163 when Walter Fitzalan, son of Alan the High Stewart of Scotland, signed a charter giving lands that he owned to the founding of an abbey for Cluniac monks from the abbey at Much Wenlock in Shropshire. It may have been that the monks were already resident in Paisley when the offer was made, so that the actual date of its foundation is unclear, and may have been as late as 1169. The community was transferred fro Renfrew where it originally settled in 1163. It gained its independence in 1219 when Pope Honorius III gave permission for the prior and community to elect an abbot. The priory was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St. Milburga (the patron of Much Wenlock, and of the Stewarts), St. James of Compostella, and St Mirin, a monk of Bangor, and perhaps a companion of St. Columba when he came to Scotland.

The abbey’s subsequent history is of interest. William Wallace was educated at the abbey. It suffered in the English wars being burned by the British, and left ruinous, in 1307 in retaliation of the support given by the 5th High Steward to the Scottish cause. The 6th High Steward, Walter Stewart married Marjorie, the daughter of Robert the Bruce in 1315. She died in the infirmary

after suffering a riding accident. Amazingly for the time her unborn infant son survived. Stewart went on to become Robert II, the first of the Stewart (Stuart) line which ruled Scotland until 1689. In 1471 it was placed under the protection of the Pope, but that did not prevent its being placed in commendam in 1525, given to John Hamilton, the illegitimate son of James, earl of Aran. It was burned by the reformers, the fact being noted by Knox, and in 1587 it was erected into a temporal lordship for Lord Claud Hamilton, who became Lord Paisley, and his son, who became the first Lord Abercorn. Lord Claud transformed some of the monastery buildings into a grand mansion-house, known as the Place (or "Palace") of Paisley. Unfortunately, by the 18th century, the beautiful palace had been let to an increasingly undesirable series of enants, and was in a state of disrepair and neglect. It was even in use as a public house!

After the Reformation the nave was walled off to become the parish church, and the choir became the grave yard. The claustral buildings were sold off. In the mid 1800’s restoration began, first of the north transept. The tower had collapsed in 1553, and from 1890 to 1910 that part of the church was gradually rebuilt.

So what are the medieval remains of the abbey. The nave and the great west door with its eleven orders, and flanking niches are 13th century - decorated windows above the door in two stages, the first of a pair windows of three lights, and above it a larger window of five lights all dating from the same period. The nave of six bays with a triforium and clerestory has a north aisle and dates from the same time. The choir dates from the 19th century rebuild, and the north transept has been restored including the tracery of the north window. There were two building phases. The first instigated by Bishop Joselin which began in 1181. Of it there is a capital in the south-east processional doorway with other later work surrounding it.

Of the second phase, of the 13th century, remain the south east nave aisle wall; the greater part of the west front apart from the three high windows; the two western bays of the north aisle wall, and the lower part of the third bay; and the western piers of the nave arcades together with their arches. The windows of the south nave aisle with their triple lancets of the three eastern bays, date from this time. There are three doorways that belong to this phase – the south-west processional, the one on the north side of the church as the doorway for the parish, and the great processional entrance of the west front.

The third phase was begun in the early 15th century. Of it the north side of the nave the four eastern bays, and the west and north side of the north transept, and the piers of the four eastern bays of the south arcade. Work had been stopped during the abbacy of Thomas between 1418 and 1444, when the church was described as being “in ruins”, and not begun again until the reign of the next abbot Thomas Tarvas in mid century. To that fourth phase belongs the decision that the nave should have three stories of arcade, triforium, and clerestory, and the alteration of the fourth bay from the east on the south aisle, and the large window on the western façade.

The fifth and final phase consisted of the remodelling of the chapel known as St. Mirin’s aisle on the south side of the south transept extending it by one bay to the east to accommodate its fine four-light window above the site of the altar. These are then the remains of the medieval work of the abbey. Everything else belongs to the period of reconstruction in the 19th century.

The Place of Paisley, on the south side of the Abbey, is also now restored, and is the only remaining structure of the once extensive monastery.

Inside the church there is the Barochan Cross, an impressive free-standing sandstone cross about eleven feet tall, estimated to date from as early as the 8th century. It once stood at Barochan, near Houston. The cross was moved here for safekeeping and to prevent further damage by the weather to its detailed carvings. The carvings are principally interlace, but with panels of human and animal sculpture.

THE MONASATERIES OF ROSSSHIRE

FEARN ABBEY

The Abbey of Fearn is reputed to have been founded by Ferquhard the Earl of Ross between 1221-2 or 1227, at which time he brought two Premonstratensian canons from Whithorn. About 1238 the site of the abbey was transferred to a site in the parish of Tarbat and hence became New Fearn Abbey. The first site on the Dornoch Firth was considered to be too close to the turbulent tribes of the north and it was Malcolm of Uig, the second abbot who transferred the abbey some ten miles southeast, well within the domain of the Earl of Ross and hence protected by him, not to mention the face that the ground was more fertile.

The most important abbot in the middle ages was Finlay M=Faed who was appointed in 1442 by the prior of Whithorn. He rebuilt the cloister and furbished the church. He died in 1485 and was buried in the St. Michael=s aisle where his monument still stands.

In the early 16th century Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish martyr for the reformation, was commendator of Fearn Abbey. He was burnt as a heretic at the gate of St. Salvator=s college in St. Andrews in 1528. The last commendator was Walter Ross of Morangy who held the abbacy entile only because in 1597 the abbey was erected into a temporal barony and given by James the Fifth to Sir Patrick Murray.

The church continued as a place of worship. In 1742 during a service the vaulted roof fell killing fifty people. After this the church was extensively rebuilt.

It is a long rectangle without division. The eastern end has been partitioned off and is a burial vault of the family of Ross of Balnagown. The chapels projecting to the north and the south have been added later. However, the larger south aisle dedicated to St. Michael was erected by Abbot Finlay M=Fead who died in 1485. His monument is there in the south wall. Southeast

of this is a small chapel which blocked two of the original windows and from its date, dates from the 16th century. There is another against the north wall again blocking two windows. It is of much later date.

There are no remains of any of the claustral buildings.

THE MONASTERIES OF ROXBURGH

Fogo Monastery RoxburghSee: Kelso Abbey

JEDBURGH AUGUSTINIAN ABBEY ROXBURGH

David I, c.1138, founded the priory that preceded abbey, and John, Bishop of Glasgow brought canons from Beauvais. The site may have been the one that Bishop Ecred of Lindisfarne used to found a church in 830. The convent became an abbey some sixteen years later. The sighting of the monastery just a few miles from the English border resulted in Jedburgh Abbey suffering a turbulent history. The community suffered greatly during the wars between 1297 and 1300, and the abbey was plundered and destroyed with lead being stripped from its roofs by Sir Richard Hastings. The canons were unable to live in the devastation, and Edward I gave them asylum in England until the monastery could be repaired. He also confirmed the next abbot who was pro-English enough that him and the canons in 1312/13 left the abbey for refuge in Thornton-on-Humber after the fall of Roxburgh castle. In 1385 the hospital of St. Mary the Virgin at Rutherford was given to the abbey by Robert III to be served by one of the canons, and in 1476 Restennet Priory was united with the abbey on the death of its prior. The community had dependencies at Restennet, where there are remains, and at Blantyre, and Canonbie where there are none.

By 1502 the abbey was described as “ruinous”, and it was burned by the English in 1523, 1544, and 1545. Obviously conventual life must have been minimal during these troubling times. The abbey, and its properties, were acquired by the Homes family who acted as commendators until its erection as a temporal lordship for Alexander, Lord Home, in 1610. In 1671 a new parish church was built into the west part of the nave. This was demolished in 1875 when new church was built beyond Jed Water, and restoration work was begun by the Marquis of Lothian, and the site was taken over by the state in 1913.

The glorious ruin of the abbey lies on the north bank of Jed Water, close to the centre of Jedburgh. The western façade stands to roof height with a magnificent richly carved Romanesque west doorway, surmounted by three gable niches which originally must have held statues. A single tall round headed window above is surmounted by a handsome rose window. The church stands in part (the nave) to roof height with arcades, triforium gallery, and

clerestory, and missing only its roof and windows. It was begun in the 1180’s and took over a century to complete. The nave arcade of eight bays has richly moulded arches on eight lobed piers topped with elegant capitals. The triforium gallery above has round arch openings subdivided with two pointed arches in each bay. The clerestory has two windows in a continuous arcade of four pointed arches (two blind and two open).

The east end of the church has evidence of three building periods. The first being Romanesque with giant column-like piers with scalloped caps which rise through the arcade and triforium gallery (there is no clerestory). The architecture is such as what must have been built by a master who may have been brought from either Tewkesbury or Reading. The style certainly influenced the build of Romsey Abbey. King David was quite probably well conversed with Romsey as his aunt was a nun there, and he attended his sister there while she was awaiting her marriage to Henry I. In the 1180s the presbytery was rebuilt and extended. New slender windows were set into an elegant arcade of alternate high and low pointed arches above an arcade of similarly pointed arches. The final phase was the addition of a clerestory. Later the north transept was rebuilt with the usual arrangement of large traceried windows in the north and west walls, and smaller ones in the east over the altars there. The east end of the church has been shorn off and is now covered by the roadway.

During the time of the war life must have been difficult for the canons, and there is evidence of this in the crudely built walls and lowered roofs in order to maintain a church in the area of the crossing. At that time they had probably abandoned their dormitory and used the upper areas of the tower and transepts as safer lodging. The attacks of 15434 and 45 dealt the final blow. The south transept was blocked off, but it all was too late for the community as the reformation spelt the end of community life. That shortened church in the transept became the parish church, and the canons dispersed. The north transept became a burial site for the Ker family.

Of the claustral ranges the west range was made into the manse which lasted until the parish church was moved. The south range was rebuilt in the 14th century with the cloister walk beneath the refectory. There are no remains apart from the drain, and at the west end the foundations of the kitchens. Between the refectory and the river is an undercroft of the 13th century. It may have been of the abbot’s lodging. The east range of the cloister had the usual arrangements of chapter house, and slype with the dormitory on the first floor. The first chapter house projected a short distance beyond the east wall. This was enlarged, and then reduced again within the walls of the east range in the late 15th century as the community expanded, and shrank with vicissitudes of the times. After the reformation three houses were built over the foundations of the destroyed east range. One was later converted into a smithy. The southern end of the range continued long in use for light industry.

KELSO TIRONENSIAN ABBEY ROXBURGH

The Tironensian abbey of Kelso was originally founded at Selkirk by Earl David, who later came to the throne as David I, c.1113. The monks came directly from the mother house at Tiron in France. The community was then three years translated to Kelso because the site at Selkirk was inconvenient. There is, however, some confusion as to dates, another being given as 1128. The abbey and convent was built on the left bank of the Tweed facing the burgh of Roxburgh, and the royal castle of Marchmount. In 1165 the abbot was given the mitre, the first abbey in Scotland to receive the honour. The church in 1243 was dedicated by David de Bernham, the bishop of St. Andrews who chose Kelso as his burial place. The abbey grew in stature to become the second most wealthy religious house in Scotland. However, being close to the English border it became a prey to the English throughout its existence in the wars with the Scots, and as witnessed elsewhere the English made no distinction between secular and religious targets. It was said that c.1316 the monks were in such destitution they were reduced to begging for their food. The same was true throughout the 15th century, and even into the 16th . Dacre destroyed the tower in 1523, and the Duke of Norfolk again burned the abbey in 1542, and 1544. In 1545 the State Papers of Henry VIII quotes Hertford who resolved “to rase and deface this house of Kelso so that the enemye shal have lyttell commoditie of the same.” In 1547 the place was “given to the flames”.

The abbey community was large throughout its existence, and even in the 16th century there were twenty one besides the commendator in 1539. At the reformation the abbey passed through the hands of Thomas Ker, James Stewart, and then the crown before falling into the hands of William Ker in 1559 who held it for six years until his death when it was then settled on the queen’s nephew Francis Stewart, later the Earl of Bothwell. But with his forfeiture in 1591 it passed into the hands of the Ker family being given to Sir Robert of Cesford who later became the Earl of Roxburgh, and the abbey was elevated into a temporal lordship in his favour in 1607.

In the latter half of the 13th century the church of St. Nicholas in Fogo was granted to the abbey by Patrick Corbet. A community was established, as a prior was recorded in 1465, and 1466.

In 1560 it appeared that the English armies and the reformers were only interesting in dislodging the monks so that the west end of the church remained as the parish church for a time as so often was the case in England. The most impressive remainder of the abbey today is its monumental west porch, of the church which stands three stories in height, with the church’s two transepts, and the west side of the tower at its west crossing. The church is unusual in that it has transepts at both the east and west ends rather like the continental Rhineland churches, and the Cathedral Church at Ely. The claustral buildings have been found by excavation, apart from the outer parlour with its barrel vault which adjoins the gable of the western south transept. The round-headed west doorway is much restored. Much of the arcading of the east wall which arose from a bench has been removed. The south wall has been mutilated by the insertion of a doorway, aumbry, and window. The parlour was later used as a stable, the reason for the cobbled floor. To the south of the complex an arcade has been erected in memory of the eighth Duke of Roxburgh. A 13th century doorway has been inserted into the arcade. It probably came from the chapter house.

MELROSE CISTERCIAN ABBEY ROXBURGH

The abbey of Old Melrose (Mailros) was likely founded during the episcopate of St. Aidan (635-651). The latter date is the year that St. Cuthbert entered the monastery from Iona during the time of Abbot Eata. The site of this early foundation was in a loop of the River Tweed two miles east of the later foundation of Melrose. Kenneth McAlpine devastated the abbey in 839 by burning it down. In 854 the monastery survived as a foundation of Lindisfarne. It was abandoned in 1074 for by that time an attempt by Aldwin of Jarrow to re-found the abbey failed. It was succeeded as a church dedicated to St. Cuthbert as a dependency of Durham. That lasted until David I exchanged it for the church of Berwick, which he gave to the monks of Durham, and joined it to the new Cistercian foundation at Melrose in 1136, a site that was more commodious for the farming Cistercians. It may have been contemplated at an earlier date of 1128 as the Tironensian community of Selkirk was removed to Kelso to facilitate the foundation. In time many of the possessions of the Tironensians passed to Melrose. Melrose was colonized from Rievaulx with the usual complement of twelve monks and an abbot.

The monastery suffered from the trials and tribulations of its being so close to the English border. The abbey buildings were burned in 1300-07, and sacked in 1322 when attacked by Edward II. Much of the abbey was destroyed, and many of the monks were killed. The rebuilding of the abbey was undertaken through the generosity of Robert the Bruce. For his kindness his embalmed heart, encased in lead, was buried in the abbey church. In 1385 the Scots made a disastrous mistake by invading England, and David II was defeated by Richard II. Driven back to Edinburgh, the English on their way burned down the abbey. However, Richard in his generosity, no doubt fuelled by his remorse, helped rebuild the monastery. It again suffered during Hertford’s invasion of 1545, undertaken by Henry VIII in order to persuade the Scots to betroth the infant Mary to his son Edward. Because of all these trials the community gradually languished, and at the time of the Reformation in the 1560’s there were some fifteen monks. In 1525 the abbey had been provided to Andrew Dury, and thern passed through a number of hands including James Stewart, the commendator of Kelso, James Balfour, and then in 1564 to James Douglas of Lochleven. Finally it was elected into a temporal lordship for John Ramsey, Viscount Haddington, who was later to become Lord Melrose. The community came to its end with the death of the last monk in 1590. In 1610 part of the nave was converted into a parish church which remained there until a new church was built in 1810.

What remains of the church are the south wall of the nave aisle with its chapels, the crossing with the south wall of the south transept with its marvellous decorated window, and the presbytery with its perpendicular windows intact with their tracery. It has been re-roofed; the western wall of the tower, and the monk’s choir (also re-roofed), and the walls of the north transept tower. Of the claustral buildings there are only foundations. The commendator’s house to the north of the complex stands complete.

The first part of the new church (as usual constructed from east to west) was the east end which was dedicated on the 28th of June 1146. The original church was destroyed by Richard in 1385.

The only part of this church is a fragment of the west wall with the lower part of the great west doorway, the foundations of the nave piers, and their connecting screen walls. The original church had a galilee. At the east end of the nave is the pulpitum which separated the lay brother’s Part of the church in the nave from the monk’s choir. The cornice remains, and to south of the central doorway is an aumbry used to store the vessels of the mass for the laybrother’s altar. Within the passage is a boss of the head of Christ.

The eight side chapels of the nave were closed off by wooden screens. Their piscinae, and aumbrys still exist. The third chapel has the grave slab of George Hasmilton who died in 1538. The fourth chapel has a boss of St. Michael, and was the burial place of the Pringles of Woodhouse and Whytebank; the fifth was that of the Scots, and the Pringles of Galashields. The eight chapel contains the tomb of Peter the cellarer.

The three eastern chapels became part of the parish church which was adapted from the monk’s choir. The vaulting was removed and the inner arcades lowered. Great stone piers were constructed against the north arcade to carry a plain stone vault, and windows were inserted. This was removed when the parish church was moved elsewhere leaving a sad remainder of what might have been a glorious choir. The presbytery was lit by a great perpendicular window in the east wall, and ones to the north and south. What remains of the fitting for the altar are two aumbries in the east wall, a credence table, and piscina in the south wall. Tomb recesses are under the side windows. It was here in all probability that the heart of the Bruce was laid to rest. In the vault there are a number of rather deteriorated bosses.

In the north transept the doorway to the dorter is easily recognized, and the stone of the stairs are set into the wall. In the west wall of the south transept are two interesting inscriptions, both referring to a master mason , John Morow, from Paris, who, according to the inscription, worked at St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Paisley besides here at Melrose. The doorway in the south transept leads to the cemetery which was the site where the monks were buried, and is now one for the public cemetery. There are several mutilated figures on the outside walls of the church including the Virgin Mary, Christ, saints, the heads of kings and queens, monks and craftsmen, with gargoyles shaped like flying dragons and other strange animals. The niches with their canopies once held statues of the saints, long since destroyed in reformation fervour. The deep-seated doorway has a shield with the royal arms. On each side are headless figures identifies as St. Peter, and St. Andrew, St. Paul and St. Thomas, with a kneeling figure holding a book, and a bearded man holding a scroll with the words “Ecce Filius Dei”. The apex of the east gable holds a seated group representing the coronation of the Virgin. High up on the west wall of the north transept is a figure of St. Paul holding a book.

THE MONASTERIES OF STERLINGSHIRE

CAMBUSKENNETH AUGUSTINIAN ABBEY STERLING

The was already a community of canons regular living at Sterling, and serving the church of St. Mary, before David I founded the community of Arrouaisian Augustinians in 1140. The foundation was confirmed by a bull of Pope Eugenius III in 1147. It was an important abbey because of its royal connections. Unfortunately because of its nearness to the Castle of Stirling it became a target for the English armies during the Wars of Independence from the end of the 13th

century. The abbey was the scene of Robert the Bruce’s parliament in 1326, the first to include representatives of Scotland's burghs. By 1378 it was reported to be in ruins, but was rebuilt by Scotland’s royalty. By 1406 the abbey was mitred.

There were a number of well known abbots particularly in the 15th century including Abbot Henry (1493), who was made high treasurer of Scotland; Abbot Patrick Panther (1470-1519), one of the most accomplished scholars of his day, secretary to James IV., a privy councilor, and ambassador to France; Abbot Alexander Myln (d. 1542), author of a Latin history of the Bishops of Dunkeld, who became the first president of the Court of Session in 1532; and David Panther (d. 1558),the last abbot, a distinguished scholar, a privy councilor, and secretary of state.

On June 11 1488 James III’s army fought at the Battle of Sauchie. James fled before the battle, and was murdered by an unknown assailant. His body was brought to the abbey, and buried there in front of the high altar, along with his wife Queen Margaret who had died two years before. The fabric of the abbey was “cast down” by the reformers in 1559, and became, as so many other abbeys and monastic houses, a source of building material. Throughout the 16th century it was held by a number of commendators including the bishop of Ross, John, Lord Erskine, and then Alexander Erskine into whose hands it was created a temporal lordship along with the Abbey of Dryburgh, and the Priory of Inchmahome.

The remains are in a loupe of the River Forth. The only standing remains of the abbey are those of the late 13th century free-standing, ashlar built, three story bell tower which stood close to the north-west angle of the nave, and stands in its entirety. There is no other such example in Scotland, and indeed in England apart from Evesham Abbey. It has a fine pointed doorway with a niche above, and has been well restored. There are two windows of two lights on each face of the belfry stage. The rest of the abbey, its church, apart from the western doorway (which is almost entire), and claustral buildings exist only as foundations. What is of importance is the tomb Of James III, and Queen Margaret. Excavations were made in 1864, to find the tomb of James III. About 3 feet beneath the surface, near the centre of the chancel in front of the high altar was a large flat block of limestone, beneath which were found the remains of the king and the queen. The skull and other remains of the king were found in an oak coffin beneath the block; and close by were remains of a female figure, evidently the queen's. These, after a stucco cast of the king's skull had been taken for Stirling Museum, were carefully re-interred in an oak box; and in 1865, by command of Queen Victoria, a stone monument was erected over them,. It is strange that here lies one of Scotland’s kings, albeit an unpopular one, in such an undistinguished place. There is also a monument to Wallace nearby.

THE MONASTERIES OF WEST LOTHIAN

TORPHICHEN KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER PRECEPTORY WEST LOTHIAN

David I brought the knights to Scotland about the year 1132. In the 13th century the preceptory was expanded, and the buildings of that time still exist, and consist of a church of two compartments, nave and chancel, with a central crossing tower and transepts. They have been much altered. Only the foundations of the cloister remain.

William Wallace held his last parliament here prior to the battle of Falkirk in 1298. After the battle Edward I was brought to the preceptory for treatment of his wounds when his horse fell on him. The Hospitallers fought on the side of the English. They withdrew after the Scots victory at Bannockburn, but returned during the rule of Robert the Bruce. In 1563 Queen Mary granted to the preceptor James, Lord St. John all the lands belonging to Torphichen. The preceptorship by this time had long been secularized.

THE MONASTERIES OF WIGTOWN

GLENLUCE CISTERCIAN ABBEY WIGTOWN

The abbey is said to have been founded by the Constable of Scotland, Roland of Galloway in 1192/3. The founding community of the usual complement of twelve monks, and an abbot came from Dundrennan. Little of its history is known in its early years apart from a note that it was “molested” in 1285 during the rebellion in Galloway. It suffered in the 16th century, but under the commendatorship of Walter Mallen in 1519 it gained some stability. That was not to last for long, however, as in 1545 the abbey was invaded by the Earl of Cassillis, and the followers of Gordon of Lochinvar. Mallen resigned in favour of James Gordon in 1547. The monks were expelled by Lochinvar in 1560, and Thomas Hay was instituted as abbot in a ceremony in the parish church as the abbey was occupied. The community spent a year in Maybole in Ayrshire. Although there were fifteen monks and the abbot in 1560, by 1572 there were only the commendator and five monks left in the community. The houses of Lochinvar and Cassillis fought over the possessions of the abbey at the Reformation. The last monk died in 1602. In 1619 the abbey was bestowed on the Bishop of Galloway.

Two miles inland from the seat Luce Sands the river of the same name flows through a broad valley between gently sloping hills. In it are the remains of the Abbey of Glenluce, a valley of light. There are little remains of the church apart from parts of the south wall of the south transept with its doorway to the dorter. The east wing of the cloister has the most impressive, the best preserved remains. The chapter house was built late in the 15th or 16th century, and is complete. It has a single pointed west doorway, and a central pillar bearing a stone vault with east traceried windows. A few arches of the cloister have been recreated in front of the chapter room. The south wing of the cloister containing the refectory and kitchen had been remade into a house as the manse for the local minister. The water supply is a unique survival. Earthenware pipes, jointed with inspection chambers lie in original positions.

In the north transept there is a graveslab dedicated to Robert Gordon of Lochinvar who died in 1548.

WHITHORN PRIORY WIGTOWN

When St. Ninian came here, and built a stone church called the Candida Casa, in the late 4th century he may have found an existing Christian community. By the 9th century the community that he established had become monastic. The names of the early bishops are known up to 791, when it appeared that the bishopric lapsed until re-established by Fergus of Galloway c. 1128. Up until 1355 it acknowledged the metropolitan See of York, but thereafter it fell under Papal authority. It then followed under the metropolitan authority of St. Andrews, and finally under Glasgow by 1492. The chapter of the cathedral was monastic. By 1182 there was a community here, perhaps Augustinian (although the association is tenuous), and by 1175-7 that community was replaced by Premonstratensians.

This foundation of this community is attributed to Fergus, Prince of Galloway, although another source states that the bishop changed the community from the canons regular of his cathedral to Premonstratensians. The canons appeaqr to have come from Soulseat.

Whithorn was a favourite place of pilgrimage to the grave and shrine of St. Ninian. It was renowned as a centre of learning, and it was from here that a number of missionaries set out to convert Scotland. From 1515 the cathedral priory was held by a succession of commendators. In 1605 it was granted to the bishop of Galloway.

After the reformation parts of the cathedral fell into disrepair. Some restoration was undertaken by the bishop after his consecration in 1610. Most of the rest of the cathedral was removed and

the land became a burial site. But when bishoprics were removed by the protestant church in the 1600’s the nave became the parish church, and the rest was left to the elements. In the 1700s the tower collapsed. In 1822 a new parish church was built on the site of the east cloister range. In the late 1800s the Marquess of Bute restored what remained of the nave and crypt, and excavated the traces of St. Ninian’s grave. These excavations continued in the late 20th century.

The nave of the cathedral church stands to roof height, the most impressive remain is the Romanesque doorway of four orders, and a carved arch. The crypt of the south east end of the church remains. Extending to the south east of it is a low stone wall. When excavated by the Marquess it was found to have traces of white plaster perhaps indicating that it was part of the Candida Casa of St. Ninian.

In the museum are a fine collection of carved stones, and cross slabs.

APPENDIX ONE

LIST OF MONASTERIES BY ORDER (not including supposed foundations)

Augustinian – Blantyre, Cambuskenneth, Canonbie, Holyrood, Inchaffery, Inchcolm, Inchmahome, Jedburgh, Loch Leven, May, Monymusk, Oronsay, Pittenweem

(Portmoak), Restennet, St. Andrews, (Trail), Scone, Strathfillan, St. Mary’s Isle

Benedictine – Coldingham, dunfermline, Iona, May, Pluscarden, Rhynd, Urquart

Carthusian - Perth

Cistercian – Balmarino, Coupar Angus, Culross, Deer, Dundrennan, Glenluce, Kinloss, Melrose, Newbattle, Saddle, Sweetheart Cistercian dependency – Beuly

Cluniac – Crossraguel, Paisley, Renfrew

Gilbertine - Dalmilling

Premonsratensian – Dryburgh, Fearn, Soulseat, Holywood, Tongland, Whithorn

Tiron – Arbroath, Fyvie, Kelso, Kilwinning, Lesmahagow, Lindores, Selkirk

Trinitarian – Aberdeen, Berwick, Direlton, Dunbar, Fail, Houston, Peebles, Scotlandwell

Valliscaulian – Ardchatten, Beauly, Pluscarden

HOUSES OF FRIARS

Augustinian Friars – Berwick

Carmelite Friars – Aberdeen, Banff, Berwick, Edinburgh (Greenside), Inverbervie, Irvine, Kingussie

Linlithgow, Luffness, Queensferry, Tullilum

Dominican Friars – Aberdeen, Ayr, Berwick, Coupar, Dundee, Edinburgh, Elgin, Glasgow, Haddington, Inverness, Montrose, Perth, St. Andrews, St. Monan’s, Sterling, Wigtown

Franciscan Friars – Berwick, Dumfries, Dundee, Haddington, Inverkeithing, Kirkcudbright, Lanark, Roxburgh

Observant Franciscans – Aberdeen, Ayr, Edinburgh, Elgin, Glasgow, Jedburgh, Perth St. Andrew’s, Sterling

Sack Friars - Berwick

HOUSES OF NUNS –

Augustinian Canonesses – Iona, Perth (St. Leonard

Benedictine – Lincluden

Cistercian – Berwick, Coldstream, Eccles, Elcho, Haddington, Manuel, North Berwick, St.Bothan’s, Evoca

Dominican – Edinburgh (Sciennes)

HOUSES OF MILITARY ORDERS

Knights Hospitaller – Kirkliston, Maryculter, Torphichen

Knights Templar – Balantrodoch (Temple), Carnbee, Maryculter

APPENDIX TWO

LIST OF MONASTERIES BY COUNTY

Aberdeen – Deer, Fyvie, MonymuskAngus – Arbroath, RestennethArgyll – Ardchatten, Iona, Oronsay, SaddleAyr –Crossraguel,Dalmilling,Fail, Kilwinning Berwick - Coldingham,Dryburg,Eccles, St.Bothan’s, Carmarthen - East Lothian – North Berwick , LuffnessFife-Balmarino,Dunfermline,Inverkeithing, Inchcolm,Lindores,May,Pittenweem, St.Andrew’s,St.Monan’sInverness - BeaulyKinloss – Loch LevenKirkcudbright- Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright, Lincluden, SweetheartLanark- Blantyre, LesmahagowMidlothian - Balantrodoch, Holyrood, Newbattle, Soutra HospitalMoray- Elgin, Kinloss, PluscardenPeebles - Peebles

Perth- Coupar Angus ,Ichmaholm, Inchaffray, Perth, SconeRenfrew - PaisleyRoss - FearnRoxburgh – Jedburgh, Kelso, Melrose Sterling - CambuskennethWest Lothian -TorpichenWigtown – Glenluce, Whithorn

GLOSSARY

Anchoretic – associated with a hermit

Antae – projecting pilasters on the corners of the western façade of a church

Architrave – the lowermost member of a classical entablature – a molded band framing a door or window

Aumbry – a cupboard to hold sacred vessels

Bartizan – a small overlying turret on a wall or tower

Batter - an inward sloping part of a curtain wall; also known as talus, or plinth

Blind Arcade – a closed series of arches

Campanile – a tower

Chevron - A zig-zag motif

Columbarium - dovecote

Commandery – a farm of the Knights Templar or Hospitaller

Commendam - a tenure of the office until a regular prior was appointed

Corbel – a carved stone holding the springer of an arch

Crenellation – a battlement

Custos – head of a group of friaries

cce Home – the portrayal of the Suffering Christ

Greave slab – a memorial stone

Guardian - the head of a Franciscan house

In commendam – held by a secular as abbot or prior

Jamb - a vertical element of a doorway or window frame

Keystone – the top stone of an arch

Lancet – a narrow pointed window

Lintel – a rectangular stone over a doorway

Mitred Abbey - one whose abbot sits in Parliament

Observant Fransicans – a reform movement

Oriel window - a bay window cantilevered out from a wall

Ogee-headed – a double curve, the upper convex, the lower concave

Piscina – a place where liturgical vesssels of the Mass were cleansed, and holy water disposed of

Preceptory- a house of the Knights Templar or Hospitaller

Quadrifoil - An ornamental form which has four lobes or foils. It may resemble a four-petaled flower

Respond - a half-pier or half-pillar which is bonded into a wall and designed to carry the springer at one end of an arch Sacristan – the monk whose duty it is to look after sacred vessels, and books of the liturgy

Scriptorium – the place in a monastery where texts were copied

Sedilia – seats for the officinants of the Mass

See – the jurisdiction of a bishop

Souterrain – an underground structure

Spandrel - the roughly triangular wall space between two adjacent arches

Squint – a hole in a wall that allows a view of the altar

Titular abbot – an appointed abbot who has not the authority

Tracery – the stone divisions of a window

Typanum – the arched stone over a doorway

Voussoir - a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, used in building an arch