Religious houses in Scotland before the reign of Malcolm III of Scotland were unlike those in the rest of Western Europe. Monasticism in the Roman church was completely separate from the priesthood and was almost completely controlled by the Rule of St Benedict while that of Celtic Christianity embraced both the clergy and the episcopacy and was more ascetic and less stuctured.[1] Malcolm's wife, the English princess, Margaret of Wessex, was the stimulus for the re-shaping of the Scottish medieval church into accordance with religious life as practiced in the western church.[2]
The first historically attested monastic settlement in Scotland took place in 565 when St Columba and his followers established the monastery at Iona. Many more Columban settlements followed, among them were the island monastories in Tiree, Jura, Lismore, Eileach an Naoimh and Eigg and Cella Diuni on the shores of Loch Awe.[3] The Columban church converted Pictland and the Northern Isles to Christianity before expanding southwards to restore Chritianity to the kingdom of Northumbria.[4] By the middle of the eleventh century, Scotland had practically achieved political accord and was more responsive to other religious authority. This coincided with the Benedictine and then later, the Cisterician and Premonstratenian movements leading to the four main orders of friars and finally to the collegiate churches of the 15th century.[5]
Secularised 1606. Dependent on Durham. King Edgar granted the land c. 1098 to the monks of Durham. The exact date of the establishment of the priory is not known but a charter by King David I in 1139 mention the monks of Coldingham. The first prior, H., appears in c. 1147 (Dunf. Reg., No. 4)
Queen Margaret is said by Thurgot, her biographer, to have founded the priory. A letter by her son David I probably written in 1128 shows that Dunfermline was a daughter-house of Christ Church, Canterbury. [6] Abbey in 1128 [7]
A Céli Dé monastic establishment ruled by a secular abbot until in either 1272 or 1273 its priests adopted the Augustinian code. It became a collegiate church in the 14th-century.[13]
According to one source it was founded by Patrick II, Earl of Dunbar and his wife Euphemia, and to another, King Alexander II of Scotland]]; the foundation occurred between 1238 and 1249. Its mother house, the source of its founding monks, was Holyrood Abbey, which shares its dedication, though it came under the authority of Jedburgh Abbey. It became a secular lordship for the Stewarts of Minto, going into the hands Walter Stewart of Minto, who on July 101606 was made Lord Blantyre.[14]
House was an annex and dependency of Jedburgh Abbey. Its foundation lay in a grant by an local landlord, Turgis de Rosdale, to the abbey of Jedburgh, confirmed by William the Lion between 1165 and 1170.
There is some evidence that Soulseat Abbey is the Viride Stagnum ("green loch"), the Cistercian monastery founded by St Malachy somewhere in Galloway in 1148. If so it did not remain as a Cistercian house, instead becoming a Premonstratensian house, by 1161 at the latest.[17]
The Carthusian Order was the most ascetic monastic order in medieval Europe. The monastery at Perth was founded in 1429 by King James I of Scotland. This was the only Carthusian house ever to have been founded in Scotland. Until c. 1456 these monks were part of the Carthusian province of Picardy, between 1456 and 1460 attached to England, before in 1460 being placed under Geneva. [18]
Founded in either 1190 or 1191 by David, Lord of Garioch. The abbot possessed a mitre from 1395 onwards, following a grant from the pope. The abbey retained abbots of its monastic order longer than most Scottish abbeys. Its last pre-Reformation abbot, John Philp, resigned it to John Lesley, later Bishop of Ross, in 1566. The abbey became a secular lordship for Patrick Leslie when he was created Lord Lindores in 1600.[20]
Máel Coluim IV, in a charter dating between 1163 and 1165, confirmed lands to the priory of Renfrew previously granted by Walter fitz Alan. It was a daughter-house of Wenlock Abbey in Shropshire. Circa 1169, it was relocated to Paisley.[21]
Founded in either 1230 or 1231 by Donnchadh of Argyll. As a de facto cell of Beauly, on April 161510 it probably transferred to the Cistercian Order along with Beauly.[22]
Founded by King Alexander II of Scotland 1230x1231, it was united with Urquhart Priory in 1454, together becoming a dependency of the Benedictine Abbey of Dunfermline.[24]
Alexander II is said to have been the founder. The house contained a prior and thirteen friars in 1503 but was destroyed at the [[Scottish Reformation|Reformation on 4 January 1560. George, earl Marischal was granted the house's possessions in 1587 and conferred them, as an endowment, to Marischall College.[28]
Foundation by King Alexander II before August 1242. Eight friars occupied the house in 1557. The house and properties were secularised by a lease to the crown in 1565 which in turn were granted to the town of Ayr in 1567 by a charter of Queen Mary. Demolition of the buildings took place after the Reformation[29]
In 1285 the pope instructed the Bishop of St Andrews to sell the former accommodation of the Friars of Penitence to the Friars Preachers. Four then six friars are recorded as being in the house in December 1299. Although under English control the Scottish Exchequer continued to fund the monastery from 1329–33. In 1333, King Edward III of England ordered that the Scottish friars be sent to friaries south of the River Trent and be replaced by English friars. Edward issued occasional orders up to 1343 that the friary should continue to be maintained by the Scottish crown. In 1336, there were 20 friars in residence but there is no evidence that the house continued through to the Reformation[30]
Founded by Duncan, earl of Fife. Dissolved in 1519 after union with the St Andrews house. In 1572, the lands of the friary given to the burgh of Cupar by King James VI[31]
May have been founded by Uchtred, son of Fergus, lord of Galloway who died in 1174, but an earlier foundation during the reign of Malcolm IV (1153 – 65) may also have been possible. Suppressed in 1389.[34]
Barrow, G. W. S. (1960), The Acts of Malcolm IV, 1153–1165, Together with Scottish Royal Acts Prior to 1153 Not Included in Sir Archibald Lawrie's 'Early Scottish Charters', Regesta Regum Scottorum, vol. 1, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN0852241410
Barrow, G. W. S. (1971), The Acts of William I, 1165–1214, Regesta Regum Scottorum, vol. 2, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN0852241429
Barrow, G. W. S. (2003), The Kingdom of the Scots, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN0748618023
Bartlett, Robert (2000), England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225, New Oxford History of England, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN0-19-925101-0
Cowan, Ian B.; Easson, David E. (1976), Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland With an Appendix on the Houses in the Isle of Man (2nd ed.), London and New York: Longman, ISBN0-582-12069-1
Watt, D. E. R.; Shead, N. F., eds. (2001), The Heads of Religious Houses in Scotland from Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries, The Scottish Record Society, New Series, Volume 24 (Revised ed.), Edinburgh: The Scottish Record Society, ISBN0-902054-18-X
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