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CHAPTER XXI.

ABBEYS OF ARBROATH AND INCHAFFRAY IN RELATION

TO ABERNETHY.

THE reign of William is characterised by the rise of free burghs in Scotland, and by the foundation of the great Abbey of Arbroath -endowed and dedicated to Thomas à Becket, who was slain in 1170 and canonised in 1173. The king may have had a personal acquaintance with the brave archbishop, or may have had a wish to extol one who had the courage to protect the rights of the Church against the encroachments of the State, and in the very endeavour to do so had humbled the English king. Whatever may have been the motive, the fact remains that the king was both the founder and benefactor of the abbey, and that it was dedicated to a saint belonging to the newer party in the Scottish Church. The patronage and the tithes of thirty-three churches were given to the chapter of the abbey, with teinds, salmon-fishings, the custody of "the Brechbennech," a licence of timber in the king's forests, and a loft in each of the king's residences and burghs. Among its many early benefactors, beside the king, were the Earls of Angus, Marjory, Countess of Buchan, the De Berkeleys, Thomas de Lundyn, and Robert de Lundres.

Arbroath Abbey was begun in 1178 and completed in 1233. It was burnt in 1272 and 1380. Its history is connected with many

of the stirring events in Scottish history, and its abbot, in virtue of his wealth, followers, and power, was by far the most outstanding individual in the shire.

The completed buildings must have been characterised by stately splendour: in the middle of last century Dr Johnson said of its ruins, "He should scarcely have regretted his journey, had it afforded nothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick."

The chartulary of the abbey affords a territorial history of the province, and so rich is it in reference to families that Dr Cosmo Innes says, "It may yet come to pass that it will be held a proof of gentry in Angus and Mearns to be able to point to an ancestor in the Chartulary of Arbroath." 1

The abbey was toll-free: it was protected against the local impositions which beset all the forms of merchandise. It was custom-free, and passed its exports of wool, salmon, tallow, hides, by virtue of its own cocket. The privilege which the abbot most valued was the tenure of all his lands in free regality—that is, with sovereign power over all his people, and the unlimited emoluments of criminal jurisdiction.

The abbey had a bailie of the regality or "justiciar chamberlain and bailie"; also a mair and coroner, who were the executors of the law within the bounds of the regality. There was the office of judex, deemster, or dempster in the abbot's court, which passed with the lands of Caraldston into the family of the Earl of Crawford. The gentry of the shire and district did not deem it ignoble to hold their lands as vassals of the abbey.

William the Lion chose the abbey as his place of sepulture, and was buried before the high altar on the 4th of the Ides of December 1214, in the presence of his successor and a large gathering of the nobles of Scotland.

The abbey was held by the Tyronenses-an order founded in

1 Preface to Reg. Nig., p. xxviii.

2 Cosmo Innes's Sketches of Early Scottish History, pp. 160, 161.

1109 at Tyron, near Chartres, by St Bernard, Abbot of St Cyprian's in Poitou.

We have, in the former chapter, considered the interesting charters of William the Lion and the Lord of Abernethy granting to the Monastery of Arbroath the patronage of the church, and the possession of certain lands and tithes in the church territory. Abernethy was thus until the Reformation a vicarage or chaplainry of Arbroath, whence the ordained priest was sent for the discharge of the parochial duties. The Abbot of Arbroath was a prebendary of Dunblane for Abernethy from 1240,- Abernethy being within the diocese of Dunblane.1

Abernethy was also connected with the Abbey of Inchaffray; indeed there seems to be much in favour of the view that the priory of the Culdees became a cell or priory of Inchaffray, while the parish church was served by a vicar from Arbroath. In the charters of the Lord of Abernethy it is stated that with certain lands and chapels he grants half of all the tithes which belong to him and his heirs, the other half belonging to the Keledei. These Keledei lingered until 1272, when their priory became one of Canons Regular or Austin canons, brought most probably from Inchaffray. Charters are very obscure on the point, but there seems no reason to doubt that the priory was a cell of the Abbey of Inchaffray, which was founded in 1200 by Gilbert, Earl of Strathearn, and dedicated to God, St Mary, and St John Evangelist. Canons Regular were introduced to Inchaffray from Scone. The Abernethies of Abernethy were related by blood to the Celtic Earls of Strathearn, and there is charter evidence about the prior and the canons of Abernethy in 1394: it seems very

1 History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 334.

2 "Abernethy was afterwards a priory of Canons Regular of St Augustine, who were taken from Inchaffray in 1273."--See 'Pocock's Tours in Scotland' (Scottish History Society Publications), p. 261.

3 Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, p. 393; supported by Rankin and Walcott. 4 G. S. Register, 1580-1593, pp. 313, 964.

probable that the sense of kinship and the sympathy with Celtic customs would bring Inchaffray and Abernethy very close together, and that when the Culdees felt the spirit of the times to be against the very existence of their order, they would prefer to cast in their lot with Inchaffray in their own diocese rather than with Arbroath. We have also Bower's1 statement that in 1272 Canons Regular or Augustinian canons were at Abernethy a similar order was at Inchaffray, while those at Arbroath were of the Tyronenses.

The same order of things seems to have existed here as in the ancient parish of Monymusk. The church and priory of the thirteenth century would take the place of the church and monastery of the Celtic Church. As at Monymusk, so at Abernethy, not a vestige of the ancient priory now remains: no record exists to tell us how it was destroyed. Not unlikely, as at Monymusk, it was destroyed about the Reformation period. The prior was the vicegerent of the abbot, and was the head of a smaller house: when the monastery was placed under a bishop, or regarded as a cell of a greater monastery, it was called a priory. Such seems to have been the relation of the prior and priory here to the Abbot and Monastery of Inchaffray.

While the Canons Regular were brought originally from Inchaffray, the Priory of Abernethy would recruit itself afterwards from its own scolocs,-for an important part of the work of the priory, as of the monastery, was the education of the young, both for the ordinary work of life and especially for Church service. The order of the Canons Regular of St Augustine was founded by Ives of Chartres and others in the eleventh century, and resulted from the failure of the attempts to force the canonical rule on the

1 Scotichron., bk. x. c. 33.

2 "The Augustinian, Benedictine, and Cistercian monks were the first agriculturists on a large scale in Fife."-Fife and Kinross, by Sheriff Mackay, p. 190.

3 Church and Priory of Monymusk, by the Rev. W. M. Macpherson, p. 68.

clergy of the cathedral and cathedral churches. These canons differed but slightly from the monks, and resembled them in the renunciation of property. The order was introduced into England very early in the twelfth century; thence they were brought to Scotland.2

1

Bishop Keith thus describes their dress: "All these canons wore a white robe, with a rochet (rochelum) of fine linen above their gown, a surplice in the church (superpelicium), and an almuce (lamutium), formerly on their shoulders, thereafter on their left arm, hanging as far down as the ground. This almuce was of fine black or grey skin, brought from foreign countries, and frequently lined with ermine, and serves to this day to distinguish the Canons Regular from the other religious orders."3

There were seven canonical hours when the monks and canons were summoned by bell to devotion: Prime at 6 A.M.; Tierce or 9 A.M.; Sext or noon; Nones, 2 or 3 P.M.; Vespers, 4 P.M.; Compline, 7 P.M.; Matins and Lauds at midnight.

Such is an account of the new order in Abernethy, and existing documents are singularly silent for a time about the church and priory. The lay element now predominated at the expense of the ecclesiastical, and as far as external events occurred in connection with the church, we learn almost next to nothing. There are, however, two notices which are not altogether uninteresting.

1 Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 283.

2 "In the year 1115 a body of Canons Regular of St Augustine, known as Black Canons, came to Scotland from the monastery of St Oswald's, near Pontefract, at the invitation of King Alexander and his queen Sibella (daughter of Henry I. of England), who gave to them the church of Scone (Fordun, 'Scotichron.,' v. 37). . . . A few years after the foundation of Scone, the Canons Regular were introduced into the diocese of Dunkeld. Alexander also built priories for them on an island in Loch Tay, and on Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. He also gave to the church of Scone the right to hold a court."-Bellesheim, vol. i. p. 286. 3 Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, pp. 393, 394.

4 The following is an interesting fragment: "The church of St Brigida in the province of Athol was reputed famous for miracles, and a portion of her relics was kept with great veneration in the monastery of regular canons at Abernethy."-Alban Butler, quoting "Major de Gestis Scotorum," t. 2, c. 14, in note to 'Life of St Bridget.'