2 - From Cinrigh Monai to Civitas Sancti Andree: A Star is Born

Summary

THIS chapter has as its focus the earliest written material concerning the place now known as St Andrews, from the mid eighth century to the end of the twelfth. Because of the nature both of the sources and the place, this material is overwhelmingly ecclesiastical in context and content. However, the Christian, ecclesiastical story of St Andrews begins already in the pre-documentary, archaeological record. Excavations have revealed early Christian long cist cemeteries both beside St Mary's Collegiate Church on the headland above the harbour (at Kirkheugh) and at Hallow Hill, a low hill bounded on three sides by burns, the Kinness Burn on the north and the Cairnsmill Burn on the west and south-west, just over 2km south-west of the St Andrews cathedral complex. The earliest documentary reference to the place now known as St Andrews comes in 747 when ‘the death of Tuathalán abbot of Kinrymont’ is recorded in the Annals of Ulster. Already by this time the place must have been of more than local importance, since this reference occurs in a source probably written in Brega (east central Ireland) and is a rare instance of interest shown by these annals in a Pictish religious house. The St Andrews sarcophagus, one of the finest pieces of early medieval sculpture from northern Europe, discovered in 1833 at the heart of the early church precinct, probably dates to only a short time after this annal reference and is further proof of the very high status of the place in this period.

There are no secure references to Kinrymont for the ninth century, although the fifteenth-century historians Andrew Wyntoun and Walter Bower, both following an account (now lost) drawn up at an earlier date at St Andrews, name Cellach as the first bishop of St Andrews and state that he held this office from the time of King Giric (878–89). A more secure reference to a Bishop Cellach concerns the year 906, when he presided with Constantine son of Aodh (Cústantin mac Aeda) over an assembly in Scone. It is probably correct to assume that Cellach was based at St Andrews, although, as with other later and better-attested bishops of St Andrews who are styled variously bishop of Alba or bishop of the Scots, his office had national rather than merely local diocesan significance.