The Cathedral Chapter of St. Andrews and the Culdees1 in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

G. W. S. Barrow

doi:10.1017/S0022046900028190

The Cathedral Chapter of St. Andrews and the Culdees1 in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

G. W. S. Barrow

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G. W. S. Barrow: Affiliation:
Assistant Lecturer in History, University College, London

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It has long been a commonplace of Scottish ecclesiastical history that the culdees at St. Andrews, who held a place in the cathedral church in the earlier part of the twelfth century, survived for a further two hundred years. The most authoritative statement of this belief is still to be found in the work of Dr. William Reeves (later Bishop of Down), whose paper on ‘The Culdees of the British Islands’ was read to the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin in 1860, and published there as a book in 1864. Reeves's paper discussed very fully the origins and later history of the culdees in the British Isles, especially in Ireland and Scotland; and it is of some interest to recall that since the author was a vicar-choral of Armagh cathedral he belonged to a corporation which could claim to have directly represented, since the seventeenth century, the older body of culdees attached to the mother church of St. Patrick.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1952 , pp. 23 - 39

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900028190 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1952

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^{page 23 note 2} In 1863, a paper by David Laing was published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (76–86), entitled ‘Historical Notices of the Provostry of Kirkheugh’, covering, with regard to St. Andrews, some of the same ground as Reeves, and reaching some of the same conclusions. Laing noted, correctly, that the culdee community had become a collegiate church by the reign of Alexander 11(1214–1249); ibid., 79.

^{page 23 note 3} Reeves, op. cit., 12–19.

^{page 23 note 4} J. Dowden, The Bishops of Scotland, 5; cf. The Chronicle of Holyrood, ed. M. O. and A. O. Anderson (Scottish History Society), 132–3, n. 7.

^{page 23 note 5} The St. Andrews culdees are first mentioned in records relating to the year 943; A. O. Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish History, i. 447; W. F. Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, 151.

^{page 24 note 1} Sir A. C. Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters, p. 188. No. 233.

^{page 24 note 2} Reeves, op. cit., 39–41.

^{page 24 note 3} I.e., the personae of the church who had become secularised. They-were distinct from the culdees.

^{page 24 note 4} Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia, etc., Rome 1864, referred to henceforth as ‘Theiner’.

^{page 25 note 1} Op. cit., ii. 387.

^{page 25 note 2} Charters, etc., of Inchaffray, ed. W. A. Lindsay, J. Dowden, and J. M. Thomson (Scottish History Society), xxv and liii-liv.

^{page 25 note 3} I have used the edition of 1927, in which the passage quoted appears on p. 87.

^{page 25 note 4} See, e.g., D. E. Easson, ‘Foundation Charter of the Collegiate Church of Dunbar a.d. 1342’, in Miscellany of the Scottish History Society vi (1939), 81, and n. 1. ‘In 1342, at least one collegiate church—St. Mary's-on-the-Rock, St. Andrews—was already in being; the “Culdee” community, in self-defence, had adopted the form of a secular college c. 1250’. Cf. Duke, J. A., History of the Church of Scotland (1937), 87Google Scholar; Simpson, W. D., The Celtic Church in Scotland (1935), 116Google Scholar; and the Ordnance Survey Map of Monastic Britain (1950; North Sheet, Introduction, p. 5).

^{page 26 note 1} Theiner, No. 6.

^{page 26 note 2} Ibid., No. 37. Evidently the case had, at least in part, been committed previously to the abbot of Melrose. The bishop, his clerks, and the steward, of St. Andrews had been freed from his jurisdiction in the matter by a letter dated Viterbo, 4 March 1220 (Nat. Library of Scotland MS. Adv. 15.1.19, No. vi; Registrum Prioratus Sancti Andree (Bannatyne Club), xlii-xliii. This work is henceforth abbreviated to RPSA.).

^{page 26 note 3} For the legation of Master James, a canon of St. Victor, see Theiner, No. 35 and Chronicle of Melrose (Facsimile Edition, 1936), 72, 75.

^{page 26 note 4} Quosdam clericos de S. Andrea, qui Keledei vulgariter appellantur.

^{page 26 note 5} These included the bishop and archdeacon of Dunblane, and Hugh of Nydie, who may have been the bishop of St. Andrews's steward.

^{page 26 note 6} Master Hugh of Melbourne, with whom I think we may safely identify the Master H. de Meleburne of Theiner, No. 37, appears often as a member of the episcopal familia in the time of bishop Malvoisin and his successor David Bernham. See, e.g., RPSA. 156–7, 160–1, 163–8, 281, 306; Registrum de Dunfermelyn (Bannatyne Club), No. 119.

Master Adam Ovidius was likewise a prominent clerk of bishop Malvoisin (Registrum Vetus de Aberbrothoc (Bannatyne Club), Nos. 153–9, 161–7; RPSA., 266, 316). He had some interest in Hobkirk church, in the diocese of Glasgow (Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis (Bannatyne Club), No. 114), of which see Malvoisin had been bishop from 1200 to 1202.

Master Adam of Scone was a royal chaplain (Reg. Vetus de Aberbrothoc, No. 136) and possibly a canon of Dunkeld (RPSA., 296).

Roger of Huntingfield, probably a member of the English baronial family of that name, was incumbent of Lathrisk, Fife, to which he had possibly been presented by the family of de Quinci (RPSA., 156, 336; Rot. Litt. Claus. (Record Com.), i, 110b).

^{page 27 note 1} Papal registers are missing for 1249; but this privilege is contained in a declaration by an auditor at the curia, a copy of which is Nat. Library of Scotland MS. Adv. 15.1.18, No. 32, printed by Reeves, op. cit., Appendix M 16. The privilege was dated Lyons, 21 August, seventh pontifical year of Innocent IV (i.e., 1249).

^{page 27 note 2} Theiner, No. 177.

^{page 27 note 3} In Theiner's text, as also in La Roncière, Les Régistres d' Alexandre IV, i. 185, No. 608, the name is spelt Kiltemont. Kilrymont (Kilrimund, Kilrimuned, etc.), was the old name of the site of the church dedicated to St. Andrew. It is interesting to find it used as late as 1255 in connexion with the culdees, whose church of St. Mary may have stood nearer the site of the older, pre-twelfth-century church than did either of those built for the Austin canons.

^{page 27 note 4} Qui se canonicos nominant.

^{page 27 note 5} Nat. Library MS. Adv. 15.1.18, No. 30. The best and most accessible printed text is in Reeves, op. cit., Appendix M 15, which, however, is not entirely free from errors.

^{page 27 note 6} The morrow of St. Leonard.

^{page 28 note 1} Magister Adam de Malkarwistun. The name appears variously as Malcarueston, Malcaruistun, etc., and represents the village in the Merse now called Makerston.

^{page 28 note 2} See the ‘Letters of a Scottish Student at Paris and Oxford, c. 1250’, ed. N. R. Ker and W. A. Pantin, in Oxford Formularies, ii. (ed. H. E. Salter, W. A. Pantin, and H. G. Richardson, Oxford Historical Society 1942), 485, No. 9. Adam Makerston (here Malcalstratn’) may have been at both Paris and Oxford.

^{page 28 note 3} RPSA, 168, 169, 281.

^{page 28 note 4} Cartulary of Lindores, ed. J. Dowden (Scottish History Society), Nos. 64 and 110 respectively.

^{page 28 note 5} Bain, Calendar of Scottish Documents, i. Nos. 2126, 2127.

^{page 28 note 6} W. Bliss, Calendar of Papal Letters, i. 391.

^{page 28 note 7} Dunlop, A. I., ‘Bagimond's Roll: A Statement of the Tenths of the Kingdom of Scotland’, in Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, vi (1939), 36, 65Google Scholar.

^{page 28 note 8} In Reeves's text the name is given as Weytement. I have verified the correct reading as given above from the original MS.

^{page 28 note 9} Theiner, No. 100.

^{page 28 note 10} This church had been given to the canons of St. Andrews priory by Richard de Malluvel before 1187 (RPSA. 64, 152, 231).

^{page 28 note 11} Bliss, op. cit., 220.

^{page 28 note 12} Theiner, No. 145. The identity of Richard Weyrement in the list of culdees with Master Richard Verment is made clear from ibid., p. 54, col. 2.

^{page 28 note 13} Although the priory had received privileges from all the popes named, there is no extant bull of Lucius that mentions the culdees. The earliest to do so was one of Eugenius III, of 1147.

^{page 29 note 1} As we have seen, in 1245 he was rector of a church belonging to the priory.

^{page 29 note 2} This was the English cardinal-priest, John of Toledo (of St. Laurence-in-Lucina); see A. Chacon, Vitae … Pontificum, etc., (ed. of 1677), ii. cols. 118–9. It is tempting to identify the cardinal's chaplain, Richard, an Englishman, who was provided to the see of the Isles (Sodor) in 1253, and was a canon of St. Andrews, with Richard de Noffertuno (? of Nafferton) who acted in the above case as the priory of St. Andrews's proctor, and also with Richard, canon of St. Andrews, who acted as the priory's proctor in 1252 or 1253 (RPSA. 26; Theiner, No. 145; Dowden, Bishops of Scotland, 278).

^{page 29 note 3} Reg. Vetus de Aberbrothoc, 187, 269; RPSA. 312–3, respectively.

^{page 29 note 4} Oxford Formularies, ii. 485–6, 489–90, Nos. 7, 11, 18.

^{page 29 note 5} Bliss, op. cit., 296; RPSA. p. xliii, No. 12; Dowden, Bishops of Scotland, 306.

^{page 29 note 6} Ibid., 18–19.

^{page 29 note 7} RPSA., 157, 169, respectively; an unprinted charter of bishop Bernham (H.M. General Register House, Edinburgh, Black Book of St. Andrews, fo. 35) was also witnessed by Robert de Insula.

^{page 29 note 8} RPSA., 281; H.M. Register House, Edinburgh, Calendar of Charters, No. 27. Muckhart was a living in the collation of the bishop of St. Andrews (Bliss, op. cit., 30).

^{page 29 note 9} Skene thought it possible that Richard Vairement was the author of a fabulous history of Scotland included in the lost Great Register of St. Andrews Priory, and that he was the ‘Veremondus’ or ‘Veremond’ cited as an authority by Hector Boece and David Chambers of Ormont in the sixteenth century; see Skene's edition of John of Fordun (Chronica Gentis Scotorum, i (1871), pp. xxxviii ff., and note 1. There does not seem to be any direct evidence for this.

^{page 30 note 1} Calendar of Laing Charters (1899), No. 15. In the twelfth century Lambin had evidently been a prominent burgess of St. Andrews (H.M. Register House, Edinburgh, Black Book of St. Andrews, fo. 35^r). His son William floruit c. 1190–12120 (RPSA. 45, 268, 316). A person called H(ugh) Lambin was apparently a particular friend of Master Adam Makerston (Oxford Formularies, ii. 485, 489, Nos. 9 and 17).

^{page 30 note 2} RPSA., 203.

^{page 30 note 3} Ibid., 131, 143, 145, 150, 318.

^{page 30 note 4} Given from the Book of Assumptions of Thirds of Benefices of 1561 by George Martine, in his Reliquiae Divi Andreae (see infra, n. 7), p. 217.

^{page 30 note 5} Walter Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections (ed. J. Toshach Clark, Scottish History Society), ii. 532.

^{page 30 note 6} RPSA., 318.

^{page 30 note 7} Op. cit., 216, 217. This work was dedicated in 1683 to Archbishop Burnet. The first printed edition was published at St. Andrews in 1797.

^{page 30 note 8} This, presumably older, form of the name seems to shew that it was, or had been, the site of a shrine or chapel.

^{page 30 note 9} RPSA., 318.

^{page 30 note 10} See supra, p. 23, n. 1. Calledei is sometimes a variant in papal documents.

^{page 30 note 11} Theiner, passim; RPSA., xxxi-xxxii (1309); Scotichronicon, ed. W. Goodall (1759), i. 360–363 (1271–1332).

^{page 30 note 12} The account, taken from the lost Great Register of St. Andrews Priory, is to be found in Brit. Mus. Harley MS. 4628, fos. 240 ff. I have used the edition of W. F. Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, 183–193; but in some respects the partial edition of Reeves, op. cit., Appendix M 2, is more accurate and satisfactory. The title given to the account by Skene, ‘Legend of St. Andrew’, and his date for its composition, 1279, obscure the fact that the last part of the account is a Historia Fundationis of St. Andrews Priory written (probably by a canon of the house) before 1153.

^{page 31 note 1} Skene, op. cit., 188: ‘Habebantur tamen in ecclesia Sancti Andreae, quota et quanta tune erat, tredecim per successionem carnalem, quos Keledeos appellant…’

^{page 31 note 2} Skene, op. cit., 190.

^{page 31 note 3} See, e.g., Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (ed. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel), vi, Part I, p. 305, No. VII; Gallia Christiana, vol. xi (Paris, 1874), Instruments, col. 238, No. XI.

^{page 31 note 4} For Abbot Gillecrist, see infra.

^{page 31 note 5} Supra, p. 25, n. 4; The Society of Friends of Dunblane Cathedral, Annual Report, 1941, 134.

^{page 32 note 1} Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections, ii. 532.

^{page 32 note 2} RPSA., 353 (c. 1180–1188).

^{page 32 note 3} Ibid., 329. Gellin seems to have been connected with the old church of St. Andrews, since the canons gave him the right to bear the ‘great banner’ (Morbrac, read Mórbràt) as his predecessor had done before.

^{page 32 note 4} RPSA., 318–9. It dates in the time of Prior Gilbert, the years of whose priorate are uncertain. If we read xxxiv for xxiv in Book VI, cap. 50 of the Scotichronicon (ed. Goodall, i. 367) we might take it that Gilbert became prior in 1196 and died in 1198–9; he was apparently dead by 1200. Bishop Beaumont, though elected in 1189, was not consecrated until early in 1198.

^{page 33 note 1} Supra, pp. 24–5. So much was this right taken for granted that Sir Archibald Lawrie, printing Eugenius III's privilege of 1147 in his Early Scottish Charters (No. 181), entitled it ‘Bull… giving the right of electing the Bishop of St. Andrews to the Prior and Canons … instead of to the Keledei’ (my italics). The bull does not mention the culdees in connexion with episcopal elections, and the formula by which it conveys the privilege of episcopal election to the canons is the standard formula employed generally at this time; cf. W. Holtzmann, Papstwkunden in England, vol. 2 (ii, Texte), Berlin 1936, Nos. 20, 48, and 57, of 1139, 1146, and 1148 respectively.

^{page 33 note 2} Historia Novorum (Rolls Series), 282.

^{page 33 note 3} Ibid., 279–281.

^{page 34 note 1} This document was purchased by the University Library, St. Andrews, in 1943, its previous history being obscure. It is catalogued as MS. DA 890. S1W5 (see infra, p. 39).

^{page 34 note 2} This was almost certainly William Maule (de Maulia), who was archdeacon of Lothian probably from c. 1231 to c. 1260.

^{page 34 note 3} Nec in possessorio nec in petitorio.

^{page 34 note 4} The difference in the terminology used respectively by the prior and convent and the culdees is worth remarking. The former were careful to style themselves the ‘prior and canons (or convent) of the cathedral chapter of St. Andrews’, while they called the collegiate church of the culdees the ‘chapel’ of St. Mary, and its occupants ‘culdees’, or ‘culdees acting as canons’. The culdees, on the other hand, never seem to have so styled themselves in the thirteenth century; their official style was ‘The provost and chapter of the church of the Blessed Mary of the city of St. Andrews’, and by c. 1290 the legend on their common seal read sigillvm capitvli s. marie capelle domini regis scotorvm (Cal. Laing Charters, No. 15).

^{page 34 note 5} RPSA., 26.

^{page 35 note 1} Ibid.

^{page 35 note 2} Scotichronicon (ed. Goodall) i. 360.

^{page 35 note 3} Theiner, No. 162.

^{page 35 note 4} Ibid.

^{page 35 note 5} This was true, in that there was an archdeacon of Lothian in or before 1144; but no archdeacon of St. Andrews itself appears until c. 1150.

^{page 35 note 6} ‘Et licet exeuntibus Calideis de predicta Sancti Andree ecclesia, et intrantibus prefatam ecclesiam Sancte Marie, prebendas, libertates et iura sua integre retinendo Canonici regulares in ipsam ecclesiam Sancti Andree fuerint introducti: Archidiaconalis tamen dignitas nunquam ibi evanuit, sed perseveravit ibidem, et Archidiaconus in eadem remansit ecclesia cum ipsis Canonicis regularibus, sicut ibi consueverat prius esse’. The Latin does not seem free from ambiguity as to whether it was the culdees or the canons who retained their rights. I have taken it to mean the former.

^{page 36 note 1} In 1238 (Dowden, Bishops of Scotland, 13).

^{page 36 note 2} ‘Subiunxit … quod … David Episcopus Sancti Andree sibi … Archidiaconatum eundem contulerat, stallo in choro et loco in Capitulo ipsius ecclesie assignatis’.

^{page 36 note 3} Bliss, op. cit., 244–5.

^{page 36 note 4} Orygynale Cronykil, ed. Laing (1872), ii. 255; Scotichronicon, (ed. Goodall), i. 360.

^{page 36 note 5} Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters, Nos. 181, 233.

^{page 36 note 6} RPSA., 98–102; unfortunately there does not seem to be any later bull of general confirmation to compare with this; ibid., 103–6 is of the same date.

^{page 37 note 1} See Stubbs's introduction to his edition of the Epistolae Cantuarienses (Rolls Series); and Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England (1949), 318–22, 325–6Google Scholar.

^{page 37 note 2} Ibid., 319.

^{page 37 note 3} Knowles, op. cit., 322–4.

^{page 37 note 4} See Dunning, P. J., ‘The Arroasian Order in Mediaeval Ireland’ in Irish Historical Studies, iv, No. 16 (1945), 308Google Scholar. Father Dunning points out that the exact date of St. Laurence's foundation is not certain.

^{page 37 note 5} See the article on Comyn by Tout in the Dictionary of National Biography, and the references there cited, especially Mason, W. M., History of St. Patrick's (1820)Google Scholar; cf. also Orpen, G. H., Ireland under the Normans (1911), ii., 62–5Google Scholar. St. Patrick's was consecrated on 17 March 1191.

^{page 38 note 1} Mason, op. cit., Appendix, IV; Theiner, No. 45.

^{page 38 note 2} It may perhaps be mentioned that archbishops John and Henry had a clerk named Master Peter Malvoisin, canon of St. Patrick's, and from 1221 to 1230 bishop of Ossory. I have found no evidence to connect Master Peter with his namesake at St. Andrews. (See the cartularies of St. Thomas's and St. Mary's, Dublin, ed. Gilbert (Rolls Series), references in indices; Bliss, op. cit., 67; Theiner, No. 41; P.R.O., Chancery Masters' Exhibits, Lanthony Cartulary, vol. A 8, third and sixth charters in section I).

^{page 38 note 3} The rectory of Ceres was annexed to the provostship of St. Mary's during the century.

^{page 39 note 1} Scotichronicon, ed. Goodall, i. 361–3; cf. Theiner, No. 362; Bliss, op. cit., 578.

^{page 39 note 2} It is mentioned in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 20 (1943–1945), 52.

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The Cathedral Chapter of St. Andrews and the Culdees1 in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

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