“Sancti + ficetur, et conse + cretur, Domine, signumistud: in nomine Pa + tris, et Fi + lii, et Spiritûs + sancti in honorem Sancti N. pax tibi.”[8]
“Sancti + ficetur, et conse + cretur, Domine, signumistud: in nomine Pa + tris, et Fi + lii, et Spiritûs + sancti in honorem Sancti N. pax tibi.”[8]
It is interesting to notice that in many places the practice still remains of ringing the bells at particular hours when no service is to beheld. This is clearly a survival of the times when the bells were rung to call people to the mediæval services. We are reminded in “The Bells of Kincardineshire,”[9]that at the present day various reasons, more or less utilitarian, have been given in Scotland for these old service bells. The country people say that the eight o’clock bell is to “let you ken it’s the Sabbath,” or to “gar the hill folk mak’ theirsel ready or the kirk win in.” This is very often called the “rousing bell,” and the later bell the “dressing bell,” or the “get ready.”
The Perth Session Records, July 10, 1560, provide that “The Session, after the appointment of the order of communication, ordains that the first bell should be rung at four in the morning; the second at half five o’clock; the third at five. The second ministration, the first bell to be rung at half nine o’clock; the second at nine; the third at half ten.” July 6, 1703, “The Session appoints that the church doors be opened at seven of the clock in the morning, andnottill then; as also that the first bell be rung at eight of the clock; the second at half nine; and the third at nine.”
The ringing of bells at funerals is a custom of ancient origin. It was a popular belief that the sound of the bell had power to drive away evil spirits. In England, Bishop Grandison of Exeter in 1339 found it necessary to check the long ringings at burials, on the grounds that “they do no good to the departed, are an annoyance to the living, and injurious to the fabrick and the bells.”[10]
Before the Reformation there were five bells at Dundee on which “six score and nine straiks” were given three times a day, to call to “matins, mess, and even-sang.”
Presbyterianism has naturally had a great influence on the bells in Scotland. Mr Eeles, who is an authority on the subject, tells us that the passing bell is no longer rung, nor is there any ringing at burials beyond tolling the bell for a few minutes as the procession approaches the churchyard. In some parishes even this is said to be fast dying out. In the Burgh Records of Dundee “it is statute that an ony person cause the gret bells to be rung for either saul, mass or dirige, he sall pay forty pence to the Kirk werk.”
The ringing of the death-knell was universalafter the Reformation, when it seemed to have acquired a new meaning in the minds of the people, having become degenerated, so to speak, into a mere notice to the public that a death had taken place. Shakespeare refers to this ringing of the death-knell in his seventy-first sonnet:—
No longer mourn for me when I am dead,Than ye shall hear the surly, sullen bellGive warning to the world that I am fledFrom this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.
The Reformation and the decline of Gothic architecture both combined to put their impress upon bells. The Reformation naturally caused a great change in the inscriptions, and the decline of Gothic led to a poverty of design and an abandonment of the fine lettering, crosses, and other ornaments. Figures of angels and saints no longer appeared, and soon the artistic black letter gave place to the commonplace Roman capitals. With these drastic changes much of the romance of the bell has been swept away.
By Thomas Frost.
Amongthe results of the preaching of the Gospel to the ignorant and superstitious in the early ages of the Church there must, unfortunately, be included a considerable mixture of pagan beliefs and customs with the new religion, some of which have survived even to our own time. The sacred character ascribed to a great number of wells or springs both in England and Scotland may be traced back, in numerous instances, to pagan rites observed at them in pre-Christian ages. Some of these, as at Drumlanrig, in Dumfries county, and at Tully Beltane, in the Highlands of Perthshire, have near them a circle of stones, resembling those supposed to be associated with Druidism; and of the latter, Jamieson says in his “Scottish Dictionary,”—“On Beltane morning, superstitious people go to this well and drink of it, then they make a procession round it, as I am informed, nine times; after this, they, in like manner, goround the temple,” as he calls the circle of upright stones.
In the little island in Loch Maree, in the county of Ross, is a well or spring traditionally associated with St. Maelrubha, who is said to have been a monk of the monastery of Bangor, in Ireland, and to have founded a church at Applecross, in the same county, in 673. Pennant, who visited Innis Maree in 1772, says:—“In the midst is a circular dike of stones,... I suspect the dike to have been originally Druidical, and that the ancient superstition of paganism had been taken up by the saint, as the readiest method of making a conquest over the minds of the inhabitants.” The probability of this appears from old Kirk Session records of an annual custom in Applecross of sacrificing a bull to “Mourie” on the saint’s day. This custom survived until the latter half of the seventeenth century, when it was denounced as idolatrous.
In the island of Lewis, one of the Hebrides, are the ruins of a chapel formerly dedicated to St. Mulvay, near which is a spring, the water of which was supposed to be of singular efficacy in curing diseases of the brain. The patientwas made to walk seven times round the ruins, and was then sprinkled with water from the spring. In others of the Hebrides, and along the west coast, there are many wells named after St. Columba. Almost every well in Scotland is, indeed, named after some mediæval saint, many of them of only local fame, and very few having a place in the ecclesiastical kalendar. St. Ronan’s Well, from the association with it of Scott’s novel of that name, is the best known to the general reader. It has been identified with the mineral well at Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles, which long enjoyed good repute as a curative agent in diseases of the eye and the skin, and also in dyspepsia.
The church of St. Fergus, in Buchan, commemorates an Irish missionary of the eighth century, in whose memory a well in the parish of Kirkmichael, in Banffshire, is named. Concerning this spring, Dr Gregor, in his “Folk Lore of the North-east of Scotland,” says:—“Easter Sunday and the first Sunday in May were the principal Sundays for visiting it, and many from the surrounding parishes, who were affected with skin diseases or running sores, came to drink of its water, and to wash in it.The hour of arrival was twelve o’clock at night, and the drinking of the water and the washing of the diseased part took place before or at sunrise. A quantity of the water was carried home for future use. Pilgrimages were made up to the end of September, by which time the healing virtues of the water had become less. Such after-visits seem to have begun in later times.”
The best known of several wells named after St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, is beside the road from Maybole to Ayr, and about two miles and a half from the former place. It used formerly to be much resorted to on the 1st of May, for the benefit of sickly children. St. Iten’s Well, at Cambusnethan, in Lanarkshire, at one time was held in good repute as a cure for asthma and skin diseases. Martin, in a description of the Hebrides, written about 1695, mentions a well named after the same saint in the Isle of Eigg, which was regarded by the natives as a panacea for “all the ills that flesh is heir to.” He gives a curious, and in view of the connection of holy wells with pagan beliefs and customs, an interesting account of the dedication of this well by a priest called Father Hugh.
“He obliged all the people to come to thiswell,” he says, “and then employed them to bring together a great heap of stones at the head of the spring by way of penance. This being done, he said mass at the well, and then consecrated it; he gave each of the inhabitants a piece of wax candle, which they lighted, and all of them made the Dessil,—going round the well sun-ways, the priest leading them; and from that time it was accounted unlawful to boil any meat with the water of this well.”
St. Fillan’s Well, at the foot of a green hill in the parish of Comrie, was formerly much frequented on the 1st of May and the 1st of August by persons in quest of health, who walked or were carried three times round it, from east to west, following the course of the sun. This done, they drank of the water of the spring, deposited a white stone on the saint’s cairn, and departed, leaving some rag of linen or woollen as an offering.
Half-way between the bays of Portankill and East Tarbet, on the coast of Wigtonshire, are the ruins of St. Medan’s chapel, within which are three natural cavities in the rock, which at high water are filled by the tide. Sickly children used to be brought to the larger hole to bebathed, and this is still done occasionally, though faith in such matters, as in so many others, seems to be lessening. Dr Trotter, who visited the place in 1870, had the ceremony described to him by an eye-witness as follows:—“The child was stripped naked, taken by one of the legs, and plunged head-foremost into the big well until completely submerged; it was then pulled out, and the part held on by was dipped in the middle well, and then the whole body was finished by washing the eyes in the smallest one, altogether very like the Achilles and Styx business, only much more thorough. An offering was then left in the old chapel, on a projecting stone inside the cave behind the west door, and the cure was complete.”
There is nothing certain known about this St. Medan, though there are wonderful legends concerning her in the Aberdeen Breviary and elsewhere. Concerning the chapel in Wigtonshire, Dr Trotter thinks that “the well was the original institution; the cave a shelter or dwelling for the genius who discovered the miraculous virtues of the water, and his successors; and the chapel a later edition for the benefit of the clergy, who supplanted the oldreligion by grafting Christianity upon it; St. Medana being a still later institution.”
St. Catherine’s Well, at Liberton, near Edinburgh, has been regarded for centuries as a remedy for diseases of the skin, and is still frequented by persons suffering from them. It derives its name from a tradition, preserved by Boece, in his chronicle of Scotland, that the spring rose miraculously from a drop of oil brought from the tomb of St. Catherine of Alexandria on Mount Sinai, and this story was considered to be countenanced by the fact that drops of oil are often observable on the surface, a phenomenon now regarded as due to the decomposition of coal, or bituminous shale, in seams below. Boece says that Queen Margaret, the wife of Malcolm III., built a chapel near the spring, and dedicated it to St. Catherine; but this chapel, some remains of which were still standing at the close of the last century, was dedicated to St. Catherine of Sienna, not to her sister saint of Alexandria. Before the Reformation, the nuns made an annual visit to the well, three miles from their convent, in solemn procession, a ceremony due perhaps to the coincidence of name.
James IV. made an offering in this chapel in 1504, and when James VI. returned to Scotland in 1617, he visited the well, and, as Sir Daniel Wilson relates in his “Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time,” he “commanded it to be enclosed with an ornamental building, with a flight of steps to afford easy access to the healing waters; but this was demolished by the soldiers of Cromwell, and the well now remains enclosed with plain stone-work, as it was partially repaired at the Restoration.”
St. Bernard’s Well, a sulphurous spring in the valley below Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, is traditionally associated with the sainted Abbot of Clairvaux. Its medicinal virtues appear to have escaped notice, however, until 1789, when the property on which it is situated came into the possession of Lord Gardenstone, who erected a handsome Grecian edifice over the spring, set up within it a statue of Hygeia, and appointed an attendant to dispense the water at a very trifling charge. The place then became a popular resort for the purpose of drinking the water, and in 1889 the statue of the Roman goddess, having become decayed, was replaced by one in marble,by the generosity of the late William Nelson, who also restored the temple and made the surroundings more attractive.
On Soutra Hill, the westernmost point of the Lammermoor range, there once stood a hospital founded by Malcolm IV., for the reception of poor travellers, and dedicated to the Trinity. Only a small portion of the building now remains, but near it is a spring known as Trinity Well, which in former times was much frequented on account of the healing virtues attributed to it. A similar reputation was enjoyed for a long time by St. Mungo’s Well, on the west side of the hill named after that famous Scottish saint, in the parish of Huntley, Aberdeenshire.
There were springs also which were reputed to preserve from disease those who partook of their water. The virtues of St. Olav’s Well, in the parish of Cruden, in Aberdeenshire, are recorded in the couplet—
St. Olav’s Well, low by the sea,Where pest nor plague shall never be.
Of St. Corbet’s Well, on the top of the Touch Hills, in Stirlingshire, it was formerly believed that whoever drank its water before sunrise onthe first Sunday in May was sure of another year of life, and crowds of persons resorted to the spot at that time, in the hope of thereby prolonging their lives. Water for the font was often taken from holy wells, and it was believed in the middle ages that persons baptised with water from Trinity Well, at Gask, in Perthshire, would never be attacked by the plague. Baptisms in St. Machar’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, were at one time performed with water taken from the saint’s spring; and, before the Reformation, the font at Airth, in Stirlingshire, is said to have been supplied from a well dedicated to the mother of Christ, near Abbeyton bridge.
Passing over a number of springs with reputed medicinal properties, but not associated with any hagiological tradition, we find it stated by Mr J. R. Walker, in a communication to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, that “many of the wells dedicated to ‘Our Lady’ and to St. Brigid, the Mary of Ireland, were famous for the cure of female sterility, which, in the days when a man’s power and influence in the land depended on the number of his clan or tribe, was looked upon as a token of the divine displeasure, and was viewed by the unfortunate spouses with anxiousapprehension, dread, doubt, jealousy and pain. Prayer and supplication were obviously the methods pursued by the devout for obtaining the coveted gift of fertility, looked upon, by females especially, as the most valuable of heavenly dispensations; and making pilgrimages to wells under the patronage of the mother of our Lord would naturally be one of the most common expedients.”
Some saints’ wells were believed to have the power of foretelling whether the patients on whose behalf they were invoked would recover,—a superstition which may be traced to Greek paganism of a time thousands of years before the Christian era. St. Andrew’s Well, at Shadar, in the island of Lewis, was reputed to possess this power. A vessel filled with water from the spring was taken to the patient’s abode, and a small wooden dish placed on the surface. If this turned towards the east, it was held to denote that the patient would recover; but if in the opposite direction that he would die. “I am inclined,” says Mr Gomme, “to connect this with the vessel or cauldron so frequently occurring in Celtic tradition, and which Mr Nutt has marked as ‘a part of the gear of the oldest Celticdivinities,’ perhaps of divinities older than the Celts.” The Virgin’s Well, near the ancient church of Kilmorie, in Wigtonshire, was also reputed to possess this power. If the patient on behalf of whom the prophetic power of the well was sought would recover, the water flowed freely; but in the contrary case it failed to well up.
Votive offerings have been mentioned as made to the saints to whom wells were dedicated, and thus became holy. At Montblairie, in Banffshire, shreds of linen and woollen were hung on the bushes beside a consecrated well, and farthings and halfpence were thrown into the water. Miller, in his “Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland,” notices a similar custom as practised in the vicinity of Cromarty, his native town. He says, “It is not yet twenty years since a thorn, which formed a little canopy over the spring of St. Bennet, used to be covered anew every season with little pieces of rag, left on it as offerings to the saint by sick people who came to drink of the water.”
St. Wallach’s Bath, in Strathdeveron, is a cavity in the rock, about three feet in depth, into which water flows from a spring several yardshigher up, the overflow trickling over the edge into the stream, about four feet below. Down to the beginning of the present century, large numbers of weakly children used to be brought to this bath to be strengthened by immersion in it, and some small article of the child’s clothing was hung on a neighbouring tree. The spring was resorted to for the cure of sore eyes, and pins were offered to the Saint, being left in a hollow of a stone beside the well. At the end of May, which was the season for the visit, the hollow was often full of pins. Sir Arthur Mitchell, describing the holy well on Innis Maree in a communication to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, says, “Near it stands an oak tree, which is studded with nails. To each of these was originally attached a piece of the clothing of some patient who had visited the spot. There are hundreds of nails, and one has still fastened to it a faded ribbon. Two bone buttons and two buckles we also found nailed to the tree. Countless pennies and halfpennies are driven edgeways into the wood.” A more recent visitor, surprised at finding what appeared to be a silver coin fixed in the tree, took the trouble to examine it, and found it spurious.
Coins were more usually, however, thrown into the well, and Mr Patrick Dudgeon, who in 1870 had the well of St. Querdon, in Troqueer parish, Kirkcudbrightshire, cleaned out, observes in an article contributed to the transactions of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History Society, that several hundreds of coins were found at the bottom—nearly all being the smallest copper coins, dating from the reign of Elizabeth to that of George III., but chiefly Scottish issues of James VI., Charles I., and Charles II. He mentions also having been told by old residents that they remembered seeing rags and ribbons hung on the bushes around the well.
Dr Macgeorge, describing St. Thenew’s Well, in his “Old Glasgow,” states, “It was shaded by an old tree, which drooped over the well, and which remained until the end of the last century. On this tree the devotees who frequented the well were accustomed to nail, as thank-offerings, small bits of tin-iron—probably manufactured for that purpose by a craftsman in the neighbourhood—representing the parts of the body supposed to have been cured by the virtues of the sacred spring, such as eyes, hands, feet, ears, and others.”
Pilgrimages to saints’ wells were a well-observed custom until they were, after the Reformation, prohibited both by the Church and Parliament. In an Act of 1581, allusion is made to the perverse inclination to superstition, “through which the dregs of idolatry yet remain in divers parts of the realm by using of pilgrimage to some chapels, wells, crosses, and such other monuments of idolatry, as also by observing of the festal days of the Saints sometime named their patrons in setting forth of bon-fires, singing of carols within and about kirks at certain seasons of the year.” In accordance with this enactment, the Kirk Session of Falkirk, in 1628, ordered several persons who had made a pilgrimage to a holy well to appear in church on three appointed Sundays, clad in the garb of penitents. A warning was also issued that persons doing the like in future would be fined in addition to the penance, and in default, would be put in ward and fed on bread and water only for eight days.
In the following year, the Privy Council made an order “that commissioners cause diligent search at all such parts and places where this idolatrous superstition is used, and to takeand apprehend all such persons of whatsomever rank and quality whom they shall deprehend going in pilgrimage to chapels and wells, or whom they shall know themselves to be guilty of that crime, and to commit them to ward, until measures be adopted for their trial and punishment.” But though pilgrimages in bodies were checked, individual visits to holy wells continued. In 1630, the Kirk Session of Aberdeen fined a woman for sending her child to be washed in St. Fittack’s Well, in the parish of Nigg, on the opposite side of the Dee, and she and her nurse were ordered to acknowledge the offence before the session.
In course of time, such “offences” came to be regarded more leniently. Fines gradually ceased to be inflicted, and penance to be enjoined. In three cases entered in the Kirk Session records of Airth, in Stirlingshire, in 1757, the persons cited were merely admonished. But old customs have wonderful vitality, and holy wells are still frequented. Sir Arthur Mitchell remarks, in “The Past in the Present,” that he has seen at least a dozen wells “which have not ceased to be worshipped,” though he adds that the visitors are now comparativelyfew. Mr Campbell of Islay says, in his “Tales of the West Highlands,” “Holy healing wells are common all over the Highlands, and people still leave offerings of pins and nails and bits of rag, though few would confess it. There is a well in Islay where I myself have, after drinking, deposited copper caps amongst a hoard of pins and buttons and similar gear placed in chinks in the rocks.”
Some of the wells once resorted to by great numbers of persons have disappeared in consequence of changes of the surface. The growth of towns, railways, agricultural improvements, have each had their part in the obliteration of spots formerly deemed sacred. The Pilgrims’ Well, at Aberdour, in Fifeshire, which for centuries attracted crowds, is now filled up. The like end has come to the Abbot’s Well at Urquhart, in Elginshire. St. Mary’s Well at Whitekirk, in Haddingtonshire, has also ceased to exist, the water having been drained off. Near Drumakill, in the parish of Drymen, Dumbartonshire, there was once a famous spring dedicated to St. Vildrin, and near it was a cross, with a figure of the Saint upon it in relief. Between thirty and forty years ago the crosswas broken up, and the fragments used in the construction of a farm-house; and shortly afterwards the spring was drained into a stream.
There was formerly a holy well beside the lonely cross-road from Abbeyhill to Restalrig, near Edinburgh, and in the middle ages it attracted a great number of pilgrims. It appears to have been originally dedicated to the Holy Rood, but it afterwards became known as St. Margaret’s Well, and Mr Walker thinks that the dedication may have been changed in connection with the translation of Queen Margaret’s remains in 1251, on the occasion of her canonisation. There was a small Gothic building over the spring until the North British Railway Company acquired possession of the site and built a station upon it. The covering was then taken down, stone by stone, and rebuilt above St. David’s spring, on the northern slope of Salisbury Crags. The water of St. Margaret’s Well found another channel, and thus one more of Scotland’s holy wells ceased to exist.
By A. H. Millar, F.S.A.Scot.
Thehistory of every Scottish city or burgh of importance is intimately connected with one of two possible originals. Each burgh has taken its origin either from a feudal castle or from a cathedral or abbey. This statement may seem very sweeping in its character, but a close examination will prove that it is founded on fact. Edinburgh, for instance, grew up around the ancient Castle—Eadwin’s burh—while the Cathedral of St. Giles and all the subordinate churches were adjuncts of the secular centre. The true ecclesiastical point of origin in Edinburgh was St. Margaret’s Chapel, and it still stands within the Castle walls. Glasgow, on the other hand, took its origin from the Cathedral. That building formed the nucleus of the original city, and the first houses in Glasgow were the Bishop’s Castle beside the Cathedral, and the dwellings and manses of the ecclesiastics in its immediate vicinity. It was as a “Bishop’s burgh,”or community under ecclesiastical control, that Glasgow first had a corporate existence. The Bishop or Archbishop nominated the civic rulers, and though an attempt was made shortly after the Reformation to abrogate priestly control, and to transfer the power of the election of the Provost to the Guildry, the Protestant Archbishops strove to retain this right up till the early years of the seventeenth century. In 1639 the Town Council for the first time elected the Provost and Bailies, but even then the consent of the Duke of Lennox—who had received the secularised property of the Archbishopric—had to be obtained; and it was not until 1690 that the citizens of Glasgow obtained the right to choose municipal governors.
These two forms of origin may be traced in all the important Scottish burghs. Stirling found its centre in the Royal Castle; Dunfermline owed its existence to the Abbey. Perth originated from the ancient Church of St. John, and was long known as “Saint John’s toun”; Inverness clustered around its baronial Castle. The Round Tower and the Cathedral of Brechin were the starting points of that burgh; and Paisley dates its history from the foundation of its Abbey. St. Andrews and Arbroath bear still unmistakableevidences of their ecclesiastical origin; while Dundee found its first nucleus in its Castle, and after the destruction of that fortress the centre was shifted to the magnificent church of St. Mary, one of the largest parish churches in Scotland in the fifteenth century. It is clear, therefore, that life in the pre-Reformation Cathedrals and ecclesiastical buildings had an important influence in forming and fashioning the history of the people. This fact is too frequently overlooked by modern historians.
Only two of the pre-Reformation Cathedrals in Scotland have survived unimpaired the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformers. St. Andrews Cathedral, the seat of the Primate of Scotland, was partially devastated by the Protestant mob, and weather and storm completed the ruin thus begun. Dunblane Cathedral has recently been restored and rescued from the wrecked condition in which it lay for centuries. The restoration of Brechin Cathedral is now (1898) in progress; and the Cathedral of St. Giles, Edinburgh, has only been brought back to some of its pristine magnificence within the last quarter of a century. The two Cathedrals which escaped the fury of the Reformers are, the fanes dedicated to St.Mungo (St. Kentigern) at Glasgow, and to St. Magnus at Kirkwall, Orkney. Both these Cathedrals had Episcopal Palaces adjoining the main structures, and from the history of these it might be possible to spell out the conditions of life during their palmy days. As Glasgow Cathedral shows in a remarkable manner the gradual development of a great commercial city from a small ecclesiastical burgh, and thus supplies a connecting link between remote times and the present day, it will be most convenient to treat it as a typical example of the far-reaching influence of early ecclesiastical modes of life.
Glasgow Cathedral occupies a very peculiar site. It is built on ground that slopes rapidly down from the level of the floor of the nave towards the bed of the Molendinar Burn. So steep is the declivity that a Lower Church—wrongly called the Crypt, but really anEcclesia Inferior—is built under the floor of the Choir, only a few steps being necessary in passing from the Nave to the Choir, so as to give the requisite height to the roof of the “Laigh Kirk.” Such a site would not have been chosen by a modern architect for a building of the same magnitude, because of the structural difficulties it presented;yet it has been asserted by Mr John Honeyman, an experienced architect who has made a special study of Glasgow Cathedral, that the whole design of this magnificent structure “was carefully thought out and settled before a stone was laid. It is a skilful and homogeneous design, which could only be produced by a man of exceptional ability and of great experience. Nothing has been left to chance or the sweet will of the co-operating craftsmen, but the one master-mind has dictated every moulding and every combination, and has left the impress of his genius upon it all.” (“Book of Glasgow Cathedral,” p. 274.) It is a remarkable fact that the name of this gifted architect is quite unknown, though a theory has been advanced that seeks to identify him with a certain John Morvo or Moray, a man of Scottish descent, born and trained in Paris, who was also architect of Melrose Abbey. But nothing absolutely certain is known as to the architect who planned Glasgow Cathedral; and this is no unusual circumstance in the history of other ecclesiastical buildings. Referring to this fact Mr Gladstone once wrote thus:—“It has been observed as a circumstance full of meaning, that no man knows the names of the architects of our Cathedrals.They left no record of themselves upon the fabrics, as if they would have nothing there that could suggest any other idea than the glory of God, to whom the edifices were devoted for perpetual and solemn worship; nothing to mingle a meaner association with the profound sense of His presence; or as if in the joy of having built Him a house there was no want left unfulfilled, no room for the question whether it is good for a man to live in posthumous renown.”
Though the name of not one of the great architects who designed the Scottish Cathedrals has been preserved—unless we accept the doubtful theory as to John Morvo already mentioned—it is evident that the ecclesiastical designer must have been an important personage in every religious community from the beginning of the twelfth century until the Reformation. In those remote days it was not given to any architect to witness the completion of his design. That unique experience was reserved for Sir Christopher Wren, who superintended the building of St. Paul’s Cathedral from its foundation till the last stone was laid. Many circumstances prevented the early architects from witnessing the end of their labours.The poverty of the country, the perpetual warfare which ravaged Scotland, the impossibility of employing the wandering Lodges of Masons from the Continent so continuously as to ensure the rapid execution of the work, and the frequent changes in the Bishop or Archbishop who had the control of the building, necessarily spread the labour over centuries. Glasgow Cathedral was begun by Bishop John Achaius during his episcopate, which extended from 1115 to 1147. It was not completed till the time of Archbishop Blacader, who died in 1508. During these four centuries the original designs by the nameless first architect must have been carefully preserved, and handed down through a succession of equally unknown architects, until the whole work was finished. Yet all these men, whose brilliant ideas and excellent workmanship are at once the admiration and the despair of modern architects, will ever remain anonymous. The Kings and Princes who contributed towards the cost of the structure, the Bishops who added various portions to the building at long intervals, and the Archbishops who consecrated these additions are all carefully recorded; but the architects from whose fertilebrains the ideas sprang, and the workmen who laboriously realised their dreams, are alike unknown.
The Cathedral of Glasgow took its origin from acellaerected on the bank of the Molendinar Burn, by the pious St. Kentigern. This early Christian Apostle was the natural son of Eugenius or Ewen III., King of Reged. His mother was Thanew, daughter of Loth, King of Lothian. Her name survives in a corrupted form as “St. Enoch,” there being now several Scottish churches so designated, though she is distinctly denominated “St. Thanew” in pre-Reformation documents. The life of Kentigern is very fully detailed in the biography written by Jocelyn, a monk of Furness, at the request of Herbert, Bishop of Glasgow (died 1164), and is included in the “Lives of the Scottish Saints.” The careful examination of this biography by Skene gives the probable date of Kentigern’s birth as 518, his consecration as Bishop of Glasgow at 543; his foundation of Llanelwy (now St. Asaphs) in Wales at 553; his return to Glasgow at 581; and his death at 603. Kentigern was visited by St. Columba at Glasgow before 597, and his popularname of St. Mungo (mon gah== my friend) was then conferred upon him by Columba. From the time of Kentigern’s death until the twelfth century nothing definite is known regarding the history of Glasgow. Within the present Cathedral the site of “St. Mungo’s tomb” is pointed out; and it is not improbable that the magnificent pile was erected on this spot to commemorate the founder of Glasgow. During the bishopric of Kentigern it is not likely that there was any building on the present site of the Cathedral save the littlecellaor chapel of the Bishop, and possibly a few of the houses inhabited by the Culdee priests. It should be remembered that the Culdees were not celibates, but lived with their families in these rude dwellings, which thus formed the nucleus of modern Glasgow. When the ground beside the Cathedral was turned into a grave-yard every trace of these houses must have been removed. It is possible that St. Kentigern was buried within his chapel; and if so, the tomb of St. Mungo, in the crypt of the Cathedral, will mark the place where that primitive structure stood.
The Duke's Lodging, Drygait. Bishop Cameron's Tower Episcopal Palace of Glasgow. Town Residence of the Rector of Renfrew.Larger Image
The history of the See of Glasgow for fivecenturies after the death of St. Kentigern is almost a total blank; save for some dubious references to certain ecclesiastics supposed to have been the successors of the Saint, there is nothing to show the progress of the church in those days. The reforming zeal of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret led to a revival of religion, as remarkable in its own way as the Protestant Reformation. The Culdees were supplanted by the Romanists, and the foundations were laid of a hierarchy that attained to vast power in Scotland. The reforms of the Queen were principally confined to the east coast—Dunfermline and St. Andrews—and it was not until her sixth and youngest son, David, Prince of Cumberland (afterwards David I.), ordered an “Inquisitio” as to the property belonging to the See of Glasgow in 1120, that any documentary evidence was made available on this point. Prince David had already procured the appointment of his chancellor and tutor John Eochey or Achaius to the bishopric of Glasgow, and with the installation of that prelate a new era began in the history of the city. The Inquisitio or Notitia showed that the lands possessed by the Bishop of Glasgowwere co-extensive with the kingdom of Strathclyde, and were in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, and the counties of Peebles, Roxburgh, and Dumfries. Bishop John Achaius was consecrated in 1115; Prince David came to the throne in 1124; and shortly after this accession the Bishop began the building of the Cathedral, which was dedicated to St. Kentigern on the nones of July, 1136. Bishop John Achaius died in 1147, and the Cathedral which he built did not long survive him. It is probable that it was a wooden structure, for it was destroyed by fire in 1176, and in that year Bishop Jocelin (1175-1199) began to rebuild it with stone. The next “building Bishop” was William de Bondington (1233-1258), who completed the Lower Church (or Crypt) and the Choir. Bishop William Lauder (1408-1425) began the erection of the present tower, and partly built the Chapter-house. These portions were completed by his successor Bishop John Cameron (1426-1446). Robert Blacader (1484-1508), the first Archbishop of Glasgow, erected the crypt at the south transept known as “Blacader’s Aisle,” built the splendid rood-screen and the stairs leading from the Nave to the Choir and LowerChurch, and put the finishing touches to the Cathedral, which had thus taken nearly four hundred years to reach completion.
The gradual development of the Cathedral necessarily led to the increase of the ecclesiastics connected with it. The elaborate ceremonial of the Romish Church required a staff of officials far out-numbering that of the simple Culdeecellaof St. Kentigern’s time. No definite information is available as to the method adopted for supplying these officials in the early years of the Cathedral’s existence. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that the Rectors and Parsons who had charges in the widely-scattered parishes under the control of the Bishop, would have stated periods when they would take their turns of officiating. These clergymen would likely reside temporarily in the Bishop’s Palace, to which reference will be made presently. At a later date, as the grandeur of the Cathedral increased and its ceremonial became more ornate, houses were provided for them near the building, and thus a return was made to the social system of the Culdees, though with a celibate clergy. Even so recently as the middle of the present century, about twenty of the mansesbelonging to different prebends connected with the Cathedral could be identified in its immediate vicinity. It has been credibly conjectured that the remains of a building outside the north wall of the Cathedral mark the site of the Hall of the Vicars Choral, and a narrow lane between the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Castle was known as the Vicar’s Alley, probably because it gave access to the building. A consideration of some of these clerical homes will give an idea of the social life in a pre-Reformation Cathedral.
The Bishop’s Castle was for centuries a central point around which the burghal and national life crystallised. The date of its erection is not known. The earliest reference to it is found in a charter of 1258, in which the Bishop alludes topalacium suum quod est extra castrum Glasguense. This phrase proves that in the middle of the thirteenth century there was not only a Castle in existence, but also apalaciumor minor dwelling—not a “Palace” as the word has been absurdly translated, but a “place,” equivalent to the old Scots word “ludging”—which stood outside the wall of the Castle. It is reasonable to suppose that Bishop Jocelin, who rebuilt the Cathedral with stone towards the close of the twelfthcentury, had caused the erection of the Castle to be begun, and that Bishop William de Bondington, who completed a large part of the Cathedral, also finished the Castle and thepalaciumreferred to in his charter. The Castle would be constructed for defence in those lawless times as well as for residence, and would probably be a square keep surrounded by a moat. There was a Bishop’s Garden in 1268, and the Bishop’s Castle is mentioned in a document dated 1290. At the latter date Robert Wishart (1272-1316) was Bishop, and as he built rural mansions at Castellstarris (Carstairs) and Ancrum, it is probable that he extended the Castle at Glasgow beside the Cathedral. During the War of Independence this Castle became a stronghold coveted by both belligerents. In 1297 it was captured for Edward I., by Anthony Bek, the famous “fighting Bishop of Durham,” and re-taken by Sir William Wallace. After Bishop Wishart’s time references to additions made to the Castle are more distinct. Before the middle of the fifteenth century the moat had been partially replaced by a high wall. In 1438 Bishop John Cameron built “a great tower,” at the south-western corner of this wall, and his arms with episcopal insignia were visibleon this tower in 1752. Archbishop James Beaton (1508-1522) enlarged the tower and completed a wall 15 feet high, which enclosed the grounds of the Castle. In the time of Archbishop Gavin Dunbar (1524-1547) a gate-house or port was erected on the line of the wall to form the main entrance to the Castle. From the fact that a sculptured stone, still in existence, which was taken from this port bears the arms of James Houston, Sub-Dean of Glasgow, it has been conjectured that the gate-way was erected at his expense; and as he had workmen building the Church of the B. V. M. and St Anne (now the Tron Church) which he founded in 1530, he probably employed them upon this other piece of work at that date. After the Reformation the Bishop’s Castle fell into disrepair. It was partly occupied by several of the Protestant Archbishops, but they had not incomes sufficient for its up-keep, and after the abolition of episcopacy by the Revolution of 1688 the Castle degenerated into a prison for rebels and petty offenders. Public executions took place in the Castle-yard so late as 1784—a curious survival of the power of the early Bishops over the lives of their vassals, for it is said that the gallows of moderntimes was erected on the site of the old “heading-stone” of former days. In 1755 the Magistrates gave permission to Robert Tennant to use the stones of the ruined Castle for the erection of the Saracen’s Head Inn, a building which still exists though now divided into tenements.
During the stormy period of the sixteenth century, when Scotland was constantly in turmoil, through foes within and without the realm, the Bishop’s Castle was frequently besieged. The legal proceedings that followed one of these incidents affords a glimpse of life within the Castle at that time. John Mure of Caldwell, acting under the orders of the Earl of Lennox, laid siege to the Castle on 20th February 1515, and captured it. He was soon compelled, by the Duke of Albany, to evacuate this stronghold, but before he retired his followers had sacked and pillaged the Castle. Two years afterwards Archbishop James Beaton claimed damages for the goods destroyed, and obtained a decree in his favour from the Lords of Council. The following articles were specially detailed in this decree, and are of interest as showing the furnishing and contents of an episcopal dwelling of that period:—“xiii feddir bedds furnist, price of ilka beddv marks; xviii verdour bedds, price of the pere xls.; xii buird claiths, xii tyn quarts, xii tyn pynts, v dusane of peuder veschellis, tua kists, xv swyne, iv dakyr of salt hyds, vi dusane of salmond, ane last of salt herring, xii tunnes of wyne, ane hingand chandlar, ane goun of scarlett lynit with mertricks, vi barrels of gunpulder, ix gunnis, xiv halberks, xiv steill bonnets, vi halberts, iv crossbowis, vi rufs and courtings of say, and iv of lynning, with mony uther insight guds, claithing, jewells, silkes, precius stanes, veschell, harness, vittales, and uther guds.” From this list it will be seen that the luxuries of peace in which the prelates indulged had to be defended by the weapons of war.
While the Bishop’s Castle was the centre of ecclesiastical influence, the first extension of Glasgow was due to the erection of manses for the minor officials of the Cathedral. To any one acquainted with the topography of Glasgow, the city may be thus “skeletonised” to show the manner of its evolution. The Cathedral stands on an eminence rising gradually from the north bank of the Clyde, and is distant about a mile from the river. The main route from the Cathedral to the Clyde is by an almost straightsuccession of streets—High Street and Saltmarket—which, unquestionably, follow the line of an ancient footpath. The origin of secular Glasgow was a small collection of huts inhabited by salmon-fishers on the bank of the river. A pathway was formed in course of time between this primitive village and the Cathedral, but for centuries there were no continuous buildings between these two points. In the time of Bishop Jocelin (1175-1199) the village had extended so far along the river-side and up the line of the present Saltmarket that the Bishop deemed it advisable to obtain from William the Lion the grant of a weekly market and an annual fair. About this time also, arrangements were made for the erection of manses for the ecclesiastics near the Cathedral. These houses were built on a road running at right angles with the footpath to the river, the part going westward being called the Rottenrow (Ratoun Raw), while the eastward route was called the Drygait. There was thus a sacerdotal burgh in process of formation on the summit of the hill beside the Cathedral, while a secular burgh was gradually developing on the bank of the river. In the course of centuries these two burghs wereconjoined, and thus the “backbone” of Glasgow was formed. The ecclesiastical houses were, of course, more elaborate than those used by the fishermen and tradesmen who were soon attracted to the place by the wealth of the Cathedral; and thus it has happened that the greatest commercial city in Scotland—the second in the United Kingdom—took its rise from the houses of the ecclesiastics by whom the burgh was ruled for a very long period.
No record exists as to the time when the prebendal manses were first erected, but it is certain that Bishop Cameron (1426-1446) increased the number of canons from twenty-five to thirty-two, and caused all of them to build manses within the burgh and near the Cathedral. The sites of many of these manses can be identified from descriptions in old charters, and some of them have only been removed within the past thirty years. The Dean of the Cathedral, who was Parson of Cadzow (now Hamilton), had his manse in the Rottenrow. The Archdeacon of Glasgow was Rector of Menar (now Peebles), and his house stood in the Drygait. Long after the Reformation it came into the possession of the Duke of Montrose, and was known as “the Duke’slodging.” It was removed about 1880, to make way for an extension of the North Prison. The Rector of Morebattle, Archdeacon of Teviotdale, had a manse in the Kirkgait, now also absorbed in the grounds of the North Prison. The Sub-Dean was Rector of Monkland, and his house was on the bank of the Molendinar Burn, south-east of the Cathedral. The Chancellor, Rector of Campsie, lived in the Drygait at the place called “the Limmerfield” to which reference is made in Scott’s “Rob Roy.” The Precentor of the Cathedral, Rector of East Kilbride, had a manse near the Castle, the approach being by the Vicar’s Alley. The Treasurer, Rector of Carnwath, also had a manse, though its site has not been identified. The Sacristan of the Cathedral, Rector of Cambuslang, lived in the Drygait, near the house of the Archdeacon. The Bishop’s Vicar, Parson of Glasgow, had a manse beside the Castle. The Sub-Precentor, Prebendary of Ancrum, had a parsonage in the Vicar’s Alley, north of the Cathedral. The Parson of Eaglesham lived in the Drygait, beside the Archdeacon; and the Rector of Cardross had his manse on the south side of the same street. The manse of the “Canon of Barlanark and Lord of Provan,”in Castle Street, is the only remaining house supposed to have been occupied by him, though it seems more likely to have been erected after the Reformation. The Rector of Carstairs resided in a manse in Rottenrow, beside the houses of the Prebendary of Erskine and the Rector of Renfrew. Other officials who lived in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral were the Rector of Govan, the Vicar of Kirkmahoe, Dumfriesshire, the Rector of Tarbolton, Ayrshire, the Rector of Killearn, Dumbartonshire, the Prebendary of Douglas, Lanarkshire, the Rector of Eddleston, Peeblesshire, the Rector of Stobo, Peeblesshire, and the Rector of Luss, Dumbartonshire. The houses of six of the Prebendaries—Durisdeer, Roxburgh, Ashkirk, Sanquhar, Cumnock, and Ayr—have not been identified, though it is extremely probable that they had to comply with Bishop Cameron’s command, and to erect manses in the burgh. The Hall of the Vicars Choral, with accommodation for eighteen officials, was built on the north side of the Cathedral, by Bishop Andrew Muirhead (1455-1473).
From this list it will be seen how great must have been the influence of this Levite village upon the development of the burgh. Thecomparatively luxurious style of living among the ecclesiastics would attract craftsmen, artificers of various kinds, and merchants trading with other countries to supply the rich garments, the expensive wines, and the numerous delicacies which were deemed necessaries by ecclesiastical dignitaries of high degree. With the Reformation all this grandeur was swept away, but before that epoch Glasgow had been made the favourite residence of many of the Lowland noblemen; and when the sacerdotal burgh disappeared, the secular and commercial city was ready to take its place. The domination of the Church passed, but not before it had prepared the way for its successor. In other Cathedral cities in Scotland a similar process of development may be traced, though not in so distinct a manner as exhibited in the evolution of Glasgow. Verily, that city owes much of its prosperity to the foresight and patriotism of those who ruled in its pre-Reformation Cathedral!
By Rev. Alexander Waters, M.A., B.D.
Manychanges in the form of Church service have been witnessed in the Church of Scotland since the Reformation. In the first book of discipline, compiled by Knox and others in 1560, it is stated that “to the churches where no ministers can be had presentlie must be appointed the most apt men that distinctly can read the common prayers and the Scriptures to exercise both themselves and the church till they grow to greater perfection.” In accordance with this recommendation there were, in parishes where ministers could not be procured to preach and administer the sacraments, a class of men employed in the Church under the name of “readers,” whose office was to read the Scriptures and a liturgy of printed prayers such as is used in the public service of the Church of England. After the Church became more fully plenished with ministers, readers were still in many places continued. In parishes suppliedwith both a reader and a minister there were two distinct services in the church on Sundays. There was, first of all, a preliminary service conducted by the reader. The service consisted of reading the public prayers and portions of Scripture. It usually lasted an hour, and when it ended the minister entered the church and conducted his service of extempore prayer and preaching. In the year 1580 the General Assembly declared that “the office of a reader is not an ordinary office in the Kirk of God;” and the following year it was expressly ordained that readers should not be appointed in any church. It is evident, however, that readers continued to be employed in the Church of Scotland long after that date, both during the episcopacy that subsisted from 1606 to 1637, and during the ascendency of Presbytery from 1637 to 1645.
The Westminster Assembly of Divines ignored the office of reader, and when the Westminster Directory for Public Worship was adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1645, it may be said that the service of the reader was ostensibly and almost practically brought to an end in Scotland. It has to be stated, however, thatreaders were, nevertheless, employed in some parishes long after their office had ceased to be recognised in the constitutions of the church. Mr More, in his account of Scotland in 1715, describes the Sunday service in Scottish churches as follows:—“First the precentor, about half an hour before the preacher comes, reads two or three chapters to the congregation of what part of Scripture he pleases, or as the minister gives him directions. As soon as the preacher gets into the pulpit the precentor leaves reading, and sets a psalm-singing with the people, till the minister by some sign orders him to give over. The psalm over, the preacher begins confessing sins and begging pardon ... then he goes to sermon, delivered always by heart, and, therefore, sometimes spoiled by battologies, little impertinences, and incoherence.”
The reader was usually also precentor, and it will be a natural transition, therefore, to pass on now to an account of that part of the Sunday service which the precentor conducted. In the Reformed Church of Scotland a very limited space was originally allotted to the service of praise in public worship. “There is perhaps no country in Christendom,” says Dr Cunningham,“in which psalmody has been as little cultivated as in Scotland. Wherever the Church of Rome reared her altars, music grew up under her shadow, and gave a new charm to her sensuous services. But Presbytery gave little countenance to such a hand-maid.” The use of instruments in the service of praise was repudiated or almost abjured. Organs were not even allowed standing room in church. In 1574 the Kirk Session of Aberdeen gave orders “that the organis with all expedition be removit out of the kirk and made profeit of to the use and support of the puir.” On his visit to Scotland in 1617 King James endeavoured to inaugurate a more æsthetic and cultured form of worship in Scotland, after the manner of what he had seen in England. Among other innovations he set up an organ in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood. “Upon Satterday, the 17th May,” says Calderwood, “the English service was begun in the Chapel Royal with singing of quirristers, surplices, and playing on organes.” The popular feeling, however, that in 1637 was aroused against the service book was turned against the organ also, and among the outbreaks of 1638 Spalding records that “the glorious organes of the Chapell Royall weremaisterfullie broken doune, nor no service usit thair bot the haill chaplains, choristis, and musicians dischargeit, and the costlie organes altogether destroyit and unusefull.”
The old doctrine of the Church of Scotland in regard to psalmody is tersely expressed in the first book of discipline. “There be two sorts of policie,” it is said in that book; “the one of these sorts is utterlie necessary, as, that the word be preached, the sacraments ministered, and common prayers publicly made. The other sort of policy is profitable, but not necessarie, as, that psalms should be sung and certain places of Scripture read when there is no sermon.” And in accordance with this doctrine there is very little singing of psalms prescribed as part of public worship in either Knox’s Liturgy or the Westminster Directory. In each of these manuals of worship there are only two psalms appointed or supposed to be sung during the minister’s service—one before the sermon and another before the benediction. It is possible, however, that there was, from an early period, a third psalm sung in the church by the congregation, although that psalm was not included in the service. Just as in modern churches where instrumental music has beenintroduced, there is a voluntary played on the organ during the time that the congregation are assembling, so in very ancient times, long before the Reformation, it was customary over a large part of Christendom for the people “to entertain the time with singing of psalms” till the congregation had gathered. And in Scotland within quite recent times the epithet of the “gathering psalm” was commonly applied to what is now called the first psalm.
Pasdoran states that, “It was the ancient practice of the Church of Scotland, as it is yet of some Reformed Churches abroad, for the minister or precentor to read over as much of the psalm in metre as was intended to be sung at once, and then the harmony and melody followed without interruption, and people did either learn to read or got most of the psalms by heart.” What is here called the ancient practice of the Church of Scotland in the rendering of praise is just the practice that is observed at the present day. But soon after 1645 a different practice arose and continued long in the church. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship recommends that, “for the present, where many in the congregation cannotread, it is convenient that the minister or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling elders, do read the psalm line by line before the singing thereof.” The practice was accordingly introduced into the Church of Scotland soon after of giving out the psalms in instalments of one line at a time, and so popular did the practice become, and so essential a part of revered use and wont, that very great difficulty was found long afterwards in getting it discontinued. Indeed, the practice of reading the line was pretty general until the beginning of this century.
Loud objections were raised to the singing of hymns and what, in Scotland, are commonly called paraphrases; and even within living memory this innovation gave rise to bitter controversy. Not a few persons maintained that the only proper subjects for divine praise in public worship are the metrical versions of the Old Testament Psalms. But from the date of the Reformation down to the sitting of the Westminster Assembly, not only were metrical versions of the psalms, but hymns and doxologies also, generally sung in the public worship of the church. The year 1650,however, witnessed a change in that respect. The present version of the psalms was that year printed for use in public worship, and no hymns nor paraphrases were appended. It was not until 1781 that a Committee appointed by the General Assembly submitted “such a collection of sacred poems as they thought might be submitted to the judgment of the church.” It is this 1781 collection of paraphrases that is still, after the lapse of more than a hundred years, bound in Scottish Bibles along with the metrical version of the Psalms of David. The paraphrases have established a secure place in the psalmody of all the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland. But it was not without contention and controversy, strife and bitterness, that the paraphrases made their way into use in the services of public worship. The writer has seen a worthy elder violently close his Bible on the giving out of a paraphrase, and remain seated while it was being sung.
Having described the reader’s and precentor’s service, there remains the service that specially devolved on the minister. It is well known that a liturgy was at one time, and for a longtime, used in the Church of Scotland. Knox’s liturgy continued to be used by some ministers and readers down to the year 1637 at least. Its use was by no means universal, however, during that period. Extempore prayers were always popular with the general public, but when young and raw readers, however sparely gifted and not more than half-educated, took on themselves, as they often did, to treat congregations to extempore prayers, the guardians of public manners were shocked. It was a shame to all religion, said King Charles I., to have the majesty of God so barbarously spoken to; and, as a remedy for this deformity, as he termed it, in the public worship of the Church of Scotland, Charles issued a new service book to be used as a liturgy by all preachers and readers. But neither minister nor people would take the king’s liturgy, and extempore prayers became more established in use and favour than ever.