Part IV — The Christian Period — The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland by Daniel Wilson

Part IV The Christian Period

“Tantum ergo sacramentum
  Veneremur cernui,
Et antiquum documentum
  Novo cedat ritui,
Præstet fides supplementum
  Sensuum defectui.”

S. Thomæ Aquinatis
Hymnus de Corpore Christi.

Chapter I — Historical Data

By whatever course the earlier colonists of the British Isles reached our shores and diffused the first influences of the presence of man, as well as those succeeding evidences of his progress, the traces of which have been reviewed in the preceding sections, it is unquestionable that that latest and most important of all sources of change, the introduction of Christianity, took place by a very different route from that of the Straits of Dover. All the affinities indicated by the later and well-defined relics of native art point to a more intimate intercourse and community of customs and arts between the natives of Scotland and Ireland than between those of the northern and southern parts of the island of Great Britain, taking as its natural intermediate boundary the Highlands of Northumberland and Cumberland. South of this the tribes partook of the characteristics of those of the neighbouring continent. They shared in the civilisation of the north of Europe, held by its mythology, and were involved in its enslavement by the aggressive expansion of the overgrown Roman empire; while the nations both of northern Albany and of the Irish isle were left to the unmitigated influences, for good or evil, of their wild independence. The geographical position of the British and Irish coasts sufficiently accounts for frequent intercourse between the natives of Scotland and Ireland from the earliest periods. While the narrowest part of St. George’s Channel has a breadth of about sixty-five miles, the opposite coasts of the Mull of Cantyre and of Fair Head in the county of Antrim, are only fourteen miles apart. The remarkable ancient historical Gaelic poem, generally termed the ALBANIC DUAN, written in its present form in the reign of Malcolm Canmore about the middle of the eleventh century, thus refers to the first peopling of Scotland and the Irish origin of the northern Picts:—

“Ye learned of all Albin,
Ye wise, yellow-haired race,
Learn who was the first
To acquire the districts of Albin.

“Albanus acquired them with his race,
The illustrious son of Isiscon,
Brother to Britus, without treachery:
From him Albin of ships takes its name.
* * * * * * *
“The Cruithne acquired the western region,
After they had come from the plains of Erin:
Seventy noble kings of them
Acquired the Cruithen plains.”510

Of the history of the neighbouring island during the first centuries of the Christian era our knowledge is necessarily extremely imperfect and uncertain; nor have the over-zealous exertions of Irish antiquaries to clear up this period of their national annals greatly added to our information. Without, however, entering upon the controverted ground of primitive Irish history, it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that at the period of the introduction of Christianity into Ireland it was occupied by the Hiberni, an ancient if not aboriginal Celtic race, by the Cruithne, as the inhabitants of Ulster are called by the native annalists, and also by the Scoti, a race who had then apparently established themselves in Ireland, and secured a complete supremacy over the elder native population, at no very distant date. Whencesoever this latter race was derived, we have evidence that they were considerably advanced in civilisation, though their superiority appears to have been less in arts than in arms, the traces of early artistic skill being generally ascribed on satisfactory grounds to the older races who acknowledged their supremacy. So effectual was their superiority in arms, however, in effacing every trace of the independence and nationality of the more ancient tribes, that towards the close of the third century at the latest, the name of Scotia appears to have been generally applied to Ireland, and for nearly seven centuries continued to indicate the Hibernia of Latin writers.

Christianity had already gained some partial footing in Ireland prior to the apostolic mission of St. Patrick, who was consecrated for that purpose by Pope Celestine, A.D. 433. Both the parentage and country of the Irish apostle have been made the subject of recent controversy, but, according to the most commonly accepted history, the little village of Kilpatrick, on the north bank of the Clyde, between Glasgow and Dumbarton, claims the honour of having given birth to the patron saint of Ireland; in return for which the Scottish apostle, St. Columba, is acknowledged as of Irish origin. Though Ireland was not unknown to the Romans no attempt appears to have been made to subject it to their grasping sway, and it was accordingly left to reap by indirect means the advantages of southern civilisation. This the introduction of the new religion most effectually promoted. Greek and Roman literature received the attention of the clergy in a way that produced far more direct and beneficial results than any which flowed from the intrusion of Roman civilisation and supremacy into the neighbouring island. A native literature was developed and fostered, native arts sprung up, and architecture assumed a peculiar national character. From the middle of the fifth till nearly the close of the eighth century, Ireland was among the most civilized and prosperous of the nations of Europe, and wanted only a native Alfred or a Canmore to give the same unity to its independent tribes which St. Patrick had conferred on its ecclesiastical state.

It was during this prosperous era, in the very beginning of the sixth century,511 that a small colony of these Irish Scoti effected a settlement in the district of Scotland now known as the county of Argyle, and conferred on it the name of Dalriada, according to spurious monkish traditions, in honour of their leader, Cairbre Riada, a celebrated Scottic warrior whose epoch is assigned by older Irish annalists to the third century. This, however, was certainly not the first interchange of races between Scotland and Ireland, nor did it exercise any immediate influence on Scottish history. The earliest authentic records succeeding the era of Roman invasion exhibit Scotland divided into the kingdoms of the Cruithne, or Northern Picts, and the Piccardach, or Southern Picts. The Irish Cruithneans were doubtless a Celtic colony originally from Scotland. Early writers agree in recognising both by the same name of Picts, though few subjects have excited more fruitless controversy than the attempts to assign historic consistency to the half-fabulous race of Scottish Picti, or even to agree on the derivation or meaning of their name. The nec falso nomine Picti of Claudian was long assumed as decisive of their being mere naked savages, who decorated their bodies with paint. But this error is now generally abandoned. A more consistent derivation may be sought in the Welsh peith, to scream, to fight, whence pic-t-a, fighting man. In accordance with such a derivation it appears to have been common to more than one native tribe or kingdom, and to have been rarely or never used unaccompanied by some distinctive epithet, such as the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or Gaelic Picts of the Welsh Triads.

Into the long disputed question of the origin of the Pictish race, it is happily no longer needful to enter at large. Much learning and acrimony have been expended on it, not altogether without reason; for its proper understanding involves the consistent resolution of that period, of no slight importance in Scottish history, intervening between the year 296 of our present era, when the first mention of the Scottish Picti occurs,512 and the intrusion of the Saxon race in the eleventh century into the kingdom of the Southern Picts. To the critical researches of one or two recent writers, and especially to the consistent narrative of Skene in his able work on the Highlanders of Scotland, we owe the rescue of this portion of Scottish history from the confusion and mystery to which monkish legends and modern controversy had consigned it. During this important era which intervenes between the final retreat of the Romans and the accession of Malcolm Canmore, we find North Britain divided into the three kingdoms of the Northern and Southern Picts and the Dalriads. The Irish derivation of the latter being undoubted, further research into their origin has been left to Hibernian antiquaries, while our native writers long sought in vain to discover any clue either to the intrusion or extrusion of the Pictish race, which if distinct from the old Celtic population, must have appeared and disappeared like the winter’s snow. By some they have been supposed to have been utterly eradicated by successive invaders, or to have gradually disappeared as a distinct race by marriage and intermingling with their supplanters. Others have maintained that the Northern and Southern Picts were two distinct races, of which the latter alone were exterminated or driven from the soil by the successive invasions of the Lowlands, while the former maintained their ground, which is still possessed by their descendants the Scottish Highlanders. The weight of evidence, however, and the manifest coincidence between the ancient topographical nomenclature throughout the whole of Scotland, leave no room to doubt that both the Northern and Southern Picts, who have long formed a mythic and half-fabulous race in the popular traditions of Scotland, were none other than the original Celtæ, who so resolutely withstood the Roman invaders. Ptolemy gives the names of thirteen Caledonian tribes; in some editions of the Old Geographer the number is extended to seventeen; and to these the questionable authority of Richard of Cirencester adds at least four more. In all probability the greater number of these existed as independent and frequently rival tribes, up to the period of Roman invasion, and were for the first time united under one leader or chief when Galgacus led them against the legions of Agricola. The immense host, however, which he brought into the field, shews that Scotland was then no longer a savage and thinly-peopled country, while their war-chariots, their shields, huge iron swords, and other effective accoutrements, have already been referred to in evidence of the progress which they had then made in the useful arts. This union against a common enemy, maintained as we have good reason for believing it was, throughout the whole period of the Roman occupation of Scotland, was perhaps the most important of all the fruits which Scotland reaped from the intrusion of the civilized Romans; and to it we may with much probability ascribe the permanent coalition of the numerous independent tribes, and the consequent establishment of the two Pictish kingdoms, the limits of which were to a great extent determined by the natural features of the country. Both spoke dialects of the same Celtic language, to which the philologist still turns for explanation of the more ancient name of Lowland as well as Highland localities, and which still exists as a living tongue among the Scottish Gael. In the Welsh Triads, which are believed to be fully as old as the sixth century, the Picts are uniformly designated, without distinction, as the Gwyddyl Ffichti, that is the Gaelic or Celtic Picts; and Bede, in enumerating the different languages in which the gospel was taught in Britain, speaks of the lingua Pictorum as one tongue, though it is apparent elsewhere that he was familiar with the distinction between Northern and Southern Picts. Even Ritson, while fiercely opposing the idea of any community of origin between the Caledonian Britons and the Picts, admits that the language of the latter was a Celtic idiom.513 They were in fact the descendants of the only primitive Scottish race of which we possess any authentic historical evidence: the Albiones of Festus Avienus; the race of Albanus of the “Albanic Duan;” the Albanich of Welsh and native writers; and the most numerous and powerful representatives of a people which we have reason to believe continued exclusively to occupy the British Islands from a period the commencement of which we must seek in those dim unchronicled centuries we have already attempted to explore, down to the fifth or perhaps the fourth century B.C. Then began what we should call the Teutonic Invasion, and the long quiescent Celtæ once more renewed their old nomadic life. Yet the lapse of so many centuries has not sufficed to efface the ancient characteristics by which we still recognise as one race the Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish Celtæ.

Of six modern Celtic dialects still recognised in Europe, four belong to the British Isles. A fifth, the Cornish, now extinct, also pertained to the same insular home of the Κέλται, while the only remaining one, the Armorican, or dialect of Brittany, belongs to a country intimately associated in the history of its early colonization with Britain. The table of the modern Celtic dialects of Europe, as modified by Dr. Charles Meyer, and adopted by Dr. Latham,514 from that given by Dr. Prichard in his “Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations,” is as follows—divided primarily into two great dialects, each composed of three separate idioms:—

I. The Gallic or British.

1. Cymric or Welsh.

2. Cornish.

3. Armorican, or dialect of Brittany.

II. The Gaelic OR Erse.

1. Fenic or Irish.

2. Gaelic or Highland Scottish.

3. Manx.

But a new race of strangers acquired a footing in Scotland, who were destined to bear no unimportant part in its history. The colony of Irish Scoti, or Dalriadic Scots, having effected a settlement in the district of Argyle, continued to occupy this limited locality for upwards of three hundred years, without seeking to extend their possessions beyond the natural boundaries which inclose the Western Highlands. To this period we may with little hesitation assign many of the traces of ancient population, civilized arts, and extensive cultivation, which have been described in a former chapter.[515] A close intercourse appears to have been always maintained between the Scottish Dalriads and their Irish progenitors, and the history of the Dalriadic kingdom is still chiefly derivable from Irish annalists. From these we are led to conclude that the number and influence of the Dalriadic Scots had gradually increased, while the attention of the Northern and Southern Picts was chiefly engrossed by their own rival jealousies; but their position was frequently precarious, and for nearly three centuries they owed their safety fully as much to the natural isolation of their little kingdom, as to the dissensions of the Picts and the fidelity with which the Irish Scoti adhered to this colonial offshoot from the parent stock. The cooperation and alliance of the Dalriads at length became objects of consideration to these neighbouring rivals, and we learn of a union between the Scots and the Northern Picts, entered upon in the year 731, for the purpose of supplanting Angus MacFergus, a Southern Pict, who then occupied the throne.

At first the Cruithne and their allies were completely worsted, and for upwards of eighty years the larger portion of the kingdom of Dalriada appears to have been subjected to the rule of the Southern Picts. There is abundant evidence, however, that the Irish Scoti continued to maintain a close intercourse with their Dalriadic descendants, and made common cause with them against the Piccardach. The Irish annals occasionally afford the only evidence we now possess of the wars then waged between Scots and Picts, by recording the death of their native kings and chiefs, slain in Albany when fighting with their Dalriadic kindred. But for this powerful aid, it is difficult to conceive how the Dalriads could have held their ground within the small territory which they occupied, in opposition to a powerful kingdom united under one sovereign, even with all the skilful tact with which they availed themselves of the jealousies and rivalry existing between the northern and southern tribes. The struggle between the Dalriads and Picts assumed latterly in some degree the character of a war of succession. There is reason to believe, from several of the names of the Dalriadic kings, that they had not failed to strengthen their alliances with the Northern Picts by intermarriage, so that it is not improbable, owing to the peculiar Celtic ideas of succession by the female line, that the Dalriads may have acquired a claim to the Pictish throne. There appears, however, not only to have existed lines of hereditary sovereigns, succeeding according to the peculiar Pictish laws of succession to the supreme rule, but also a hereditary nobile genus, or patrician class, holding as tenaciously by the purity of their blood and lineage, as under the most stringent rule of the lyon kings-at-arms of a later age.516 Much obscurity still rests on this period of our national history. Partially and at intervals we discover glimpses of the struggle then going on, amid which, however, increasing evidences suffice to shew that fortune favoured the Dalriadic Scots, until in the year 843 the whole of Scotland is found united under the sceptre of Kenneth MacAlpin, originally sovereign of the little kingdom of Dalriada.

This is that remarkable epoch in our national history known by the name of the Scottish Conquest. It has naturally formed the subject of much investigation and of still more debate. Our earlier historians, assuming the results to have corresponded with the term Conquest, attribute to Kenneth the total extermination of the Piccardach or Southern Picts; the consequence of which has been, that later and more accurate writers, seeking in vain for any evidence of so complete a revolution, have been inclined to pronounce the whole a fable. But it still remains for us to inquire if no other elements of friendly alliance and permanent union existed between the Picts and Scots than those which sprung from cooperation against a common foe. A tradition of a Spanish origin appears to have been ascribed to the Irish Scoti from the earliest period. It is interwoven into all the fables and monkish legends of our earlier chroniclers, and has already been alluded to in reference to the Lia Fail. It is now perhaps vain to attempt to analyze this obscure and doubtful tradition, though we are not without evidence of its probability.517 The period of their arrival in Ireland is necessarily very partially ascertained, though our information is perhaps sufficiently authentic and minute if we assume, from the notice of Avienus, already referred to, that they were unknown in Ireland in the fourth century before Christ, while we have good evidence of their presence there at the period of Julius Cæsar’s British invasion. During this interval history furnishes very satisfactory means of accounting for such a migration. In the year B.C. 218, the second and fiercest struggle between the rival republics of Carthage and Rome was commenced by Hannibal taking Saguntum, a town on the eastern coast of Spain. The Peninsula thereafter became the theatre of a war afterwards carried by Hannibal into Italy, which was not concluded till B.C. 202, when Spain was added to the growing empire of the Italian Republic. But the natives of Spain did not willingly bow to the yoke. One of the bloodiest of all the Roman wars commenced in Spain B.C. 153, and did not finally terminate for twenty years, during which cities were razed to the ground, multitudes massacred and made slaves, and the triumphant arms of Rome borne to the Atlantic shores. Here therefore is an epoch in the history of the Spanish peninsula which seems completely to coincide with the ancient traditions of the Scoti, and the knowledge we possess of the period of their arrival in Ireland.

Such coincidences are not of course to be accepted as absolute proof; but in the absence of more direct evidence they are well worthy of attention, as guiding us to some knowledge of that race which had acquired a footing in Ireland, and partially displaced the aboriginal Hiberni shortly before the Roman invasion of England. But we have still the evidence of philology, the prevailing topographical nomenclature of Ireland, and the dialects of its earliest native literature, all adding confirmation to the conclusion that the Scoti were only another branch of the great Celtic family, which, after enjoying the advantages of commercial intercourse with Phœnicia and Carthage, and sharing in the civilisation of the distinguished nations then bordering on the Mediterranean, had at length been driven forth from their settlements on the western shores of Spain by the encroachments of the Roman Republic. The brief and very partial presence of a Scandinavian race in Scotland is still traceable in its dialects and topographical nomenclature; but no such indications within the limits of the ancient Dalriada, or in the Erse as contrasted with the British dialects of the Celtic language, betray indications of the Irish Scoti having interfused any elements of a foreign tongue into the ancient language of the Scottish Gael. Assuming, therefore, their Celtic origin we can readily understand how a race speaking a cognate dialect, and seeking the shores of Ireland, not as invaders, but as refugees, might rapidly acquire the supremacy over the older Celtic races inferior to them in the arts of war. Such a superior Celtic race were no less fitted to become the colonists and chiefs of Caledonia; and to this consanguinity between the Irish Scoti and the Scottish Picts, which rests more on philological evidence than on any theory of the direct origin of the former, we must look for one of the most important elements in that remarkable revolution of the ninth century known as the Scottish Conquest. The subdivisions of the great Celtic family are of much more importance in relation to the early history of the British islands, and especially of Scotland, than the later Teutonic migrations. There are, first, two great subdivisions, arising apparently from the different routes by which the Celtæ migrated from Asia to the north-west of Europe; and secondly, there are the minor subdivisions,—of greater importance in their bearing on the present inquiry,—resulting from successive arrivals in this country of offshoots from both the great streams of migration, modified by previous sojourn in different countries of Europe, and probably also by some intermingling with foreign races. Thus, the Cruithne and Piccardach, or Northern and Southern Picts of Scotland, are frequently distinguished by the Welsh chroniclers as the Gwyddyl duon and the Gwyddyl gwyn, or black and fair Gaels. Perhaps the term Du-Caledones (Di-Caledones), by which the Romans distinguished the Northern from the Vecturiones or Southern Picts, is only a combination of the Celtic du or dubh, black, with the generic name adopted by them. The Scoti appear also to have been of the fair race, which may, perhaps, be assumed as the indication of a purer Caucasian origin than the Cruithne or Gwyddyl duon of the north. They are termed in the Welsh Triads the Gwyddyl coch or Red Gaels; while the name of Scot, which has adhered to them and to the later country of their adoption, is none other than that of Nomade, Scuta, wanderer, first applied to the refugees—as we conceive from Spain—who in the second century B.C. sought a new home amid the Irish Celtæ.518 It is to be noted, however, in reference to the former appellations, that both the Scots and Irish were wont to distinguish the Scandinavian invaders by the name of Dubh-Ghaill, the black strangers,—a term derived not from their complexion but their costume.

The presence of a Pictish race—the Cruithne—in Ireland, contemporary with the Scottish Piccardach and Cruithne, and the very great correspondence between many of the gold and bronze relics, as well as the older architectural and monumental antiquities of Scotland and Ireland, all point to a very close intercourse maintained between the two countries at an early period, while the remarkable historical poem, the Albanic Duan, already quoted, assigns to the Cruithne of Scotland an Irish origin. Under such circumstances the occupation of Dalriada by a Scotic colony speaking a dialect of the same language as the Caledonian Picts would be too unimportant a change to excite any notice beyond the limits of the Western Highlands. The native tribes whose borders were encroached upon would settle their disputes according to the summary diplomacy of primitive courts; and that done, intercourse, alliances, and intermarriages would follow as naturally between Scots and Picts as between Piccardach and Cruithne. So, in like manner, when the Scots in alliance with the Cruithne or Northern Picts conquered the Piccardach or Southern Picts, it was merely transferring the supremacy to a more powerful branch of the same great Celtic family. There existed few of the causes for lasting or deadly feud which occur in the struggle for power between rival races, such as the Moors and Goths of Spain, or the English and Irish. The struggle in England between the Normans and Saxons owed its chief elements of bitterness to other causes, as is proved by the readiness with which the two races intermingled when they met on common ground and on an equal footing in the Scottish Lowlands, under Malcolm Canmore. Aided by the very summary processes adopted in rude periods for getting quit of the elements of a disputed regal succession, the lapse of a single generation would suffice to obliterate the animosities between Scot and Pict, and to establish the former in undisputed possession of such supremacy as the Normans had to compel and to maintain for several generations in England, at the point of the sword. Perhaps it formed another element of interfusion among the various Celtic races that the supremacy of the Scoti was solely as warriors. The old native race are always referred to by the Irish bards as superior to them in the knowledge of the arts; a fact perhaps sufficiently accounted for on the presumption of their arrival in Ireland as refugees, after a protracted strife extending over more than one generation, during which the refined arts and luxuries of civilisation would disappear in the struggle for existence. This also may in some degree account for the fact that the Scoti allied themselves with the inferior and most dissimilar race in Scotland, compelled thereto obviously by the superiority of the Piccardach or Fair Picts. But the superior race finally triumphed. The Scoti, indeed, with the aid of the Cruithne, gained the ascendency; but on the extinction of the Scotic line of princes descended from Kenneth MacAlpin, or on the transference of the crown to a collateral branch, according to ancient Pictish law, it seems to have returned to the fair race of the Piccardach. The ultimate ground of dispute between the two, which proved the chief stumblingblock, and prevented a complete union of the southern and northern kingdoms during the reign of the Scottish dynasty, was this Celtic idea of succession through brothers, in opposition to the hereditary succession aimed at by the Dalriadic race, and which was not so effectually forced on the Northern Picts even by the Saxon Conquest as to prevent its revival by Donald Bain, on the death of Malcolm Canmore in 1093. The concluding stanzas of the Albanic Duan, written in the early part of Malcolm’s reign, are peculiarly characteristic of the revived claims of the Gwyddyl duon,—

“Malcolm is now the king,
Son of Duncan of the yellow countenance,
His duration no one knoweth
But the knowing one who alone is knowing.

Two kings and fifty,—listen,—
To the son of Duncan of the ruddy countenance,
Of the race of Erc high, clear in gold,
Possessed Alban,—ye learned.”

But though a variety of evidence seems to refer to the Scoti as inferior in arts to the native Irish, it is still probable that Ireland owes to them the introduction from the southern seats of European civilisation of some of the useful and ornamental arts, the traces of which are so abundant throughout the island. It is, however, chiefly to their undoubted superiority in arms over the kindred races that previously were in possession of the ancient kingdoms both of Hibernia and of Albany, that we must ascribe the singular and almost unparalleled occurrence of the conquerors transferring their own name to the whole race and country subject to their rule.

Such is a hasty glance at the most important events pertaining to the civil history of Scotland during the first centuries of the Christian era, with an attempt to account for some of the changes that have heretofore seemed most difficult to reconcile with ascertained facts. But other and no less remarkable changes were, meanwhile, being wrought on the native tribes of Caledonia. The legionaries of Rome had in vain attempted to penetrate into their fastnesses; but other Roman missionaries of civilisation followed with more abundant success. Towards the latter end of the fourth century, ere yet the little kingdom of Dalriada had a being, a youth, the son of a British Prince of Cumberland, visited Rome during the Pontificate of Damasus, elected Bishop of Rome, A.D. 366. Young Nynias, or Ninian, remained there till the succession of Siricius to the Popedom, A.D. 384, who, according to Bede, finding the young Briton trained in the faith and mysteries of the truth, ordained him, and sent him as a Christian missionary to preach the faith to the heathen tribes of North Britain. This is the celebrated British Bishop St. Ninian, or St. Ringan, as he is more frequently styled in Scotland, where numerous churches, chapels, holy wells, as also caves and other noted localities, still bear his name. Arriving in Britain towards the close of the fourth century, he tarried not among his native mountains of Cumberland, but crossing the Solway, established the chief seat of his mission at Whithern, in Wigtonshire, a prominent headland of the old province of Galloway, where he erected the celebrated Candida Casa, according to Bede, “a church of stone, built in a manner unusual among the Britons.”519 The fact is of great value, as disproving the assumption of both Scottish and Irish antiquaries, prior to Dr. Petrie, that the earliest British churches were constructed of wattles. The remains of Roman buildings in Scotland suffice to shew that the Britons of the fourth century had not then to learn, for the first time, the art of masonry, though the facilities offered by a thickly wooded country frequently led the first Christian missionaries to employ its oak and plaited reeds in the construction of their chapels and cells. We are told by Bede that the first church of Lindisfarne was built by St. Finan, more Scotorum, non de lapide, sed de robore secto et arundine.

The brethren of Iona, too, as Adomnan incidentally mentions, were challenged by the proprietor, from whose lands they had gathered stakes and wands for the repair of their dwellings. Yet notable as the cathedral church of Whithern doubtless was, we can have little hesitation in picturing it to our own minds as a sufficiently humble and primitive structure, though distinguished among contemporary edifices, and dear to us in no ordinary degree, as the first British temple consecrated to the rites of the true faith. The Candida Casa, or white-walled cathedral of Whithern, though dedicated originally to St. Martin,520 became the shrine of the Scottish apostle St. Ninian, and the resort of many a royal and noble pilgrimage, down even to the Reformation; but it would be vain now to look for any relics of this most interesting primitive structure on the bold headland of Galloway, though the fragments of a later ruined chancel still mark the site of St. Ringan’s famous shrine.

The death of the primitive Scottish Bishop St. Ninian took place A.D. 432. According to the accepted biography of St. Patrick it was in the following year that Pope Celestine consecrated him a Bishop, and sent him on his mission to Ireland. But the labours of the Scottish missionary had not been in vain. “The brethren of St. Ninian at Whithern” became the centre of an important movement, influencing a large and rapidly increasing sphere, and from their labours there is reason to believe that both England and Ireland received the first impressions towards that great movement which ultimately included the British Isles within the ecclesiastical unity of papal Christendom. It furnishes no inconclusive evidence of the progress of the new faith in the British Isles, that St. Palladius was sent from Rome to the Christian Scots, towards the middle of the fifth century, for the purpose of uprooting the Pelagian heresy. His chief mission was to Ireland, where the Scots were then settled, but he also cared for the converts of the neighbouring isle, then connected with Ireland both by frequent intercourse and by affinity of races. He personally visited the Christian Picts of North Britain, and despatched his disciple St. Servanus, or St. Serf, as he is more usually styled, to the Northern Islands, for the purpose of preaching the true faith to the natives of Orkney and Shetland. That he also was successful many local names and traditions, and even some ecclesiological relics, hereafter referred to, suffice to prove, and thus we arrive at the important fact, that Christianity had already established a firm footing, both in the Scottish mainland and the isles, long before we have any evidence of the presence of the Scandinavians, even as roving marauders, on our coasts. The value of this will be at once apparent, as shewing the necessity which authentic history imposes upon us of referring to a period long anterior to the intrusion of the earliest Scandinavian colonists into Scotland, the erection of the monolithic structures, memorial cairns, and other primitive monuments, which fanciful theorists have assigned, without evidence, to such foreign origin. It is uncertain how long St. Palladius was in Scotland, but his last days were spent there, and he died among his Cruithnean converts at Fordun, in Mag-girgin, or the Mearns. We find good evidence that the influence of his preaching was not evanescent. Before the end of the fifth century churches had been founded, and brotherhoods of priests established, both in the islands and on the mainland; and Bede relates that, in the beginning of the eighth century, while yet the Dalriadic Scots remained within the narrow limits of their first possessions in the Western Highlands, the Pictish king sent to his own monastery of Jarrow, craving that builders might be commissioned to construct for him a church of stone after the Roman manner. From this we are led to infer that the “mos Scotorum” referred to by Bede, of building both houses and churches of timber and wattles, was also the “mos Pictorum” of the same period; but Dr. Petrie has already conclusively established the fact that this custom prevailed only to a very limited extent in Ireland, and contemporarily with the erection of religious structures of so substantial a nature that characteristic examples of them still remain in sufficient preservation to shew perfectly what they had been in their original state. It is indeed from Adomnan’s Life of St. Columba that Dr. Petrie produces the earliest historical authority which satisfactorily proves the erection of a round tower in the sixth century.521 We search in vain for such primitive ecclesiastical structures in Scotland, or even for the stone churches which Boniface and other Italian builders, sent at King Nectan’s desire, are said to have built at Invergowrie, Tealing, and Restennet in Angus, at Rosemarky in Ross, as well as in other parts of the kingdom of the Northern Picts. Yet it will be hereafter seen that we are not without some evidence of the character of primitive Scottish churches “built after the Roman manner.”

Besides the primitive Christian missionaries referred to as bringing tidings of the new faith to Scotland, St. Rule, St. Adrian, St. Woloc, St. Kieran, and St. Kentigern, must each be noted as sharing in the good work. But the religious establishment which St. Columba founded at Iona, in the middle of the sixth century, is justly regarded as the true centre of all the most sacred and heart-stirring associations connected with the establishment of Christianity in Scotland. “That illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions,” still awakens feelings in the mind of every thoughtful visitor, such as no other Scottish locality can give birth to, unless a Scotsman may be pardoned if he associate with it, not “the plain of Marathon,” but the field of Bannockburn. We look in vain for any natural features in this remarkable island to account for its selection as the centre of primitive Christian missions in Britain. It is only about two and a half miles in length, and one in breadth. The waves of the Atlantic dash, with almost unceasing roar, against the rugged granite cliffs which guard its southern and western coasts; and but for the memory of its sacred historical associations, and of its ancient magnificence which has utterly passed away, there is nothing about the little island, placed far amid the melancholy main, that could now tempt the most curious traveller to approach its shores. St. Kieran, the favourite Celtic saint, was the precursor of St. Columba, and even it is said his instructor in the faith. He came from Ireland in 503, with the sons of Ere, thus celebrated in the Albanic Duan as converts of St. Patrick,—

“The sons of Erc, son of Eathach the prosperous,
The three who obtained the blessing of Saint Patrick.”

The cave of St. Kieran is still shewn in Kintyre, where the first Christian teacher of the Western Highlands is believed to have made his abode. If the dates of this remote era may be relied on, it was not till upwards of half a century after the arrival of St. Kieran, that the great Apostle of Scotland landed on its shores. The record of Bede is equally simple and precise,—“Anno DLXV. Columba presbyter de Scotia venit Brittaniam ad docendos Pictos, et in insula Hii monasterium fecit.” The isolation of that little island might perhaps be thought to have proved an attraction to Colum M’Felim M’Fergus, when he abandoned Ireland in his rude currach, or boat of hides, and sought an asylum among the Scottish Picts. But the old Celtic traditions seem rather to indicate, that in the true missionary spirit he bearded the ancient faith in its stronghold, and reared the primitive Christian fane of Iona, where of old the Pagan circle had stood. The name of Hii, or I, by which the sacred isle is most generally known, signifies emphatically The Island. It is also familiar to us as Ii-Cholum Chille, or the Island of Columba’s Cell; but the Highlanders, to the present day, frequently apply to it the name of Innis nan Druidheanach, or the Island of the Druids, or magicians. The first structure reared by St. Columba and his followers on Iona, was doubtless as humble as the little currach by which they had reached its shores. One curious passage, already referred to, speaks of the Abbot as sending forth his monks to gather bundles of twigs with which to build their Hospice. The little chapel of St. Oran, the first follower of St. Columba who found a grave in the sacred soil, still exists, and has been frequently described as a work of the sixth century, but the experienced ecclesiologist will feel little hesitation in dating it full six centuries later. It is not indeed at such spots as Whithern or Iona that we are to look for the existence of primitive structures. The veneration which made these the favourite resorts of pilgrims for many centuries, was little likely to permit the first homely fane to continue, at a period when the re-edifying of churches and monasteries, on a larger and more magnificent scale, was one of the readiest exponents of the piety or contrition which the Church inculcated on its disciples. If any of the primitive Scottish churches still exist, they must be looked for in localities less favoured by the fidelity of medieval piety or superstition.

Christianity we thus perceive was established in Scotland at a very early period, altogether apart from any contemporary intercourse which England may have maintained more directly with the converts of the neighbouring continent. Several important centres were fixed at various points, including the extreme south-west of Scotland, the remote northern, and the western Isles. From these the faith rapidly radiated to the whole surrounding regions, and was even carried by the youthful zeal of the new converts to distant shores. The Icelandic Sagas furnish abundant proof of the conversion of the natives of North Britain and Ireland long prior to Scandinavia, and of the direct influence which they exercised in the Christianizing of the north. When Norsemen first visited Iceland in the latter half of the ninth century, it was uninhabited, but they discovered traces of the former presence of Irish monks, and found their books, crosiers, and bells. This account, derived from the Sagas, receives independent confirmation from the narrative of Dicuil, an Irish monk of the ninth century, who states that monks from Ireland had resided in Iceland for six months, and also visited the Færo Islands, and found them uninhabited.522 There also existed in ancient times a church in Iceland dedicated to St. Columba, and a native Icelander is described as having been educated by an abbot named Patrick, in the Western Isles of Scotland or Ireland. We likewise find in the names of several of the northern Scottish Islands, and in the traces of the dedications of their earliest churches, ample confirmation of their inhabitants having been Christianized prior to any Scandinavian settlement. The islands of North and South Ronaldshay are now distinguished by their relative positions, but their ancient names are Rinansey and Rögnvalsey. Professor P. A. Munch, of Christiania, adds in a letter referring to this subject,—“I have no doubt that the name of the island, before the Scandinavian settlement, was St. Ninian’s Island, Ringan’s Island, Ronan’s Island, which involves the Christianity of the ancient Celtic population before the Norwegian settlement.” It is not, however, with Scandinavian antiquaries that we have to contend in clearing up these points of national history, but with British writers, who vainly seek the sources of native arts and civilisation in those of nations younger than our own. Mr. Worsaae acknowledges that Ireland was Christianized several centuries before Scandinavia, and largely contributed towards the conversion of the latter to the new faith. Interesting traces still remain in the names of many Scottish localities of the primitive Christian colonies, and of the collegiate establishments founded, like that of Iona, in many of the northern and western Isles, several of which are mentioned by Adomnan in his Life of St. Columba. In the curious diploma addressed to Eric, king of Norway, respecting the genealogy of William Saint Clair, Earl of Orkney, drawn up by Thomas Tulloch, bishop of Orkney, about 1443,—wherein, for the sake of brevity, he lets pass many “notable operationis and gestis, and referrs ws till auld cronikis and genealogiis, autentik and approbat,” the following notice occurs: “Sua we find that in the tyme of Harald Comate, first king of Norwege, this land, or contre insulare of Orchadie, was inhabitat and mainerit be twa nations callit Peti and Pape, quhilk twa nations, indeid, war all wterlie and clenlie destroyit be Norwegens, of the clan or tribe of the maist stowt Prince Rognald.”523 These were undoubtedly the native Celtic population, or Picts—of the total extermination of whom a document of the fifteenth century cannot be regarded as very conclusive evidence—and the Papæ or ecclesiastical fraternities sent forth from Iona. In the Life of St. Columba it is stated, that the Saint chancing to meet a prince of the Orkneys at the palace of King Brude, commended to his care some monks who had lately sailed to the Northern Seas, and the missionaries afterwards owed their life to his intercession.524 The Landnáma states, that wherever the Norwegian settlers found monks, or remains of their establishments, they called the places by some name beginning with Pap, from pfaff, Papa, πάππας, a priest,—as Papey, the Priest’s Island; Papuli, the Priest’s district. In Orkney there are two Papeys; the larger Papa Westray, the smaller Papa Stronsay. In the mainland also there is Paplay, (Papuli); another Paplay in South Ronaldshay; in Shetland two Papeys, Papa Stour and Papa Little; and a Papill (Papilia) in Unst. In the Hebrides also there are two Pabbys, (Papey,) and a Pappadill in Rum. Adomnan mentions, besides his own monastery, those of Achaluing, Himba, Elanna-oma, and Kilduin; the three last supposed to be Oransay, Colonsay, and Loch Awe. Eig, Islay, Urquhart, Inchcolm in the Frith of Forth, Govan on the Clyde, and many other religious sites, are also ascribed, on more or less trustworthy authority, to the missionary zeal of St. Columba, and his immediate followers; while a still earlier origin is assigned, not without some evidence, to various of the ancient Culdee Houses reformed by David I., or merged by him in the magnificent monastic establishments which he founded. Great as was the influence of the Northmen in retarding the fruits of early missionary zeal, it is obvious that they rarely so effectually despoiled the Christian establishments as to permanently eradicate them, or break the traditional sanctity which has consecrated their sites to the service of religion even to our own day. Iona, burned in 802, was rebuilt in 806. Sixty-eight of the brethren perished by the hands of the Pagan Northmen the same year: yet in 814, we again find them founding and building. It is impossible, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that Christianity was very extensively diffused throughout North Britain, and that numerous ecclesiastical fraternities had been established on the mainland and surrounding islands long before the natives learned to watch the horizon for the plundering fleets of the Norse rovers.

It is not till the ninth century that we find authentic traces of the Scandinavian Vikings on the Scottish shores. While, however, we regard the Pagan Northmen in the light of lawless spoilers, preying on weaker or defenceless neighbours, we must beware of the error of supposing that they were no more than a barbarian race of pirates. On the contrary, they speedily substituted conquest for spoliation both in Scotland and Ireland, colonized the possessions they acquired, and established trade and commerce in lieu of robbery. They bore, indeed, no slight resemblance to the bold adventurers of a more civilized age, who followed Drake and Raleigh in their reprisals against Spanish America, and won reputation, still honoured in our naval annals, by means as inconsistent with the modern law of nations as the plundering expeditions of these old Scandinavian Vikings. The war-songs of the Northmen shew that such expeditions were the paths to honour as well as to wealth; nor was it till the milder tenets of Christianity had superseded the warrior-creed of Thor, that their plundering voyages came to an end. But unlike the British and Irish, the Scandinavians have a Pagan literature, contemporary with those scenes of adventure and bold deeds of arms: and so much the more valuable that it preserves a picture of the period uninfluenced by that corporate spirit which detracts so much from the contemporary monkish annals of our own and other countries. They had their sagaman, and their bard or skjalde, like the minstrel or troubadour of medieval Europe, whose chief business it was to rehearse the Sagas, and to compose songs and odes in commemoration of their victories and individual prowess. We must not, therefore, rob the old Pagan Norseman of the wild virtues of his age and creed, by bringing them to the standard of modern ideas and principles; but rather accept the characteristic picture of his Sagas as furnishing no unlikely portraiture of the hardy Caledonian warrior of an earlier age.

We know little that is definite regarding the Scandinavian expeditions to our shores till Harold Harfager, king of Norway, in the latter part of the ninth century, conquered first the Zetlands and then the Orkney Islands and Hebrides, and made himself master of the Isle of Man. The change from having the Norsemen as plunderers to that of having them as masters, was probably altogether beneficial, though not unaccompanied with much violence and suffering. Previously to this period, their ravages appear to have been incessant, and very frequently successful, both on the Scottish and Irish coasts. They repeatedly assailed and plundered the Christian community of Iona; and the annals of Ulster record that the Gentiles, as they are usually termed, completely spoiled the establishment in the year 802, and expelled the family of Iona from the sacred Isle. They seem to have treated in a like manner the various religious communities settled on the different islands above referred to, and still commemorated in the old Scandinavian names which they conferred on them; though, as has been shewn, the followers of St. Columba, and no doubt other fraternities, speedily rebuilt their establishments. Even at that early period, some amount of wealth would be accumulated in the muniment chests of the monasteries, and doubtless the poorest of them would endeavour to provide the chalice, paten, and other indispensable furniture of the church and altar, of the precious metals. These must have supplied a fresh incentive to the plundering Vikings, and thus the early incursions of the Northmen largely contributed to retard the diffusion of the faith among the native Britons, while their own divisions and internal struggles furnished frequent opportunities for the unchecked descent of the spoilers on their coasts. Nor was it plunder alone that the fierce Northmen bore away from our shores. Both the Irish annals and the Icelandic Sagas testify to the fact, that they frequently loaded their vessels with captives, both male and female, who were sold elsewhere for slaves. There even appear to have been regular markets in Norway and Sweden where the captive Scots and Picts were disposed of, and some of the names still in use in Iceland are believed to be derived from such foreign captives: the female slave having occasionally won the favour of her master, and been wedded even to leaders and kings. While, however, the Norse marauders were making descents with increased frequency on our shores, a revolution was taking place in Norway, somewhat akin to that which placed the Dalriadic chief on the Pictish throne. Harold Harfager, after a protracted struggle, established himself as absolute king of Norway; and such of the Vikings as had been active in opposing his ambitious projects could no longer winter in safety within the viks or inlets of their indented coast, from whence they derive their name. Many of these, therefore, who had before paid occasional visits to our shores, now established their head-quarters in the Scottish Hebrides, the numerous bays and inlets of which afforded the shelter and protection for their long-oared galleys formerly sought in their native fiords. From this point d’appui they made incessant incursions on the newly-established kingdom of Norway, while they failed not also to harass and spoil the neighbouring Scottish coasts. Thus deprived of any settled home, and without an acknowledged leader, the Vikings assumed more than ever a piratical character, and became the terror of the whole north of Europe. King Harold failed not to offer effectual resistance to these rebellious Norsemen. Every summer the Norwegian fleet scoured the Scottish Seas, and compelled them to abandon their Hebridean settlements; but the hardy Vikings had little to fear from assailants who only drove them to the open sea, from whence, after a successful descent on some unguarded coast, and not unfrequently on that of their assailant, they returned in winter to the shelter of their old retreat.

After repeated expeditions of the same fruitless character against the rebellious Vikings, King Harold determined to put an end to their predatory incursions by making himself master of the islands which afforded them shelter. Accordingly, in the year 875, he collected a powerful fleet, which he commanded in person, and setting sail from Norway, he bore down on the Shetland and Orkney Isles and the Hebrides, slaying or driving out the piratical Vikings, spoiling their settlements, and taking possession of the islands. He then proceeded to the Isle of Man, which he found entirely deserted of its inhabitants, who had fled to the Scottish mainland on the approach of the fleet. Harold failed not to enrich his followers with the spoils of the Scottish coasts as they returned from this successful expedition, so that the unhappy natives were exposed to equal dangers from the Vikings and their Norwegian conquerors. They were not, however, reduced to abject fear by such repeated assaults. Harold bestowed the possession of the Northern Isles on Sigurd, the brother of Rognwald, a distinguished Norwegian chief, who accordingly became first Jarl of the Orkneys; and the fleet returned to Norway, leaving a force deemed sufficient to secure the newly conquered possessions. But the native chiefs of the islands and neighbouring coasts who had been spoiled and driven from their possessions by the Vikings, took advantage of their dispersion, and so soon as the Norwegian fleet had left the Scottish seas, they seized possession of the Hebrides, expelled or put to the sword the whole of the Norwegians left by Harold to hold them in his right, and resumed the occupation of their ancient possessions. A second Norwegian expedition followed under the guidance of Ketil, a distinguished chief, on whom Harold bestowed by anticipation the title of Jarl; and it is curious that in the “Islands Landnamabok,” the natives who had recovered possession of the islands are termed Scottish and Irish Vikings, (Vikinger Skotar ok Irar,) sufficiently shewing the sense in which that term was understood by the Northmen in the beginning of the twelfth century. The Islesmen were unable to resist the overwhelming force, and appear to have been taken entirely by surprise. The Hebridean Jarl entered quietly into possession of his new dominions, and then took the first favourable opportunity of renouncing his allegiance to Harold and declaring himself independent King of the Hebrides.

It is not necessary to do more than glance at the subsequent history of the Scoto-Norwegian kingdoms. In 894, Thorstein the Red, the grandson of Ketil, formed a close alliance with Sigurd, then jarl of Orkney, and with their united forces they made themselves masters of the northern districts of Scotland, including Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray. Sigurd lost his life in this expedition in a remarkable manner. Having, according to the narration of the Ynglinga Saga,525 slain Melbrigda Tönn, or Maolbride the Bucktoothed, one of the Scottish maormors or chiefs who derived his appellation from a peculiarly prominent tooth, he cut off the Maormor’s head and hung it at his bridle. But from the violent motion as he galloped over the field, the tooth inflicted a wound on his leg, which inflamed, and ultimately caused his death. The record of this incident in contemporary sagas may suffice as an illustration of the barbarous warfare of the period. Sigurd was succeeded by his son Guttorm, as Jarl of Orkney, while Thorstein the Red assumed the title of king of the newly acquired possessions on the mainland; and thus within half a century after the Dalriadic king Kenneth had obtained possession of the throne of the Southern Picts by the aid of the Cruithne or Northern Picts, a large portion of the possessions of the latter were wrested from them and erected into a new kingdom under their foreign conqueror. The sovereignty of Thorstein, however, was of brief duration. He had scarcely held his newly acquired territories for six years when he had to take the field to oppose a force collected by the chiefs of the conquered possessions, under the command of Duncan, the maormor of Caithness. A fierce battle ensued, in which Thorstein was slain, his followers completely routed, and the Norwegians expelled from the Scottish mainland. This took place A.D. 900, and for nearly a century no farther aggression was attempted by the Norwegians, with the exception of the annexation of a part of Caithness to the Orkney jarldom, the result, as is believed, of an alliance between Thorfinn, the Orkney jarl, and the daughter of Duncan, maormor of Caithness. In A.D. 986 Sigurd, jarl of Orkney, once more conquered the north of Scotland, after having defeated Finlay, son of Ruari, maormor of Moray, in an attempt to recover Caithness from its Norwegian possessors. Frequent battles followed. The Norwegians were repeatedly defeated and driven from the mainland: but they returned with increased force and re-established their ground. Meanwhile, by the defeat and death of Kenneth M’Duff, Malcolm, maormor of Moray, became king of Scotland A.D. 1004, and soon after effected a reconciliation with Sigurd, jarl of Orkney, and gave him his daughter in marriage. Thus a mixture of Norwegian and Scottish blood took place, the fruit of which is still discernible in the striking contrast between the population of the northern islands and Scottish mainland and the Celtic races of the neighbouring Highlands.

Alternate friendly alliances and open warfare followed till A.D. 1034, when the Norwegians once more triumphed and obtained effectual possession of the greater part of the north of Scotland, where they established a kingdom under the powerful and talented Jarl Thorfinn, the son of Sigurd and of his wife, the daughter of the Scottish king Malcolm, who thereby ultimately acquired a hereditary right to the Scottish crown, similar to that which is believed to have paved the way to the previous accession of the first Dalriadic king of Scotland. We have thus reached a period of Scottish history over which modern literature has thrown a fictitious but singularly romantic interest. The lineal race of Kenneth MacAlpin, the Dalriadic king, having become extinct, the succession reverted to Duncan the son of Crinan, a powerful chief who had married the daughter of the last king of the Scottish race. But the old Celtic ideas of succession proved irreconcilable with his assumption of the crown, and the personal character of Duncan was little fitted to cope with the difficulties of his situation. His unambitious spirit indeed prevented his forcing himself into collision with the Norwegians, or disputing with Thorfinn his newly acquired dominions; and had he been able to communicate the same disposition to his subjects, his reign might have terminated in peace. But after enjoying his throne for about six years, his people took advantage of the absence of Thorfinn on an expedition to England, and putting him at their head, forced their way into the district of Moray with little opposition. But the Pictish natives of the north refused to recognise the right of Duncan to the crown, or to accept him as a deliverer from the Norwegian yoke, and headed by Macbeth, the maormor of Moray, they attacked him in the neighbourhood of Elgin, routed his army and put him to the sword. Macbeth pursued his success, made himself master of the whole kingdom, and with the sanction of the Norwegian jarl assumed the title of King of Scotland. Thus strangely were the questions of regal legitimacy and national independence at variance. It appears to have been solely as a tributary to Thorfinn that Macbeth reigned over the southern half of Scotland. Repeated unsuccessful attempts were made by the adherents of Duncan’s party to recover possession of the throne for his son. In one of these, A.D. 1045, Crinan the father of Duncan was slain, who is styled in the Annals of Ulster “Abbot of Dunkeld,”—lay impropriation and the marriage of the clergy having both been common in Scotland prior to the reform of its church by the Saxon princess who became the wife of Duncan’s son. The expedition of Duncan had been undertaken while Thorfinn and the chief Norwegian forces were engaged in assailing the Saxon possessions in England. The sons of Duncan accordingly sought refuge at the English court; and when Malcolm Canmore, Duncan’s eldest son, returned to avenge his father’s wrongs, he was accompanied by a Saxon army under the command of his uncle, Siward Earl of Northumberland. In securing by such means the possession of the Lothians, which was all that Malcolm was able at that time to wrest from Macbeth, he paved the way for that second and most important change, known in Scottish annals as the Saxon Conquest. Four years afterwards Macbeth was defeated and slain in the battle of Lumphanan, and on the death of Thorfinn, in 1064, Malcolm Canmore obtained final possession of the entire Scottish mainland, though the Norwegian jarls continued to retain undisputed hold of the Northern and Western Isles.

Such is a slight sketch of that important era in Scottish history; from the intrusion of the Scottish race into the Western Highlands, to the final ejectment of the Norwegians from the Scottish mainland, and the restoration of the crown to a Celtic prince at the head of a Saxon army. It is impossible to conceive of the presence of Norwegian settlers for so long a period on the mainland of Scotland without their greatly affecting the character of the native population. From A.D. 895, when the first Norwegian kingdom was established in the north of Scotland, to A.D. 1064, when that of Thorfinn came to an end at his death, a very large portion of the north of Scotland had been repeatedly held possession of for a considerable period by the Norwegians. Long periods of peace and friendly alliance afforded abundant opportunities for intermarriage; and we see in the marriage of the Orkney jarl with the daughter of the Scottish maormor, a clear proof that no prejudices interfered to prevent such unions. This was still less likely to be the case during the reign of Macbeth, which lasted for eighteen years, as the closest alliance and community of interests then subsisted between the Northern Celtic and Norwegian races, and to this period therefore we probably owe the chief changes on the aboriginal Scottish race which still distinguish their descendants from the purer Celtic races of the south and west of Ireland. The genealogies of many of the old Highland chiefs, and the history of the clans, furnish evidence of this intermixture of the races; and the physical characteristics of the natives of several northern districts of the Scottish Highlands abundantly confirm the same fact. Yet it is surprising how very partial the influence of the Northmen must have been. We have proofs of the introduction of Runic literature, and also of the use of Runic characters by the natives; yet if we except the Isle of Man, a dependency of Scotland both before and after its occupation by the Northmen, we have only the merest fragments of inscriptions in the northern runes found in Scotland. On the mainland some few local names are traceable to a Scandinavian origin. In the Scottish Lowland dialect a considerable number of words and many peculiarities of pronunciation are manifestly derived from the same source; while in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, customs, superstitions, language, and even legal formulas, all clearly point to their long occupation as an independent Norse jarldom, or as a dependency of the Danish crown. In the Western Isles, however, it has proved otherwise. There the language and race are still purely Celtic, and the ancient topographical nomenclature has been but slightly affected from their occupation by the Vikings and their Scandinavian successors. This is probably to be accounted for to a great extent by the fact, that the Hebrideans, like the natives of Man, fled on the occupation of their islands by the pirate Norsemen, and only very partially returned after the establishment of law and order under Ketil, the independent Norwegian jarl; so that these islands have been to a great extent colonized anew from the neighbouring mainland. Still extensive and durable traces remain to commemorate the intrusion of this race of northern warriors on the older colonists of Scotland, nor can we hesitate to ascribe somewhat of our peculiar national character and physical conformation to that intimate intercourse which prevailed more or less extensively for nearly two centuries, and indeed in the Orkney and Shetland Islands for a much longer period, between the Norwegian and Celtic races. On Scotland, as a whole, the influence of this Scandinavian colonization and conquest has been much more direct and effective than any results of the Roman Invasion. But both of these historic changes suffice to account for only a very few of the national peculiarities, or of the distinctive features of our earlier arts, and still require us to look to native sources for the larger number of archæological relics, and for the most characteristic classes of monumental remains.

Chapter II — Sculptured Standing Stones

The progress of our inquiry into the peculiar characteristics of Scottish Archæology brings under consideration one of the most interesting, yet most puzzling classes of monuments of early native art. While England has her Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical remains exhibiting more or less distinct traces of the transition by which the debased Roman passed into the pure Romanesque or Norman style, Scotland, along with Ireland, possesses examples of an early native style of ecclesiastical architecture and of Christian monuments, belonging to the same undefined period prior to the Norman invasion of England.

Of the Sculptured Standing Stones of Scotland, including these primitive Christian monuments, a few of the best known examples have been repeatedly engraved, but generally on so small a scale, and with so little attention to accuracy of detail, that they have failed to secure that interest among British archæologists which their great number and the very beautiful and singular character of their sculptures merit. The reproach of leaving these remarkable national monuments unillustrated has, however, been to a great extent removed by the publication of Mr. Patrick Chalmers’ magnificent work on the Ancient Monuments of the County of Angus,526 which furnishes an extensive series of examples of the various sculptured stones long ascribed to a Danish origin, but now nearly all recognised as peculiar to Scotland. Attempts to decorate Scottish sepulchral memorials by means of sculptured ornaments appear to have been made from an early period. Several curious examples have already been noted of stone cists, otherwise entirely unhewn, the covers of which have been rudely ornamented with incised patterns similar to those which are seen on the gigantic chambered cairn of New Grange, near Drogheda. But greater interest perhaps attaches to another though more simply decorated Scottish cist pertaining apparently to a much later period than the cairn of New Grange, or the incised cists which have been classed with that remarkable primitive sepulchre. On a rising ground about half a mile to the east of the town of Alloa, called the Hawkhill, is the large upright block of sandstone sculptured with a cross which is represented in the annexed engraving. It measures ten and a quarter feet in height, though little more than seven feet are now visible above ground. A similar cross is cut on both sides of the stone, as is not uncommon with such simple memorials. During the progress of agricultural operations in the immediate vicinity of this ancient cross, in the spring of 1829, Mr. Robert Bald, C.E., an intelligent Scottish antiquary, obtained permission from the Earl of Mar to make some excavations around it, when, at about nine feet north from the monumental stone, a rude cist was found, constructed of unhewn sandstone, measuring only three feet in length, and at each end of the cover, on the under side, a simple cross was cut. The lines which formed the crosses were not rudely executed, but straight and uniform, and evidently finished with care, though the slab itself was unusually rude and amorphous. The cist lay east and west, and contained nothing but human bones greatly decayed. Drawings of the cross and cist, and a plan of the ground, executed by Mr. Bald, are in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. Here we possess a singularly interesting example of the union of Christian and Pagan sepulchral rites: the cist laid east and west, according to the early Christian custom, yet constructed of the old circumscribed dimensions, and of the rude but durable materials in use for ages before the new faith had superseded the aboriginal Pagan creeds.

To this same transition-period there can now be little hesitation in assigning that remarkable class of Scottish sculptured stones, decorated most frequently on the one side with the figure of the cross, and on the other with a few mystic symbols of constant recurrence which still remain an enigma to British Antiquaries, and to most others a subject of perfect indifference or contempt; though had they been discovered on the banks of the Tigris or the Nile they would have been thought worthy of the united efforts of European scholars for their solution. Some of these monuments most probably belong to Pagan times, as they contain only the mysterious symbols, unaccompanied by the emblem of the Christian faith, and are usually of ruder execution, and cut on unhewn stones. Of this class are the Standing Stones at Kinellar and Newton, Aberdeenshire;527 and those of Aberlemno,528 and Kirktown of Dunnichen, in Angusshire.529 Theorists who have deemed it indispensable to assign to these singular monuments an antiquity long prior to the Christian era have supposed that the cross has been superadded to the older Pagan sculptures. No traces of any such hybrid union are now discoverable, but, on the contrary, where we find the Christian and Pagan symbols combined, they are almost invariably accompanied with elaborately interlaced patterns and figures of dragons, serpents, and nondescript monsters, bearing a close and unmistakable resemblance to the decorations of some of the most ancient Irish manuscripts, nearly corresponding to the era of the introduction of Christianity into Scotland. Several of the beautiful initials from the Book of Kells, an Irish MS. of the sixth century, as engraved in Mr. Westwood’s Palæographia, bear a close resemblance to the style of ornament of these sculptures; while the interlaced knotwork on the case of the shrine of St. Maidoc, which Dr. Petrie conceives cannot be later than the eighth century, though less distinctly characteristic, and by no means peculiar to Ireland, very nearly corresponds in its details to the ornamentation frequently introduced on these Scottish monuments. Others, such as the Aberlemno and one of the Meigle crosses, are decorated with raised pellets or nail-heads, manifestly derived from the ornamental studs of the old British buckler, also to be found elsewhere; as on one of the Manx sanctuary crosses to be seen about a mile from St. Maughold’s Church, in the Isle of Man. The arrangements of the figures in some of the Scottish monuments of this period, as in the celebrated Forres column, are also strikingly suggestive of intimate intercourse between Scotland and Ireland at the period of their erection, from their correspondence to such works as the beautiful crosses at Monasterboice. In this case, however, the Irish are evidently the later works, and are, indeed, assigned by Dr. Petrie to the early part of the tenth century.

The locality in which these remarkable monuments are found is also worthy of notice. No example occurs within the ancient limits of Dalriada, or on the western coast in the vicinity of Ireland, nor has any one been discovered south of the Forth, though met with both at Largo and St. Andrews, or north of the ancient southern limits of the Norse kingdom, if we except one now erected in the pleasure-grounds of Dunrobin Castle. Yet it is within the same limited range of country, extending along our eastern coast, that the only examples of primitive ecclesiastical architecture occur undoubtedly pertaining to the Scottish Celtic Church prior to its remodelling in the eleventh century.

No sculptured memorials of the singular class so abundant in Scotland, have been discovered in Ireland, any more than in Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, though so long ascribed to a Scandinavian origin. They are manifestly native monuments, though betraying the same traces of the influence of early Irish art, or at least indications of a period when the peculiar style of their ornamentation was common both to Scotland and Ireland, with which we are familiar in the works of the closing Pagan era. Only one known period of Scottish history answers to these requirements, and seems to point out the ruder class of sculptured standing stones as the monuments of the Pagan Picts, and the more elaborate ones, accompanied with the symbol of the Christian faith, as belonging to that period which has been slightly sketched in a preceding chapter, when Christianity was introduced to the Scottish Picts at the very time in which we possess numerous proofs of the most intimate intercourse between the two countries. What we chiefly want at present for the elucidation of Scottish Archæology is not theories but facts; yet such historical coincidences, though doubtless open to challenge, are not unworthy of note, and cannot justly be ranked along with the vague theoretical speculations, destitute of any foundation but the fancy of their originators, which have discovered in these Scottish sculptures Egyptian, Phœnician, Braminical, or Druidical symbols, as it chanced to suit the favourite theory of the hour.

The Dunnichen Stone affords a good example of the most frequent symbolic figures: the Z shaped symbol, sometimes, as in this case, intersecting two circles decorated within with foliated lines, and united most frequently by two reversed curves, or occasionally intertwined with a serpent. Along with these, there is also often introduced a crescent-shaped device—the favourite emblem of Druidical theorists—intersected by a V figure, more or less floriated, as on St. Orland’s Stone at Cossins,530 the Aberlemno Cross,531 and many others. Ingenious theorists have recognised in these the initial Z, L, S, of Zodiacus, Sol, and Luna, and the key to a whole system of mystical enigmas! Another figure which occurs on the Dunnichen Stone has been discovered to be the Atf, or high cap of the Egyptian Osiris surmounted by a lotus! The same combination of symbols, however, is engraved on one of the remarkable silver relics found at Norrie’s Law, Fifeshire, as shewn here the same size as the original. From this there can be no doubt that it represents an animal’s, probably a dog’s, head; and this is equally apparent on one of the crosses in the churchyard of Meigle, and also on what is called “King Malcolm’s grave-stone” at Glammis, where the same figure accompanies the two-handed mirror. A writer in the Archæological Journal mentions having met with an almost precisely similar ornament to one of these symbols on Gnostic gems and coins bearing cabalistic inscriptions; and “hence he is led to think that the carvings on the reverse sides of these stones may have been intended to refer to the perpetual conflict between the Cross on the one hand, and false doctrines and worldly pursuits on the other. The Gnostic emblem being intended as an indication of the former of these principles, counteracting and opposing the spreading of the doctrines of the Cross, and the scenes of the chase (so frequently accompanying these sculptured emblems) as indicating the latter.”532 Such abstruse and recondite ideas, however, seem altogether irreconcilable with the age to which the monuments must be assigned, while they leave the main point still unsolved, as to how these symbols do indicate false doctrines or a Pagan faith. Two objects of domestic use, the mirror and comb, frequently accompany the more mysterious figures, and after being assumed by earlier antiquaries as the indications of a female monument, have more recently been traced to the supposed emblems of Christian martyrdom found sculptured on the tombs of the Roman catacombs. Dr. Maitland, however, has successfully combated this mode of explaining what were often no more than the implements of a trade or profession. Above the figures of a mirror, comb, and pair of shears, on one of the primitive Roman tombs, are the simple words VENERIÆ IN PACE, To Veneria in peace,533—indications apparently solely of the sex, or possibly of the occupation of the deceased. That these symbols were used in Scotland for the same purpose at a much later period, is proved by the sculptures on some medieval tombs, and in particular on that of the prioress Anna at Iona, who, though a religious, looks no martyr on her tomb. It is engraved by Pennant, (vol. ii. Pl. XXIV. fig. 2,) and more minutely, though in a greatly more imperfect state, in Mr. H. D. Graham’s admirable illustrations of the Antiquities of Iona, (Pl. XLV.) Two angels arrange the pillow of the good prioress, a lady neither of spare nor youthful figure; while on either side of her are her little lap-dogs, each with a riband and bell to its neck, and over all the mirror and comb: possibly designed on this, as well as on the Roman lady’s tomb, to indicate the virginity or celibacy of the dead. Besides these figures of most frequent occurrence, however, others are also occasionally found curiously referrible to an eastern origin, and, in particular, a symbolic elephant, as on Martin’s Stone at Ballutheron, on one of the crosses in the churchyard of Meigle,534 and on the Maiden Stone on Bennochie, Aberdeenshire, where it accompanies the comb and mirror, from which the monument has probably derived its name.535 The peculiar character of these singular representations of the elephant is well worthy of study from the evidence they afford of the existence of eastern traditions at the period of their execution. It is impossible to mistake the object intended by the design, while at the same time it is obvious that the artist can never have seen an elephant. What should be the feet are curled up into scrolls, and the trunk is occasionally thrown in a straight line over the back, whereas horses and other animals with which he is familiar are executed with great spirit and truth. Fabulous and monstrous figures also accompany these, such as the centaur occasionally bearing the cross in its hands, and what appears in some to be a branch of mistletoe, as on the reverse of another of the singular crosses in the churchyard at Meigle. On a stone near Glammis a man with a crocodile’s head is introduced; on one of the Meigle crosses, among sundry other nondescript animals, is the capricornus or sea-goat; and on the inscribed cross of St. Vigeans a grotesque hybrid, half-bird half-beast, stalks among the fantastic animals and intertwining snakes which decorate its border.

A most lively fancy is apparent in many of these designs; but others are possessed of a much higher value as illustrations of the manners, customs, dresses, weapons, musical instruments, &c., in use at the period when these monuments were erected. Thus in the very curious piece of sculpture figured in the annexed engraving, we have a representation of the use of the bow and arrow, and of a car drawn by two horses. It is now preserved at Meigle along with others, the supposed relics of the tomb of the frail Guanora, Arthur’s queen, who, according to Hector Boece, was made captive by the Picts, after the defeat and death of Modred on the banks of the Humber, and passed the remainder of her life in captivity within the strong fortress of Dunbarré or Barry Hill. Thus strangely do we find the romantic tales of the old troubadours, once familiar through medieval Europe, located by popular tradition in the district of Strathmore. Mr. Chalmers conceives that scarcely a doubt can be entertained of the reference to the monument at Meigle ascribed to Queen Guanora, and of which the engraving represents one of the most curious portions, in the following note, under the year 1569, in the Extracta e Cronicis Scotiæ:—“At Newtylde 536 thair is ane stane, callit be sum the Thane Stane, iii eln of heicht, v quarteris braid, ane quarter thik and mair, with ane cors at the heid of it, and ane goddes next that in ane cairt, and twa hors drawand hir, and horsmen under that, and fuitmen and dogges, halkis and serpentis: on the west side of it, ane cors curiouslie grauit; bot all is maid of ane auld fassane of schap. It is allegit that the Thane of Glammis set thir tua stanis quhen that cuntrey wes all ane greit forrest.” This description is of great value, not only as preserving a tradition associated with the stone at a period very near the time of Boece, yet differing entirely from his romantic tale of Queen Guanora, but much more so, in that it conveys a tolerably definite idea of what the monument actually was in the sixteenth century.

The traditions associated with these singular monuments, whether gathered directly from vague local traditions, or culled from the marvellous pages of the monkish chroniclers, are equally contradictory and valueless, as throwing any light on their origin, whether associated with King Arthur and his ravished Queen, or, like the remarkable Forres obelisk, popularly called King Sueno’s Stone, believed to commemorate the final defeat and ejection of the Norsemen from the Scottish mainland. This beautiful monument, which measures twenty three feet in height, has been repeatedly engraved;—by Gordon, on a sufficiently large scale, but with little attempt at accuracy of detail, and more carefully by Cordiner in his Scottish Antiquities.

There can be no question that many of those sculptured monuments are designed to commemorate particular events, though they have long since proved faithless to their trust. Most of such, however, would probably be of less interest to us than the minute and varied information which we are still able to deduce from the primitive historic memorials. We see in them the warrior on horseback and on foot, armed with sword, spear, battle-axe, and dirk, and bearing his circular buckler on his arm,—a much larger shield than that previously described among the later relics of the Pagan era, and, indeed, closely resembling the Highland target, which continued in use in Scotland till the final extinction of the patriarchal system and hereditary customs of the Highland clans, after their last struggle on Culloden Moor. Nor are the sculptures less minute in their illustrations of domestic habits and social arts. In Plates II. and VI. of Mr. Chalmers’ valuable work, we have representations of ancient chairs, and figures apparently of priests and monks. In the former, also, and in Plate XIII., are a harp and harper, the latter executed with much spirit, though now greatly defaced; while hunting and hawking scenes frequently occur, accompanied with very graphic representations of the beasts of chase. There is, moreover, a peculiar style running throughout the whole of these sculptures, and a certain action and contour in the figures and animals, which mark them with as distinctive a character as belongs to any medieval or modern school of art. The engraving on Plate IV. represents one of the most elaborate of these Pictish hunting scenes, fully answering to the description of the old Scottish chronicler, of “horsemen, fuitmen, and dogges, halkis and serpentis.” It occurs on what is believed to have formed part of a stone coffin, which was dug up in the immediate vicinity of St. Andrew’s cathedral, and is now preserved in St. Mary’s College there. Along with this slab, which measures five and three-fourths feet long, by two and one-fourth feet broad, there was found what appears to have formed one end, and part of the other, of the same sarcophagus or monument. Both are covered with intricate knotwork, and in the more perfect of the two there are four compartments, two of which are occupied each with a pair of apes, and the others with globes, each encircled with two serpents. Not the least curious feature of this elaborate design is the introduction of well executed apes and other animals, which we would have supposed entirely unknown to the ancient sculptor. Besides these the ram, the horse and hawk, the fawn, the greyhound pursuing the fox in the thicket, and the tiger or leopard, as the fierce assailant of the horseman seems to be, are all executed with great fidelity and spirit. In addition to these there is a nondescript monster, a sort of winged griffin, preying upon a prostrate ass. But by far the most valuable portions of this curious design are the human figures, with their variety of character and costume. Here manifestly is the Patrician, with his long locks and flowing robes, and his richly decorated dirk at his side, while the plebeian huntsman betrays his humble rank, not only in his homely dress and accoutrements, but even in the lean and half-bred cur which forms his companion in the chase. But the engraving will furnish a much more satisfactory idea of these curious details than any description could convey. The most common decoration of this remarkable class of native Scottish monuments, apart from the symbols and sculptured figures so frequently introduced, is the interlaced knotwork which appears to have been so favourite a device of Celtic art. It occurs on the sculptures, the jewelry, the manuscripts, and the decorated shrines and book-cases of early Irish Christian art, and has been perpetuated almost to our own day on the weapons and personal ornaments of the Scottish Highlanders. The annexed illustration represents a very characteristic example of the common Highland brooch, from the original in the collection of C. K. Sharp, Esq. It is of brass, rudely engraved, evidently with the imperfect tools of the native mountaineer. The tongue is of copper, and the brooch measures four and one-tenth inches in diameter. Amid its decorations will be recognised the triple knot, the supposed emblem of the Trinity, along with other interlaced patterns, such as occur in the bosses of sepulchral and monumental crosses of the seventh and eighth centuries. Precisely the same ornaments may be seen on the Highland targets, preserved among the memorials of the field of Culloden; while other combinations of this favourite pattern formed the universal decoration on the handle of the Highland dirk, from the earliest known examples to those belonging to the same fatal field, on which the unbroken Celtic traditions of Scotland were involved in the fortunes of the fated Stuart race.

Only two of the ancient sculptured standing stones peculiar to Scotland are accompanied with inscriptions. One of them, discovered about thirty years since, on demolishing the ancient Church of Fordoun, in the Mearns, was then apparently undecipherable,537 and has since become illegible; the other is on a beautiful though mutilated cross in the churchyard of St. Vigeans. That of St. Vigeans is in the common Celtic character familiar to us on early Irish monuments, and on the oldest tombs at Iona, and therefore in so far adds confirmation to the idea advanced as to the probable era of these sculptures. But it is imperfect and perhaps too mutilated to admit of intelligible translation, though sufficient remains in the first words, Aꞅoil en, to shew that it is of the usual character of Scottish and Irish Celtic monumental inscriptions.

“Mr. Petrie,” says Mr. Chalmers, “is of opinion, from a portion of it which he has deciphered, that the monument is Pictish, and he expresses a hope that he will be able to explain the inscription.” But as the legible fragment seems to consist of only three words and part of a fourth, no very valuable information can be looked for from its fractional remainder.

One other peculiar and indeed altogether unique inscription occurs on a rude unhewn standing stone of granite in the vicinity of the Maiden Stone, with its mysterious symbols, at Newton, in Garioch, Aberdeenshire. The column measures fully six feet in height, and about two feet in greatest breadth. On its upper part is the inscription, extending to six lines, in large and sufficiently distinct, but entirely novel and unintelligible characters. It has been more than once engraved, and repeatedly submitted to eminent antiquaries, but still remains undeciphered. General Vallancey, the well-known Irish antiquary, professed to read the two first words of it. What indeed would he not have undertaken to decipher? These he rendered Gylf Gomarra, Prince Gomarra, apparently from some slight or fancied resemblance of the characters to the corresponding Roman letters, but his G and F are manifestly the same, and the whole still remains an enigma. The side of the same stone, however, bears another inscription, also shewn in part in the annexed engraving, which appears to have escaped the notice of earlier observers, though introduced as a mere ornament in the representation inserted in the Transactions of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. It has recently been pronounced by Irish antiquaries an Ogham inscription, and as such, is an object of considerable interest, no other example of the use of that simple and extremely primitive character, which the older antiquaries of Ireland have made the subject of so many extravagant theories, having been discovered in Scotland. It does not necessarily follow that the two inscriptions belong to the same period, though found on one stone; but both are as yet equally dumb and irresponsive oracles.

Various early inscriptions in the same old Celtic character as that engraved on the St. Vigeans’ Cross are still to be found in Scotland, and particularly in the Western Isles, where it had doubtless been in general use, prior to the adoption of the later Church letters common to medieval Europe. Of this class are two stones at Iona, adorned with simple crosses, one of which has been made the subject of some very fruitless speculation. “No one of the inscriptions in Iona,” says Mr. H. D. Graham, “has been so much written about as this, and antiquarians do not agree as to its signification. It is in the old Gaelic character, and has been usually interpreted into Donull fada Chasach—The cross of Donald Longshanks.”538 An older decipherer reads it, “Cormac Ulphada hic est situs,” indicative of the sepulchre of Cormac Barbatus, one of the kings of Ireland, buried there A.D. 213; and a third assigns it as the memorial of a king of France, who according to equally credible tradition found his last resting-place in the sacred isle. Mr. Graham has accordingly designated it in his Illustrations of the Monuments of Iona, “the disputed inscription,” though finding for it a new reading, which assigns it to a Macdonald of the Glengary line, A.D. 1461. The inscription reads: Oꞃ̄ ꝺo mail Ꝼaꞇaꞃic, or with the first word extended:

OROƖꞆ ꝹO MⱭƖɭ ꝻⱭꞆⱭRƖC
A Prayer for the servant of Patrick.

Its modest memorial is sufficiently indefinite, yet it may be assumed with much probability to mark the tomb of Bishop Patrick, whose demise is thus recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, under A.D. 1174: “Maol Patrick O’Banan, Bishop of Conor and Dal Araidhe, a venerable man, full of sanctity, meekness, and purity of heart, died happily in Hy of Columkille, at a good old age.”539

Another rude and unsquared slab, with a slightly ornamented cross, bears the still simpler inscription: Oꞃ̄ ɑꞃ ɑꞃmɩn ϵoᵹɑɩn, armin, or more commonly armunn, being a brave man or chief. Extended it reads:

OROƖꞆ ⱭR ⱭRMƖN ϵOꝽⱭƖN
A Prayer for the Chief Eogain or Ewen.

Eogan or Eoganan, of the Albanic Duan, commenced his reign over the Dalriads in A.D. 801, and subsequently wrested from the Southern Picts the territories conquered by Angus MacFergus, and governed for a time by princes of his line.540 The name is not uncommon among the early western chiefs; and the Lord of Argyle at the period of Haco’s invasion in 1263, as appears from various early charters, was Eugene or Ewen, son of Duncan, a descendant of the great Somerled.

Various other stones, with crosses cut upon them, evidently of the same date as those thus inscribed, lie scattered among the remarkable tombs of the Relig Oran, or St. Oran’s Burial Ground,—that sacred spot, the resting-place of saints, and kings, and old island chiefs, so deeply interesting to every Scottish heart,—but these are the only examples of this early class on which inscriptions are now decipherable. Many of the tombs of a later date are ornamented with figures and floriated patterns in relief, characterized by singular beauty and great variety of design. The style of ornamentation on some of them is peculiar to the Western Isles and the neighbouring Scottish mainland: but such ample justice has been done to them in the recent beautiful series of views of the “Antiquities of Iona,” by Mr. H. D. Graham, that it is unnecessary to resort to the less intelligible process of verbal description. The intermingling of foliage, scroll-work, chain-work, geometric patterns, and knotwork, with animals, figures, and sacred or warlike implements, is characterized by a profuseness and variety of design such as the sepulchral monuments of scarcely any other single locality or age can equal. The greater number of them, however, belong to a later period than that now under consideration, but on this very account, as well as for other reasons, we must dissent from the conclusions as to the origin of their style of art, advanced by the Rev. J. S. Howison, in his valuable papers on the Antiquities of Argyleshire. The well-ascertained dates of some of the most remarkable of these monuments fix their era from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. The accompanying illustration supplies a characteristic example, in the mutilated cross of Lauchlan M’Fingon, the father of Abbot John of Iona, who died A.D. 1500, and had a more important tomb, adorned with his recumbent figure in full canonicals, within the cathedral, though his name figures on the cross in St. Oran’s Chapel, erected as we may presume by himself. It is a valuable illustration for our present purpose, as the inscription and date are still perfectly legible: ✠ Hec: est: Crux: Laeclanni: Maic: Fingone: et: eius: filii: Johannis: abbatis: de: Hy: facta anno: domini: M^o: CCCC^o: LXXX^o IX^o. The lymphad, which figures as one of the herald’s quarterings of the Mackinnons, is indeed believed to have been derived from the Northmen, but in the form it assumes on this and other Iona sculptures, it bears as little resemblance to the long-oared war galley so frequently engraved on native Scandinavian monuments and relics as the accompanying ornaments do to any known device of Northern origin. The late era to which some of the most characteristic of these sculptures belong, should alone suffice to disprove the idea “that the Scandinavians were the authors of this particular kind of art exhibited by the stone crosses, as also by the sepulchral monuments of Argyleshire;”541 but no such monuments are now to be found in any of the Scandinavian kingdoms, and since the style must have arisen somewhere, it is surely not more difficult to conceive of it originating in Scotland than in Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. In so far as it is derived, its suggestive originals appear to have been much more Irish than Scandinavian. Its peculiar individuality, however, arises from the same cause as the very singular characteristics of Irish ecclesiology. Both Scotland and Ireland stood more apart than any other of the kingdoms of Christendom from the Crusades and other great movements which conferred so remarkable a homogeneity on medieval Europe. The earlier arts were consequently left there to develop new forms and modifications long after they had been elsewhere entirely superseded by the later styles of medieval art. At the period to which the beautiful monuments of Argyleshire are referrible that district stood singularly isolated, sharing only very partially even in the influences of Scottish art, and still less in its social progress, while at the same time the peculiar sanctity indissolubly associated with its ancient shrines kept alive the spirit in which these originated. Scarcely any circumstances can be conceived more favourable for the development of a new style of art; and hence not only the peculiarity but the endless variety discoverable on the monuments of Argyleshire, and especially in the Relig Oran of Iona. A Scotsman may be pardoned even for some excess of zeal in advancing his claims for sole hereditary right to that historic ground, and the moss-grown sculptures with which it is paved, where

“You never tread upon them but you set
Your feet upon some reverend history.”

Chapter III — The Norrie’s Law Relics

The most remarkable discovery of ancient personal ornaments and other relics of a remote period ever made in Scotland, was that of “The Silver Armour of Norrie’s Law,” a tumulus or artificial mound which stands on the marches of the two estates of Teasses and Largo, in Fifeshire. The correspondence of the engraved devices on this collection of silver relics with the mysterious symbols which constantly recur on the sculptured standing stones of Scotland, has served, along with the singular character and great beauty of some of the ornaments, to confer on this discovery an interest attached to no other Scottish hoard. This feeling has not been lessened by the fact that only a very few of these precious relics have been preserved; while the imperfect, vague, and probably exaggerated descriptions, of such as were destroyed, have not lessened the feelings of disappointed curiosity and regret with which archæologists refer to the discovery.

The Bay of Largo, on the northern shores of the Frith of Forth, is a large and well-sheltered indentation, furnishing the most accessible position for a safe anchorage and haven near the mouth of the Frith. In the sandy slope near the shore, at the head of the bay, the beautiful gold armillæ were found, in 1848, which have been already figured and described among the relics of a remoter period than that of which we now treat.542 The remarkable tumulus which furnished the silver ornaments now referred to is situated on the estate of Largo, about three miles from the bay, and is affirmed to have been reputed in old local traditions, to cover the chief of a great army, deposited there with his steed, and armed in panoply of massive silver. Instances of the like popular belief have occasionally received such remarkable confirmation that they cannot be pronounced by the archæologist as altogether valueless.543 In this case, however, it may admit of doubt if the origin of the tradition be not subsequent to the discovery. The Old Statistical Account refers to the tradition, that the Stones of Lundin “are the grave-stones of some Danish chiefs who fell in battle with the Scots near the place;”544 but the only allusion made to Norrie’s Law is to be gathered from an addition to the description of Largo Law, a well-known hill which rises about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea, and formed of old one of the most prominent beacon-hills of Fife. “Besides this,” the Statist remarks, “there are two other Laws. But it is evident that these have been artificial. When the cairn was removed from one of them a few years ago a stone coffin was found at the bottom. From the position of the bones it appeared that the person had been buried in a singular manner: the legs and arms had been carefully severed from the trunk and laid diagonally across it.”545

The precise facts connected with the opening of the tumulus of Norrie’s Law, and even the year in which it occurred, are very uncertain, though the person by whom the valuable hoard was purloined still resides, in good circumstances, at Pitlessie in Fife. Conscious as he is of the appropriation of treasure which was not his own, and not yet entirely free from apprehension of the interference of the Scottish Exchequer to reclaim the fruits of his ill-gotten wealth, he naturally declines all communication on the subject, and thus, as too frequently results from the operation of the present Scottish law of treasure-trove, the history of the discovery is involved in impenetrable mystery. It may be permitted us to reflect with some satisfaction, that by the fears thus excited the depredator has not entirely escaped punishment for the irreparable mischief which his wretched cupidity has occasioned.

So far as can now be ascertained, in or about the year 1817 an opening was made in the tumulus of Norrie’s Law by a hawker or pedlar who frequented the district, and it is possible may have had his attention attracted to the mound by the popular tradition already referred to, which, if it then existed, could scarcely escape him in his annual rounds of the parish. A stone cist was exposed within the tumulus, containing, it is said, no bones or other indications of human remains; but either in or near it were found the silver relics, which the discoverer removed piecemeal, and sold, as opportunity offered, to various silversmiths to be melted down and destroyed. In 1839, upwards of twenty years after this remarkable discovery, the attention of Mr. George Buist of Cupar was directed to the subject, in consequence of discovering that among a few fragments of the original hoard which had been rescued by General Durham, the proprietor of the estate, there were several relics marked with the same peculiar symbols which form so singular a characteristic of the sculptured standing stones of Scotland. Mr. Buist was then engaged in investigating this remarkable class of antiquities, and to the report which he published we are chiefly indebted for the knowledge we now possess regarding “The Silver Armour of Norrie’s Law.” Mr. Buist, with much industry and perseverance, gathered such information as was then recoverable from persons cognizant of the discovery, and in particular obtained from the country silversmith, who had been one of the chief purchasers of the stolen treasure, the following notes of various sales, by which we obtain a very satisfactory means of estimating the great extent and value of the original deposit:—

“For the information in regard to the lost portion of the Norrie’s Law armour I have been indebted to Mr. R. Robertson, jeweller, Cupar, or to individuals to whom I have been by him referred. Mr. Robertson first made a purchase of £5, subsequently two of £10, and knew of another made by some one about Edinburgh to the amount of about £20, and is under the belief that perhaps as much as that here accounted for may have been carried away, and bestowed on various uses. This, by rough computation, may, together with what remains, be reckoned not much under 400 ounces of pure bullion. Mr. Robertson has, as may be readily supposed, a peculiarly distinct recollection of the forms of the various portions of the armour procured by him, and gives a most vivid description in particular of the rich carving of the shield, the helmet, and the sword-handle, which were brought to him crushed in pieces, to permit convenient transport and concealment.... A considerable part of the armour was partially corroded, the alloy having been eaten away as if by some weak acid, exactly after the manner of that employed in certain operations of modern silversmiths. The bullion in this case was much more pure than in those cases where it remained solid and untouched. It was, in fact, reduced to the state of porous, brittle, spongy silver. The parts chiefly affected in this way were those lowest down, which seem to have suffered from long exposure to some subtle corrosive. The upper portions were fresh, compact, and entire. In them the silver was nearly the same as our present standard.”546

The report from which the above is extracted is illustrated with lithographic drawings of the relics in the possession of General Durham, and also with representations of the shield and sword-hilt, drawn apparently from the recollections of the silversmith. But even when brought to him, crushed and broken, it must have been difficult to form a just opinion of their original appearance; and after the lapse of upwards of twenty years, any attempt to recover their precise form or details from memory must be utterly worthless. Judging indeed from the fragments which remain, it may even admit of doubt if these silver relics ever included any armour or weapons of war. In 1849, Mrs. Durham of Largo House entrusted the silver ornaments rescued by General Durham, to the care of Mr. Albert Way for exhibition at a meeting of the Archæological Institute; and through the liberality of the Council I am now enabled to avail myself of the engravings then made from them. Profound as the regret must ever be with which we refer to this discovery, it is yet no slight matter of congratulation that even these few memorials of so remarkable a sepulchral deposit remain to furnish some evidence of its character, and the period to which it belongs. They were mostly picked up by the brother-in-law of the tenant, and another person, both now deceased; having, it may be presumed, been dropped by their original discoverer in his secret and guilty haste. The inquiry instituted by Mr. Buist led to the recovery of one of the bodkins, and also of one of the engraved scale plates mentioned in the following description. It is perhaps hardly now to be hoped for that any further additions will be made to the rescued waifs of this ravished treasure.

The most interesting of the whole relics are the two leaf-shaped plates of silver, engraved with the mystic symbol of such frequent occurrence on Scottish sculptured Standing Stones. One of the monuments of this class, though destitute of the peculiar symbols here referred to, was found in fragments on the Largo estate, and through the good taste of the late General Durham, has been again reunited, and erected upon a pedestal near the spot where it was discovered. On one side it bears as usual the figure of a cross, and on the other, horsemen, dogs, and other animals, most prominent among which is the symbolic elephant frequently found on the same singular class of memorials. Though destitute of the peculiar devices which confer so great an interest on the silver relics found in its vicinity, this monument is of great value as furnishing independent evidence of the prevalence of the same arts in this locality at the dawn of the Scottish Christian Period. The two leaf-shaped plates, one of which has already been figured,547 are almost precisely similar. On one the marginal line is wanting which appears in the representation given in the last chapter, but some indications seem to shew that it has been burnished out. The devices on both are deeply engraved, and it is possible may have been enamelled. Mr. Buist describes in his report small lozenge-shaped plates of silver, which formed part of a rich coat of scale armour; referring, there can be little doubt, to these leaf-shaped plates, both of which he has figured. The one already engraved is the size of the original, which weighs 598 grains; the other corresponds in size, but is somewhat above eighty grains lighter in weight. But there is no indication of any means of attachment so as to unite them in a suit of armour, or suspend them to the dress of the wearer. The spirally decorated bosses at the broader ends are concave on the under side, and present no appearance of having ever had anything attached to them. The original destination of these singular relics is indeed involved in the same mystery as the peculiar symbols with which they are engraved.

Next in interest to these scale plates of silver are a pair of bodkins, measuring in length rather more than six and a half inches, and engraved here the size of the originals. They are both alike, with the exception that on the reverse side of one is an imperfect indication of the Z symbol, the figure of which is interrupted by the attachment of the pin. The form of the head is peculiar, though not unique, pins of nearly similar fashion having been found in Ireland. A brass bodkin of this type, in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is almost precisely the same in form and dimensions, and only differs in the ornament introduced in the front of the head.548 Another example of the same type, found at Lagore, County Meath, is figured in the Archæological Journal.549 It is made of bronze, and is inferior in point of workmanship, but is equally valuable from the undoubted evidence it affords of the native origin of this peculiar form of pin, and of the other relics discovered along with it. The front of the head in the Largo bodkin is beautifully chased in the same style of ornaments as the scale plates, and the central projecting stud bears a Greek cross patée, thus presented, as on the Scottish sculptured stones, in connexion with these mysterious symbols. The mode of introducing the symbol on the bodkin is peculiarly suggestive of its use as a charm. It is engraved where it was evidently not intended to be seen, and where indeed its form is by no means adapted as a decoration to the peculiar shape of the work on which it is introduced. The spiral ornaments on the opposite side are, on the contrary, arranged for effect; and though corresponding to those on the double circles of the scale plate, are suggestive only of decorative design, the same peculiar form being greatly varied in pattern, and even frequently left blank on the sculptured stones. Another smaller pin of the same class is in the Durham collection. It appears to have been jewelled, but is very imperfect. It measures one and a quarter inch in length.

Two ornaments, described by Mr. Buist as “circles or armlets,” appear to be the large ring fibulæ of a type common both as Irish and early Highland brooches. The most perfect of the two, which measures five and three-quarter inches in diameter, is represented here half the size of the original. The acus or tongue is wanting in both of them. The torquated hoop is a rare feature in such ornaments, and indeed much seldomer found in works of silver than of gold. It forms the simplest style of ornamentation, and, though by no means inelegant, corresponds very imperfectly with the fully developed style of art indicated in the other contents of the Largo tumulus, with perhaps the exception of a silver disc, figured in the Archæological Journal, half the size of the original.550 This measures three inches in diameter, and has a central boss with a circular depression, which may not improbably have been set with a jewel of amber or stone. The torquated hoop of the silver fibula does not appear the best adapted for the free movement of the acus, but this seems rarely to have been much attended to. Where, as in these examples, the hoop is disunited, the acus is generally of great length, not infrequently measuring two, and even two and a half times the diameter of its circle. Nothing more was required for fastening such a fibula after the tongue had been passed through the dress, than to turn it slightly past the opening, for which purpose its perforation is always sufficiently wide. The revived taste for archæological pursuits has once more restored this ancient form adapted to the fashions of modern dress, and one of the most favourite Scottish patterns bears the name of the Maid of Norway’s Brooch.

It is less easy to assign a use for another of the Norrie’s Law relics, engraved here half the size of the original. Mr. Albert Way describes it as “a plate of silver, enriched with singular scrolls or foliated ornaments in very high relief. Three of these remain; there was obviously a fourth, connected with the corresponding scroll by a narrow neck, the plate being formed with an irregular oblong opening in the centre. Dimensions of the plate, four and a half inches by four inches; length of the opening, two and a half inches; projection of the ornaments more than a quarter of an inch. They appear to have been cast, and are formed with great elegance of outline and skilful workmanship.” It is obvious that the plate when complete had not been uniform. It would now be vain to speculate on its original purpose, though this appears to be the object described in Mr. Buist’s report as the mouthpiece of a sword-scabbard; his whole ideas having obviously been modified by the local belief in the “suit of silver armour” in which the mounted warrior was interred. There is manifestly but little correspondence in it either to a modern sword-guard or the mouthpiece of its scabbard, and it bears not the slightest resemblance to any known appendage of ancient weapons.

The remaining relics of this hoard include two fragments of armillæ, formed of plain silver plates, beaten out so as to present a convex outer face; a double hook, one inch in length, in form of an S; a narrow band, like a riband of silver, about half an inch in width, and upwards of a yard long: one end, which appears perfect, tapering to a point; a fragment of fine interlaced silver; and a spiral silver ring, almost precisely similar in form to one of bronze found in a cist near Edinburgh, and figured in a former chapter.[551] It weighs 120 grains, and is ornamented only with a minute serrated pattern wrought along part of the inner edge of the spiral bar of silver towards either extremity.

Such are the few but valuable relics which have escaped the crucible, amounting altogether only to about twenty-four ounces out of the estimated 400 ounces of pure silver found in the Norrie’s Law tumulus by its unprincipled ravisher. That they exhibit the high progress attained by native artists at the period to which they belong can hardly admit of a doubt. The analogy which the forms both of the fibulæ and bodkins suggest—so clearly traceable to types of most frequent occurrence in Ireland—fully corresponds to the historic origin of the races and the arts of Scotland, already traced out in the previous chapter. Their peculiar devices, found only on the earliest Christian monuments of Scotland, no less distinctly refer these remarkable relics to that native transition-period from the fourth to the eighth century, when Pagan and Christian rites were obscurely mingled; and the revelations of the old sepulchral mound shew that the anticipations of the dying warrior still derived their most vivid power more from the heathen valhalla than the Christian paradise. We shall not perhaps greatly err in limiting the era of the Norrie’s Law tumulus from the third to the sixth century. We must even allow for the lapse of a sufficient interval between the last surviving witness of the deposition of its treasures, and the advent of that new creed and system which finally abolished the sacredness that formed the old safeguard of the Pagan treasures of the dead. But in addition to every other cause of regret for the barbarous destruction of these beautiful examples of the arts as practised in Scotland a thousand years ago, we have reason to believe that an opportunity was lost—perhaps the only one that can ever occur—of ascertaining the precise epoch, and even the meaning of the remarkable Scottish symbols with which they were decorated. Mr. Buist remarks in his report,—“A considerable number of coins, now wholly lost sight of, and said to have borne these symbolic markings, were found along with the armour at Norrie’s Law, and about forty of the same kind were found in an earthen pot at Pittenweem in 1822. It is said that these were destitute of inscription or written character.” No great importance can be attached to such vague descriptions of coins chiefly derived from the recollections of persons probably little familiar with any but those of the present currency. But of the fact of coins having been found no doubt can be entertained. Nor is this the only instance of such being met with in a Scottish tumulus, though hitherto they have only been discovered to be destroyed.

The most primitive form of Scottish coinage is evidently the simple gold pellets usually marked with a cross in relief. The two examples engraved here, the size of the originals, are from the remarkable hoard discovered at Cairnmuir, Peeblesshire, in 1806.552 They resemble two segments of a sphere irregularly joined, and appear to have been cast in a mould. Forty of the same simple class of early currency were found, along with what appears to have been a gold funicular torc, in the parish of Dolphinton, Lanarkshire, and marked, like those of Cairnmuir, “with the impression of a star.”553 Little hesitation can be felt in assigning to the same class a discovery, in the parish of Dunnichen, Forfarshire, of “a number of small gold bullets, which seem to have been the current coin of the times when they were formed.”554 A correspondent describes to me a quantity of silver coins found about two years since in a cist exposed on the demolition of a cairn on the lands of Sauchie, Stirlingshire: “They were so thin that they readily broke in the workmen’s fingers; they seemed struck through from the back, and had figures only on the one side; some of them had loops to hang them by.” The whole of these are now dispersed or lost, their ignorant discoverers having seemingly contented themselves with the interesting experiment of trying how readily they could break them in pieces. There can be little doubt from the description that they were silver bracteates; and if so, their loss is greatly to be regretted. A cairn of peculiar construction is described in the Statistical Account of the parish of Garvoch, Kincardineshire, within which was found a silver brooch of ancient workmanship, and towards the margin upwards of twenty coins, but these would appear to have been a later deposit, as they included one of Alexander I., and another of Robert Bruce.555 The valuable numismatic collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland includes a few gold coins of the Gaulish type, believed to have been found in Scotland, but their history or exact locality is unknown. Mr. Lindsay, in his “View of the Coinage of Scotland,” justly remarks on the neglect of the investigation of this interesting subject, which, until the publication of his work, had been carried no farther back than the reign of William the Lion. To this he has added the history of upwards of a century, and made us familiar with some interesting early types. The earliest of these are of the Crux type of Ethelred II., of whose coins they are evidently an imitation, and are ascribed to the Norwegian jarls of the Hebrides. In the autumn of 1782, some men engaged in clearing away the foundation of an old wall in the island of Tyrie, one of the Hebrides, found an urn containing from fifteen to twenty ounces of Anglo-Saxon silver coins in fine preservation, ninety of these are now in the Scottish Society’s collection, and include silver pennies of Athelstan, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwy, Eadgar, and Eadweard the Martyr. In the present year, 1850, a large hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins was discovered in the Isle of Skye: upwards of ninety fell into the hands of one individual, and a much greater number were dispersed. By far the greater number are stykas of Eadgar. Barry mentions two horns found at Caldale near Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, containing three hundred coins of Canute, including forty-two varieties of mints, with silver fibulæ and other relics, already described along with a more recent discovery of a similar kind.556 To these also should be added the occasional discovery of Cufic coins, inscribed in the old Arabic character, and ranging from the latter end of the seventh to the close of the tenth century. One of these, a fine gold coin, was discovered in 1823, at a considerable depth, in digging a grave in the churchyard of Monymusk, Aberdeenshire.557 In all the discoveries referred to it is of special importance to our present inquiries to note that coins and other undoubted evidences of a comparatively recent date are rarely, if ever, found with gold relics of Archaic types. We rather see distinct reason to conclude that the stores of native gold and the direct sources of foreign supply were both nearly exhausted at an earlier period, and that silver, which chiefly belongs to the Iron or last Pagan period, was the metal used for purposes of personal adornment and display at the period when the peculiar native arts were developed which appear to belong to the dawn of the Scottish Christian Period. Whether derived from native or foreign sources, silver appears to have been then in greater abundance, and more lavishly employed for mere purposes of show than at any other period of our national history.

Chapter IV — Scoto-Scandinavian Relics

From the slight historical sketch introduced in a preceding chapter, we perceive that the plundering expeditions of the Norse Vikings, and the establishment of Norwegian dominion by Harold in the Northern and Western Isles, were rapidly superseded by the establishment of an independent Scoto-Norwegian kingdom, which diminished the direct intercourse with Scandinavia Proper, and led to some interfusion of the Celtic and Scandinavian races. To this period, therefore, we must look for the introduction of pure Scandinavian antiquities into Scotland, and also for the production of those native relics which bear manifest traces of the influence of Scandinavian art. In the Western Isles especially, where the expatriated Vikings of Norway fixed their head-quarters, and in Man, and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, where the first independent Scoto-Norwegian kingdoms were established, we may naturally look for many traces of Scandinavian arts.

To this period belongs the very characteristic and beautiful ornament, usually designated the shell-shaped brooch, and which is equally familiar to Scandinavian and British antiquaries. In Scotland especially, many beautiful examples have been found: several of them are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and from these the following is selected as surpassing in beauty of design and intricacy of ornament, any other example of which I am aware. It consists, as usual, of a convex plate of metal, with an ornamental border, surmounted by another convex plate of greater depth, highly ornamented with embossed and perforated designs, the effect of which appears to have been further heightened by the lower plate being gilded so as to shew through the open work. In this example the gilding still remains tolerably perfect. On the under side are the projecting plates still retaining a fragment of the corroded iron pin, where it has turned on a hinge, and at the opposite end the bronze catch into which it clasped. The under side of the brooch appears to have been lined with coarse linen, the texture of which is still clearly defined on the coating of verd antique with which it is now covered. But its peculiar features consist of an elevated central ornament resembling a crown, and four intricately chased projections terminating in horses’ heads. It was found in September 1786, along with another brooch of the same kind, lying beside a skeleton, under a flat stone, very near the surface, above the ruins of a Pictish house or burgh, in Caithness. It measures nearly four and a half inches in length, by three inches in breadth, and two and two-fifth inches in height to the top of the crown. Like many others of the same type, it appears to have been jewelled. In several examples of these brooches which I have compared, the lower convex plates so nearly resemble each other, as to suggest the probability of their having been cast in the same mould, while the upper plates entirely differ.

These oval brooches are most frequently found in pairs, and may be presumed to have been worn on the front of the shoulders or breast, as shewn in a curious piece of sculpture, evidently of nearly the same period, which is built into the church wall of Invergowrie. It is engraved in Mr. Chalmers of Auldbar’s “Ancient Sculptured Monuments of Angus,” (Pl. XXII.) and represents, apparently, three dignitaries, probably priests, as two of them hold books in their hands. The two outer figures are adorned with large brooches on their shoulders, while the central, and perhaps more important figure, is without them, but wears instead a circular ornament on the lower front of his garment. Along with the pairs of oval brooches is frequently found a third, flat and sometimes trefoiled. One of these, referred to more particularly on a subsequent page, found along with a pair of oval brooches, in a barrow on the Island of Westray, in 1839, was first observed on the exposure of the skeleton, apparently laid on the abdomen, while the others were beside the ribs, as if worn on the breast. Another example from the Island of Sangay is figured in the Vetusta Monumenta, (vol. ii. Pl. XX.) A beautiful pair, made of a white-coloured metal, found under peculiar circumstances in a tumulus in Yorkshire, and another from the neighbourhood of Bedale, are figured in the Archæological Journal.558 Various other specimens are preserved, both in public and private collections, but none of those that I have seen appear to equal in elaborateness or beauty of design, the Caithness brooch figured above.

By far the most remarkable relic associated with the period of Scandinavian invasion yet discovered in Scotland, is the beautiful Runic brooch, engraved on Plate I., which forms the frontispiece to this volume. It was found in the autumn of 1830, on the estate of Robert Hunter, Esq. of Hunterston, in the parish of West Kilbride, Ayrshire, within about an hundred yards of the sea, by two workmen who had commenced to quarry for stones. It lay quite close to the surface, at the foot of a steep cliff, called the “Hawking Craig,” where the falcon still breeds,—a part of the Goldenberry hill, which bounds the extreme western point of Ayrshire. Between the Hawking Craig and the sea is a level piece of ground, where local tradition affirms that a skirmish took place, shortly before the celebrated battle of Largs, fought A.D. 1263,559 when the fleet of King Haco was shattered by a tempest, and the Norse foe, already dispirited and greatly reduced in numbers, was totally routed, and finally driven from the Scottish mainland. In further confirmation of the local tradition Mr. Hunter adds,—“On the opposite side of the Hawking Craig, where the brooch was found, I discovered, in making a fence, some graves, composed merely of six rough stones, but with nothing inside but some charcoal, the bones being quite decayed. A short distance from this, at the foot of the hill, is the flat piece of ground assigned as the scene of the skirmish, in confirmation of which I discovered some graves there. A short way from this was a large cairn or tumulus of stones, wherein were found coins, &c.; but I just recollect, as a boy, the stones having been carted away: I found also an urn of unbaked clay, half filled with bones partially burned.” It might admit of doubt if the Norsemen were likely to tarry on an enemy’s coast, after so decisive a defeat, long enough to construct the cist and cinerary urn, and to rear the funeral pile, though we know that they were permitted to land, after the battle of Largs, in order to bury their dead. But we may dispense with the argument in this case, as we have not the slightest reason to imagine that the cinerary urn was in use, either by Scots or Norwegians, of the thirteenth century. In truth, the whole theory by which the remarkable relic now referred to is sought to be connected with the important historical event of the reign of Alexander III., is destitute of any satisfactory foundation. The locality is far removed from Largs, and not the slightest value can be attached to any local tradition of Norwegian skirmishes or battles. A reference to the old and new statistical accounts of the various parishes, along both the Ayrshire and Argyleshire coasts, will suffice to shew that the battle of King Haco has proved as infallible a source of explanation for the discovery of cists, tumuli, cairns, and sepulchral relics of every kind, as if it were a well authenticated fact that no one had died, from the days of Noah to our own, but at the battle of Largs!

Sturla, the Norse skald, has celebrated the gorgeous armament of Haco in the famous Raven’s Ode, and disguises the extent of his monarch’s defeat with the skill of a courtly bard; but in vain. King Haco gathered together the shattered remnant of his fleet, and bore away for Orkney, where he died, not many weeks after, of a broken heart. The old Norse skald thus refers to his earlier success, while the fleet was gathering along the Scottish shores, in sight of the Ayrshire coast:—“Our fierce veterans, feeders of wolves, hastened their fatal course through the mountains. In the fell battle mingling, Aleinn the Dauntless wreaked vengeance on the expiring foe. But now our sovereign encountered the horrid powers of enchantment. A tempest, magic-raised, blew upon our warriors ambitious of conquest, and against the floating habitations of the brave. The roaring billows dashed shielded companies on the Scottish strand.”

In one of the skirmishes which preceded the fatal encounter fought on Tuesday the 2d of October 1263, the beautiful brooch engraved on Plate I. is assumed to have been lost. Both the character of its inscription and the style of its ornament suggest the probability of its pertaining to a much earlier period; and even Danish antiquaries, while not unwilling to authenticate its Scandinavian origin, have sought for it a date one hundred and thirty-three years prior to the defeat of King Haco, and the final abandonment of the Scottish mainland by the Norwegian invader. The brooch is of silver, richly wrought with gold filigree work, and measures four inches and nine-tenths in greatest diameter. It is also set with amber, and is in a nearly perfect condition. The only injury it has received, with the exception of the point of the acus being broken off, is in some of the amber settings, occasioned either by the action of the weather, to which it was exposed from lying so near the surface, or possibly from the frequent burning of the whins which abound along the cliff where it was found. But the most remarkable feature of this beautiful personal ornament is an inscription engraved in large Runic characters on its under side.

Shortly after the discovery of this interesting relic, it was exhibited to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, and Mr. T. G. Repp, a native of Iceland, familiar with Runic literature, read the inscription thus:—

Maloritha á dalk this; Dólk Osfriđo; which he thus translated: Maloritha possidet hanc fibulam; Fibula Osfridie. At the same time drawings of the brooch were made, and a cast in sulphur was taken from the inscription, which is now deposited in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. This valuable historic relic, which is here for the first time presented to British archæologists, has attracted considerable attention among Danish antiquaries. It was made the subject of a learned communication by Finn Magnusen, in the Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie for 1846, (pp. 323-599,) but it admits of doubt if he has been more successful in the correct rendering of this than of the well-known Runamo or Ruthwell inscriptions, though he is equally precise in assigning to our Ayrshire brooch a definite date and owner, as in identifying Offa, and the other historical characters of whom mention is made, according to certain readings of the Ruthwell Runes.

The inscription on the brooch is traced in large Runic characters, of which an exact fac-simile is introduced in the frontispiece, and differs essentially from any readings hitherto given of it by Danish antiquaries. Professor Magnusen’s version, furnished by the late Mr. Donald Gregory, then Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was probably only a copy of that made by Mr. Repp, though he reads the second name ᚮᛍᚠᚱᛁᛐᚭ, and contrives to elicit a vast deal more significance from the brief legend than its former translator dreamt of. He renders the first part—MALFRIÞA A DALK ÞIS; and translates it, Malfritha is the owner of this brooch. In this Malfritha he ingeniously discovers the Norwegian Queen Malford, a Russian princess who lived about A.D. 1130, while he finds in the Osfrido of the latter part of his version, Astrith the wife of King Svenir. A passage, moreover, in the Saga of King Haco, wherein the monarch complains of having been despoiled in infancy of all his inheritance save a brooch and a ring, completed the coveted cycle of historical identification, and here accordingly we have the brooch of King Haco, and an undoubted memorial of the Battle of Largs! A glance at the fac-simile of the inscription will shew how much imagination had to do even with the literal elements of this unparalleled discovery. In adapting the first name to his historical romance, Professor Magnusen reads ᚮ as F, not only without any authority, but even while recognising the regular ᚠ, or Runic F, in the second name—a needless liberty as will appear. The word ᚦᛁᛍ is no less a creation of the fancy. The mark which appears to have been construed into the terminating circle of the ᛍ, and to have given some show of probability to the others, being only the head of one of the silver rivets, which chances there to protrude in the middle of a line.

Meanwhile let us glance at the safer guidance which pure archæological evidence supplies. In addition to the inscription, I have introduced in the drawing, portions of the ornamental borders running along the outer and inner edges of the brooch. The Irish antiquary especially will recognise in these the familiar interlaced patterns to be found on nearly every native ecclesiastical and personal ornament pertaining to the early Christian period prior to the first appearance of the Northern Vikings, and with these the entire design and ornamentation correspond. But for the inscription, in fact, no one would have dreamt of assigning to the brooch a foreign origin; yet it does not seem to have ever occurred to the Scottish antiquaries to whom it was submitted, that the inscription might also be native, and equally Celtic with the workmanship. It will be seen that a rude chevron pattern is engraved on the back of the brooch, cut in the same style as the inscription, evidently the work of very different, and no doubt later hands, than those of the original jeweller. The whole reasoning, both of Scottish and Danish antiquaries in relation to this interesting relic, has heretofore proceeded on the assumption that a Runic inscription must have a direct Scandinavian origin: a conclusion by no means necessarily resulting from the use of Runes in Scotland at the date assigned to this one, after alliances and intermarriages had long existed between the Scandinavian and Celtic races of Scotland.

The Runic monuments of the Isle of Man present some remarkable features, manifestly pointing them out as the product of a Scandinavian colony in close alliance with a native Celtic population, and possessed both of a language and style of art resulting from the intercourse of these diverse races. The Manx Runic alphabet appears also to have some literal peculiarities altogether singular, though probably once common to the Hebrides and Northern Isles, and found also, as might have been anticipated, on the Hunterston brooch. To these features of the Manx alphabet, my attention was called by Professor P. A. Munch of Christiania, during the visit of that distinguished Northern scholar to this country in 1849; by whom, indeed, they were for the first time detected, when inspecting a series of casts of the Manx inscriptions in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. In these ᚮ is sometimes used as B, so that the first name on the brooch reads Malbritha. From the incidents already narrated relative to the Scandinavian acquirement of possessions on the Scottish mainland, both by conquest and marriage, it cannot be doubted that, in so far as the Celtic race had any literary acquirements, they must have been familiarized both with the Northern language and Runes. It need not, therefore, surprise us to find in the owner of the Hunterston brooch not a Norwegian queen but a Scottish chief of the same name as the Celtic Maormor, Melbrigda Tönn, slain by Sigurd, the Orkney jarl, when he invaded the north of Scotland A.D. 894. The name, indeed, is familiar to the student of early Scottish history, and its first syllable is one of the commonest Celtic prefixes, as in the Mail Pataric on the Iona tomb, and even in the royal name of Malcolm, Maol Columb, the servant of Columba, as Maol Brigda signifies the servant of St. Bridget. In all cases it is a male prefix, the Gaelic maol meaning bald as well as subordinate, and being undoubtedly employed in its latter acceptation with reference to the tonsure. It is accordingly frequently met with in the names of ecclesiastics, as in the Pictish chronicle, A.D. 965, “Maelbrigd episcopus pausavit,” and again repeatedly in an early Irish MS. copy of the Gospels, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum,—n, 1802; as, for example, at the end of the Gospel of St. John, the colophon, “Or. do Maelbrigte h-Ua Maeluanaig, qui scripsit hunc librum.”

Here, therefore, we have a probable key to the language of the whole inscription, nor can it be regarded as an extravagant idea that a Celt should write his native language in an alphabet already familiar to him. The characters on the brooch, it will be seen, include various Binderuner or compound Runes, which add to the difficulty of translation. Making allowance for these, the following version has this merit at least, compared with previous ones, that it does not select merely such letters as will conform to a preconceived theory, but takes the whole in natural order. In the latter part of the inscription the second letter is a compound Rune, consisting of ᛅᚭ, or perhaps of ᛁᛅᚭ, the next of ᛚᛉ, and the fourth of ᛆᚭ—a construction entirely in accordance with the usual mode of interpreting the Binderuner, which were in common use at the very period of the most intimate Celtic and Scandinavian intercourse. The whole will thus read:

The additional marks are mostly irregular lines, with no distinctive character, and executed with so little care, that it is not improbable they have been introduced merely to occupy the remaining space with a uniform texture. What is decipherable reads in good Scottish Celtic: Malbritha a daimiheh i dæol Maolfridi; i.e., Malbritha his friend in recompense to Maolfridi: a is the possessive pronoun his; daimheach, a friend or relative; i or h-i, the old Celtic preposition in; and dìol, a reward for service done. It must be borne in remembrance that the spelling of the Scottish Gaelic is entirely modern. It is the sound therefore that is chiefly to be looked to, but the variations even in the spelling are not important. No Scandinavian scholar can examine the fac-simile of the inscription, and question the fact that the concluding portion actually contains the masculine name which Professor Magnusen was at such needless pains to try and educe from that of Malbritha. The chief value, however, to the Scottish antiquary of the reading now given, arises from no identification of these old Celtic friends, but from its establishing the fact—in itself so probable—that they did actually employ the Scoto-Scandinavian Runes in writing their own native language.

The annexed woodcut represents an exceedingly beautiful Scottish brooch, the size of the original, now in the collection of John Bell, Esq. of Dungannon. Like the Hunterston brooch, it is of silver, set with amber, and with the pattern wrought in gold. The resemblance of the two, both in style of ornament and in some of the details, can hardly fail to be admitted. This very fine specimen was found in the immediate vicinity of the celebrated mounds of Dunipace, Stirlingshire, the subject of antiquarian speculation from the days of Buchanan to our own. Another very fine large silver brooch, jewelled and plated with gold, formerly in the celebrated collection of Major Sirr, and now in that of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., has the acus exactly corresponding in its form and peculiar construction to that of the Hunterston brooch, while its other details are such as Scottish and Irish antiquaries are familiar with on the native gold and silver work of Celtic Christian art prior to the eleventh century. In point of workmanship and style of art, therefore, we have no reason to ascribe to our Runic brooch a foreign origin. Other evidence equally exposes the fallacy of assuming a necessary connexion between the discovery of Runes on our western coast and the fatal expedition of King Haco.

Directly opposite to the Ayrshire coast, and within sight of the Bay of Largs, a small island protects the entrance to Lamlash Bay, in the Isle of Arran, the well-known anchorage where Haco mustered his shattered fleet after his overthrow. In the Norwegian account of the expedition, after the narration of the fatal storm and conflict, it is stated, “The king sailed past Kumbrey (Cumbray) to Melansay, where he lay some nights.”560 This Melans ey, or isle, there can be little doubt is Holy Island, in the Bay of Lamlash, which contains the cave assigned by immemorial tradition as the residence of St. Molio or St. Maoliosa, a disciple of Columba, and a favourite Celtic saint. The island corresponds in geological structure to the southern district of Arran, presenting along the shore the common red sandstone strata, overflowed by a great mass of claystone and claystone porphyry, which towers above it in rugged and picturesque cliffs, fringed by the dwarf oak and birch, to a height of about a thousand feet. The cave of St. Molio is little more than a waterworn recess in the sandstone rock at an elevation of about thirty feet from the present level of the sea. On the shore below, a circular well is pointed out as St. Molio’s Bath, and a large block of sandstone cut perfectly flat on the top, and surrounded with a series of artificial recesses or seats, bears the name of the Saint’s Chair. Such relics are by no means rare in Scotland. They appear to have been singularly characteristic of Celtic hagiology. The Bath of St. Cuthbert was once a favourite resort in Strathtay; that of St. Woloc exists in Strathdeveron; and that of St. Fillan remains in the strath of Perthshire which still bears his name. St. Kentigern also had once his “bath,” “bed,” and “chair,” near the Molendinar Burn. The Stone Chair of St. Marnan is still at Aberchirder; that of St. Fillan was recently preserved at the Mill of Killin; while another of these singular Celtic relics, placed at a commanding point, near Achtereachan, Glencoe, where a bend of the glen enables it to command both views, bears the name of Cathair Malvina, or the Chair of Malvina, one of Ossian’s heroines.

The roof and sides of the cave of St. Molio, on Holy Island, are covered with rude marks and inscriptions of many different periods, among which may be discerned the following Runic inscription, cut with great regularity, in characters of about an inch and a half in length.

The reading is sufficiently simple and unmistakable. Nikulos ahane raist. The first, ᚿᛁᚴᚢᛚᚮᛌ, is manifestly a proper name. No such word as ᛆᚼᛅᚿᛂ is known in the Icelandic or ancient Norse tongue, unless it be simply a Hane: of Hane, the name of a place. We may therefore, perhaps, without impropriety, look for it in the native Celtic, where abhadh, pronounced very nearly in accordance with the spelling of ahane, signifies a hollow or abode. The last word, ᚱᛅᛁᛌᛐ, is of common occurrence in Runic inscriptions, the preterite of rísta, to engrave. In the present example, therefore, we shall not probably err in reading the inscription Nicholas engraved, or cut, this cave.

According to established custom with all relics found in the neighbourhood of the estuary of the Clyde, possessing the slightest affinity to those of ancient Scandinavia, this Runic inscription will no doubt be ascribed to the followers of King Haco in the thirteenth century. But independently of the improbability of the defeated Norsemen employing themselves in inscribing such a retreat, the simplicity of the Runes favours the probability of its pertaining to an earlier period. It is not altogether impossible, however, that even now, after the lapse of at least six centuries, we may be able from the brief Runes of St. Molio’s Cave, to identify the anchorite who dwelt in this rude retreat. From the initial ✠, the inscription appears to be the work of an ecclesiastic; and in the Chronicon Manniæ, after recording the death of Bishop Michael, the elevation of his successor Nicholas, a native of Argyle, is thus noted: Huic successit Nicolaus Archadiensis genere, qui jacet in monasterio Benchorensi.561 He appears to have succeeded to the see about the year 1193, and to have held it for about fourteen years.562 The coincidence both of name and place of nativity certainly give probability to the supposition that the recluse of Holy Island in the bay of Lamlash, and the old Manx bishop, may have been one; at the same time it must be observed that such attempts at identification rest on an extremely uncertain basis, and have been the fruitful source of error.

The traces of the use of Runic characters are still abundant in the Isle of Man, and undoubtedly belong to the period of the general adoption of Christianity there, though it is not possible to assign to them a precise date. But the above are not the only Runes inscribed on St. Molio’s cave. The whole surrounding surface of the rock is covered with crosses, evidently the marks of pious but illiterate pilgrims, who thus recorded their visit to the Holy Isle. Among these, however, are also traceable initials, monograms, and other more perfect evidences of the former concourse of pilgrims to the sacred spot. The annexed fac-simile of a group of them shews the curious character of these primitive holographs; but among them the experienced eye will at once discern the Runic characters, not regularly and boldly cut as in the former inscription, but irregularly scratched, as with the hasty hand of the wayfaring pilgrim. It is hardly necessary now too curiously to investigate the primitive record, though the letters are for the most part sufficiently distinct and well defined. The ᚳ, or k, is not a Scandinavian but an Anglo-Saxon Rune: a mixture by no means improbable by a Celtic inscriber. The whole probably imply no more than the proper name Akiethir, though it does not present, as in the former case, one familiar to our ears. Possibly like some other Runic inscriptions, it reads from right to left, in which case we should perhaps recognise it as a female name, Ritheika.

The rounded Roman characters, from which the medieval church-lettering ultimately sprung, were in use in the North more than a century prior to the era of King Haco, though they had not entirely superseded the Runes. But before this took place the Runic alphabet had been augmented by various new characters, and the Binderuner, or compound Runes, were in general use, especially in proper names, many of which are united into a single monogram. Both of the inscriptions in St. Molio’s Cave are free from the later abridged mode of writing, and would therefore seem more probably ascribable to an older date than the thirteenth century, or indeed the not greatly earlier era of Bishop Nicholas of Man.

In this conclusion Scandinavian scholars will probably concur, though they may perhaps detect in other undecipherable groups of markings on the same cave the characteristic Binderuner of a later date. It can hardly be expected that they will unhesitatingly concur in another idea, advanced I believe for the first time, that the Celtic population of Scotland were as familiar with the Northern Runes as the natives of the kingdom of Northumbria are proved to have been with the Anglo-Saxon Runes, in which the most remarkable Scottish Runic monument—the Cross of Ruthwell—is inscribed. Of this, however, we are not entirely without some direct indications. The earliest, if not indeed the only medieval Scottish document which contains any allusion to the Pictish race, is a charter of confirmation of the lands of Burgie, in the reign of Alexander II., which occurs in the Chartulary of Moray. In describing the marches of the lands of Burgie, as fixed by perambulation, it refers to the various landmarks as follows: “Scilicet a magna quercu in Malevin quam predictus comes Malcolumo primo fecit cruce signari usque ad Rune Pictorum, et inde usque ad Tubernacrumkel, et inde per sicum usque ad Tubernafein, et inde usque ad Runetwethel, et inde per rivulam qui currit per meresiam usque ad vadum quod dicitur Blakeford, quod est inter Burgyn et Ulern.”563 To this interesting and curious charter another parchment is attached, which professes to furnish an explanation of the local names. They contain, it will be observed, an admixture of Celtic and Saxon terminology, sufficiently characteristic of the previous history of the locality; and the explanatory parchment is chiefly valuable as shewing how effectually the intrusion of the later race had adulterated or effaced the native traditions. The following is the explanatory translation:—“Rune[s] Pictorum, the carne of the Pethis, or the Pecht’s fieldis. Tubernacrumkel, ane well with ane thrawine mowth, or ane cassin well, or ane crwik in it.” It is sufficiently obvious that the explanations are given with uncertainty and doubt, and there can be little hesitation in translating the first name, not as the Pictish fields, but as the Pictish Runes, referring, as may be assumed, to an inscribed Celtic monument which had of old marked one of the Burgie marches; though in the reign of Alexander II., and long prior to the Battle of Largs, the very meaning of the term had been forgotten in Scotland. No attempt is made in the Burgie parchment to explain the name Runetwethel, but its correspondence to that of Ruthwell, the site of the celebrated Runic monument in Dumfriesshire, is perhaps not unworthy of notice.564 The form of the northern Runes, as of the eastern Cuneatic characters, is manifestly traceable to a people whose literature was confined to graven records, chiefly on stone. Many of the medieval mason’s marks are not only similar in general form, but some of them are identical with the following characters of the Runic alphabets:—ᚺᛋᛟᚻᚩᛖᛞᛘᚷᛗᛦ While this correspondence may be sufficiently explained by the simplicity of such combinations of lines, and their ready execution by the mason’s pen, the absence of rounded forms, such as predominate in the Roman alphabet, adds another proof that the origin of medieval architecture, and perhaps also of Free Masonry, is traceable to the northern countries of Europe. The medieval mason’s marks may undoubtedly be assumed with equal probability to retain the traces of the obsolete Runes, as the Bomœrker (literally house-marks) employed by the peasantry in certain districts of Sweden and Norway as signatures, or marks on personal property, in which the northern antiquaries recognise surviving elements of the Runic alphabet. In more recent times the term Runic has been used in this country in the vaguest and most uncertain fashion, occasionally without any very definite meaning appearing to be attached to it, and not infrequently as synonymous with Danish or Scandinavian.

These indications of the use of Runes by the native Celtic population of Scotland, are—like many other ideas advanced in this elementary treatise on our national antiquities—offered suggestively, and liable to the correction which further discoveries may suggest. The Celtic character of the name on the Hunterston brooch, the equally familiar one, in its Greek form, of that in the cave of St. Molio—peculiarly characteristic of the native Christian ascetics prior to the eleventh century,—and the Runic characters mingling with the initials and pilgrims’ marks of the Holy Isle, are all suggestive of the same idea; and this it will be seen receives further confirmation from other Runic inscriptions. But whatever conclusion be finally adopted as to the precise rendering of the Hunterston inscription, or the inferences to be drawn from the various Runic memorials found in Scotland, it will be universally acknowledged that the brooch on which the former occurs is a relic of no ordinary interest or value. Though it may not admit of comparison with the celebrated golden horns, it surpasses, I believe, any other inscribed Runic relic hitherto discovered in Denmark or Sweden. A gold head ring found a few years since at Starup, in the neighbourhood of Haderslev, with Runic letters upon it, is engraved in Mr. Worsaae’s Primeval Antiquities of Denmark. The inscription is simply the word luþro, traced on the inner side of the ring, and assumed as probably denoting the name of the owner, which in this case also is supposed to be that of a man.565

While the Isle of Man still retains many interesting traces of Scandinavian influence, in its memorial crosses graven with inscriptions in the Northern Runes, it is surprising how very partial are the indications of the same influence in the older northern jarldom. Only two imperfect Runic inscriptions have been observed in Shetland, and are described by Dr. Hibbert from drawings by Mr. Low.566 One of them on a slab or grave-stone at Crosskirk, in Northmavine, is too much mutilated to render any attempt at restoration or decipherment of its meaning possible. The other was fixed in the wall of the Parish Church of Sandness, where it probably still remains; but, if there be no error in Dr. Hibbert’s engraving of it, it only adds another to the frequent examples in Scotland of the term Runic being applied to designate any strange or incomprehensible device on a sepulchral monument. In Orkney no Runic monument is known to exist, though it cannot be doubted that many such must have been erected during the earlier years of the independent occupation of the Northern Islands by the Norwegian Jarls. Some of these, it is not impossible, may even yet be brought to light; though the continuous presence of a busy population during the intervening centuries affords too satisfactory means of accounting for their destruction to render such discoveries very probable at this late date. The annexed illustration of a later and more complicated Runic inscription than any known British example, is the remarkable memorial stone found in 1824 on the Island of Kingiktorsoak, Greenland, under the parallel of 73°, proving the zeal with which the old Scandinavian colonists pushed their adventurous course even to the extreme north of the inhospitable region of Greenland. It is introduced here chiefly to shew the complicated and much more intricate character of Scandinavian inscriptions of a later and well ascertained period; the era of the colonisation of Greenland being sufficiently established as a historical fact. Mr. C. C. Rafn finds in the concluding Runes the date 1135. During the recent repairs executed on St. Magnus Cathedral at Kirkwall, some singularly interesting discoveries were made connected with the period of its earliest Scandinavian bishops. A tomb was opened accidentally in the choir of the cathedral, which from the inscription accompanying it appears to have been the place to which the remains of William, according to Torfæus, first resident Bishop of Orkney, were translated, after the elongation of the cathedral, towards the close of the twelfth century. Along with the bones were interred a leaden plate inscribed in the common Church letters of the period:—H. Requiescit. Williamus. Senex. felicis. memorie. On the reverse of the plate are the words, pmus epis. Further excavations in the east end of the choir, and close to the presumed site of the high altar, led to the discovery of two curious pieces of sculpture, in bas relief, representing St. Olaf and St. Magnus. These, however, as well as the tomb of Bishop Tulloch, with crosier, paten, and chalice inclosed, and other discoveries made at the same period, belong to a later era than that of Runic literature, and are only referred to now as suggesting the possibility of still earlier relics of the Scandinavian period of Orcadian history being yet brought to light, while the first of them shews that the Runic character had fallen into disuse soon after the introduction of Christianity in the north.

It is to the Manx monuments, however, that we must turn for the most distinct and abundant traces of Scandinavian influence, though modified both by the arts and the faith of the older Celtic population. The Runic inscriptions are conjoined with the sacred emblem of the Christian faith, and are associated with ornamental accompaniments, some of which are sufficiently common on the sculptured memorials of the Scottish mainland and isles, though never found on contemporary native monuments of Scandinavia. The close resemblance of a peculiar trefoil ornament on the upper part of one of these crosses at Kirk Michael, to the device on the reverse of the coins of Aulaf, King of Northumbria, has been pointed out;567 but it is impossible to limit to a single country or to a very narrow period much of the common ornamentation vulgarly called Runic knotwork. It may be traced on manuscripts, monuments, and relics of Scoto-Irish, Pictish, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman origin, from the sixth to the twelfth century. It is, however, frequently found with other accompaniments of a more precise character, and this in the case of the Manx crosses of Kirk Andreas and Kirk Michael, approaches more nearly to the style of the singular sculptured standing stones of Scotland than to any other monuments of the north of Europe. Here, therefore, sheltered by the isolation of this island, and by the veneration or by the superstition of its inhabitants, examples have been preserved of the style of Scoto-Norwegian monuments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which must once have abounded in the Scottish Northern and Western Isles, and on those parts of the mainland longest subject to Scandinavian rule. “The fear of sacrilege evinced by the Manx peasants is very great. The ruined chapels are still venerated, and a Manx formula of cursing is,—May a stone of the church be found in a corner of your house.”568 That the monuments of this period should have disappeared cannot surprise us, when we reflect on the very few memorials we now possess of that important era of Scottish ecclesiastical history which intervenes between the building of the white-walled cathedral of St. Ninian at Whithern, about the year 412, and the founding of the Abbey of Dunfermline in the eleventh century. I am fortunate in having obtained the assistance of Professor P. A. Munch—whose name will, I believe, be sufficient authority among northern scholars—in translating such of the Manx monuments as are referred to here. Previous transcriptions made by copyists unfamiliar with the Runic characters, or ignorant of the language in which they are inscribed, have added much uncertainty and obscurity to the subject, and produced so many various readings as to bring the whole inquiry into disrepute.569

At Kirk Andreas, near Ramsey, at Kirk Michael, Kirk Bride, Kirk Maughold, and Balsalla, are various of these interesting memorials of the Scandinavian era, supplying us with examples of the art and evidences of the faith of the period, and even furnishing some curious personal information regarding the men of that time. Not the least interesting of these minute records is that supplied by the inscription on one of the Kirk Michael crosses, already referred to:—

Rendered literally, according to the equivalent for each Runic character, it is:—Mail orikti sunr aþakans smiþ raisti krus þana fur salu sini sin oruguin gauts girþi þana auk ala i maun. And in pure Norse it reads:—Mailorikti (Mailbrigdi) sunr Aþakans smiðar reisti kross þenna fyrir sálu sinni sins öruggs vinar Gauts’s gerði þenna ok alla i Mön; i.e., Mailbrikti, son of Athacan the smith, raised this cross for his soul, and that of his faithful friend Gaut, who made this [cross] and all [the crosses] in Man. The name of the faithful Gaut, the old Manx sculptor, occurs on other inscriptions, as on a mutilated fragment at Kirk Andreas:—

Literally, þana uf ufaig fauþur sin in gautr girthi sunr... rnar g... orthog. (N. N. reisti kross) þenna of Ufeig föður sinn, en Gautr gerði, sunr Bjarnar g.... N. N. raised this cross over Ufeig his father, but Gaut made [it] the son of Björn.... Another of the Kirk Michael crosses, which has been more frequently and diversely translated than any British Runic inscription, consists of an upright square slab, with a cross cut on both sides, according to the usual style of the Scottish memorial stones, and decorated with a variety of sculptured figures and animals, representing a stag hunt. One of the edges is ornamented with interlaced work, as shewn in the annexed illustration, and along the opposite edge is the legend, surmounted with a small incised figure of a warrior in simple costume, with his arms extended, holding a spear in his right hand, and bearing a round shield on the left arm. The letters are sharply cut, and the author of “Ecclesiological Notes on the Isle of Man” refers to this as the most perfect Runic inscription in the three kingdoms:—

Its literal rendering is:—Auolfir sunr þurulfs hins rauþa risti krus þana aft friþu muþur sina; betraying like the others the variations of a provincial dialect, or a foreign use of the old Norse tongue. More correctly it is:—Eyolfr sunr þórolfs hins rauða reisti kross þenna eft Friðu móður sína; i.e., Eyolf, the son of Thorolf the Red, raised this cross after (or in memory of) Frida his mother. This exceedingly simple memorial of affection, contrasting in its brevity so strikingly with the inflated extravagancies of modern monumental inscriptions, affords a good example of the most usual style of the Manx Runic legends. One cross at Kirk Andreas is raised by Sandulfr suarte, or Sandulf the Black, in memory of his sons and wife; while on another imperfect fragment of a cross may still be traced the words:—Oskitil uilti i trigu aiþsuara sinn; i.e., Oskitil betrayed in truce his sworn friend. The precise object of this unusual memorial cannot now be guessed at with any degree of certainty, though the fragment preserves sufficient that is peculiar to excite our regret at its recovery in so imperfect and dubious a state. Another mutilated cross at Kirk Michael is interesting as an additional example of a Runic inscription containing names essentially Celtic in character. Part of the inscription is so much defaced by the weather as to baffle any attempt at a consistent rendering of its meaning, but of the portion copied below no doubt can be entertained. It is presented here in fac-simile, as an illustration of the style of engraving of the Manx inscriptions, though it differs in the use of ᛋᛏ for the more common Runic characters introduced on the other crosses as equivalent to the s and t.

The inscription literally reads:—Mal-lymkun raisti krus thana eftir Mal-muru fustra sun; i.e., Mallymcun raised this cross, after Malmor his foster-son. The frequent allusions in Runic inscriptions to the foster-father, brother, or son, shews the singular estimation in which such peculiar ties of adopted relationship were held by the northern races at that early date, as they have continued to be even to our own day among the Scottish Highlanders. But the most thoroughly Scandinavian in character of all the Manx Runic crosses is the beautiful one which stands in the churchyard at Kirk Braddan. I am not aware if crosses of this form are found in Denmark or Norway, but in nearly all the principal details, especially on the shaft, it differs entirely from the other Manx crosses, and corresponds to those on Scandinavian relics of the Iron Period. It has been broken in two, and otherwise mutilated; but the two principal pieces have been clasped together with iron bands, so that a good idea can still be formed of it in its perfect state. The shaft is decorated with the common dragon ornaments, intricately intertwined over its whole surface; thus greatly differing in style from the Runic crosses wrought by the skilful hands of Gaut, as well as from the contemporary standing stones of the Scottish mainland. This, therefore, we may be justified in assuming, is the work of some Norwegian artist, whose style was derived from his own fatherland, though in some degree modified by the favourite models of Celtic art which have influenced the form of other Christian monuments in the island. It is probably one of the latest of all the Runic memorials in Man, while at the same time it presents the Scandinavian characters accompanying a style of art to some extent derived from the same foreign source. It can hardly indeed admit of doubt, that in some at least of the Manx monuments we must recognise the adaptation of the Norse literature and dialect to native memorials. The cross cut in relief on the flat slab, with the subordinate accompaniments illustrative of feats of war or the chase, appear to be peculiarly characteristic of primitive Pictish art; while the perforated head with interlaced ornamentation, such as that which is here associated with the old dragon pattern and other Pagan devices of Scandinavia, is more directly traceable to the early Christian arts of Celtic Ireland. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland possesses a complete cast of this beautiful cross, taken when the iron clamps were removed for the purpose of being renewed, and which thus supplies a portion of the Runic inscription which can no longer be seen. It is as follows:—

Literally,—þurlior neaki risti krus þana aft fiak sun sin bruþur sun eaors. Orthogr.: Thorliótr neaki reisti kross þenna eft Fiak sun sinn, bróđurson Eaors; i.e., Thorlior Neaki raised this cross after Fiak his son, the nephew (brother’s son) of Eaor. In addition to this the following marks occur on the under side of the head of the cross, and have been variously figured in the different editions of Camden, and elsewhere. The Runic ᚢ appears to be used in its literal sense, and the remainder may be assumed as rude attempts at Roman characters, in which case I think there can be little hesitation in reading it as the sacred name IHESVS—a curious example of the transition from the use of Runes to Roman characters.

It has already been noted that the term Runic is used in Scotland in the vaguest sense, being frequently understood as synonymous with Scandinavian. In the account of St. Madoes’ Parish, Perthshire, for example, we read: “In the churchyard there is a very beautiful specimen of that class of monuments called Runic, from their imagined Norse or Danish origin.” It may be perhaps assumed that another stone in the parish of Anwoth, Kirkcudbrightshire, has no better claims to rank among the Runic monuments of Scotland, notwithstanding that the older Statist applies the name in reference to its inscription. It is thus described in the Old Statistical Account of the parish, along with a large moat which occupies a steep rocky peninsula jutting out into the sea: “Near to this moat stands a thin stone, nearly perpendicular, five feet three inches high, engraved on both sides with the rude figure of a cross, accompanied with several ornamental strokes, which some antiquaries suppose to be Runic inscriptions.”570 But one other remarkable Runic monument remains to be considered, surpassing in extent and importance any of those yet described, and rendered not the less interesting from the very curious literary controversy to which it has given rise. This is the celebrated cross of Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, inscribed not in Northern but Anglo-Saxon Runes. Like the few English examples yet discovered, it is in the Northumbrian dialect of Anglo-Saxon, and therefore is traceable, not to that northern intrusion of the Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic races which we have hitherto considered, and by which the old Celtic race of Scotland has been so greatly modified, but to the influx of a Teutonic race from the south, by which the Celtic occupants of the Scottish Lowlands and the whole Northumbrian kingdom, were ultimately superseded. Nevertheless the cross of Ruthwell may be referred to here without any great risk of confusion, along with those inscribed in the old Norse dialect; notwithstanding the justice of Mr. J. M. Kemble’s remarks, that “the characters of the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Icelanders, are not less distinct from those of the Goths, High and Low Germans, and Anglo-Saxons, than the languages of the several nations which they represented.”571 The Ruthwell cross is unquestionably by far the most important Runic monument in Britain, and has excited an attention fully equal to the great interest justly pertaining to it. A beautiful engraving of this ancient monument in the fourth volume of the Archæologia Scotica, accompanied with careful fac-similes of its inscriptions, renders any minute description of it superfluous.

Setting aside certain old and sufficiently vague local traditions recorded in the first Statistical Account of the Parish of Ruthwell, we obtain the earliest authentic notice of it only in the seventeenth century, at which time it appears to have still remained in the parish church, uninjured by any of those earlier ebullitions of misdirected popular zeal to which so many Scottish relics of Christian art fell a prey. When, however, the struggle between Charles I. and his people was rapidly hastening to a crisis, and religious differences were forced by many concurrent influences into violent collision, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which met at St. Andrews in the month of July 1642, passed an order decreeing the demolition of the Ruthwell cross as a monument of idolatry. The order met with a less hearty and thorough-going execution than might have been anticipated from the spirit prevailing at a period when the whole course of public events had tended to inflame men’s minds to the uttermost. The column, however, was thrown down and broken in several pieces; but it still lay in the church, and was examined there by Pennant so recently as 1772. Soon after this, however, it was cast out into the churchyard, where its exposure to weather, and its liability to careless and wanton mutilation, threatened at length most effectually to accomplish the object of the St. Andrews Assembly’s Order of 1642, when fortunately the Rev. Dr. Duncan was presented to the parish. Soon afterwards he had the fragments of the venerable memorial pieced together, and re-erected within the friendly shelter of the manse garden,—a monument to his own good taste, with which his name will be associated by thousands who know not the large-hearted benevolence and piety with which he adorned the sacred office which he filled.

Not content, however, with merely restoring the venerable memorial, Dr. Duncan executed careful drawings of it, from which the engravings in the fourth volume of the Archæologia Scotica were made. These are accompanied with a history from his pen, and an accurate translation of the Latin inscription, which is cut in Roman characters on the back and front of the cross. With the Runic inscription, which occupies the remaining sides of the monument, Dr. Duncan attempted no more than to furnish the Scottish antiquaries with an accurate copy, leaving those who deemed themselves able for the task to encounter its difficulties, and render an intelligible version of its meaning. This was accordingly undertaken by Mr. Thorleif G. Repp, a learned northern scholar, and a native of Iceland, then resident in Edinburgh, who, reading the letters correctly enough, proceeded to weave them into imaginary words and sentences, by means of which he makes out the inscription to record “a gift for the expiation of an injury, of a cristpason or baptismal fount, of eleven pounds weight, made by the authority of the Therfusian fathers, for the devastation of the fields.” Other portions of the inscription were made to supply the name of the devastated locality, “The dale of Ashlafr,” a place as little heard of before as were its holy conservators, the Monks of Therfuse! Dr. Duncan remarks, in furnishing an abstract of Mr. Repp’s rendering of the Ruthwell Runes,—“It is obvious that, in future inquiries on this subject, it will be of considerable importance to fix the locality of Ashlafardhal and Therfuse!” The accurate drawings of Dr. Duncan, however, published as they were to the learned world by the Scottish Antiquaries, had at length supplied the most important desiderata towards the elucidation of the old Anglo-Saxon memorial. Professor Finn Magnusen was the first to avail himself of the new elements for the satisfactory investigation of this venerable Teutonic relic, and published, in Danish, in the “Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1836-37,” and nearly at the same time in English, in the “Report addressed by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries to its British and American Members,” a revised version of the Ruthwell inscription, in which, while confirming the somewhat startling opinion of Mr. Repp, that it was in a language consisting both of Anglo-Saxon and old Northern words, he arrives at very different, but still more precise conclusions. The learned Dane, however, had obtained, as he conceived, a source of information which not even the zealous incumbent of Ruthwell parish had access to.

“Fortunately,” says he, “we are in possession of what must be admitted to be an important document in the case before us, a document the existence of which was unknown as well to Mr. Repp as, to the best of our belief, to all others now living, that have devoted attention to the monument in question. Dr. Duncan observes that the capital of the column, which in the delineations he gives of it shews no characters or traces of such, had, however, formerly inscriptions, now quite illegible. The greater part of them, meanwhile, are found on a delineation of the two broader sides of the said capital, which together with the two Runic sides of the whole column, (consequently more of it than has been given by Hickes or Gordon,) is to be seen on a large folio copperplate engraving, now the property of me, Finn Magnusen. It was given to me some years ago by my much-lamented friend and predecessor, Professor Thorkelin, who, however, his memory being impaired by age, could not remember anything more about it than that it represented a column in Scotland, and that he had obtained it, he knew not how or of whom, during his travels in Britain.”572

This rare and indeed seemingly unique print Professor Magnusen accordingly designates the “Thorkelin Engraving.” Its age he conceives must be about 150 years, or perhaps still older. “Be this as it may,” he adds, “it serves to throw a new and most important light—in fact, the most important yet obtained—on the design and purpose of the column, inasmuch as it has preserved the initial words of its inscription, setting forth that one Ofa, a descendant of Voda, had caused it to be cut,” &c. Accordingly, setting aside the humbler attempts of Mr. Repp, the Danish professor substitutes a marriage for the devastation of his predecessor, discovers four important historical personages in the record, nearly fixes the precise year A.D. 650 for the handfasting, and altogether furnishes an entirely new chapter of Anglo-Saxon history, based almost entirely on this Thorkelin print! Some able northern scholars, more familiar with Anglo-Saxon literature than Professor Magnusen, adopted the very summary process of dealing with the new element thus unexpectedly brought to bear on the inquiry, by doubting the authenticity, if not even the existence, of this unique print. Of its existence, however, there can be no doubt, since, instead of being the rarity which Professor Magnusen imagined, it is to be found in every archæological library in the kingdom, being none other (as I think will no longer be doubted) than one of two etchings, executed by the well-known Scottish antiquary, Mr. Adam de Cardonnel, and forming Plates LIV. and LV. of the Vetusta Monumenta, vol. ii., published in 1789. These are accompanied by a description furnished by R. G., (Roger Gale,) and to it the following postscript has subsequently been added, which it will be seen supplies the account Professor Magnusen failed to obtain from his aged friend: “Since this account was read before the Society [of Antiquaries of London,] the drawing has been shewn to Mr. Professor Thorkelin, who has been investigating all such monuments of his countrymen in this kingdom, but he has not returned any opinion.” These engravings of the Ruthwell inscription appear to have excited little interest, probably on account of their being accompanied by no critical analysis or attempt at translation. They would seem to have escaped the notice of Mr. J. M. Kemble, otherwise he would have found there all that the drawings of Dr. Duncan supply, with, indeed, some slight additions; for it chances oddly enough that the old Scottish Antiquary has copied the Anglo-Saxon Runes—about which it may reasonably be doubted if he knew anything—a great deal more correctly than the Latin inscription in familiar Roman characters, some of which he has contrived to render totally unintelligible. It was probably a result of this carelessness, that in arranging a broken fragment of the top of the cross, along with the lower stem, he misplaced the parts, wedding the imperfect upper fragments of the Latin, to the remainder of the Anglo-Saxon inscription. The offspring of this misalliance was the Ofa, Voden’s kinsman, of Professor Magnusen, whose double genealogy is given with amusing precision, “according to the Younger Edda!” The slightest glance at Cardonnel’s etchings will shew that the learned Dane, in attempting to decipher this supposed invaluable addition, was only torturing ill-copied Roman characters into convenient Northern or Anglo-Saxon Runes.

In 1838, Mr. John M. Kemble, an English Anglo-Saxon scholar, undertook to unwind this ravelled skein, and in an able paper “On Anglo-Saxon Runes,”573 pointed out the valuelessness of any amount of knowledge of the Scandinavian languages as a means for deciphering Anglo-Saxon inscriptions. Following out his own views he accordingly produced a translation differing, toto cœlo, from either of those already referred to, but which commends itself in some degree even to the mere English student, who detects in the old Anglo-Saxon the radicals of his native tongue; as in the original of Mr. Repp’s Cristpason:—Krist waes on rodi,—Christ was on the Rood or Cross. Combating with the difficulties arising solely from the mutilated and fragmentary state of what Mr. Kemble so justly styles “this noble monument of Anglo-Saxon antiquity,” he demonstrates the rhythmic character of the construction, deducing from this the strongest proof of the accuracy of his reading. Still should the reader, who is thus compelled to consider two learned versions of this inscription as no better than the Antiquary’s Agricola dicavit libens lubens, hesitate about accepting the third as less open to challenge, his scepticism could not perhaps be greatly blamed. A remarkable chance, however, threw in the way of the intelligent Anglo-Saxon scholar an altogether indisputable confirmation of the general accuracy of the conclusions he had arrived at. A comparison of the various steps in this process of elucidation furnishes one of the most singular modern contributions to the curiosities of literature. A few years ago a MS. volume consisting chiefly of Anglo-Saxon homilies, was discovered at Vercelli, in the Milanese, but which also contained, intermingled with the prose, some Anglo-Saxon religious poems. One of these, entitled a “Dream of the Holy Rood,” extends to 310 lines, and in this are found the whole of the fragmentary lines previously translated by Mr. Kemble, along with the context which fills up the numerous lacunæ of the time-worn inscription on the Ruthwell cross. No confirmation of the accuracy of conclusions previously published could well be more gratifying or satisfactory than this; independently of which the beauty of the Anglo-Saxon poem suffices to convey a singularly vivid idea of the civilisation existing at the period—probably not later than the ninth century—when it was engraved on the venerable Scottish monument which has anew excited the veneration of the modern descendants of its old Anglo-Saxon builders, and, with some portion of its former beauty renewed by the piety of modern hands, is restored to the occupation of its ancient site. Of the high civilisation of this period, however, the student of Anglo-Saxon history can need no new proof when he bears in mind, as Mr. Kemble has remarked, “that before the close of the eighth century Northumberland was more advanced in civilisation than any other portion of Teutonic Europe.”

The “Dream of the Holy Rood” represents the sleeping Christian suddenly startled by the vision of the Cross, the instrument of man’s salvation, which appears in the sky attended with angels, and manifesting, by various changes, its sympathy in the passion and the glory of the Redeemer. At length the Cross itself addresses the sleeper, and describes its feelings on being made the instrument of the suffering of the Son of God. It is from this beautiful part of the poem that the verses have been selected for inscription on the Ruthwell cross. The following extracts, in which the fragments still legible on the old monument are printed in italics, will help the reader to form some idea of the refinement of the period when the cross was erected, and may also suffice to shew how little need there is to seek in Scandinavian, or other foreign sources, for the taste or skill manifested in the works of early native art. The Cross thus speaks in person:—

’Twas many a year ago,
I yet remember it,
That I was hewn down
At the wood’s end,
Stirred from out my dream.
Strong foes took me there,
They made me for a spectacle,
They bade me uplift their outcasts:
There men bore me upon their shoulders
until they set me down upon a hill,
There foes enough fastened me.
There saw I the Lord of mankind
hasten with mighty power,
because he would mount on me.
There then I dared not,
against the Lord’s command,
bow down or burst asunder;
There I saw tremble
the extent of the earth.
I had power all
his foes to fell,
but yet I stood fast.
Then the young hero prepared himself,
That was Almighty God,
Strong and firm of mood
he mounted the lofty cross,
courageously in sight of many,
when he willed to redeem mankind.
I trembled when the hero embraced me,
yet dared I not bow down to earth,
fall to the bosom of the ground,
but I was compelled to stand fast.
A cross was I reared.
I raised the powerful king,
the lord of the heavens;
I dared not fall down.
They pierced me with dark nails,
on me are the wounds visible!
* * * * * * *
They reviled us both together.
I was all stained with blood
poured from the man’s side.
* * * * * * *
The shadow went forth,
wan under the welkin:
All creation wept;
they mourned the fall of their king.
Christ was on the cross,
yet thither hastening,
unto the noble one.
All that beheld I,
With sorrow I was overwhelmed.
* * * * * * *
The warriors left me there
Standing defiled with gore;
I was all wounded with shafts.
They laid him down limb-weary,
They stood at the corpse’s head;
They beheld the Lord of heaven,
and he rested himself there awhile,
weary after his mighty contest.

This curious poem is marked by what Mr. Kemble has pronounced to betray evidence of modern handling, and is perhaps the amplification by a later Anglo-Saxon poet,—it may be of the simpler address originally graven on the Ruthwell cross. Of the general identity between the poem and the inscription, however, not the slightest doubt can exist; and we therefore no longer depend on any future discovery for supplying the deficiencies of the Runic legend, though we can only guess as to the full extent to which it was carried in its original form. “It always seemed probable,” says Mr. Kemble in concluding his observations on the old Scottish monument, “that much of the inscription was missing, and the comparison instituted above renders this certain. The passages which remain are too fragmentary ever to have constituted a substantive whole, without very considerable additions, which there is no longer room for upon the cross in its present form. Buried perhaps beneath the soil of the churchyard, or worked into the walls of neighbouring habitations, the supplementary fragments may yet be reserved for a late resurrection. Should they ever again meet the eyes of men they will add little to our knowledge; still we should rejoice to find them once again resuming their old place in the pillar, and helping to reconstruct in its original form the most beautiful as well as the most interesting relic of Teutonic antiquity.”574

It would be vain to speculate now on the probability of the former existence of such monuments in other localities, when it is considered that in the great majority of cases scarcely a relic remains even of the ancient parish churches of Scotland, built after the final establishment of a Saxon population in the low country. One other Runic monument, however, is known to have existed in the same district down to a very, recent period. Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp of Hoddam, informs me that in the ancient church of Hoddam, a sculptured stone, which was built into the wall, bore an inscription of some length, in Runic characters. Of this he made a copy before the final demolition of the ruined church in 1815, but he has since sought for the transcript in vain. The original, it is to be feared, no longer exists; but among various sculptured fragments rescued from the ruins, and now in Mr. Sharp’s collection, are portions of the shaft of a cross, divided into compartments with sculptured figures in relief, bearing a very considerable resemblance to the style of decoration on the Ruthwell cross, with the addition in one compartment of the favourite interlaced knotwork of Scottish and Irish sculptors. That the venerable ecclesiastical edifice included in its masonry relics of still earlier date, has already been shewn by the rescue of a Roman altar from its ruined walls, dedicated by a cohort of German auxiliaries to imperial Jove.575

Other remarkable Anglo-Saxon memorials have been discovered within the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, as well as beyond its southern limits. One of the most interesting of these is a square font, at Bridekirk, in Cumberland. It is covered on each of its four sides with singular sculptures, in some of which a resemblance may be traced to the decorations of the Scottish standing stones. On the east side a curious group represents the baptism of our Saviour, who stands in a square font with a nimbus encircling his head, and over him is the dove perched on a tree. On the south side is a Runic inscription interwoven among ornaments, which still remains to be satisfactorily explained.576 Mr. Rolfe of Sandwick has in his possession the silver hilt of a sword found in an Anglo-Saxon barrow, and inscribed in Runic characters.577 A few other examples of the use of the Anglo-Saxon Runes in England have been discovered from time to time,578 and receive the attention justly due to objects of such high interest, now that English archæologists have learned that it is to themselves and not to Scandinavian scholars that they must look for the elucidation of the literature of their own Anglo-Saxon progenitors.

In the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which were so long occupied as a Norse jarldom, the relics of Scandinavian art are, as might be expected, more abundant than in any other part of the country. The woodcut represents a bronze pin about one-fourth of the natural size, which was found in a tumulus at Sandwick, in Orkney. Another nearly similar to this, preserved in the local museum at Kirkwall, is said to have been found in a cist containing a human skeleton, and sticking in the skull, as if it had been the instrument of death. Other examples of similar pins with rings attached to them have been discovered at various times in the Orkney Islands. But not only have such relics been met with singly from time to time, but occasionally whole groups of graves have been exposed containing Scandinavian weapons and personal ornaments, and in some cases at least appearing to indicate the site of a battle-field in which many of the Northern warriors have fallen. Wallace describes, in his Account of the Islands of Orkney, the discovery of graves in the Links of Tranaby in Westray, “in one of which was seen a man lying with his sword on the one hand and a Danish axe on the other, and others that have had dogs, combs, and knives buried with them.” In the spring of 1849 the shifting of the sands during the continuance of high easterly winds brought to light a remarkable group of graves on the Links of Pier-o-waal at Westray. A partial notice of this interesting discovery was communicated by Mr. T. Crofton Croker to the Journal of the Archæological Association,579 accompanied with illustrations engraved from various of the articles found deposited with the dead. The following details are chiefly supplied from notes by Mr. William Rendall, surgeon, who repaired to the Links of Pier-o-waal on learning of the discovery of the graves, and wrote down these observations as they fell under his notice.580 Though in some cases less ample than might be desired, they supply an exceedingly interesting series of data in illustration of the sepulchral relics of Orkney belonging to the latest Pagan era.

The following group of graves was found near the sea-shore, on the Links of Pier-o-waal, Orkney, on a line running north and south.

No. 1. This grave appeared to have been previously disturbed. Sufficient traces of the skeleton were found to indicate that the body had lain north and south, rather inclining to the right side, with the face towards the sea. Only half of the skull remained, and from its appearance it might have been cleft when interred. A small iron hatchet lay before the body. Half of a helmet was also discovered, and small pieces of iron were scattered around, apparently indicating that the occupant of the grave had been buried in armour.

No. 2 contained part of a human skeleton along with that of a horse. The horse lay on its belly, with its head towards the sea, and directly north-east, with its hinder parts towards the south-west. The horse’s head, which was quite entire and of rather a small size, was resting on the nose. On removing it, an iron-bit with one of the bridle-rings attached, was found between its jaws. The remains of the human skeleton were lying immediately in front of the horse’s head, with the feet towards the north, and the thigh bones crossed. No skull could be found. On the right side of the skeleton lay a buckle and a piece of bone which had been attached to metal. A piece of iron, either a small sword or a spear-head, and considerable remains of iron rust, shewed that in this case also the deceased warrior had been laid to rest accompanied with the panoply of war. Part of the skeleton of a dog was discovered in the same grave.—No. 3 also contained portions both of a human skeleton and of a horse. The position of the former could not be ascertained. Beside it lay a small dagger, and other remains of iron weapons or armour were found in fragments in the grave. No. 4 contained a skeleton, lying north and south, on its right side, and with the knees drawn up towards the abdomen. No remains of armour were found.

This interesting group of early graves appears to have been entirely distinct from those alluded to in Mr. T. Crofton Croker’s account. The second group, to which he refers, is described by Mr. Kendall as having been discovered surrounding a tumulus, or mound of sand and small stones, at a considerable distance from the sea, in a line running north-west from the former site of graves.

No. 1 was found on the south-west side of the mound. It contained a large male skeleton nearly entire, lying north and south, with the head to the north, and having large stones set round it in a square form: doubtless the usual rude cist so generally adopted in the Pagan sepulture of the north of Europe. After carefully removing the sand, the skeleton was discovered lying inclined towards the left side, with the knees drawn up, and the arms crossing over the breast. About two inches from the top of the head was found a cup-like piece of iron, described by Mr. Rendall as “evidently the part of a helmet.” Notwithstanding its position, however, it was more probably the umbone of a shield, of which other remains were discovered in the cist, consisting of pieces of wood, with fragments of the iron covering still adhering to them. On the left side of the skeleton lay an iron sword, measuring about four feet in length; a large sharpening stone, a comb, and several glass beads, were also found in the grave.

No. 2. On the north side of the mound a second grave was opened, which contained a small skeleton, lying north and south, and supposed by Mr. Rendall to have been a female. In this and following examples the position differed from that previously described in having the head to the south. No fragments of iron or indications of rust suggested the former presence of arms or armour, but on the breast lay a pair of the large oval or shell-shaped brooches, already described; and lower down, right over the region of the stomach, was found another ornament of the class of trefoil-shaped clasps, described by Mr. Worsaae, in his “Primeval Antiquities of Denmark,” as occasionally found in connexion with the oval brooches.581—No. 3. A third grave, opened on the north side of the mound, disclosed a small skeleton lying between two rows of stones. This appears to have been the grave most minutely described and illustrated in Mr. T. Crofton Croker’s communication to the Journal of the Archæological Society.582

It also contained a pair of the large oval brooches, one of which is here figured one-fourth the original size. Two long combs, decorated on each side with ornamental carvings, were found, one of them above each shoulder. The teeth of the combs were fastened between two plates of bone, rivetted together with copper nails. A small bronze pin or bodkin was likewise picked up among the interesting contents of this cist. In this case also the skeleton is believed by Mr. Rendall to have been that of a female: an opinion which coincides with the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Worsaae,583 though the very large size of the brooches seems more suited for the personal decorations of the chieftain or the priest.

No. 4 was another cist on the north side of the mound, but it had been previously disturbed, and contained only portions of a human skeleton.—No. 5 was opened on the north-east side of the mound. It inclosed part of a small skeleton, which Mr. Rendall pronounces to be “evidently that of a female.” This also contained a pair of oval brooches, an ornamental pin or bodkin, and a pair of combs. The woodcut represents one of the combs, which was presented to Mr. Croker. It is much to be regretted that the valuable series of Scoto-Scandinavian relics, thus brought to light by the disturbance of this tumular cemetery, have already been dispersed in many private hands, so as to be irrecoverably lost. Their value would have been greatly augmented as the illustrations of an important period in our national history, could the entire collection have been kept together, and deposited in some accessible public museum.584

One of the bronze pins found in the above graves is figured in the Journal of the Archæological Association. Like others previously noticed it has a ring at the head, though it is otherwise much ruder than the example found at Sandwick. It is engraved here about two-thirds of the size of the original, which was thickly encrusted with verd antique when discovered. It is described in the notes furnished to Mr. Croker as “a sharp-pointed metal instrument, hardly a span in length, having a circular ring of the same metal for a head. It was found lying on the abdomen. This was the skeleton of an aged person, of the ordinary size. It was nearly entire. This grave was both covered and surrounded by large flat stones.”

Such are some of the traces of Scandinavian influence which the Scottish archæologist meets with in the course of his researches. They all belong to a comparatively recent period; and of the beautiful class of personal ornaments, the oval brooches, which are so frequently found, Mr. Worsaae remarks, “that they are positively to be referred to the last period of Paganism we know with complete certainty, because they are frequently found in graves in Iceland, which country was first peopled by Pagan Norwegians at the close of the ninth century.” Long before that date, however, Christianity had reached the Scottish shores; and though impeded, and even frequently eradicated from districts where it had taken deep root, chiefly by the malign influence of these Pagan Northmen, we have no reason to think it was ever entirely extinct. Hence we are abundantly justified in claiming a native origin for the Pagan arts of Scotland, and in referring all Scandinavian influence to a late period and a very limited locality.

One other singular class of Northern relics of which analogous types have been found in Scotland, remains to be noticed. These consist of a curious variety of vessels, presumed to have been designed for holding liquors, but invariably made in the form of some animal or monstrous hybrid. They differ entirely from any class of antiquities hitherto noticed, and more nearly resemble ancient Indian bronzes than any of the relics of early Northern art. The annexed figure represents one of these, in the collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., and found by him among a hoard of long-forgotten family heirlooms, in a vault of his paternal mansion of Hoddam Castle, Dumfriesshire. Of its previous history nothing is known. It is made of bronze. The principal figure is a lion, without a tail, measuring fourteen inches in length, and nearly fourteen inches in greatest height. On the back is perched a nondescript animal, half greyhound, half fish, apparently intended for a handle to the whole, while from the breast projects a stag’s head with large antlers. This has a perforation in the back of the neck, as if for the insertion of a stop-cock, and it appears probable was designed for running off the liquid contained within the singular vessel to which it is attached. A small square lid on the top of the lion’s head, opening with a hinge, supplies the requisite aperture for filling it with whatever liquor it was designed to hold. A similar relic, possessed by Sir John Maxwell, Bart., was dug up a few years since on the Pollock estate, and another in the collection of the late E. W. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., was also in the form of a lion. The conclusion which the appearance of the whole of these relics would suggest to an observer unfamiliar with Northern antiquities, would certainly be that they were the products of ancient Indian rather than of Scandinavian art. The following account, however, derived from Kluver’s Norwegian Antiquities,585 will shew that they are well known not only in Norway and Denmark, but even in Iceland—that interesting Northern stronghold of the later relics of Scandinavian art.

“On the farm of Vaaden, about five miles south-west from Drontheim, there was found some years ago in a field, and at no great distance from the surface, an animal form with beak and wings. In its beak it carries a man wearing a kirtle and closed helmet, booted and spurred. The figure, which is of brass composition, weighs five and one-half pounds. It is hollow internally. There is an aperture on the neck of the animal, which has been provided with a lid, and another aperture in the back of the helmet worn by the mailed figure which it carries in its beak. Another animal figure has been preserved from time immemorial, at Moldè, a small sea-port a little to the south of Drontheim. It resembles a unicorn, and has an aperture in the neck, to which obviously a lid had been attached. From the handle along the back, which represents a serpent, and the circumstance of the horn in the forehead being hollow, it may reasonably be conjectured to have been used as a liquor decanter. A third figure of a similar description, which is said to have been found under ground at Helgeland—a province situated to the northward of Drontheim—represents a knight mounted on a piebald horse in complete armour, wearing a coat of ring-mail, a square helmet with vizor down, and carrying a drawn sword in his hand. In this figure likewise there is an aperture in the upper part of the helmet, and another in the forehead of the horse.”

The whole of these singular groups are figured in Kluver’s work, and it will be seen that they closely correspond to the Scottish example from Hoddam Castle. The costume of the knights in two of them shews that they cannot be assigned to an earlier date than the latter part of the thirteenth century. They are all nearly of the same proportions, measuring about ten inches in length, and six inches in height, exclusive of the mailed knight mounted on the horse in the figure last described. Another curious specimen of the same class of antiquities, in which the principal figure is a lion, has been preserved for ages in the church of St. Olaf, at Vatnsfjord, in Iceland, and is described by Professor Sjöborg, who conceives it to have been used as a lamp. It is also referred to by Professor Finn Magnusen in the following remarks on those figured by Kluver:—“These curious liquor decanters—of which various specimens exist in Denmark and other countries—are of a very remarkable formation. The two first seem to bespeak an origin in the heathen mythology. Assuming that even in the middle ages or at a later period they were used in the rites of the Catholic Church, as in the instance of a like vessel, known by the name of the Thorlacian, presented to the church at Vatnsfjord, still it is by no means certain that such was their original purpose. Many articles, such as tapestries, cups, vases, candlesticks, &c., were used as household commodities before they were diverted to ecclesiastical purposes. In the same way these liquor decanters, which neither bear the forms nor devices of Christian art, have probably been originally adapted to another use.” It will be readily admitted that these relics present little appearance of having been designed as any of the sacred vessels of the medieval church; nevertheless little doubt can be entertained that they were so used in the north, and perhaps at an early period throughout Christendom, as part of the furniture of the altar. Professor Munch, who examined the example figured above, in the collection of Mr. Sharp, during his recent visit to this country, observes in a letter written since his return to Norway: “Notwithstanding their fantastic shapes, of some four-footed beast, they were used upon the altar as vessels containing the water which the officiating Diaconus poured upon the hands of the priest before his touching the host at the elevation. I understand from Mr. Thomsen, who learned it from a Frenchman educated at Smyrna, that such vessels are still used for the same purpose in the Roman Catholic chapels in the Levant. It is therefore probable that those found in Norway have either been brought from Byzantium, or made after Byzantine models.”

The ecclesiastical character of these singular relics would therefore seem to be more certainly established than their Scandinavian origin, though it may still be doubted whether they were primarily designed for any sacred purpose. It is, however, sufficient for our present object to trace the analogy discernible between the Scottish relic figured above and those Scandinavian antiquities discovered in the native country of the old Northmen, or preserved in their ancient seat of colonization on the verge of the Arctic Circle. In the latter instance, at least, we find them devoted to the uses of the church and placed alongside of its most sacred furniture; while to all appearance they seem to be more adapted to social purposes, which, among the northern nations especially, are most allied to excess.

These objects of Northern antiquity, however, form a class by themselves, and bear no analogy to the prevailing types of the last Pagan period, either in the Scandinavian countries or in Britain. However clearly the facts above referred to shew that they pertain to the antiquities of Norway and Denmark, they cannot be assigned to the same era of Northern art, which produced the beautiful oval brooches and other contemporary relics. They seem rather to point to a later period of intercourse with the East, when the Cufic coins, which are familiar to Northern antiquaries, were introduced. The oldest of these date as early as the year 79 of the Hegira, or A.D. 698, but they have been found of A.D. 1010, and may be presumed to have reached the north of Europe at a somewhat later period than the last of these dates.

Beautiful as some of the relics of Scandinavian art found in Scotland are, they can hardly be considered equal to contemporary examples of native workmanship, such as the very fine early Scottish brooch found in the vicinity of the mounds of Dunipace, and figured on a previous page. Compared with the Caithness oval brooch, selected as the very best of its class, it will, I think, be generally acknowledged as exhibiting both a more defined and a higher style of art. But independently of the beauty of this native relic, nothing is more remarkable than the striking contrast which it presents in form, and style of ornament, to any known class of Scandinavian personal ornaments, while, like most of the later native examples, it bears a close affinity to the contemporary productions of Irish art. The woodcut shews the ornamental interlaced knotwork on the upper portion of the acus, which, in the complete view of the brooch, is concealed by the central ornament.586 In its imperfect state it is sufficiently apparent that this had been of the same disproportionate length as is frequently found in Irish examples, otherwise greatly varying in form. This is particularly the case with the ring fibulæ, generally of silver. One of these, found in county Antrim, and engraved in the Archæological Journal, measures above six and one-fourth inches long,587 while a larger and still more beautiful one, in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is nearly fourteen inches in length. This singular feature in the brooches of the early Christian Period both of Scotland and Ireland, most probably had its origin in some peculiar fashion of the Celtic dress, superseded in the former country during the vital changes which affected it in the eleventh century. The annexed woodcut shews another beautiful Scottish brooch, also from the collection of Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. It is of less costly material than the Dunipace brooch, being made of bronze, but, like it, it has been jewelled, and is otherwise little inferior in point of workmanship. It was found accidentally amongst old brass, in a brazier’s shop in Glasgow, and is engraved here the full size of the original.

The brooch has always been a favourite Celtic ornament, and is indeed almost indispensable to the Highland costume. It is worn universally by the Scottish Highlanders, both male and female; and in many Highland families, of various ranks, favourite brooches have been preserved through many generations, as heirlooms which no pecuniary inducement would tempt their humblest owner to part with. The most celebrated of these is the brooch of Lorn, dropt by Robert the Bruce after the defeat of his followers at Methven, when he was compelled to abandon his mantle and the brooch which fastened it, to rid himself of an assailant who held it in his dying grasp. This interesting historic memorial is still preserved by the lineal descendant of the Macdougals of Lorn.588 Another remarkable relic of the same class is the Glenlyon brooch, which has been preserved in the family of the Campbells of Glenlyon for many generations. It is circular, and of silver, richly jewelled. An ornamental bar, also jewelled, crosses the centre, and two tongues meet on this from opposite sides. It is engraved on Plate II. from careful drawings made from the original. On the lower side are the names of the three Kings of Cologne, a favourite inscription on medieval amulets, thus,—

Caspar. Melchior. Baltazar. Consumatum.

Pennant has engraved this ancient Scottish brooch, but the figure conveys a very partial idea of the rude magnificence of the original, which measures five and a half inches in circumference.589

With these native personal ornaments, introduced here for the purpose of comparison and contrast with those traceable to a Scandinavian source, may also be noticed the silver brooches, of various forms, which are frequently found in Scotland, and are also not unfamiliar to English antiquaries. They are invariably inscribed with some sacred formula or charm, the most common one being Iesus Nazarenus. One example, in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is a small octagonal fibula, without ornament, which is said to have been discovered in excavating the tomb of King Robert the Bruce, at Dunfermline, in 1818. It is inscribed,—Iesus. Nazarenus Rex. Iudeorum. Another of the same form, but larger, and of superior workmanship, recently found among the ruins of Eilan Donan Castle, on Loch Duich, the ancient stronghold of the M’Kenzies, bears the abbreviated inscription, Iesus. Nazar. Scottish examples of the same class might be greatly multiplied, but the most of them belong to a considerably later period than that to which we now refer.

Chapter V — Amusements

In the earliest and rudest states of society, war and the chase become at once the business of life, and, with the needful preparations of weapons and other requisites, suffice to supply each day with its full complement of labour and pastime. A very slight rise, however, in the social scale, creates the desire for some artificial means of filling up the leisure hours of life; and the modes adopted for this purpose often form no uncertain criterion of the age in which they originate. We accordingly find traces of the existence of games both of chance and skill from a very remote period. Reference has already been made to spherical and truncated stones, measuring from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, which are frequently found in tumuli. For the former the name of Bead-stones is proposed, and as they are generally perforated, their use as personal ornaments has been assumed as probable, notwithstanding their cumbrous size, and the unattractive appearance of many of them. But as they are also very frequently flat on one side, there is greater probability of the original purpose of the latter class, at least, having been for table-stones (Anglo-Saxon, tæfelstan) or draughtsmen, in which case the perforation might serve to string them together, for carrying about. In Ireland, and still more frequently in Norway, draughtsmen are found alongside of the weapons and other relics buried with the warrior. They are made generally of bone, of a conical or hemispherical shape, and with a hole in the bottom, designed, as is presumed, to admit of their use on shipboard. With these it is supposed the northmen beguiled the tedium of their long voyages; and the estimation in which they are held is implied in their deposition among the most favourite relics of the dead. We learn from Tacitus that the Germans were so passionately addicted to gambling, that they staked not only their property but their personal liberty. The Romans were themselves scarcely less given to such excesses. Among the many interesting relics restored to light from the ruins of Pompeii, not the least valuable as illustrations of the manners of the first century in Southern Italy, are the cogged dice of the old Roman gamblers. But besides these games which mingled the incentive and the excitement of chance and skill, there appears also to have been in use, from a very early period, others of the simpler class, still favourites among our rustic population, such as bowling, nine-pins, and the like; which, under the various names of skales or kayles, loggats, closh, &c., are frequently mentioned in ancient statutes, and have been found represented on manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The implements of such pastimes are not such as were likely, in many cases, to be long preserved, though it is by no means improbable that the spherical stone-balls frequently found along with ancient relics, and even in the tumuli, may have been used for some such purpose.590 One interesting and well-authenticated example, however, is known of the discovery of a complete set of the implements for such a game, in the parish of Balmaclellan, Kirkcudbrightshire. They are thus described by the well-known antiquary, Mr. Joseph Train: “In the summer of 1834, as the servants of Mr. Bell of Baryown, were casting peats on Ironmacaunnie Moor, when cutting near the bottom of the moss, they laid open with their spades what appeared to be the instruments of an ancient game, consisting of an oaken ball, eighteen inches in circumference, and seven wooden pins, each thirteen inches in length, of a conical shape, with a circular top. These ancient Reel Pins, as they are termed by Strutt, were all standing erect on the hard till, equidistant from each other, with the exception of two, which pointed towards the ball that lay about a yard in front, from which it may be inferred they were overthrown in the course of the game. The ball has been formed of solid oak, and, from its decayed state, must have remained undisturbed for centuries, till discovered at a depth of not less than twelve feet from the original surface. At Pompeii, utensils are often found, seemingly in the very position in which they were last used. This may be accounted for by the suddenness of the calamity that befell that devoted city; but what induced or impelled the ancient gamesters, in this remote corner of the Glenkens, to leave the instruments of their amusements in what might be considered the middle of the game? These relics, which are in my possession, can now only be prized for their curiosity, the singular position in which they were found, and the relation they bear to ancient times.”591 The moss in which this remarkable discovery was made is described as a place where peats have been cut from time immemorial. It were vain to speculate on the origin or owners of these homely relics of obsolete pastimes; yet to the curious fancy, indulging in the reanimation of such long-silent scenes, they seem suggestive of the sudden intrusion, it may be, of invaders, the hasty call to arms, the utter desolation of the scene, and then the slow lapse of unnumbered centuries, during which the moss accumulated above them so gently that it seems as if the old revellers were to return and play out their unfinished game.

Amusements of the latter class scarcely admit of much refinement, and may well be supposed to have exercised fully as much ingenuity among the ancient players of the Glenkens, as they now do in the bowling-green or skittle-ground. From them, indeed, modern refinement has educed the practised art of the billiard-table. In a simpler age the improvement assumed a more practical form, and gave way to putting the stone, throwing the hammer, and the like trials of strength, which appear to have been favourite pastimes among the Scottish Highlanders from the earliest periods to which their traditions extend.

In complete contrast to these are the amusements indicated by the bone draughtsmen or bead-stones of the tumuli. They are appropriately classed by Strutt in his “Sports and Pastimes,” under the general title of “Sedentary Games;” and he furnishes much curious information regarding medieval pastimes, of which traces may be detected in the remoter periods into which we are inquiring. The construction of regular draughtsmen and chessmen is in itself an evidence of increased taste for such amusements. The ancients employed stones, shells, or nuts as counters, and also, there is reason to think, as tablemen, in games of this nature. Hence the Greek name ψηφοι, and the Roman calculi and scrupuli; from whence scrupus, a table-man, or chessman. The Scandinavian terms are of similar import; and among the ancient Northern games which have survived as popular pastimes in Iceland and Lapland, we find the very same which figure among the illuminations of medieval manuscripts, and have influenced the grotesque decorations of our early ecclesiastical architecture. “Of such games,” says a writer in the Report of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, “we find that our Pagan ancestors were acquainted with at least three different sorts, namely, hnefatafl, fist-play, i.e., hand-play;592 hnottafl, nut-play; and skáktafl, chess. Hnottafl signifies properly a game played with nuts, or pieces shaped like nuts. A húni—i.e., a bear, or bear’s cub—was anciently the principal personage in it; but in Iceland, where the fox is the only beast of prey, this animal eventually superseded the bear, and the game then came to be denominated refskál. The other pieces represented sheep, or lambs, pursued by Reynard. In the variety of this game, which still forms one of the favourite diversions of the Laplanders, the fox continues to play his part, with this difference, that he there pursues geese instead of lambs; as in the Gänsespiel of the Germans, the Fox and geese of the English, the Ganzespeel of the Dutch, the Jeu d’oie of the French, &c. In Denmark a dog usually takes the place of the fox, and hares of the geese; and hence the game is there called Hund og hare, or hound and hare.” According to the Irish chroniclers, Cahir Mor, who died A.D. 177, left, among other legacies to his son, both chessboards (fichell) and chessmen (muintir;) and the Welsh laws of Howel Dha, (circa A.D. 943,) refer to some species of game played with pieces of different colours, (werin,) on a table-board, (tawlbwrdd.) In Bishop Percy’s “Translation of Runic Poetry,” a Northern hero says,—“I am master of nine accomplishments. I play at chess; I know how to engrave Runic characters,” &c.; and in a curious Anglo-Saxon poem, translated for the first time into English by Mr. J. M. Kemble in his paper on Anglo-Saxon Runes, this stanza occurs:—

Chessman is ever
Play and laughter
To the proud, where
Warriors sit
In the beer-hall
Blithe together.

It is not necessary to assume that all, or indeed any of these allusions necessarily apply to the game of chess, but only to one of the old table-games, played with pieces, many of which will more readily account for the “play and laughter” in the warrior’s hall than that skilful and complicated game. These, as well as so many other of the primitive arts and rites of the North, were in all probability brought with the earlier nomades from the eastern cradle-land of our race; for more than one representation of such table-games has been discovered among the pictorial decorations of the Egyptian temples. Dr. Brunton has figured two of these at Medinat Haboo, in his Excerpta Hieroglyphica, in one of which (Plate XIII.) the table and pieces are partly obliterated, but in the other (Plate XI.) it is observable that the pieces are all alike, resembling the most common modern form of chess-pawns. The players are also in both cases moving their pieces at the same time; so that the Egyptian game evidently bore very slight resemblance to chess, and may with more probability be sought for among the early table-games of the north of Europe.

The great antiquity of the game of chess has been long since established on indisputable evidence. For its invention and earliest form the best authorities agree in looking to India, whither the simpler table-games of Egypt may have passed before the migration of the Teutonic races from Asia, and been returned from thence to Europe in their later and more complicated forms. In the ninth century, while yet the Northmen were only known along the British coasts as the dreaded marauding Vikings, Ragnar Lodbrog is reputed to have visited the Hellespont, and the intercourse between the Scandinavians and the Greeks of the Lower Empire, is an accredited feature of well authenticated history. But pilgrimages to Rome, and the passing and repassing of the clergy from Britain to the Continent, were matters of common occurrence at an earlier date; so that there can be no difficulty as to the means by which the game might be introduced from Asia to the north of Europe. Into this curious question Sir Frederick Madden has entered with great learning and ability, collecting the numerous observations of previous writers, and illustrating them from his own copious stores.593 It will suffice for our present purpose to notice the remarkable illustrations of the implements of this game which have been discovered in Scotland, surpassing in number and value any specimens of ancient chessmen known to exist, if we except the set still preserved in the Cabinet of Antiquities in the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris, and which there is satisfactory evidence for believing may be the very chessmen presented to Charlemagne by the Empress Irene, or her successor Nicephorus.

In the spring of 1831, the inroads effected by the sea undermined and carried away a considerable portion of a sandbank in the parish of Uig, Isle of Lewis, and uncovered a small subterranean stone building like an oven, at some depth below the surface. The exposure of this singular structure having excited the curiosity, or more probably the cupidity, of a peasant who chanced to be working in the neighbourhood, he proceeded to break into it, when he was astonished to see what he concluded to be an assemblage of elves or gnomes upon whose mysteries he had unconsciously intruded. The superstitious Highlander flung down his spade, and fled home in dismay; but incited by the bolder curiosity of his wife he was at length induced to return to the spot, and bring away with him the singular little ivory figures, which had not unnaturally appeared to him the pigmy sprites of Celtic folk-lore. They consisted in all of at least ninety-two pieces, including fourteen tablemen or draughtsmen, eight of which are kings, eight queens, thirteen bishops, fifteen knights, and twelve figures of footmen, to which Sir Frederick Madden gives the name of warders.594 These have been so carefully and minutely illustrated in the valuable remarks in the Archæologia, that a slight description will now suffice.

They form altogether portions of eight or more sets, none of which, however, appear to be complete. They vary considerably in size, the largest being four and one-eighth inches in height, while the smallest measures fully an inch less; but the smaller sets are, upon the whole, more carefully and elaborately carved. The annexed illustration represents one of the smaller kings, now in the collection of Mr. Sharp. In point of costume it closely resembles the example engraved in the Archæologia, as well as the others of the set, though differing somewhat in the fashion of the beard. The king is represented as an old bearded man, with long hair falling in plaits over his shoulders, and a low trefoil crown on his head. He is seated on a chair with a high back, richly carved with intricate tracery and ornaments, corresponding, for the most part, to the style of decoration with which we are familiar on the Romanesque work of the twelfth century, and holds a short sword with both hands across his knees, as if in the act of drawing it.

The queens are crowned and throned in like manner. They are represented seated in a contemplative posture, resting the head upon the hand; and two of them hold drinking horns in their left hands. The most striking portion of their costume, represented in the accompanying engraving from one of those in Mr. Sharp’s collection, is a species of hood depending from the back of the head, and spreading over the shoulders.595

Of the bishops some are seated in chairs similar to those occupied by the kings and queens, while others are in a standing posture. Sir F. Madden remarks, “all of the sitting figures and four of the standing ones wear the chasuble, dalmatic, stole, and tunic of the form anciently prescribed, and corresponding with representations of much greater antiquity. The remainder have a cope instead of a chasuble, but omit the stole and dalmatic. The mitres are very low, and in some instances quite plain, but have the double band or infulæ attached behind. The hair is cut short round the head. They hold a crosier with one or with both hands; and in the former instances, the other hand holds a book or is raised in the attitude of benediction.”

The knights afford perhaps the most characteristic examples of the costume of the period. They are mounted on horseback, armed with a heavy spear, and a long kite-shaped shield. Beneath the shield appears the sword, attached to the waist by a belt. The helmets are mostly of a conical shape, in addition to which several have nasals projecting in front, and round flaps protecting the ears and neck. The horses are caparisoned in high saddles, stirrups, and bridles, and with long saddlecloths, fringed with ornamental borders, reaching to the ground.

The footmen or warders bear the same kite-shaped shields as the horsemen, and are armed with swords and head-pieces of iron of different forms. The costume otherwise worn by them has obviously been made subservient to the convenience of the carver, as in the long saddlecloths of the horsemen, and consists, for the most part, of an ample flowing robe, reaching to the ground and concealing the feet. Numerous variations occur in the details of these remarkable carvings, and the utmost variety of design characterizes the ornamentation of the chairs on which the kings, queens, and bishops are seated. Their dresses also vary in ornamental detail, and each of the shields, both of the knights and warders, is decorated with some peculiar device or interlaced pattern, some of which approach very nearly to the heraldic blazonry of a later period, and no doubt indicate the first accidental rudiments of medieval cognizances.

The various details of costume and ornament indicated in this brief description, furnish the chief evidence by which we may hope to assign the period and place of manufacture of these interesting works of early art. This question has already been discussed with much learning and ability by Sir Frederick Madden, who remarks, “I shall now proceed to develop the result of my inquiries in respect to the place where and the period when these chessmen were in all probability manufactured. I shall draw my inferences from three separate subjects of consideration; the material of which they are made, the costume in which they appear, and the historical passages to be found in the ancient writings of Scandinavia; and from each I shall endeavour to prove that these pieces were executed about the middle of the twelfth century, by the same extraordinary race of people who, at an earlier period of time, under the general name of Northmen, overran the greater part of Europe.” Against the conclusions carefully arrived at by following out this proposed course of reasoning, with the exception of the period to which they are assigned, I venture, in all deference, to enter a demurrer. It has been so long the fashion to assign every indication of early art and civilisation found in Scotland to these Scandinavian invaders,—though, as I trust has already been shewn, in many cases without evidence and upon false premises,—that it becomes the Scottish archæologist to receive such conclusions with caution, even when advanced by high authorities and supported by evidence. The farther we pursue this investigation into the history of primitive native art we find the less reason to assign to it a foreign origin, or to adopt the improbable theory that the rude Scandinavian rovers brought with them from the Pagan North new elements of civilisation and refinement to replace the Christian arts which they eradicated at the point of the sword. Singer justly remarks on the characteristic difference between the Greek and Scandinavian traditions of the mythic artist, Dædalus or Weland, that the Greeks ascribed to theirs: “Plastic works, and above all images of the gods, while the Scandinavians attributed to their workman principally weapons of a superior temper. It is that the Greeks were a people alive to the beauty of mythologic representations. The Scandinavians, on the contrary, valued nothing but good swords, with which they conquered that which the rude climate of the North denied them.”596 Doubtless, by the middle of the twelfth century a very great change had taken place, but then we trace it not in the invention of a northern Christian art, but in the tardy adoption of what was already common to the ecclesiology and arts of Christendom.

As to the material of the Lewis chessmen, the mere fact of their being made of the tusks of the Rostungr or Walrus—the “huel-bone” of Chaucer—can no more prove their Scandinavian origin, than that of the still older set of Charlemagne being of ivory 597 (presuming this to mean the elephant’s tusk) affords any evidence of Indian manufacture. By the middle of the twelfth century, the Northmen had traded as well as warred with Scotland for nearly three centuries, and were at that late period, as Mr. Worsaae remarks, “the central point for an extensive commerce between the east and the northern parts of Europe.”598 The author of the Kongs-Skugg-sio, or Speculum Regale, composed, as Einersen concludes, between the years 1154-1164, but certainly before the close of the century, takes particular notice of the Rostungr, and mentions also the circumstance of its teeth and hide being used as articles of commerce. Such indeed almost of necessity follows from the evidence of the frequent voyages of the Scandinavians in pursuit of these animals, at a time when they had abandoned the old predatory habits of the Vikings for a regular government and peaceful intercourse with other nations. The nature of their settlements on the Scottish islands and mainland, and their alliances and intermarriage with the aboriginal race, may also suffice, if further proof be needed, to shew that the walrus ivory could be no great rarity in Scotland, when it formed a special article of commerce with the Northmen. We accordingly find distinct evidence of its native use: “Ivory dirk-hilts, elegantly turned or wrought by the hand, were manufactured in various parts of the Highlands and isles. Of these specimens still remain at Fingask and Glengary,”599 and a curious large sword, evidently of early date, preserved at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, has the hilt made of the narwhal’s tusk. The argument of Scandinavian origin from the material is therefore of no value, and the varied devices on the chairs and other highly decorated portions of the Lewis chessmen are equally little indicative of Northern art. They are the same details as are familiar to us on the Romanesque work of the twelfth century, never yet traced to a Northern source. In St. Magnus Cathedral we have a most valuable specimen of Romanesque style, executed in obedience to the piety of a Scandinavian jarl of the Scottish Isles, but so far from finding in it any trace of a style peculiar to the Northmen, its oldest portions are characterized by the usual features of the fully developed style, manifestly derived from Southern models, and betraying in these the later date of its foundation than the examples of the same class which still remain at Durham and Dunfermline. No Scandinavian ecclesiologist, I believe, doubts the foreign origin of the few examples of the earlier styles of medieval ecclesiastical architecture still remaining in Norway and Sweden; and the evidence already adduced tends to suggest the conclusion that whatever military and naval skill the natives of Scotland might acquire from their intercourse with the Northmen, they were much more likely to impart than to receive a superior knowledge in the arts of the sculptor and the carver. Christianity was introduced into Scotland and Ireland some centuries before its acceptance by the Scandinavians, yet the primitive Christian monuments of Denmark or Norway will, as works of art, bear no comparison with those which preceded them in Scotland.

To the costume of the twelfth century we must therefore look for the only safe guide to the origin of the Lewis chessmen. Those of the kings and queens are of little value for this purpose, and those of the bishops, though minutest of all, of none. It is to the military costume of which the knights and footmen afford such curious examples that we must have recourse for some solution of the question. But these also are mostly of Southern and not of Scandinavian origin. Both the shield and the pointed helmet are what would usually be styled Norman. We find the kite-shaped shield represented in the Bayeux tapestry; a curious example of it is engraved on a candlestick of the twelfth century, now in the collection at Goodrich Court;600 and a still more conclusive instance is the remarkable group of warriors, each with nasal, spear, and kite-shaped shield, sculptured on the lintel of the doorway of Fordington Church, Dorchester, circa 1160.601 Sir S. R. Meyrick conjectures that the Normans derived this shield from Sicily. There is, at any rate, good evidence for believing that while it was in use in Britain early in the twelfth century, the Northmen retained their round shield till a later period. Judging from Mr. Worsaae’s valuable treatise, as well as from the “Guide to Northern Antiquities,” the round shield appears to be alone known among the defensive arms of the latest Pagan period, which closes little more than a century prior to the probable date of the Lewis chessmen. But Sir F. Madden has referred to an authority the bearing of which on this point has escaped him, although it seems conclusive. The passage is that in Giraldus, (quoted from a MS. temp. John,) in which he describes the descent of the Norwegians under Hasculph or Asgal, to attack the city of Dublin, then defended by Miles de Cogan, about the year 1172, as follows: “A navibus igitur certatim erumpentibus, duce Johanne... viri bellicosi Danico more undique ferro vestiti, alii loricis longis, alii laminis ferreis arte consutis, clipeis quoque rotundis et rubris, circulariter ferro munitis, homines tam animis ferrei quam armis, ordinatis turmis, ad portam orientalem muros invadunt.” Such shields, formed of wood bound with iron, and with an iron umbo in the centre, are still preserved in Norway, and correspond not only to the requisitions of the old Gulathings-law, cap. 309, circa 1180, but even to a later one—circa 1270. Into the minuter details of wambeys, gambeson, panzar, &c., referred to in the Archæologia, it is needless to enter, because most of them are wanting on the chessmen, or can at best only be guessed at. Were the swords and shields removed from the warders, along with their beards, so little would any one dream of detecting such traces of medieval armour in their costume, that even their sex might be in doubt, and some of their conical helmets and gambesons might serve equally well for the scapulars and tunics of gentle nuns.602 Of the horsemen also little positive can be made out of anything but the helmet and shield; and of the former scarcely two are alike on knights or warders, the difference in some of them amounting to a total dissimilarity in form and fashion. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the knight-pieces is the small size of the horses, so characteristic of the old Scottish breed. But it is even matter of doubt if the Norse warriors of the twelfth century ever fought on horseback. If they did so at that period, it was a novelty borrowed, like their new faith and arts, from the nations of the south.

A figure of a mounted warrior, apparently bearing a close resemblance to the chess knights, with a peaked helmet, carrying a spear, and with a long saddle cloth pendant from his horse, is sculptured in relief, amid knotwork and floriated ornaments, on an early monumental slab in the Relig Oran at Iona. A claymore of antique form occupies the centre of the slab, but the shield is concealed by the position of the figure. It is not, however, to the sculptured monuments either of Scotland or of Norway and Denmark that we must look for identifying the costume of these figures with any contemporary examples. Fortunately the same class of evidence has been preserved, on perhaps still more trustworthy authority, not in marble but in wax, in the royal and baronial seals attached to early charters. From these we learn that prior to the date of the Norwegians assailing Miles de Cogan, armed with their “shields, round and red,” both the peaked helmet and nasal, and the kite-shaped shield, were the usual defensive armour of the Scottish baron. On the seal, for example, appended to the charter of Robert de Lundres, c. A.D. 1165, conveying a carucate of land in Roxburghshire to the Abbey of Melros, the knight is represented on horseback in full armour, with a flattened helmet with nasal and a kite-shaped shield.603 So also in the seals of Uchtred, son of Osulf: William son of John: Philip de Valoniis, chamberlain of Scotland, c. A.D. 1176; and on that of Richard de Morville, constable of Scotland, appended to a charter A.D. 1176: all among the charters of the Abbey of Melros, about the middle of the twelfth century, we find the kite-shaped shield, the nasal, and the peaked helmet; while in the very beautiful seal of Patrick de Dunbar, c. A.D. 1200, the nasal appears attached to a round chapel-de-fer, very similar to those worn by some of the Lewis warders.604 Such examples might be greatly multiplied, but these are sufficient to shew the entire correspondence of the chessmen found in Lewis, both with the contemporary native costume and with other productions of Scottish art of the twelfth century, while it still remains to be shewn that such resemblance is traceable in any single undoubted Scandinavian work of the same period. The intimate intercourse between the Scandinavian and native races of the north of Scotland, and their offensive and defensive alliances already referred to, would indeed render it probable that in the twelfth century no great difference existed in their weapons or defensive armour. Yet we find no traces in the arms or armour of the Scottish Highlanders, with whom alone such close alliances were formed, of anything resembling those in question. In the Lothians, or Saxonia, as it is sometimes styled even in the Pictish Chronicle, it was entirely different. Before the close of the eleventh century, a mingled Saxon and Norman population occupied the old kingdom of Northumbria, a Saxon queen shared the Scottish throne, and exercised a most important influence in changing the manners of the people, and in modifying and reforming their ecclesiastical system. To this period, therefore, and from this source it is that we must look for the introduction of the military costume of the South, as well as of the minutiæ of clerical attire, which may be presumed to have previously been as little in conformity with the Roman model as the other parts of the system.

Founding on the supposed discovery of the Lewis chessmen within tide-mark, and exposed to the sea on the shores of Lewis, it has been suggested that they “formed part of the stock of an Icelandic kaup-mann or merchant, who carried these articles to the Hebrides or Ireland for the sake of traffic; and the ship in which they were conveyed being wrecked, these figures were swept by the waves on shore, and buried beneath the sandbank.”605 This supposition, however, was formed under imperfect information of the circumstances attending the discovery, as they were found in a stone building, which, from the general description furnished of it, there appears reason to assume, must have been a Scottish Weem, and in the vicinity of a considerable ruin. There is greater probability in the earlier conjecture, that the carving of these ancient chessmen may have helped to relieve the monotony of cloistral seclusion. The minuteness of detail in the ecclesiastical costume is much more explicable on such a supposition than by a theory which would ascribe either to an Icelandic kaup-mann, or Norse carver of the twelfth century, such a knowledge of Episcopal chasuble, dalmatic, stole, cope, and tunic, as is traceable in the bishops of the Lewis chessmen.

Danish antiquaries have naturally been little inclined to dispute the idea of a Scandinavian origin assigned on such high authority to the beautiful specimens of carved chessmen found in Scotland. A keen spirit of nationality has been enlisted with the happiest effects in the cause of Northern Archæology, and however honestly bent on the discovery of truth, it was scarcely to be looked for that the Danish archæologist should search too curiously into the evidence by which such valuable relics were handed over to him. They are, accordingly, referred to in the Report of the Northern Antiquaries for 1836, under the title of Scandinavian Chessmen, and at length figure in the “Guide to Northern Archæology,” among articles from the Christian Period, without its even being hinted that they were discovered, not in Denmark but in Scotland. The subject is treated more at large in the interesting paper on “Some Ancient Scandinavian Chessmen,” included in the Report of the Northern Antiquaries to its British and American Members, in which several specimens found in Scandinavia are described and engraved. One of these, a female figure on horseback, supposed to be a queen-piece, (also figured in the Guide to Northern Archæology, p. 75,) is in the private collection of Professor Sjöborg. On it the writer remarks,—“The serpentine ornament upon it resembles, it will be observed, those on several of the chessmen found at Lewis. The mantle, too, or veil, hanging down the shoulders of the figure, is another point of similitude between them.” A comparison of the engraving in Lord Ellesmere’s translation of the Guide to Northern Archæology, with the Lewis chessmen in the British Museum, will suffice to shew how easily men are persuaded of what they wish to believe. The character both of horse and rider essentially differ; the costumes in no way resemble each other more than all female dresses necessarily do; while the horses differ as much as is well possible. In the Lewis knights their horses’ manes are cut short and stand up, while the hair hangs down over their foreheads. In the Scandinavian example the mane is long, and the forehead uncovered; and what is no less worthy of note, the horse, both in this and the following examples, differs from the former in being of full size, as tested by the comparative proportions of the rider. The horse-furniture is equally dissimilar: but a still greater and more important disagreement is in the style of art. A very great resemblance may be traced between the square forms and most characteristic details of the Lewis horses’ heads, and the contemporary sculptures of Dalmeny Church, Linlithgowshire, where a series of similar heads occur in the corbel-table of the Apse. Such a comparison affords the best test of style, the peculiarities of which are more easily illustrated than described. No such resemblance could possibly be suggested by Professor Sjöborg’s chesspiece; and the similarity which the Danish antiquaries discover in its serpentine ornament to those of the Lewis carvings, is little more satisfactory. The difference in style is no less obvious in two carved groups from the Christiansborg Collection at Copenhagen, (tab. vi. figs. 1, 2,) representing, the one a king and the other a queen on horseback, and surrounded each by four attendants. They are also formed of the tooth of the Rostungr or walrus, and are believed to be the king and queen pieces of a set of chessmen. It is sufficient to say of them that they bear equally little resemblance to the Lewis figures in arms, armour, costume, or ornamental details. In Scotland it is otherwise. Examples have been found there admitting of comparison with the Lewis chessmen. Pennant engraves one discovered in the ruins of Dunstaffnage Castle, Argyleshire, the ancient royal abode of the Dalriadic kings. It represents a king seated in a chair of square form, holding a book in the left hand. The costume differs from the kings of the Lewis sets, and obviously belongs to a somewhat later period; but the general arrangement of the figures correspond, and there can be no doubt that the latter is the king-piece of a similar set of chessmen. It is still preserved at Dunstaffnage, where it was examined by Pennant in 1772.606

Another of the chesspieces referred to is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and furnishes a most beautiful example of the skill of the early carvers. It is also wrought from the walrus ivory, and may be presumed to have formed a warder or rook-piece of the set. It represents two mailed knights, armed with sword and shield, and may be ascribed to the early part of the thirteenth century. The shields are shorter than in the Lewis figures, and the devices afford an interesting means of comparison. Several of the ornamental patterns wrought on the shields of the former bear such close resemblance to heraldic distinctions that they admit of intelligible description according to rules of blazonry, yet they are all evidently mere arbitrary ornaments and not bearings; whereas on one of the shields of the latter knight we have a curious and very early example of dimidiation in heraldry,—a fleur-de-lys dimidiated on a diapered field,—a figure little likely to be chosen for mere ornament. The history of this interesting relic is unknown. It was presented to the Society by Lord Macdonald in 1782, as the handle of a Highland dirk. From his extensive possessions in the Isle of Skye, it is not improbable that it may have been found there, where the frequent discovery of relics of different periods attests the ancient presence of a population skilled in the useful and ornamental arts. It measures three and five-eighth inches in height, and is fully equal, in point of workmanship, to any of the Lewis figures, though certainly exhibiting no characteristics which should suggest any doubt of its native workmanship.

The annexed woodcut exhibits another chesspiece, apparently of a still later date, preserved in the collection formed by Sir John Clerk at Penicuick House. Attached to it is a parchment label in the handwriting of the old Scottish Antiquary, which thus describes it: “An ancient piece of sculpture on the tooth of a whale. It was found by Jo. Adair, geographer, in the north of Scotland, anno 1682. All the figures are remarkable.” John Adair, geographer for Scotland, was appointed by the Lords of the Scottish Privy-Council, in 1682, to make a survey of the whole kingdom, and maps of the different shires. This he effected, and published the first part of his work, but, unfortunately, obstacles arising apparently from the tardy advances of the necessary funds, prevented the second part—including his voyage round the Western Isles and an account of the Roman wall—from ever appearing, and his papers, it is to be feared, no longer exist.607 It was, no doubt, while he was engaged on this survey, that the interesting relic was discovered which is figured here. It has evidently formed a queen-piece, though consisting in all of seven figures. The queen is represented crowned, and seated on her throne, with a lap-dog on her knee, and apparently a book in her right hand. On her left is a knight in full armour, with drawn sword, and from whose costume we can have little hesitation in assigning the work to the early part of the fourteenth century. On the right hand of the throne stands a trouvere or minstrel playing on the crowde, an ancient musical instrument somewhat resembling the violin. Behind are four female figures, holding each other by the hand, and the one next to the minstrel bearing a palm-branch. This curious chesspiece is of great value; as adding another link to the chain of chronological evidence by which we trace the continuous native production of these costly relics of ancient pastime in our own country.

Mr. Albert Way has described two other very curious chessmen, both knight-pieces. One of these, which is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, is also believed to be made of the walrus tooth, and is interesting as an example of military costume, apparently belonging to the early part of the reign of Henry III. The other figure is carved in ivory, and furnishes a very minute and characteristic illustration of the military costume and horse-armour in use during the reign of Edward III.608 But a much more remarkable relic of the same class, believed to be a queen-piece, is figured and described in the Archæological Journal.609 It was found, about twenty years since, in the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, and is said to bear some resemblance to another of inferior workmanship, discovered along with several chesspieces at Woodperry, Oxfordshire. One of these, a bishop, is also engraved in the Archæological Journal.610 The form of the Kirkstall piece is further illustrated by the illuminations of a German MS. of the fourteenth century,611 where Otho, Marquis of Brandenbourg, who died in 1298, is represented playing at chess with a lady, and with such a piece before him on the board. The details of this queen-piece are very peculiar. The four-leaved flower and triangular foliation would suggest a date not earlier than the close of the thirteenth century; nor is there anything irreconcilable with this in the very singular figures which they accompany. A parallel may be found to the most remarkable of them in the sculptural details which the exuberant fancy of that period lavished on cathedrals and shrines, without, we may suspect, always troubling themselves for the meanings which modern symbolists insist on deducing from them.

One other Scottish example of a chesspiece may be mentioned. It is a small mutilated ivory figure, apparently of a king, in classic costume, and with a drawn sword in his hand, found a few years since among the ruins of North-Berwick Abbey. But it belongs to a much more recent period than any of those previously referred to, and is inferior to them as a work of art. Were it not, indeed, for the Scandinavian origin so generally assigned to nearly all the early examples of British chessmen, their manifest classification among the productions of Christian art would have rendered it more consistent with an orderly system of chronology to treat of them along with late medieval antiquities. The “Collection of Inventories of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel House,” among its many curious items, furnishes this interesting notice of the tables and chessmen of James IV., and possibly of older Scottish kings:—“Ane pair of tabillis of silvir, ourgilt with gold, indentit with jasp and cristallyne, with table men and chess men of jasp and cristallyne.”612 The entry sufficiently shews the familiarity of the Scottish court with the use both of table and chessmen at the date of its record, in the reign of James V., A.D. 1539. But evidence is hardly needed to prove the knowledge of a pastime which was then a favourite in every European court. The tables and chessmen are entered among the royal jewels, and unfortunately their costly materials, which admitted of such a classification, render it vain to hope that they may still be in existence, like the older but more homely chessmen of Charlemagne.

Chapter VI — Primitive Ecclesiology

With the introduction of Christianity into Britain an entirely new era of art begins, derivable here, as elsewhere, from the central heart of ancient Christendom, as in the celebrated example of the Candida Casa, built at Whithern, in Galloway, in the Roman style.

We have the authority of Bede for the fact already referred to,—that the first churches of the Britons were constructed of timber. The cathedral of St. Asaph, founded by St. Kentigern in the sixth century, was a wooden church, after the manner of the Britons, and so also we may believe was the first cathedral of Glasgow, the work of the same founder. The first cathedral of the Isles seems not even to have aspired to the dignity of a wooden church, but to have been only a wattled inclosure, not unsuited to the simplicity of the primitive apostle of the Picts. Similar erections were probably employed at a much later period, for the temporary accommodation of the first phalanx of the newly founded monastery. A very curious seal, attached to one of the older charters of Holyrood Abbey, represents a structure so entirely differing from all the usual devices of the earliest ecclesiastical seals, that I am strongly inclined to look upon it as an attempt to represent the original wooden church, reared by the brethren of the Holyrood Abbey, on their first clearance in the forest of Drumselch. It manifestly represents a timber structure. The round tower is also curiously consistent with the older Scottish style, which the Romanesque was then remodelling or superseding, but bears no analogy to that of the Abbey of St. David. The contemporary seal of St. Andrews, which has for its device the venerable metropolitan church of St. Rule, proves that such portraiture was actually attempted and successfully practised at the period.613 Viewed in this light the old Holyrood seal is one of the most interesting ecclesiological relics we possess, figuring, it may be, the primitive structure first reared on the site which is now associated with so many of the most momentous occurrences both in the ecclesiastical and civil history of Scotland. The earliest charter to which it has yet been found attached is a notification by Alwyn, Abbot of Holyrood, A.D. 1141; but both the style of workmanship and the curiously mixed lettering manifestly belong to an earlier period, when the mos Scotorum was still in use, and perhaps point to the existence of a familia, or Christian community established in the glades of Drumselch Forest, long before the royal foundation of the Holyrood. Amid such primitive structures, the Candida Casa of St. Ninian must have stood forth as a majestic example of Italian art, and have furnished a model which succeeding builders would strive to imitate. Yet as each country of Christian Europe has its own peculiar variations from the theoretical standard, or its provincialisms, as they may be fitly enough called, so Scotland and Ireland, occupying originally a more isolated position than the other kingdoms of Christendom, modified these to a remarkable extent, and produced a style differing so greatly from the Italian model as to confound the speculations of modern ecclesiologists. The masterly essay of Dr. Petrie on “The Round Towers of Ireland,” has at length freed this inquiry from the cumbrous theories of older antiquaries, and given consistency to the archæological records of native art.

While England has her Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical remains, exhibiting more or less of the transition by which the debased Roman passed into the pure Romanesque, or Norman style, Scotland, along with Ireland, possesses examples of an early native style belonging to the same period, anterior to the Norman invasion, and distinguished by more marked and clearly defined characteristics. The peculiarities of the early masonry have generally been selected by judicious ecclesiologists as one of the most unerring guides to genuine Saxon remains, including such constructive features as the varieties of long and short work, whether introduced plainly in the angles of the buildings, or in the form of pilaster-strips, panels, arcades, and other decorations on the surface of the walls, as in the celebrated Earl’s Barton Tower, Northamptonshire, and in Stanton Lacy Church, Shropshire. The latter are only modifications of the simpler long and short work, and are obviously introduced for the same purpose, namely, to supply the want of a sufficiency of good building materials, and to bind together the unsubstantial ruble-work between, much in the same way as beams and brick-work are united in a timber-framed house. This difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of stone accounts for the introduction of herring-bone work, consisting of courses of bricks or tiles of Roman shape, and not unfrequently the spoils of older Roman buildings, disposed in alternate chevron rows. Such evidence is not of course in itself sufficient to fix a building as undoubtedly belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period, but as it generally occurs along with features more or less markedly distinct from the earliest Romanesque buildings to which an authentic date is assigned, it is a mere disputing about terms to question the existence of many well known examples in England of a style of ecclesiastical building popularly known as Saxon architecture. In addition to these constructive features there are not wanting peculiarities of detail, such as the belfry windows, divided with a rude baluster, or a slender cylindrical shaft carrying a long impost without any capital, and small apertures both in doors and windows, formed by two or more stones laid so as to form a straight slope, and producing a class of pointed openings coeval with the earliest circular arch in our ecclesiastical architecture. Sculptured decoration is rare, and generally extremely rude. The imposts of arches most frequently present imperfect imitations of Roman mouldings, where they are not simple square blocks, though in some instances a modification of the long and short work, consisting of rag-stone regularly disposed in imitation of carved mouldings, serves as an economical substitute for more laboured decorations.

Most of these characteristics of Anglo-Saxon architecture are, in the true sense of the word, provincialisms, not indeed necessarily confined to England, but pertaining to the earliest buildings of districts where good stone is scarce, and not easily procured. They form interesting examples of the legitimate origin of architectural details from the necessities of the locality in which they are found. On this very account, however, they are such as we should not expect to find, either in Scotland or Ireland, where substantial building materials abound. Examples, indeed, of analogous workmanship are not wanting in either country, and some of those of Scotland will be referred to. The celebrated ruin of St. Anthony’s Chapel, near Edinburgh, though certainly not earlier than the fourteenth, and more probably belonging to the fifteenth century, affords a curious instance of the adaptation of the rude materials of its immediate site, where others of the best quality were of easy access. This, however, is a solitary example, and no indication of a prevalent custom. Any evidence of such an exotic style as that usually called Saxon in the south of England transplanted to these localities, like the Scoto-Roman masonry already described, would clearly point to a foreign origin, and to builders unfamiliar with the facilities of a stone country.

The peculiar characteristics of the later ecclesiastical revolutions of Scotland, which almost entirely eradicated all veneration for the historical memorials of the ancient Scottish Church, have largely contributed to obliterate the evidences of our primitive Christian architecture. Some few examples of singular value, however, exist to attest the correspondence of the earliest sacred structures with other contemporary works of art. Scotland, as well as Ireland, has still her round towers, among the earliest and most interesting relics of native ecclesiastical architecture. Into the endless controversy of which these have formed the subject it is happily no longer needful to enter. Dr. Petrie’s admirable work has sufficed to sweep away the learned dust and cobwebs laboriously accumulated about the inquiry into their origin, and exhibits the value of patient investigation and the logical deductions of a thoroughly informed mind, in contrast to the vague and visionary speculations of the fireside student. The field which the Scottish antiquary has to investigate is narrow indeed when compared with that which Ireland offers; but is on that very account freed from some of the difficulties which beset the explorer into the corresponding Irish examples of the architectural taste and skill of a remote and long unknown period. It is even possible that a closer investigation of the history of the round towers of Scotland may throw some additional light on those of the sister isle.

It is with extreme hesitation that I venture to hint a doubt in regard to any of the conclusions arrived at in the “Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion,” regarding it, as I do, as a nearly perfect model of critical analysis and research. Yet even Dr. Petrie occasionally seems not to have entirely escaped the influence of that temptation to assign the remotest conceivable antiquity to these national monuments, which proved so effectual a stumblingblock to his predecessors. Notwithstanding the evidence adduced for the date assigned to the erection of the Round Tower of Kildare, it is impossible to overlook the fact, that the doorways both of that and of the tower at Timahoe are decorated with ornaments and mouldings, which, though not without their own peculiar details, essentially correspond to those found throughout Europe on works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. If the record of erection at a particular date, with the absence of any notice of rebuilding, were to be accepted in proof of the date of styles, there is probably no single phase of medieval ecclesiastical architecture which might not be proved on such evidence to be coeval with the earliest. The silence of all authorities as to the re-erection of churches once built is a species of negative proof of the smallest possible value. In the ruined nave of Holyrood Abbey at Edinburgh, the experienced eye may detect work of nearly every period from the twelfth to the seventeenth century; yet in some places the mouldings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are so ingeniously engrafted on the original Romanesque work, that it is hardly possible precisely to define the amount of change. The ingenuity with which the old masons have thus remodelled churches to bring them into correspondence with the progressive developments of pointed architecture, completely baffles the attempt to fix from single examples, such as the remarkable doorway of Timahoe, the work of a precise date. The form of arch, the chevron mouldings, decorated capitals, the sculptures on the imposts, are all such as the experienced eye would assign to the era of the Romanesque or Anglo-Norman style; and this idea is rather strengthened than weakened by the finely-jointed character of the ashlar-work, as such well-finished masonry is rarely met with in any English edifice prior to the twelfth century. The well-known details common to the Romanesque style are undoubtedly accompanied, as might be expected, by others peculiar to Ireland; but these examples referred to do not differ more from any twelfth century building in England or Scotland than does the beautiful stone-roofed Church of Cormac, on the Rock of Cashel, to which Dr. Petrie assigns, on indisputable evidence, the date of 1134. I am induced to direct attention to these points—otherwise foreign to the subject in hand—because the few marked characteristics which can be referred to on the round towers of Scotland correspond with those in Ireland which, according to all received ecclesiological analogies, seem to indicate an earlier date than the towers of Timahoe or Kildare, or the presumed contemporary monastery of Rathairn, and can hardly be supposed to be works of a later period. On this point I find it difficult to follow Dr. Petrie, who assigns to these specimens of ecclesiastical architecture, marked by details corresponding with works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in England and Scotland, a date not later than the close of the eighth century, while the tower of Donaghmore, which bears considerable resemblance to the Scottish round tower at Brechin—though greatly inferior in the amount or richness of ornament—is ascribed to the early part of the tenth century, or fully a century prior to the date of the corresponding Scottish building. Yet there are also points of resemblance of a sufficiently marked character, both in the peculiar masonry and details of the Timahoe and Brechin Towers. The pellet and bead moulding on the soffit of the former also very closely corresponds with the finish of the architrave in the Scottish doorway, though their decorations otherwise greatly differ.

The well-known round towers of Scotland are those of Abernethy and Brechin; but in addition to these we have the ancient church and tower of St. Magnus, Egilshay, in Orkney, which, though hitherto generally overlooked from its remote and inaccessible position, is no less interesting and worthy of note. The little church of St. Magnus, on the island of Egilshay, still remains in tolerably perfect condition though roofless, consisting of a chancel, nave, and round tower at its west end, which appears, when perfect, to have been between fifty and sixty feet high. It was roofed with an irregular dome-shaped capping, and both the nave and chancel were also protected, at no very distant period, with a roofing of stone. Dr. Hibbert, in his “Description of the Shetland Isles,” refers to this little Orkney edifice as a specimen of the ancient Scandinavian Church, corresponding, as he conceives, to others which formerly existed in Shetland. After describing Burra, St. Ronan’s, and other localities in the Bay of Scalloway, he goes on to remark,—“On an adjacent promontory, named Ireland, once stood a church which was adorned with a lofty steeple. But of three buildings of this kind situated in Ireland, Burra, and Tingwall, that were said to have been erected by Norwegian sisters, it is unfortunate that not one should now remain.”614 It is in illustration of the presumed appearance of these that the church of Egilshay is referred to as “a small religious edifice in Orkney, which these kirks of Shetland are said to have much resembled.”

The date of these churches, which tradition thus assigns to Norwegian builders, is not known. If, however, we were to take the dedication of the one still remaining on the island of Egilshay as a clue to the whole, we should be compelled to assign them to a comparatively recent period, and one later by more than a century than the most modern of the round towers of the mainland.

According to well-known Scandinavian records, the introduction of Christianity into the Orkney Islands was effected by the Norwegian king Olaf Trigvason, better known to us as St. Olaf, on his return from an expedition to Ireland in the year 998, having himself received baptism not long before in the Scilly isles. This important change, however, which the warrior missionary characteristically effected at the edge of the sword, there is good reason for believing only affected the Norwegian jarls. Christianity, as has been already shewn, had long preceded the conquest of these islands by the Northmen. The missionaries of Iona had not been so effectually scared by the intrusion of these fierce invaders as to abandon the numerous scenes of their early labours; and it is entirely consistent, both with the history of the northern islands and the characteristics of the primitive little edifice referred to, to believe that the church which still stands, though in ruin, on the island of Egilshay was the scene of Christian rites, amid “the storm-swept Orcades,” when the rude Norse king landed his strange missionary crew on the neighbouring isle.

It can hardly admit of doubt that the simple little church and tower of St. Magnus, Egilshay, were built from Irish models. Even if its origin were satisfactorily traced to Norwegian founders, the frequent expeditions of the Northmen to Ireland would suffice to account for this. St. Olaf visited Ireland before his memorable visit to the Orkneys, on his way to Norway, bent on introducing the new faith into his own country. Sigurd, the Jarl whom he converted by the summary alternative of embracing Christianity or forfeiting his dominions, fell in the great battle of Clontarf, in Ireland, A.D. 1014, in which Danes and Northmen of Northumberland, the Orkneys, Hebrides, and Man, fought along with other foreign auxiliaries, on behalf of the Danish colonists of Ireland, against the famous Irish monarch, Brian Boru, while among his allies were the Scottish Maormors of Lennox and Marr. Gray’s celebrated ode of “The Fatal Sisters” is a paraphrase of an ancient poem in the Icelandic Saga, on the battle in which the Northmen suffered so terrible a defeat. In this contemporary poem, Hilda, the Scandinavian goddess of war and victory, is introduced with her weird-sisters, the Valkyries, who attended on the field of slaughter to convey the spirits of the dying heroes to the hall of Odin, and otherwise received in the Scandinavian mythology nearly the same attributes as the Parcæ of the Greeks. These Scandinavian Fates are represented as having been seen at Caithness, in Scotland, by a man named Darraudar, on the very day of the battle of Clontarf. They were on horseback, riding swiftly towards a hill, into which they entered, and on looking through an opening of the rock he saw twelve gigantic females weaving a web at a strange loom. Their shuttles were weapons of war, their warp was weighted with human heads, and they wove with human entrails the ghastly texture of “the loom of hell.” As they plied their shuttles they sang a dreadful incantation, on finishing which they tore the web into twelve pieces, and each taking her portion they mounted their black steeds and rode off, six to the north and six to the south. That same day they appeared on the field of Clontarf busied amid the heaps of the slain. Such was the creed of the Norse Jarls sixteen years after the conversion of Sigurd of Orkney by St. Olaf, and the sole fruit of their last visit to Ireland. It is not to them, therefore, that we must look for the introduction of the models of the first Christian churches of Orkney. It is much more probable that the earlier missionaries of St. Columba were themselves the architects of the humble little fane which remains on the island of Egilshay, as well as of many others that once adorned the neighbouring isles. It closely corresponds in general characteristics with Dr. Hibbert’s account of the ancient churches of Shetland, of which traces still exist. “All the ecclesiastical buildings,” he remarks, “appear to have been devoid of the least show and ornament, the ingenuity of the architect extending little farther than in constructing a round vaulted roof. The pointed arch, the pinnacled buttresses, or rich stone canopy, never dignified the chapels of humble Hialtland. The number of them, however, was remarkably great. The parish of Yell, for instance, boasted twenty chapels, where only two or three are used at the present day.”615 The venerable little Church of Egilshay has fallen into like decay, and the inhabitants are now compelled to seek a place of worship on a neighbouring island.

Like other Orkney buildings of very different dates, this primitive church is constructed almost entirely of the unhewn clay-slate of the district. The tower is unsymmetrical, tapering somewhat irregularly towards the top, and bulging considerably on the side attached to the church. It differs from other examples in having no external doorway. It has evidently been built contemporaneously with the church, and is entered from the nave by means of a door through the west wall. The accompanying view from the south-east will help to convey some idea of its external appearance. Since the view engraved in Dr. Hibbert’s Plate of Antiquities was drawn, the stone roofs both of the church and tower have disappeared, along with a portion of the walls of the latter, which was taken down from the apprehended danger of its falling. The following are the proportions of the church and tower. The greatest circumference of the tower is forty-eight feet, and its present height about forty-five feet. There is no appearance of any stair having been constructed in it, but two beams of oak near the top, and two lower down, still indicate the arrangement of the floors by which it has at one time been subdivided. Directly above the door on the eastern side, connecting it with the nave, are the only two windows in the tower, one above the other, arched with unhewn stone. The doorway is only four feet in height from the present floor, and two feet four inches broad. The walls of the nave are about three feet thick, and it measures thirty feet long by sixteen feet wide within the walls. It is entered both on the north and south sides by doorways constructed “more Romano,” with a plain semicircular arch of unhewn stone. On the north side there is but one small arched window, three feet three inches in height, and only nine inches wide; while on the south side, in addition to a corresponding window of similar size, there are two other plain square-headed windows, measuring respectively two feet eleven inches by one foot two inches, and one foot nine inches by one foot one inch. The chancel is still covered in with a plain semicircular arch, above which has been a chamber, constructed between it and the outer covering of stone, and accessible only by an entrance over the chancel arch, where in all probability was kept the muniment chest of the officiating priest. Such an arrangement is traceable in early Irish churches, as in the original work of the beautiful church at Rathain, in King’s county, which Dr. Petrie assigns as the work of St. Fidhairle Ua Suanaigh, who died in 763.616 The chancel measures within the walls eleven feet by nine feet seven inches, and is lighted only by a small window in the north and south walls, measuring each twenty by eleven inches. But perhaps the most singular feature of this interesting structure is the chancel arch, which, directly contrary to those of corresponding edifices in Ireland, has its sides inclined inward towards the base, so as to present a complete horse-shoe arch. It is scarcely possible to examine the details of this most interesting relic of early Christian art, without recognising its manifest correspondence with the primitive Irish churches of the sixth and seventh centuries, which Dr. Petrie’s researches have rendered so familiar to us.

That the little Church of Egilshay existed long prior to the era of St. Magnus cannot, I conceive, admit of doubt. A comparison of it with the stately cathedral of Kirkwall, founded little more than thirty years after the death of the sainted Earl, is alone sufficient to prove its erection at a period essentially differing from the era of the fully developed Romanesque. Its later dedication to that favourite northern saint is abundantly accounted for by the remarkable historical fact that in its immediate neighbourhood, if not indeed, as the Aberdeen Breviary states, within this venerable fane, the gentle Magnus Erlendson was hewn down by his fierce cousin Hacon, A.D. 1106. It affords additional confirmation of the source of the Christianity of the Northern Isles, that we are told in the same venerable Scottish ecclesiastical authority, that Magnus commended his soul to the Redeemer, to St. Mary, and to the old northern apostles, St. Palladius and St. Serf. The fame of the sanctity of the martyred Earl of Orkney was speedily attested, according to the faith of the period, by numerous miracles wrought at his tomb. Pilgrimages were made to his shrine, and saintly honours accorded to him, not in Orkney only, but throughout Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and the Scottish mainland. Within twenty years after his death the legendary incidents of his life had been woven into an Icelandic Saga, strangely differing from that of Hilda and her attendant Valkyries. Ronald, the nephew of the martyred Earl, obtained a grant from the King of Norway of the possessions which were his by right of succession to his uncle, and on successfully establishing his claims the cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall was begun in or about the year 1138, in fulfilment of a vow he had made while fortune still hung doubtful in the scale.

The reputation of the sainted Earl has outlived that of any other Scottish saint, if we except the good St. Margaret. His name is still spoken with reverence throughout Orkney and Shetland, independently of all idea of saintship or martyrdom, to which indeed his claims are greatly more doubtful than his just title to the character of an upright ruler in a barbarous age. He died in a private quarrel with his own cousin, in which no other questions than those of mutual interest appear to have been involved. But the Church availed itself of the reverence which his virtues had inspired; and to this it is no doubt mainly owing that, notwithstanding the extreme veneration in which his name was held, little trustworthy information is to be found regarding him, even in the authorized records of hagiology. The Aberdeen Breviary styles him “the Apostle of Orkney and the Hebrides.” Other old authorities refer to him as a bishop or missionary to the Pagans of the north; and a writer in the first Statistical Accounts 617 winds up a sufficiently amusing attempt at tracing his history, by shewing the great probability that he was a knight templar!

The characteristics of the majestic cathedral of the Northern Isles furnish valuable elements of comparison with other examples of early ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland; while they completely confirm the great antiquity of the simple edifice which was deserted as the see of the Orkney bishops for the stately edifice at Kirkwall dedicated to the sainted Earl of the Orkneys. If we except the one common feature of the rounded arch, no elements of comparison exist. The cathedral is a well-defined example of the late Romanesque style, bearing no traces of the rudeness or imperfection which might be looked for in the transition from an humble and homely fane to one of such pretensions, but distinctly marked as belonging to a later period than Dunfermline, Kelso, and other of the older Scottish abbeys in the same style.

Returning to the consideration of the round towers of the Scottish mainland, the reader will probably be prepared by the previous evidences of the close affinity traceable between the early Irish and Scottish arts to assume that these erections, which find a parallel only in Ireland, are either the work of the Irish Scots or the result of the intimate intercourse with Ireland which was maintained at a well-ascertained period of our history. When we consider the close resemblance between the round towers of Brechin and Abernethy, and many of those of Ireland, amounting to a complete identity of style, it seems strange that Scottish antiquaries should have hesitated in ascribing to the former a Christian origin, after the obscure annals of the Dalriadic Scots had been cleared up. From these, as we have already seen, the Irish Scoti had no footing beyond their little territory in Argyleshire till the middle of the ninth century; and we have unquestionable evidence that the Romanesque or Anglo-Norman style had obtained general acceptance in Scotland in the very beginning of the twelfth century. Between these two periods, therefore, must the precise date of erection of both the round towers of Brechin and Abernethy be sought. But this interval is further greatly limited by the establishment of the third Norwegian kingdom by Thorfinn in 1034. It embraced nearly the whole of the north of Scotland, and was successfully maintained for thirty years, so that we are almost unavoidably compelled to assume their date as prior to this earlier period. The triumph of Thorfinn involved the extinction of the house of Kenneth MacAlpin, and the extermination of the most powerful chiefs of the Scottish race. By this we are limited to a period somewhat short of two centuries, within which it may be assumed that the Scottish round towers were erected; and with this such historical evidence as we possess in some degree accords. Neither of them, however, are the primitive structures reared on these long sacred sites. The tower of Abernethy, which stands solitary and unroofed, with all the ancient ecclesiastical adjuncts of a collegiate foundation utterly effaced, may be very briefly dismissed. Gordon 618 gives its dimensions as follows: Its elevation is seventy-five feet, wanting the conical roof which we may assume to have originally crowned its summit, adding ten or twelve feet to the height. The doorway which faces the north, and is, as usual, elevated several feet from the ground, is eight and a half feet high, by two and a half feet wide, and consists of a plain semicircular-headed opening. The tower now occupies an angle of the inclosed churchyard, and serves both as a belfry and clock-tower for the plain modern church; in addition to which the obsolete iron jougs still attached to it shew that it was also enlisted in older times in the execution of ecclesiastical discipline.

The Pictish Chronicle records the founding of a church at Abernethy, by Necton, King of the Picts, who reigned about the year 455. He dedicated the royal foundation to God and to St. Brigid, and endowed it with lands, usque ad diem judicii, the boundaries of which are minutely specified, “from the stone at Apurfeirt to the stone near Cairfuill,” &c.,—an interesting example of the Hoare Stones or landmarks of the fifth century. This is further confirmed by Fordun,619 who quotes an ancient chronicle of Abernethy in corroboration of the earlier record. Of the precise character of this ecclesia collegiata de Abernethy of the fifth century, it is now vain to speculate, but most probably, even for some centuries later, it was only a wooden church after the manner of the Britons, and so remained until about A.D. 711, when we learn from Bede of a second Naiton or Necton, King of the Picts, who sent messengers to the venerable Ceolfrid, abbot of the historian’s own monastery of Jarrow, at the mouth of the Wear, inquiring concerning sundry disputed questions, and praying him to send architects who, according to the manner of the Romans, should make a church of stone among his people. The Pictish monarch qualifies a promise of future obedience to the holy Roman and Apostolic Church thus naively: “In quantum dumtaxat tam longe a Romanorum loquela et natione consegregati hunc ediscere potuissent.”620 At what time the royal foundation of Abernethy was remodelled, according to the fashion indicated by its ancient tower, is not recorded in any authority that I know of, but it may not improbably be found noted by some of the Irish annalists from whom Dr. Petrie has already recovered so large an amount of well-authenticated history. The interest in it has naturally been greatly diminished by the annihilation of every vestige of the collegiate buildings except the tower. Its masonry, however, closely corresponds to that of Brechin, while the character of its upper windows is suggestive of even a more recent period, and it is probable that they are additions of a later date than the original structure.

The ecclesiastical foundation of Brechin, so far as we know, is fully four centuries later than that of Abernethy, and belongs to the era of the kings of the Scottish race. The ancient Pictish Chronicle concludes in the reign of Kenneth, the son of Malcolm, 967-991, and is supposed to have been written at that early period. It sums up the brief record of his reign in these words: “This is he who gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord.” It does not perhaps necessarily follow that no earlier church existed at Brechin; but to this period we may assign, on the authority of the ancient Chronicle, the first royal foundation; and in the absence of other evidence, I should have felt little hesitation in fixing it as the period when the present round tower was built. Dr. Petrie, however, assigns a date about thirty years later, and promises more precise information derived from the Irish annalists, from whence we may hope for other valuable additions to the Annales Scotorum. Meanwhile, we have obtained an approximation to the desired date, concerning which the indefatigable investigator of the history of these peculiar structures only remarks, “The round tower of Brechin in Scotland there is every reason to believe was erected about the year 1020, and by Irish ecclesiastics.”621 In dimensions this ancient structure somewhat exceeds that of Abernethy, measuring eighty-five feet to the cornice,622 above which a roof or spire of later date has been added when the cathedral church was re-erected in the thirteenth century. In every other respect it offers superior attractions to that of Abernethy, surrounded as it is with the more recent yet venerable and characteristic memorials of ancient ecclesiastical art, and adorned with sculptures of a singular and very remarkable character. The masonry of the tower, as will be seen from the drawing of the doorway, is of that kind which has been traced as gradually arising out of the cyclopean work of ancient Greece. The stones are polygonal, carefully hewn, and fitted to each other with the utmost neatness and art; the courses of masonry being mostly horizontal, though with more or less irregularity, and the joints not uniformly vertical. It is the same style of work which characterizes the walls of the ancient cities of Etruria, and is also found in Ireland to have succeeded to the ruder primitive cyclopean masonry. But the peculiar feature of the Brechin Tower is its sculptured doorway. Its dimensions are as follows: The breadth at the spring of the arch is one foot seven and a half inches, and at the base one foot eleven inches. The height of the entrance to the centre of the arch is six feet one and a half inch, and the entire height of the doorway from the base of the external ornament to the summit of the crucifix which surmounts the centre of the arch, is eight feet eleven and a half inches.623

The sculptured figures cut in relief on the imposts and at the base of the doorway, are unhappily too much defaced to admit of a very distinct idea being now formed of their original appearance. Mr. Gough, who examined and made drawings of them eighty years since, when they may be presumed to have been somewhat more perfect, thus describes this ancient doorway: “On the west front are two arches, one within the other, in relief; on the point of the outermost is a crucifix, and between both, towards the middle, are figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, the latter holding a cup with a lamb.”624 But it was unhappily too much the fashion with antiquaries of the last century, to see what they desired, and to make their drawings accordingly, so that little value can be attached to this precise description. One of the figures holds a pastoral staff, and the other may perhaps have borne a mitre. They were, not improbably, originally designed to represent St. Serf, St. Columba, or some other of the favourite primitive Scottish saints. The larger of the two measures one foot eleven inches in height, including the pedestal or block of stone on which it stands. The nondescript animals below no less effectually baffle any attempts at description. “If one of them,” says Gough, “by his proboscis had not the appearance of an elephant, I should suppose them the supporters of the Scotch arms!” Pennant, undeterred by the proboscis,—which, indeed, even now looks more like a fish in the animal’s mouth,—conceives them more probably to be the Caledonian bear and boar. The lapse of eighty years has not added to their distinctness, and little good can be hoped for from such random guessings. But the two upper blocks supply curious and unmistakable evidence of the fact, that the original design of the old sculptor has been abruptly brought to a close. Additional figures—not improbably ministering angels—have manifestly been intended to be introduced on either side of the crucified Redeemer, but from some cause—possibly yet ascertainable from the Irish annalists—the work of decoration has been arrested, and the unshapen blocks have been left to be fashioned by the tooth of time.

To these few examples of ecclesiastical buildings belonging to a period prior to the development of the architecture of Medieval Europe, I have little doubt that further research, particularly in the Hebrides and the neighbouring coasts of the mainland, may still supply some interesting additions. This volume has been delayed in the hope of being able to accomplish a tour sketched out for that purpose, but the plan must be executed at a future time, and most probably by other investigators, who possess all the requisites for its efficient accomplishment. It is exceedingly likely that some of the primitive oratories of the first centuries of Scottish Christianity still exist on the remote sites frequently chosen by the ascetic missionaries of the faith. Martin, for example, after describing the Eird Houses or Weems of the Western Isles, adds,—“There are several little stone-houses built above ground, capable only of one person, and round in form; one of them is to be seen in Portry, another at Linero, and at Culunock. They are called Tey-nin-druinich, i.e., Druid’s House.”625 Again, the Old Account of the Parish of Orphir, in Orkney, furnishes the following description:—“In the churchyard are the remains of an ancient building, called the Girth House, to which great antiquity is ascribed. It is a rotundo eighteen feet in diameter, and twenty feet high, open at top; and on the east side is a vaulted concavity, where probably the altar stood, with a slit in the wall to admit the light; two-thirds of it have been taken down to repair the parish church. The walls are thick, and consist of stones, strongly cemented with lime. From its resemblance to the Pantheon, some have ascribed this building to the Romans; but in all probability it has been a chapel, dedicated by the piety of its founder to some favourite saint.”626 These seem, like the more celebrated Arthur’s Oon, to answer in description to the small circular structures familiar to Irish antiquaries as bee-hive houses, and which are believed to have been the abodes of ancient ecclesiastics. Even on Arthur Seat, exposed to the restless populace of the neighbouring city, some remains of the simple cell of the Hermit of St. Anthony are still visible, and on the Island of Inchcolm, in the Frith of Forth, a rudely arched little vault, of uncertain age and sufficiently primitive construction, adjoining the ruined monastery over which the historian, Abbot Bowar, presided, is shewn as the cell of the good Hermit of St. Columba, where he entertained King Alexander I. for three days, when driven on the island by a tempest. The adjacent monastic buildings still include remains of various early dates, some of which will come under review in the following chapter; but an interesting memorial of the original monastery has been preserved on the chapter seal, which—like some of those of the metropolitan see figured with the primitive Cathedral of St. Rule—is engraved with a view of the ancient Abbey Church of Inchcolm. In style of art the seal bears considerable resemblance to those of St. Andrews. The church is represented consisting of nave and choir, with a central tower surmounted by a spire, and with plain round-headed windows in the choir. The only impressions yet discovered are very imperfect; but little doubt can be entertained that in these we have a representation of the original structure of the twelfth century, fully as accurate and trustworthy as we are enabled to ascertain the ancient seals of St. Andrews to have been. Thus does wax and parchment outlive the graven brass and the masonry which seemed to bid defiance to time.

Chapter VII — Medieval Ecclesiology

The subject of Medieval Ecclesiology is much too comprehensive to be treated with attention proportionate to its extent, and the importance justly ascribed to it, in the compass of a single chapter. But some notice of it is indispensable to the completeness of any systematic treatise on Scottish antiquities; and in attempting this it becomes once more necessary to glance at the ethnological elements on which depend the transition from the earlier and simpler characteristics already noticed. Whatever value be attached to the attempts advanced in the previous chapter to give some precision to the history of Primitive Scottish Ecclesiology, little doubt can now be entertained that throughout the whole period of Celtic rule in Scotland and Ireland, a peculiar character pervaded the native arts, and greatly modified the forms of Christian architecture introduced from Italy along with the new faith. Long, however, before Thorfinn subjected the Celtic population of the north to the Norwegian yoke, and sanctioned Macbeth’s usurpation of the throne of the Southern Picts, the Teutonic races from the south were securing a footing in the Lothians. From the middle of the seventh century the limits of the kingdom of Northumbria extended to the Forth, and though the Angles maintained their varying northern frontier only by a constant warfare with the Picts and Scots, yet the population must have become almost entirely Teutonic before the recognition of Egbert of Wessex as bretwalda or chief ruler of England, in 829. In 867, the Danes, a different branch of the Scandinavian race from the old Scottish Northmen, conquered the kingdom of Northumbria, and it is not till after the accession of the Saxon Athelstane, in 925, that we again find it partially and temporarily incorporated with the southern kingdoms. With these portions of English history we have little further to do than simply to note the evidence they furnish of the same remarkable changes having affected the population of the Scottish Lowlands which divided the races of the south into Weals and Engle-kin, or Celtic and Teutonic; Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, being comprehended from a very early period under the common name of Englen or English. The changes which followed on the Danish conquest again temporarily isolated Northumbria, where Harold Harefoot established a separate kingdom; and when Macbeth secured the concurrence of Thorfinn in his accession to Duncan’s throne, he included in his dominions a large portion of the Scottish Northumbria. To this succeeded the accession of Malcolm Canmore, Duncan’s eldest son, a prince of the old Celtic race, but sharing also through his mother in the Anglo-Saxon blood, educated at the Court of Edward the Confessor, and restored to the throne of his fathers chiefly by the aid of the Northumbrian Saxons.

The establishment of Malcolm on the Scottish throne dates from the year 1058; but four years prior to this he had succeeded, with the aid of his uncle, Siward, Earl of Northumberland, and a Saxon army, in driving Macbeth beyond the Forth, notwithstanding the strenuous aid of the Northmen, with whom a large portion of the native Celtic race were then closely allied. From this important epoch in our national history dates the commencement of that remarkable revolution known by the name of the “Saxon Conquest.” The Norman triumph at Hastings greatly accelerated its progress. Already the Scottish Court was the resort of numerous Anglo-Saxon nobles and leaders, whose services had given them claims on the Scottish Crown, and whose retainers accompanied them to settle on their new possessions in the Scottish Lowlands. But the Norman invasion drove many more to seek from the northern ruler the shelter which he had found in his adversity at the English Court; nor must we forget that his own barbarous policy helped to colonize his southern territories. Leaguing, when it suited his purpose, against the Norman aggressors, he wasted the country as far as Durham in 1070, bringing back with him so many prisoners of both sexes, that an old chronicler remarks,—“So great was the number of captives, that for many years they were to be found not only in every Scottish village, but in every Scottish hovel.”627 Thus by the most opposite means was a Saxon population invested in the possession of the Lothians. Norman adventurers followed, dissatisfied with the Conqueror’s rewards, as the Saxons of old blood were impatient of the Norman yoke. The Saxon Edward, it will be remembered, had Norman blood in his veins, spent his early years in Normandy, and when he at length attained to the English Crown, surrounded himself with Norman barons and churchmen, and bestowed on them some of the highest preferments in the kingdom. At his Court, therefore, Malcolm could acquire no such prejudices against the Norman as animated the expatriated followers of Harold. To him the discontented Norman baron with his hardy men-at-arms would be as welcome as the Saxon thane with his faithful retinue. Both found a ready portion in the fertile Lothians, in an age when even the multitude of children were “as arrows in the hands of a mighty man.” It was a peaceful and nearly bloodless revolution, yet by it this northern kingdom was more completely transformed than by all the protracted struggles of Roman, Pict, or Northman. The sceptre was still swayed by a prince of the Celtic line; but the power was passing away for ever from the last independent representatives of the nomade colonists of Europe.

The victory at Hastings was far less effectual in making England Norman than in making Scotland Saxon. In this respect the usurpation of Macbeth, which drove Malcolm to seek refuge and to acquire his education at the English Court, exercised a remarkable influence on the future history of both countries, and prepared in requital, a home for the southern Saxon, which has proved the birthland of the most vigorous offshoot of the race. But chief among the Anglo-Saxon fugitives is the noble princess, sister of Edgar Atheling, who brought to the Scottish throne the civilisation as well as the hereditary rights of the race of the Confessor. The earlier years of Malcolm’s reign appear to have exhibited all the fiercest characteristics of a disputed succession; and it is probable that during the long years of conflict between Northman, Celt, and Saxon, the native arts and civilisation were greatly deteriorated. Its ecclesiastical system had suffered no less than its civil arts. The church of St. Columba had been spoiled of its temporal possessions, and had parted with many of its canonical usages, including the celibacy of the clergy, that mainspring of the medieval church, which appears to have been so heartily favoured by the good Abbot of Iona. It is no part of the plan of this work to embrace ecclesiastical controversies, or to attempt to settle disputed questions relative to the precise doctrines and practice of the ancient Culdees. So interesting an inquiry could only be injured by a superficial notice of the modern disputes relative to their Episcopal or Presbyterian constitution, and the ancient ones about the tonsure and the times of observing Easter. Trivial as such controversies may be thought by some, they appear to have involved questions of higher moment, including that of the independence of the Celtic Church. The neglect, if not the entire abnegation of the celibacy of the clergy for a considerable period prior to the Saxon Conquest, is, however, indisputable; and the orthodox grandniece of the Confessor, in giving her hand to Malcolm Canmore, plighted troth with the legitimate grandchild of an Abbot of Dunkeld. To assume the primitive purity or simplicity of our early northern Church on such grounds would be erroneous. It is sufficient for our present purpose to know that it differed in various important respects from the Roman Church of western Christendom. The peculiar features which have attracted our notice in previous chapters originated chiefly from the isolation of the Scottish Church and nation; but that isolation was now to come to an end. The Princess Margaret became the queen of Malcolm Canmore, and the sharer of his throne. Her gentle spirit, not untinctured by the asceticism of the age, softened the fierce passions of her husband, and made his wild nature bend obedient to her will. The grandniece of the Confessor became the reformer of the Scottish Church, and the redresser of its abuses. Provincial councils were summoned at her command, at which Malcolm became the interpreter between the Saxon queen and his Celtic clergy. Her great aim was to assimilate the Scottish Church to that of England, and indeed of Rome, neither of which it would seem to have greatly resembled. To her we chiefly owe the eradication of the Culdees, (Gille-de, servant of God,) the successors of the first recluses and monks who established religious fraternities in Scotland, and who differed latterly from other orders probably more in their laxity as to monastic observances than on points of faith. Yet there were not wanting among them even then some worthy representatives of their primitive missionary founders. The Chartulary of St. Andrews, which furnishes some curious evidence of their absorption, partly by conformity and partly by force, into the new orders of canons regular, also affords some insight into these primitive religious societies not unsuited to awaken regrets at their arbitrary extinction. The sons of St. Margaret, Edgar, Alexander, and David, though differing in nearly every other respect, concurred in carrying out the reformation by which the Scottish Church was restored to uniformity with the ecclesiastical standards of the age. Worthy descendants of the Confessor, they not only made the Church of England their model, but frequently selected their spiritual directors from its clergy, preferred English priests to the bishoprics, and peopled their abbeys with its monks. The “Saxon Conquest” was in truth even more an ecclesiastical than a civil revolution, and the evidences of its influence are still abundant after the lapse of upwards of seven hundred years. In the period which intervened between the landing of the fugitive Saxon princess at St. Margaret’s Hope and the death of her younger son David, nearly all the Scottish sees were founded or restored, many of the principal monasteries were instituted, their chapels and other dependencies erected, and the elder order of Culdee fraternities and missionary bishops for the first time superseded by a complete parochial system. It was David I. who ejected the brethren of St. Serf established on the secluded little isle of Lochleven, and merged both that and the Culdee house of Monymusk into the new priory of canons regular of St. Austin established at St. Andrews. We read with no little interest the brief inventory of the Lochleven library, thus unscrupulously seized by the “soir sanct.” Among its sixteen volumes were the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the three books of Solomon, a Commentary on the Song of Solomon, and another on the book of Genesis:628 no discreditable indication of the studies of these recluses of Lochleven, whom some have inclined to rank among the Protestants of their age. But old things were then passing away under the guidance of reformers not less zealous than those of the sixteenth century. An entire change, moreover, necessarily resulted from the novel relations subsisting between the northern and southern kingdoms. The seat of Scottish civilisation had hitherto been chiefly in the north and west, while the Lothians and the southern dales had been but a debatable land—the battle-ground oftener than the secure possession of the Pictish or Scottish kings. On this very account great facilities existed for its settlement by the southern fugitives, ready to hold it of the Scottish crown by feudal military tenure, and to defend it against the aggressions of the new power established in England. A charter preserved in the treasury at Durham, and belonging at latest to the very commencement of the twelfth century, furnishes interesting illustration of the new elements of strength and progress infused into the kingdom by the colonization of its southern districts. The charter relates to the founding of the church of Edenham, on the north bank of the Tweed, in the rural manse of which the poet of the Seasons was born in the year 1700,—one also of the many results which have flowed from that old deed of piety, executed five centuries before. The settler is Thor the Long, probably neither of Saxon nor Norman blood, but a descendant of one of Hardacnute’s Danish followers, who established himself on the banks of the Tweed by invitation of Edgar, the son and successor of Malcolm. The charter thus describes at once the royal grant and the pious gift of the new settler, and may very happily serve to illustrate the process of Teutonic colonization of the Scottish Lowlands: “To all the sons of holy mother Church, Thor the Long, greeting in the Lord: Be it known that Aedgar, my Lord, King of Scots, gave to me Aednaham, a desert; that with his help and my own money I peopled it, and have built a church in honour of St. Cuthbert; which church, with a ploughgate of land, I have given to God, and to St. Cuthbert and his monks, to be possessed by them for ever.”629 Such was in reality the process by which the “Saxon Conquest” was accomplished. No wonder that it should be unnoticed by contemporary chroniclers, and remain a puzzle to historians who esteem wars and regal successions the sole indices of the past. It was wastes not men that had to be conquered, and therefore the victory is chronicled alone in such brief parentheses as that of the Edenham charter.

It is easy to see how complete a change must necessarily have taken place on the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland at the period of its receiving so great an impulse. The Christian arts, introduced to a great extent along with the new faith from Ireland, had hitherto been modified chiefly by local influences. The reformation effected by Queen Margaret and her sons abruptly arrested the development of a peculiar native style, and made the architecture of England as well as its ecclesiastical system supply the new Scottish model. With the elevation of the Saxon princess to the Scottish throne, we for the first time discover a chronological coincidence in the styles of the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland and England. In the sixth year of the reign of Malcolm II., the grandfather of Duncan, i.e., in 1010, according to a charter of doubtful value, which has been the subject of no little diversity of opinion,630 he gave to God, the blessed Mary, and all the saints, the church of Mortlach or Murthelach, in perpetual gift, erecting it into an Episcopal see, in obedience, as it is said, to a vow made in the immediate vicinity of the church when battling with the Norwegian Invaders. In its present form the charter seems to be unworthy of implicit credit, yet the circumstantial accounts of Fordun and Boece agree with it in every essential point, and it appears reasonable to assume that its most important features are not without some authority and historical value. David I. translated the see from Mortlach to Old Aberdeen in 1125, endowing it for the first time with revenues proportionate to the dignity of the bishopric. It appears, however, if we may so far trust the charter, that Mortlach was the seat of a religious foundation prior to the honours conferred on it by the victorious Malcolm, the humble church of which was elevated, in fulfilment of the royal vow, to the rank of a cathedral. At such a date we might expect a building corresponding to those of which the remarkable relics remain at Abernethy and Brechin; and even yet, though sorely defaced by modern additions, the venerable parish church of Mortlach is believed to include portions of the primitive cathedral. The holes are pointed out where the victor is affirmed to have caused the heads of three of the vanquished Norse leaders to be built into the wall as a votive offering: a singular but sufficiently characteristic memorial of the ferocious spirit of the age, though resting on little better authority than local tradition. “At whatever time,” says the Old Statist, writing about 1795, “three skulls may have first been put there, there they surely were; and not longer than about thirty years ago was the last of them picked out and tossed about by the school-boys.”631 The former proportions of the church were ninety feet long, including a chancel of twenty-seven feet, while its greatest breadth was only twenty-eight feet. Within the last twelve years great alterations and additions have been made, with the usual inattention to the ancient features of the venerable edifice. The original walls are very massive. The windows, where unaltered, are extremely narrow and deeply splayed internally, the work probably of the new era which we have now to consider, though it is not impossible that some portions of the original church of Mortlach may still remain.632

It was about the year 1070—the precise date is uncertain—that Malcolm Canmore wedded the gentle and pious Saxon princess, whose amiable disposition insensibly softened the rugged nature of her husband, and swayed him by the influence of a most sincere affection, till he became the docile minister of her will. We possess a narrative of the private life of Malcolm and his Queen, on the authority of Turgot the confessor of the latter, who had frequent opportunities of intimate intercourse with both. Amid the austerities and superstitions which belonged less to the individuals than the age, it is impossible not to admire the rare picture of domestic charity and kindly affections which it discloses. It was at Dunfermline, according to Turgot, that the auspicious marriage of Malcolm and Margaret took place; and one of the first works of the queen was to found a church in the place where her nuptials had been celebrated, which she dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and enriched with many costly gifts. Such was the origin of the Benedictine Abbey of Dunfermline, though it can scarcely admit of doubt that some church or chapel existed at this chosen place of royal residence prior to the foundation of St. Margaret. The editor of the “Registrum de Dunfermelyn” remarks, “The original church of Canmore, perhaps hot of stone, must have been replaced by a new edifice when it was dedicated in the reign of David I. If any part of that structure remain, it must be little more than the foundations. Age, or the accidents of a rough time, or the increasing consequence of the house, gave rise to an enlarged and more magnificent structure about the middle of the thirteenth century.”633 It cannot be difficult, I think, to shew that such conclusions are erroneous, and at least totally inadmissible in reference to the sombre and impressive nave of Dunfermline, the oldest and perhaps most interesting specimen of the Romanesque style now remaining in Scotland. But the whole reasoning proceeds on the imperfect views hitherto entertained of the state of civilisation and the progress of the arts in Scotland previous to the commencement of its medieval era, dating from the reign of Malcolm, when for the first time both its civil and ecclesiastical institutions were assimilated to the rest of Europe.

So far from Malcolm Canmore’s church being probably of wood, there are some of the most substantial early Romanesque structures in England which there is good reason for ascribing to the same builders who erected the Church of the Holy Trinity at Dunfermline, in the lifetime of its pious foundress. Malcolm was present at the laying of the foundation stone of Durham Cathedral by the confessor and biographer of his own pious queen, on the 11th of August 1093, shortly before his last fatal rupture with England; and his son Alexander witnessed the deposition of the relics of St. Cuthbert in the same sacred edifice in 1104. No one who has had the opportunity of examining both Durham and Dunfermline, can have failed to observe the remarkable correspondence of their character and details. The same massive and dissimilar piers: the same chevron, spiral, and billet mouldings distinguishing the compartments of the nave: the same chamfered cushion capitals to the heavy cylindrical shafts: as well as a marked conformity in many minor details, all point to a common origin for Durham Cathedral and Dunfermline Abbey. St. Finnan, a monk of Iona, is said to have built the first church of Lindisfarne, a timber erection, and the original seat of the see of Durham, in the seventh century. Scottish missionaries twice introduced the faith into Northumberland; Iona and Melrose supplied successive heads to the southern house; and even after the Conqueror compelled the chapter to receive a bishop of his appointment of Norman blood, the intimate relations between the see and the northern abbeys appear to have been very temporarily interrupted. In so far as greater plainness and massive simplicity afford any ground for assigning priority of date, the argument is in favour of the greater antiquity of Dunfermline Abbey, which must have been far advanced, if not indeed finished, according to the original design, before the foundation of the Cathedral at Durham was laid in 1093, as the death of both of the royal founders took place before the close of the year; and they were buried there before the rood altar. Perhaps the fact of their interment there, and not in the choir,—to which the bodies of both were translated with solemn ceremonial and, according to the old chroniclers, with miraculous attestations of their enduring affection,634 four years after the canonization of St. Margaret in 1246,—may be thought to afford presumptive evidence that the abbey choir was then incomplete. This, however, is by no means probable, as the choir was always the part of the church first built. But it was no doubt with a view to receive into a structure worthy of so sacred a depository the relics of the sainted queen that the choir was remodelled according to the prevailing First-pointed style of the thirteenth century. We possess a curious proof that even the reconstruction of the choir was effected, not by demolishing and rebuilding the whole, but merely by remodelling the original masonry of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,—a process of common occurrence with nearly all the large cathedral and abbey churches; for by a bull of Pope Innocent IV., dated September 15, in the seventh year of his pontificate,635 (1250,) he dispenses with the reconsecration of the abbey, because the walls of the former church for the most part still remained.636 No doubt the nave also underwent some modifications, of which it now bears evidence, but all its essential features can be assigned to no other period than that of the original foundation.

To the same early period must be assigned the erection of the interesting little chapel of St. Margaret in the Castle of Edinburgh, which it was my good fortune to rediscover a few years since, when converted to the vile use of a powder magazine, after its very existence had been lost sight of for upwards of a century.637 Some of its characteristic details have been thought rather to belong to the later period of the Romanesque style; but a careful examination of the simple capitals of the jam-shafts, and the low relief of the mouldings on the chancel arch, has satisfied me that there is no evidence in its structure inconsistent with the idea of its being the oratory of Queen Margaret, which, according to Barbour, she caused to be decorated with a painting of prophetic import, still remaining in his day,638 (obiit 1396.) The plain coved vault of the apse, and the small roundheaded and entirely unornamented windows, so different from the later work of Dalmeny or Leuchars, confirm this opinion. By a charter bearing date 14th February 1390, King Robert II. endowed the altar of the chapel of St. Margaret the Queen, in Edinburgh Castle, with a yearly rental of eight pounds, but which was subsequently transferred to the chapel of St. Mary the Virgin, in the same fortress, probably erected at that period, and only demolished towards the close of the last century.639 The great improbability of the oratory of Queen Margaret having been demolished, and so small and plain a chapel built in her honour either in the reign of Alexander or David, seems to render the conclusion unavoidable, that the interesting little chapel of St. Margaret is directly associated with the pious queen, to whom there can be little doubt Shakespear alludes in Macbeth, though he makes Macduff speak of her not as the wife but the mother of Malcolm:—

“The queen, that bore thee,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
Died every day she lived.”640

The portions which remain of the original Romanesque structure of Alexander I.’s foundation on Inchcolm, erected about 1123, are characterized by the same unornate simplicity; nor is it till the reign of David I. that we have any certain examples of the highly decorated late Romanesque work. Even in the Abbey of Jedburgh much of the original work is heavy and plain, compared with the singularly rich details which lighten the solid masses of Kelso Abbey. Of Holyrood Abbey, founded by David I. in the same year with that of Kelso, comparatively little use can be made in fixing the chronology of Scottish medieval architecture. From its vicinity to the capital, and its long occupation by the Court, every invading army spoiled or burnt it, and almost every abbot made some new additions or repairs, till it has become a complete ecclesiological enigma. In the cloister doorway, on the south side of the nave, it presents undoubted remains of the original foundation of David I. The west tower, the arcades in the aisles, and various other portions, indicate that the main walls of the building belong to the transition-period, prior to the complete development of the First-pointed style; most probably in the minority of Alexander III. The great west doorway and the centre aisle are in the very best style of late First-pointed; while the external north wall and its richly decorated buttresses, as well as various additions on the south side, are reconstructions of Abbot Crawfurd, who succeeded to the abbacy in 1457, as appears from his arms still visible on various parts of the new work. The unique windows of the west front, with segmental arches and nondescript tracery, though bearing some resemblance to portions of the palace in Stirling Castle, ascribed to the reign of James IV., will, we suspect, be more correctly assigned to the era of his unfortunate descendant, Charles I., whose cipher is carved on the beam of the great doorway below. The beautiful arcade of early but unusually rich First-pointed work, and with sculptured heads in the spandrils, which adorns the west front of the tower, is in some respects unique, and is certainly unsurpassed in the richness of its details by any contemporary work.

The cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, has already been referred to as an exceedingly interesting specimen of late Romanesque work, commenced about the year 1136; so that from the banks of the Tweed to these remote northern isles we find the Romanesque style universally adopted in the first years of the twelfth century. One curious and unique example of this period, however, must not be overlooked. The remarkable little church and tower of St. Rule, at St. Andrews, have excited scarcely less interest than the round towers of Brechin and Abernethy, and have been the subjects of equally vague speculations. The slender tower, measuring upwards of an hundred feet in height, by twenty feet eight inches in breadth at base, while the choir is only thirty-one and a half feet long,641 is well calculated to arrest the attention, though the edifice is, as a whole, more remarkable for its singular and perfectly unique features than for the grace or consistency of its proportions. The remarkable excess in height over all the other measurements of the tower prevails, though to a less extent, in the entire design. The accumulated soil covers the bases of the columns of the chancel arch, and thus detracts from this peculiar characteristic of the primitive metropolitan cathedral; but even now, while the interior of the choir measures only nineteen feet ten inches in breadth, the present height of the chancel arch is twenty-one and a half feet, and that of the arch in the tower, formerly connecting the nave and choir, is twenty-four feet two inches; from the floor to the top of the side walls is twenty-nine feet seven inches, and to the apex of the original high-pointed roof, as shewn on the tower wall, is fifty-five feet five inches.642 Assuming the existence of three steps at the chancel arch, we shall not probably err in adding to all the latter measurements at the least from four to five feet, thereby presenting a remarkably striking contrast to the very narrow proportions of the choir. The details are extremely simple. The sections of the piers and arch mouldings of the chancel figured here will suffice to shew that they partake somewhat of the meagreness of the larger features, while they are entirely devoid of the massiveness so peculiarly characteristic of the older Romanesque. Nevertheless, in this, as in other details of the building, the architect has shewn much ingenuity in economizing the limited means and materials at his command: the tenuity and apparent meagreness of design of the chancel arch, as seen in section, producing in reality an effect of greater breadth and solidity than a number of less distinct and boldly relieved features could have effected. The columns are finished by simple double-cushioned capitals, surmounted by a plain chamfered abacus, from which springs the arch, one of the most singular features of this curious building. Its details are shewn in the section, but the arch considerably exceeds a semicircle; and mounted on its lofty piers, with the tall, narrow tower beyond, presents a remarkable but by no means unpleasing effect. From the excessive height which prevails throughout all the most prominent features of the church of St. Rule, it possesses, as a whole, little in common with such sombre and massive structures as Kirkwall or Dunfermline, or with the more ornate little Romanesque churches of Leuchars or Dalmeny. Its walls, indeed, which have so well withstood the tooth of time, are only two feet seven inches thick. A careful examination of its details, however, leaves no room to doubt that it belongs to the twelfth century, when the older Romanesque was being modified by many novel additions prior to its abandonment for the First-pointed style; and there can be little risk of error in recognising in the church of St. Rule the basilica of Bishop Robert, the founder of the Priory of Canons Regular of St. Andrews, about A.D. 1144. The bishop had much to reform at St. Andrews ere either his new foundation or his Episcopal see were placed on the creditable footing in which he left them to his successor; and we may, with little hesitation, ascribe the singular proportions of the church of St. Rule to the desire of giving with his first slender means the utmost dignity that they admitted of to the metropolitan church. The early chapter seals of St. Andrews afford some of the few undoubted examples of a designed and tolerably accurate portraiture of an ancient church. The oldest of these, a seal attached to a charter A.D. 1160, but itself no doubt of a somewhat earlier date, shews the miniature cathedral as it probably originally appeared, with central and west towers, choir, and nave, but altogether of much smaller dimensions than the greater number of parish churches. The windows of two lights in the top of the tower may be compared to the plainer example, divided by a cylindrical shaft, with cushioned capital, and moulded base, in the lower part of the tower of Dunblane Cathedral, a fragment of the first cathedral of St. Blane, possibly of the time of Canmore, and certainly not later than the reign of Alexander I. But the lighter and more ornate style of those of St. Rule fully accord with the later date assigned to it here.

Specimens of Romanesque parish churches are by no means rare in Scotland. Besides those of Leuchars and Dalmeny may be named Duddingston, Ratho, and Borthwick, Mid-Lothian; Gulane, East-Lothian; Uphall, Abercorn, and Kirkliston, West-Lothian; St. Helen’s, Cockburnspath, Berwickshire; Mortlach and Monymusk, Aberdeenshire; St. Columba’s Southend, Kilchouslan, Campbeltown, and the beautiful little ruined church of St. Blane, on the island of Bute, with its Romanesque chancel arch and graceful First-pointed chancel; besides various others more or less perfect still remaining in Argyleshire—all presenting interesting features illustrative of the development of the Romanesque style in Scotland, and furnishing evidence of the great impetus given to church building at the period.

Such was the change effected on Scottish art by the remarkable historical events which gave the throne of England to the Norman invader, and established the descendants of the Saxon Alfred on that of Scotland. For nearly a century the ecclesiastical architecture of England and Scotland is one in style, coincident in date, and uniform in the character of details. This unwonted uniformity, however, is clearly traceable to causes the full effect of which was ere long modified by other influences. Soon after the introduction of the First-pointed or Early English style a marked difference is discoverable, and thenceforth the dates and peculiar characteristics of the ecclesiastical architecture of the two countries disagree in many essential points. Notwithstanding the adoption of the somewhat exclusive term Early English for the First-pointed style, it appears to have reached its limits at fully as early a period in Scotland as in England. The choir of Glasgow Cathedral, built by Bishop Jocelin, between 1188 and 1197, though not to be compared with the Cathedral of Salisbury in loftiness of proportions, or grandeur of effect as a whole, is certainly further advanced in the rich and finished character of its beautiful capitals and other varied details, though the English cathedral was not begun till A.D. 1220, or thirty-two years later than that of St. Kentigern. The crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, which formed the first work of Bishop Jocelin, is not surpassed by any structure of its class, and hardly indeed equalled by any other crypt in the kingdom. As a specimen of pure First-pointed work it is deserving of the most careful study; and the recent judicious restorations effected under the direction of the late Mr. William Nixon, have rendered it an object which the student of medieval architecture may visit with unqualified admiration and delight. So little has hitherto been done in the way of investigating the history or peculiar character of Scottish Ecclesiology, that very few examples have yet been assigned to their true date. It has been customary to ascribe the founding of the cathedral church of St. Andrews, for example, to Bishop Arnold, A.D. 1159-1163, and loosely to assume from this that a considerable portion of it was of that early date. But the mention by Wyntoun of his interment in the “auld kyrk,”643 i.e., the church of St. Rule, must be accepted as some indication that the new cathedral had made no great progress at his death. The beautiful fragment of its choir which still remains may with little hesitation be ascribed to the later episcopate of Bishop William, A.D. 1202-1233; during whose occupation of the see we have evidence of considerable building being in progress. Specimens of pure First-pointed work are by no means rare in Scotland, ranging from the stately cathedral of St. Mungo, or the ruined abbey of Dryburgh, to the chancel of the lovely little church of St. Blane in the Isle of Bute. But with the exception of the magnificent fragments of the abbey of Aberbrothoc which still remain to us, no more characteristic specimen of the peculiar style which arose in Scotland in the reign of William the Lion can be referred to, than the three eastern bays added to the old Romanesque cathedral of St. Magnus, in the remote Orkneys. The details are indeed for the most part First-pointed, and the piers beautifully moulded and clustered shafts, but the arches that rise from them are of the same form as those of 1136, though also richly moulded in conformity with the style which superseded the Romanesque in the latter part of the twelfth century. Such work can neither be consistently classed with the true First-pointed, of which Glasgow Cathedral is a type, nor with the later Scottish Decorated. Down to the close of Malcolm IV.’s reign the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland and England may be held to coincide alike in style and date: the Scottish First-pointed being upon the whole both earlier and more fully developed than the corresponding English style, according to the chronology assigned by Mr. Rickman. But with the first symptoms of transition the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland begins to assume its peculiar characteristic features, marked by a return to the use of the semicircular arch, and a preference of circular to angular details, employed not indiscriminately or at random, but on a fixed principle, along with the consistent use of the pointed arch, and of details peculiar to the later styles. The fact of such peculiarities is more easily demonstrated than its cause. The intimacy and interchange of races with England under Malcolm Canmore, and the complete assimilation of the Church of Scotland to that of England, abundantly account for the uniformity of the English and Scottish Romanesque Period. Perhaps we shall not overrate the effect of the profuse zeal and liberality of David I., and the fruits of his example, in assuming that the very numerous specimens of beautiful late Romanesque work, on every scale, from cathedrals and abbeys, to simple little village churches, built almost entirely in his reign, may not have been without their influence in stamping some of its most marked types with an enduring authority on the national mind—in all periods of its history characterized by a certain tenacity of adherence to a favourite idea. Be this, however, as it may, the retention of the use of the semicircular arch, and of forms of the same type, after their abandonment in the ecclesiastical architecture of England, becomes the source of a style peculiar to Scotland, and which it has been too much the custom hitherto to regard as a mere provincialism little worthy of note. The worst fruit of this has been, that our ancient Scottish edifices have been remodelled in accordance with rules derived entirely from contemporary English models; and our architects have employed themselves for nearly half a century in deliberately obliterating the most characteristic features of native art.

The influence which stamped its character on the age of David I. was more ecclesiastical than civil. The intercourse with England, though not uninterrupted, continued during his reign and that of his imbecile successor sufficiently close and frequent to account for much similarity in the arts and manners of the two kingdoms; nor was it till the quarrel of William the Lion with Henry II., in 1172, his subsequent imprisonment, and the disputed claims of independence both of the Church and Crown, that the effectual alienation took place from which we may trace in part the divergence of Scottish from English models. The claim of the dependence of the Scottish Church on the English archbishops was probably more effectual than any civil change in severing the two Churches, with all that pertained to them. But before this lasting disruption took place, the First-pointed style had been fully developed, and was already expanding into the rudiments of the next transition. There were indeed constructed, to some extent contemporaneously, works in what may be correctly enough styled the Early English, or pure First-pointed style, of which Glasgow choir is an example, and others like the abbey of Aberbrothoc, essentially peculiar in many respects. To the latter I would propose to apply the term, Scottish Geometric, reserving for the more elaborate style, ultimately developed after the War of Independence, the name of Scottish Decorated.644 The choir of Glasgow Cathedral exhibits a series of extremely interesting examples of the pierced interspaces of the First-pointed window, in which the tracery of the Decorated Period originated; while the nave of the same beautiful edifice, the work of Bishop William de Bondington, 1233-1258, is no less valuable as an example of the succeeding stage, where the grouped lancet windows have given place to a pointed arch divided by plain mullions and intersecting tracery into several lights, which again have in some cases been filled in with geometric figures, still very partially blended into a homogeneous or consistent whole. The circular arch, however, was never totally abandoned. In the chapter-house of the abbey of Inchcolm, for example, a beautiful little octagonal structure of two floors, the doorway is a semicircular arch, though with mouldings entirely of the later style; the chapter-house is lighted with small lancet windows, while the chamber above has corresponding apertures with semicircular heads. This preference of the semicircular arch, especially for doorways, was never afterwards laid aside. The great west entrance of the magnificent abbey of Aberbrothoc, founded by William the Lion in 1178, is an exceedingly rich and beautiful Scottish doorway of the period, presenting in its details the blending of forms derived both from the Romanesque and First-pointed styles. The entire building furnishes a most interesting example of the peculiarities of early Scottish Gothic, marking, as I conceive, the historic epoch in which the native styles had their rise. In the south transept, for example, this is exhibited with great freedom and variety of character. Three tiers of arcades decorate the wall: the lowest consists of a series of equilateral pointed arches, each filled with a cusped trefoil head, and ranging with and repeating the same mouldings is a small but finely proportioned semicircular headed doorway. The arrangement is exceedingly happy, admitting of the greater breadth of doorway without breaking the line formed by the top of the arcade, or disturbing the uniformity of its series of engaged shafts. So far from seeming to be incongruous, it has a most harmonious effect to the eye. Above this is a second arcade, composed entirely of the lancet arch; while the third, or highest tier, consists of a series of semicircular arches, forming the continuation of the triforium, so that the arrangement of the orders seems deliberately reversed. The pleasing effect of the whole can only be judged of when seen in situ.

Meanwhile the arts continued to progress, advancing towards more complete development of the medieval architecture, then common in all its most essential features to nearly the whole of Europe. The Canons of the General Council of the Scottish Church, in 1242, preserve to us a remarkable ordinance for an annual national collection throughout the kingdom in aid of the building of Glasgow Cathedral, the present nave of which was then in progress. The translation of the relics of St. Margaret to the choir of Dunfermline Abbey, in 1250, marks the completion of that interesting contemporary work,—now unhappily replaced by a pseudo-choir in the style of the year 1820. Works manifestly of the same period, and more markedly Scottish, are still common in many districts: as in parts of Dunblane Cathedral, of Paisley Abbey, Brechin Cathedral, the east end, and other portions of the Cathedral of the Orkneys, &c. But a great revolution was at hand, which abruptly severed the already loosening cords that for a time had brought the ancient kingdoms and the Churches of Scotland and England into unwonted unity of purpose and feeling. In 1285 died the wise and good king, Alexander III., leaving his kingdom to all the miseries of a divided regency and a disputed succession. Margaret of Norway, granddaughter of Alexander, an infant, at a foreign court, had been acknowledged the heir to the crown of Scotland very shortly before the sudden death of the king. Eric, king of Norway, alarmed at the dissensions among the Scottish regents, appealed to Edward of England to interpose, and thus commenced the series of memorable events in our national history, ending in the war of independence, which placed the Bruce upon the throne, and finally shut out England from all influence on Scottish policy or art. Thenceforth to have “an English heart” was the Scottish name for treason; and the term deliberately applied even in the Acts of the Scottish Parliament to their southern neighbours is “our auld enemies of England.”

The year 1306, in which Robert Bruce ascended the throne of his ancestors, almost exactly corresponds with the date (1307) assigned by Rickman for the close of the First-pointed or Early English style. But meanwhile a period of division, anarchy, and bloody war, had lasted in Scotland for upwards of seventy years, during which the only arts that found encouragement were those of the armourer and the military architect; nor was this state of things brought to a close twelve years after the coronation of the Bruce, when, in the year 1318, the Pope, John XXII., the obsequious tool of England, renewed the excommunication of Clement V. against the king and all his adherents. The very registers and chartularies are ominously silent; though here and there we find evidence that the old spirit of pious largess to the Church was only temporarily overborne by the stern necessities of the time. Bishops and abbots meanwhile fought alongside of their fellow-countrymen in the foremost of the fight, or, like the good Abbot of Inchaffray, animated them to strike for liberty and independence. The results of all this are abundantly apparent in the earliest succeeding examples of ecclesiastical architecture. They partake of the mingled features of the First and Middle-pointed styles, and are in many cases characterized by a degree of plainness and meagre simplicity which renders the application of the term Decorated occasionally very inappropriate to what contain, nevertheless, the rudiments of the style. What marks them still more with a novel character are features such as the unusually small side doorways, the small windows, the single aisle, and, above all, the plain vault, whether pointed or round, all of which appear to be traceable to the almost exclusive devotion to military architecture by the builders of that age. The Church was then militant in a peculiar sense, and found it difficult to reassume the fitter and more becoming garb of peace.

The plainest, as well as the most ornate Scottish ecclesiastical structures subsequent to this date, almost invariably exhibit some interesting evidence of the adherence to the use of the semicircular arch, and its cognate forms, not only in doors, windows, and arcades, but in the tracery of pointed windows, which at length resulted in the peculiar style of Scottish Decorated Gothic. The Scots, in truth, did of necessity, and undesignedly, what the modern artists, especially of Germany, have affirmed in their practice to be indispensable to the revival of art. They returned nearly to the rudiments of pointed architecture, and wrought out a system for themselves. From this date the rules of English ecclesiology can only mislead the student of Scottish ecclesiastical architecture.

The choir of the singular church of the monastery of Carmelites or Whitefriars, at South Queensferry, founded by Dundas of Dundas in 1330, is an exceedingly interesting specimen of the simple style of the period. The windows, which are few and small, divided by plain mullions, with no other tracery than their bending into lancet and interspaces in the head; the roof a plain vault without groining, and with a singularly sombre look from its entire elevation above all the windows except at the east end, there being no aisles, and consequently no clere-story; the piscina, on the south side, a recessed pointed arch, neatly moulded, but without cusping or other ornament; the sedilia alongside of it, a flat-arched recess, rounded off at the angles by a segmental curve, and divided into three spaces only by pendant mouldings or cusps, too imperfect now to shew exactly what they may have been: all these are characteristic chiefly of the extreme simplicity of the details. But here also the semicircular arch occurs. The credence in the east wall, on the north side of the altar, is recessed with mouldings nearly similar to the piscina, and like it with all the mouldings sunk within the recess, but with a rounded instead of a pointed arch. The priest’s door, on the south side of the choir, is of the same form externally, though square-headed within; and a plain ambry occupies the north wall, directly opposite to the piscina. The eastern gable of the church is decorated externally in a novel manner with a niche and various heraldic devices, probably of later date, and coeval with the nave and south transept, which are curious specimens of the Perpendicular style.645 This extremely interesting example of an important period of Scottish Ecclesiology is generally overlooked, though it lies within a mile of Dalmeny, the favourite example of the parochial church architecture of the twelfth century. Its very existence is probably unknown to thousands who annually pass the neighbouring ferry, as it lies beyond the route of travellers going to the north.

The little ruined church of the village of Temple, East-Lothian, is another simple but pleasing specimen of the transition from the First-pointed to the Scottish Decorated style. Two long, narrow lancet windows, now blocked up, probably indicate the original character of the whole structure. The large east window is divided into three lights by mullions and intersecting tracery in the head, into the two largest openings of which plain circles are inserted. Still simpler is the arrangement in the smaller windows on the south side. They are divided into three lights, the mullions forming pointed heads at the two side lights; but instead of being continued so as to form intersecting tracery in the central space, a large circle is inserted between the pointed heads of the side lights, the lower segment of which finishes the head of the central light by its inverted curve. In this extremely simple combination may be traced the rudiments of the beautiful and richly decorated window in the south transept of Melrose Abbey. The same mode of filling up the head of the window with circles inserted in the intersecting tracery, may be seen on a large scale in the two great windows of the west front of Paisley Abbey, founded by Walter, the second of the family, Steward of Scotland, about 1163,646 for monks of the Cluniac order of reformed Benedictines. It likewise occurs in some of the original windows of Glasgow Cathedral; while the partial development of the same simple combinations, into intricate and beautiful forms is most happily illustrated in the tracery of the south side of the nave, evidently an insertion of later date than the building, the north windows of which remain unaltered.

A decorated window in the west gable of Paisley Abbey, belonging to a period fully a century later than the lower portion of the same front, exhibits the preference for the circular instead of the ogee arch, which would have been combined with the other features of its tracery in any English example of the style. The round-headed light is found to prevail alike in the plainest and the most ornate tracery, from the abandonment of the First-pointed style about the middle of the thirteenth century, till the final close of Scottish medieval ecclesiology in the troubled reign of James V. The curious but remarkably simple window figured here is one of the original ones in the nave of the beautiful little collegiate church of Corstorphine, near Edinburgh, founded by Sir John Forrester in 1429. But it is not in such minor features as tracery heads only that the rounded arch is employed. Throughout the whole period from the introduction of the Scottish geometric Gothic, in the reign of William the Lion, till the abandonment of medieval art, it continued to be used interchangeably with the pointed arch wherever convenience or taste suggested its adoption. In the triforium of Paisley Abbey one of the most remarkable examples occurs of its use in common with the later form of arch in the main features of the architectural design. Corresponding in breadth to each bay of the nave is a large semicircular arch spring from short clustered columns, with moulded capitals, nearly resembling those of the plainer First-pointed pillars of the nave. The rich mouldings of the triforium arch are recessed to the same depth as the pointed arches below, and are again subdivided by a slender clustered column into two pointed and cusped cinquefoil arches, with a quaterfoil in the space between. A similar arrangement, though executed in a less ornate style, occurs in the nave of Dunkeld Cathedral, the work of Bishop Robert de Cardeny, 1406,647 while the practical end in view may be observed in the nave of Holyrood Abbey, where a constructive semicircular arch is thrown from pillar to pillar at the same elevation, though there concealed by the triforium screen. The object in both cases obviously was to throw the principal weight upon the supporting columns of the centre aisle. These examples serve to shew the interchangeable use of the round and pointed arch by the Scottish architect as it best suited his purpose, or harmonized with the general arrangements of his design. So also in the doorways, the clere-story windows, and the tracery, the rounded arch is systematically used in the Scottish Decorated period interchangeably with the later pointed forms. But the taste for rounded forms also manifests itself in other ways: in circular turret stair-cases, as at Linlithgow, and formerly in that attached to the beautiful south porch of St. Giles’s, Edinburgh; and again in the vaulted roofs of belfry towers, where the converging ribs meet in a large open moulded circle, as at St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, St. Michael’s, Linlithgow, the collegiate churches of Seton and Torphichen, and till recently in the rich groining, springing from large half figures of angels bearing shields and scrolls, of the plain west tower of Glasgow Cathedral,—most injudiciously removed to restore the west front to a uniformity which but poorly repays the idea of size and elevation formerly conveyed by the contrast between the central and west towers.

Examples of the semicircular-headed doorway are of constant occurrence throughout the whole Scottish Decorated period, accompanied with the utmost variety and extent of decoration. The west door of the Abbey Church, Haddington, is a very pleasing example of two orders repeating the favourite roll-and-fillet moulding, with a deep hollow between filled with floriated decoration. It is divided into two doorways by a central shaft, and both it and the jam-shafts have richly floriated capitals and moulded bases. The triple, round-headed windows of the tower, and indeed the whole style of its decoration, are no less markedly characteristic of the peculiarities of the Scottish Decorated period. A still more beautiful doorway, of similar construction, formed, till the year 1829, the entrance to a chapel added to the south aisle of the collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh in 1387. It is now rebuilt between two of the pillars of the central tower, but shorn of many of its finest adjuncts. Similar illustrations might be greatly multiplied, as in the vestry door of the cathedral at Iona, filled in with a trefoil arch; in the beautiful cloister doorway of Melrose Abbey; in the gracefully proportioned priests’ door of the collegiate church of Seton, on the south side of the choir, adorned with the arms of Sir William Seton on a shield couche, about the year 1400, but more probably the work of his son; who was buried there in 1441; and in the richly decorated south doorway of Holyrood Abbey, with ogee canopy, and flanking buttresses, the work of Abbot Crawfurd about 1458. The same form of doorway was to be seen, accompanied with several varieties of detail, in the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh, founded by Mary of Gueldres, the widow of James II., in 1462, and recklessly demolished in the progress of the North British Railway operations in 1848. In some respects this was the finest example of late decorated work in Scotland. The entrance from the north transept to the chantry chapel, latterly used as the vestry, was by a neat round-headed doorway, with a simple roll-and-triple-fillet moulding, with a broad hollow externally running continuously round the arch, and with a hood-mould enriched with flowers in the hollow, springing from moulded corbels.

Another small round-headed doorway, with a similarly decorated hood moulding, but with engaged jam-shafts with moulded capitals and bases, latterly blocked up, had formed the entrance to the north transept; and a large one, of like construction, but with the rich mouldings in the jams carried round the head of the arch, without capitals, was placed within a groined porch formed in the angle of the south transept, and formed the principal entrance to the church. The decorations of this fine doorway consisted entirely of a series of filleted quarter-roll mouldings, continued round the recess of the doorway without any break. The most beautiful portion of the whole building was the richly decorated groined roof of the choir and apse, with its vaulting shafts springing from corbels sculptured into all manner of grotesque forms of imps, grinning masks, and caricatures of monks and friars, such as the one here figured, which projected nearly over the site of the old high altar, as if in purposed mockery of the rites on which it seemed to look down. Yet above these unseemly drolls rose the ribbed groins of the beautiful roof, in its eastern portion especially, hardly to be surpassed in chaste design or elaborately varied details. In this point, however, it more nearly approximated to the usual arrangement of English roofs, being enriched with clustering ribs and bosses, and divided by transverse pointed arches into vaulted bays. The most striking peculiarity in the Scottish stone roof-work is the use of the single vault instead of the transverse groined vaulting, deemed essential elsewhere to ecclesiastical roofing. In its earliest and simplest forms, as in the choir at South Queensferry, it differs in no way from the contemporary baronial halls, as at Borthwick or Crichton, from which it appears to have been directly derived. It is probable, however, that pictorial decoration was employed to relieve its otherwise bald surface, as was certainly the case in the baronial halls, traces of which still remain both at Borthwick and Craigmillar. It continued in use to the last in this very simple form, where little decoration was required, as in the muniment room of the church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh, while the choir of the same building presented one of the chastest and richest specimens of a groined vault in Scotland.

The single vaulted church roof, so like that of the baronial hall, may be very fitly traced to the almost exclusive occupation of Scottish builders, for nearly a century previous to its introduction in military architecture. But while retaining its form they speedily learned to restore it to harmony with the decorated work below. The chapel of St. Mirinus, more frequently termed the sounding aisle, attached to the south side of Paisley Abbey, furnishes a remarkably beautiful specimen of a ribbed roof of this simple form, treated with great variety, and an ingenious adaptation to the variations in the walls from which it springs, which shews how entirely the architect was familiar with this style of vaulting, so little known elsewhere. The choir of the collegiate church of Bothwell, founded by the grim Earl of Douglas in 1398, is another very fine example, in which the richness of details abundantly proves that economy had no influence in the choice of this favourite form of ceiling. Another magnificent specimen of the richest style of Scottish decorated Gothic is Lincluden Abbey, the work of the same grim Earl; but its graceful vaulting-shafts no longer sustain the branching ribs of stone. The choir at Seton is a plainer and less complete example. Only the eastern portion, including the apse, is decorated with moulded ribs, which spring from sculptured corbels, and meet in the ridge rib, where they are tied by equally fine bosses at the intersections. George, second Lord Seton, is said by the historian of the house of Seton to have “pendit the choir and biggit the vestry,” about the year 1493;648 but the chronology of this work is manifestly wrong in some places, and is altogether a very unsafe guide for the ecclesiologist. In nearly all those examples no side aisles exist, and they are indeed very generally confined in Scotland to the largest collegiate and abbey churches, being introduced evidently less for ornament than for use, where an unusual amount of space was required. Occasionally even the semicircular arch is employed in the roof, as in the Lady Chapel at Roslin, where the greater elevation of the pointed arch would be objectionable from its peculiar position. The choir of the beautiful little cross-church of St. Monance, Fifeshire, finished apparently in 1369, furnishes an interesting example of the transition to the transverse vaulted roof, the ridge ribs of the cross-vaults being bent down about half-way from the centre, where they diverge from a boss into three groin ribs, the centre one springing nearly from the top of each window, which is as usual considerably below the vaulted roof. The choir-roof of the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh, A.D. 1462, may be considered as marking the period when the peculiar Scottish vaulted roof was generally abandoned, though more than one interesting example of its use at later dates remain to be noticed. It is retained in the older portion of the north aisle of the choir of St. Giles’s Church at Edinburgh, while the two eastern bays, as well as the beautifully groined centre aisle, the work of the same period as the collegiate foundation of Mary of Gueldres, are in conformity with the newer style.

The same convenience which suggested the use of the round instead of the more elevated pointed arch, also occasionally led to the use of the still more depressed segmental arch, as in the chantry doorway at Bothwell; or even to the two-centred flat arch with segmental curves, as in the great doorway of the beautiful screen and organ-loft at Glasgow, and in a smaller doorway, the work of Abbot Crawfurd, circa 1460, now built into the east arch of the north aisle of Holyrood Abbey. The segmental arch is most frequently employed in monumental recesses, as at St. Bridget’s Douglas, St. Kentigern’s Borthwick, and in the choir at Seton; but other Scottish churches exhibit the semicircular arch employed for the same purpose, as in the magnificent tomb of Margaret, countess of Douglas, at Lincluden, and in the recesses under the great north and south windows of the transepts at Seton. One of the most beautiful Scottish examples of a late segmental arched doorway, which is figured here, is that of the vestry or chantry chapel of Bothwell Church, Lanarkshire.

The window tracery of the same period, and accompanying the other features of the Scottish Decorated style already described, partakes of the like character and forms. The pointed window-head is subdivided by round-headed lights, and these again are filled in with foliated details, the result of which is exceedingly pleasing in the best examples, from the striking contrasts produced by the combination of pointed and circular forms, as well as from the flowing tracery frequently resulting from the union of the two, and producing the pear-shaped light which predominates in Scottish Decorated tracery. This latter source of expression has led some writers to describe Scottish tracery as exhibiting an approximation to the French flamboyant style. Nothing, however, can be more unwarranted. The ogee form is almost never designedly adopted, and even seems to be often purposely avoided, as in the Paisley window already cited, and in many similar examples. The window figured below, from the south aisle of the nave of Dunkeld Cathedral, is a very characteristic example of the mode of introducing the circular and semicircular forms, to modify the ogee tracery lines which so greatly predominate in the true French flamboyant. The multiplication of descriptions of minute details of tracery could, however, very partially serve to convey any distinct idea of the peculiar characteristics of Scottish window tracery. The woodcut of one of the windows on the south side of the nave of St. Michael’s Church, Linlithgow, may suffice as a characteristic illustration of the most familiar combinations of the style. Another though greatly inferior example of the same class of Scottish Decorated tracery from Melrose, is engraved in the Glossary of Architecture. (Plate CCXLVIII., vol. iii.) One remarkable Scottish specimen of ecclesiastical architecture must not be omitted to be noticed, as a singular instance of the local peculiarities developed by the building materials of particular districts. The west front of the cathedral of St. Machar at Old Aberdeen, is chiefly curious as shewing the form which the style assumed when produced with the intractable granite of the country. Its erection dates about 1380-1400;649 but instead of one large west window, divided by light monials and tracery into numerous lights, the breadth of front is filled in with a series of tall, narrow, lancet-like, but round-headed windows, with no other ornament than a cusped trefoil in the head. The towers on either side are equally simple and unornate, and are chiefly interesting as genuine specimens of granite Gothic, of which the modern town exhibits some more ornate, but greatly less satisfactory examples.

Another peculiar use of the semicircular arch is in clere-story windows, as in the choir of the remarkable little cathedral of Iona, built by Abbot Finlay, in the reign of Robert the Bruce, i.e., prior to 1329;650 in the nave of Sweetheart Abbey, erected, according to Fordun, in 1275; and in the large collegiate church of St. Michael at Linlithgow, perhaps added after the conflagration of the church mentioned by Fordun as occurring in 1424. The latter windows are divided by a neat mullion into two lights, with trifoliated pointed heads. In this church may be also noted the occurrence of corby-stepped gables, a favourite feature of Scottish domestic architecture, occasionally transferred to ecclesiastical edifices. Interesting examples of the tall, narrow, round-headed window, occur in the private chapel of the neighbouring palace. Among the decorations of Linlithgow Church should also be noted the shields attached to the columns, and wrought into the bosses of the roof. These are of frequent occurrence in Scottish churches. They abound in the beautiful ruin of Lincluden Abbey; and are also employed in a peculiar manner as decorations of the capitals of pillars, where they have frequently an exceedingly bold effect, as in the eastmost pillars of St. Giles’s choir at Edinburgh, and also in the Rothesay chapel, in the nave, where large shields, blazoned with royal and noble arms, project from the cardinal faces of the abaci, and overhang the lower mouldings of the capital.

No mention has yet been made of the celebrated collegiate church of Roslin, founded by William St. Clair, Earl of Caithness, in 1466, because it has hitherto been usual to regard it as an altogether unique architectural monstrosity. It will be seen, however, from the preceding sketch of the most characteristic peculiarities of the Scottish Decorated style, that many of the most remarkable features of Roslin Chapel are derived from the prevailing models of the period, though carried to an exuberant excess. The circular doorway and segmental porch, the dark vaulted roof, and much of the window tracery, are all common to the style. Even the singular arrangement of its retro-choir, with a clustered pillar terminating the vista of the centre aisle, is nearly a repetition of that of the cathedral of St. Mungo at Glasgow. Various portions of other edifices will also be found to furnish examples of arrangement and details corresponding with those of Roslin, as in the doorway of the south porch and other features of St. Michael’s, Linlithgow, and also in some parts of the beautiful ruined church of St. Bridget, Douglas. It is altogether a mistake to regard the singularly interesting church at Roslin, which even the critic enjoys while he condemns, as an exotic produced by foreign skill. Its counterparts will be more easily found in Scotland than in any other part of Europe. It is a curious fact, worthy of note in passing, that only twenty-two varieties of mason’s marks occur throughout the whole building, indicating perhaps the number of skilled workmen to whose elaborate art we owe its intricate and endless variety of sculptured details. Among these, notwithstanding the many descriptions and drawings which have been made of the chapel, it is little known that there exist the remarkable series of medieval religious allegories—the seven acts of mercy, the seven deadly sins, and the dance of death: the latter including at least twenty different groups and scenes—as strange a story as was ever told in stone.

From some of the few dates which have been given it will be perceived that the close of the Scottish Decorated period is as totally disconnected with that of England as is the development of its peculiar and most characteristic features. The large collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, the cathedral of the bishopric during the brief period of the existence of the see, exhibited, till its recent remodelling, a most interesting progressive series of examples of this style, from its simplest to its latest pure state. The destruction of so much of this by the misdirected zeal of modern beautifiers is a source of just regret to the Scottish ecclesiologist, as the dates of many of the additions were ascertainable, and afforded a safe guide in tracing out the gradual development of the style. But enough still remains in the interior to be well worthy of study. The oldest portion is the north aisle of the choir, with its longitudinal vault, shewing what was the style of the centre aisle of the nave previous to 1829, and also of the choir prior to the erection of the present beautiful clere-story about 1466. The date of the north aisle may not improbably be yet ascertained precisely; meanwhile, in the absence of such evidence, its mouldings and other details appear to justify the assignment of its erection immediately after the burning of the church and town by Edward III. in 1355. A charter of David II., dated A.D. 1359, confirms under the great seal the endowment of the altar of St. Catherine there with the upper lands of Merchiston. Like the neighbouring abbey, however, it was repeatedly spoiled, burned, repaired, and rebuilt. In the archives of the burgh a contract is still preserved made in the year 1380 between the Provost and certain masons to vault over a part of the church,—probably the simple but fine ribbed vault of the nave demolished in 1829. A small aisle of two bays, built between the north transept and a fine late Romanesque porch,—only defaced in the latter end of the last century, and finally demolished in our own day,—appeared from its style to be of nearly the same date. The woodcut shews the singular sculptures on one of the bosses in the eastern bay, which appeared from the original painted glass formerly in its window to have been the chapel of St. Eloi, the patron saint of the ancient corporation of Hammermen.

In 1385 the church was again burned by the army of Richard II.;651 and in 1387, as appears by the agreement with “Johne Johne of Stone and Johne Skayer, masounys,” still preserved among the city archives, the five chapels were added on the south side of the nave. One of these included the beautiful porch and doorway already described, which is required by the contract to be “in als gude maner als the durre standand in the west gavyl of ye foresaid kyrk.”652 From this, therefore, we may presume that the great west door—demolished as appears from the burgh records, along with the whole west wall in 1561—was also in the favourite Scottish form of the rounded arch. Various entries in the accounts of the Great Chamberlain of Scotland, rendered at the Exchequer between the years 1390 and 1413, shew that the cost of the restoration of the main building had been borne by Government, while the city was engaged in extending it by the addition of a second aisle on the south side of the nave; and to this period there can be no hesitation in assigning the present south aisle of the nave,—closely corresponding in style to the five chapels built in fulfilment of the contract of 1387. The next addition was a second aisle added to the north side of the nave, forming two bays to the west of the ancient Romanesque porch defaced in 1760. This beautiful little fragment still remains, with its light and elegant clustered pillar adorned with large blazoned shields on a rich foliated capital, from which spring the ribs of its groined roof and the arches which connect it with the adjoining aisle. The heraldic devices on the shields supply a clue to the date as well as to the singularly interesting associations connected with this portion of the church, from which I have given it the name of the Rothesay Chapel. They consist of the arms of Robert Duke of Albany, second son of Robert II., and of Archibald fourth Earl of Douglas, two Scottish nobles found acting in concert only on one other occasion, when David Duke of Rothesay was starved to death in the dungeon of Falkland Palace, A.D. 1401. It seems only a legitimate inference to assume that this chapel may have been founded by them as an expiatory offering for that dark deed, and a chaplain appointed to say masses at its altar for their own and their victim’s souls. A Parliament holden at Holyrood, 16th May 1402, enacted the solemn farce of examining them as to the causes of the prince’s death, and a public remission was drawn up under the King’s seal, declaring their innocence in terms which leave no doubt of their guilt.653 It amply accords with the spirit of the age to find the two perpetrators of this ruthless murder, after having satisfied the formalities of an earthly tribunal, proceeding to purchase peace with heaven.

The next addition to the Collegiate Church was the Preston aisle, added to the south side of the choir by William Prestoune of Gortoune in 1454, agreeably to a charter setting forth the great labour and charges of his father, “for the gettyn of the arme bane of Saint Gele—the quhilk bane he freely left to our moyr Kirk of Saint Gele of Edinburgh.” The curious charter has been repeatedly printed.654 The chaste and highly decorated groining of this portion of the church shews the progress of the style, which is still farther illustrated by the beautiful clere-story and east bays of the choir, added about the year 1462,655 at which time the burgh records furnish evidence of considerable work being in progress. The latest addition to the metropolitan church, with the exception of the rebuilding of the beautiful crown tower in 1648, was the addition of a third aisle of two bays, in 1513, between the south transept and the porch erected on the south side of the nave in 1387. This formed a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Gabriel the Archangel. It was an example of great value to the Scottish ecclesiologist, as shewing the adherence to the Decorated style, and its increasingly elaborate yet chaste adornment with richly sculptured groining, at that late period, one hundred and thirty-six years after the date assigned by Rickman for its abandonment in England. Unhappily only a mutilated fragment of this most interesting addition to the building survived the operations of 1829. The favourite and beautiful Scottish crown towers must also be noted, still preserved in St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, King’s College, Aberdeen, and the Tolbooth of Glasgow, but once also surmounting the towers of St. Michael’s, Linlithgow, the Abbey Church of Haddington—styled from its beauty the Lamp of the Lothians—and also, as seems probable from its appearance, the lofty tower at Dundee. Nothing could more effectually demonstrate the total freedom of our native architects from all English influence than this remarkable disagreement in the chronology of the styles practised in the two kingdoms; nor must it be forgot that the passion of the previous sovereign, James III., was for architecture, and that his favourite councillor and companion was his architect, Cochrane, who fell a victim to the jealousy of the rude Scottish barons, excited by the marks of royal favour he received. In no country of Europe was architecture more zealously encouraged than in Scotland during his reign. Our Scottish poet Drummond somewhat quaintly sums up his character in terms more censorious than might have been expected from his own dalliance with the muses: “He was much given to buildings and trimming up of chapels, halls, and gardens, as usually are the lovers of idleness; and the rarest frames of churches and palaces in Scotland were mostly raised about his time: an humour, which though it be allowable in men which have not much to do, yet it is harmful in princes.”656 There was still less need to go to foreign sources for instruction or for artistic models during the prosperous reign of James IV., the favourer of learning and the arts; the patron of our greatest national poets, Dunbar, Kennedy, Gawn Douglas, and others of the Scottish Makars; of Chepman the introducer of the Scottish printing-press; and indeed the encourager of all the most liberal pursuits of a chivalrous age. Under his more popular rule, architecture was encouraged no less royally than in that of his father, and excited the Scottish nobles to emulation instead of jealousy.

Dunbar’s noble poem of the Thrissill AND THE Rois commemorates the reunion of Scotland and England in the affiancing of James IV. to the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. of England in 1501; and it is curious to note how completely coincident with this is the manifestation of the influence of English models on the contemporary architecture of Scotland. The Perpendicular or Third-pointed English style appears in Scotland as a mere exotic, too temporarily tried to be properly regarded as a national style, and when used at all, employed contemporaneously with the pure native Decorated work. The earliest, and if I mistake not the only entire example of a Third-pointed building in Scotland is the parish church of Ladykirk, on the banks of the Tweed, built by James IV. in the year 1500. It is a somewhat stiff and formal structure externally, betraying the introduction of an unfamiliar style. In the interior, however, the features of the older native models predominate, and the plain single vaulted arch is especially remarkable in connexion with other details of a style which was wont in the hands of the southern architect to expend its utmost exuberance in pendants, bosses, and fan-tracery on the groined roof. The magnificent perpendicular work of the eastern portions of Melrose Abbey, however, exhibit no such formality or plainness, though probably a nearly contemporary structure. The arms of Andrew Hunter, abbot of Melrose, prior to 1453, are cut on one of the buttresses of the Decorated nave. John Fraser, a later abbot, promoted from Melrose to the see of Ross in 1485, completed the cathedral at Fortrose; the pure and elaborate Decorated work of which admits of no unfavourable comparison with Melrose nave, and shews that we must look to a later date, and most probably to the following century, for the introduction of perpendicular details in the completion of its choir. In the valuable little fragment of the roof of the latter, fortunately still standing, where all else is gone, we once more see the influence of Scottish taste modifying the characteristics of the new style. Here too, instead of the fan-tracery and pendants of contemporary English roofs, is the Scottish single vault, enriched only with additional ribs and bosses, but preserving the favourite feature of carrying the roof completely above the side lights, and making it depend for illumination upon the great east window. The few other examples of Scottish perpendicular work which exist are scarcely sufficient to admit of any general deductions. The semi-hexagonal apse, both at Linlithgow and Stirling, shew it modified at a later date by native peculiarities, derived from the favourite Decorated style, and in the latter—ascribed to Cardinal Beaton—also exhibiting a singular introduction of the round-headed lights of the earlier period, into the tracery of large perpendicular windows, as well as a peculiar adaptation of the Scottish vaulted roof. Both, however, must be regarded as late and somewhat debased examples. Along with these may also be noted the occasional use of the square-headed window, as in the chantry chapel of the church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh, and in the clere-story of St. Mary’s at Leith, both destroyed within the last few years. The singular church at South Queensferry furnishes a very curious example of some of the features of perpendicular Gothic applied in a novel fashion to an ecclesiastical edifice. The north wall appears to have been almost entirely occupied by the buildings of the monastery, so that it is destitute of ornament, and only pierced with one small pointed window of one light at the east end of the choir, near to which a round-headed door—now blocked up—has communicated with the attached buildings. There is no indication of a north transept having ever existed. Both the nave and south transept are entirely lighted with square-headed windows. That of the transept is divided into three lights, neatly cusped in the head. The west end of the nave is furnished with a window in the same style, while the door, which is small and plain, is at the west end of the south side; two other square-headed windows of two lights fill up this side of the nave, and a large and heavy rectangular tower, measuring in greatest breadth, from north to south, across the length of the church, occupies the intersection of the transept with the nave and choir. Altogether the church is more curious than admirable as a late specimen of Scottish medieval art.

While this transient attempt at the naturalization of the English Tudor style of architecture in Scottish art has thus left some few enduring traces, it is worthy of note that its most characteristic feature, the four-centred arch, is nearly, if not quite unknown in Scotland, otherwise than as a modern exotic which figures in the favourite perpendicular rifacciamentos of ecclesiastical facades, wedded too often to the bald church or meeting-house with about as much congruity as the ill-assorted pair that figure in Hogarth’s well-known wedding scene. Whatever might have resulted under more favourable circumstances, the new style was destined to no full development in Scotland. By a charter dated 1st August 1513, Walter Chepman, burgess of Edinburgh, memorable as the introducer of the printing-press to Scotland, founded and endowed an altar in the south transept, or “Holy Blood Aisle” of St. Giles’s Church, “in honour of God, the Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and all saints.” It was a period of national happiness and prosperity, in which learning and the arts met with the most ample encouragement. Only one brief month thereafter all this was at an end. James and the chief of his nobles lay dead on Flodden Field; Scotland was at the mercy of Henry VIII.; the Crown devolved to an infant; and faction, ignorance, and bigotry replaced all the advantages of the wise and beneficent rule of James IV. It is not by slow degrees, but abruptly, like the unfinished page of a mutilated chronicle, that the history of Scottish medieval art comes to an end. Yet the favourite forms and mouldings of the Decorated Period lingered long after in the domestic architecture of the country. The ornamental ambries found in the castellated mansions, and even in the wealthier burghal dwellings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, partake so much of the character of earlier ecclesiastical features, that they are frequently described as fonts, stoups, or piscinæ; and even when standing, as is their usual wont, by the side of the huge old fashioned fire-place, they have been assumed to afford evidence that the domestic halls and kitchens of our ancestors were their chapels or baptistries. Some few of these relics of obsolete tastes and manners still linger about the old closes of Edinburgh, though now rapidly disappearing before the ruthless strides of modern innovation. The vignette shews the form of one of these ornamental ambries from a singular antique mansion in the Old Town of Edinburgh, which bore the date 1557, and was believed to have been occupied for a time as the residence of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise. Another large chamber in the same building bore evidence of having been at one time used as a private oratory, and in it was a curious and still more highly decorated niche, which, however, exhibited somewhat of the debased excesses pertaining to that closing period in which the pure Gothic passed into the picturesque but lawless style of the Elizabethan age. Nevertheless its pierced stone-work served to illustrate the lingering adherence to the earlier national style of window-tracery far down into the sixteenth century.

Into the characteristics of the later baronial and domestic architecture of Scotland it is impossible to enter here, though some of their peculiarities well merit the increased degree of attention they are now receiving. The picturesqueness of the turret stairs, with their lintels decorated with monograms and armorial bearings, and inscribed with quaint legends and pious mottos; the crow-stepped gables, finials, and dormer windows, and the singular overhanging carved “timber lands” of the old streets and closes of Edinburgh, are familiar to all. Some of their features might still be borrowed with advantage to our modern street architecture; but for the most part they are only valuable as the memorials of a period and state of society which has for ever passed away.

Before quitting the interesting subject of medieval architecture as developed in Scotland, some notice of the ancient and mysterious fraternity of Free Masons seems necessary in order to embrace one important source of that singular progressive unity of purpose traceable throughout the various stages of medieval ecclesiology. While Free Masonry was denounced in many countries of Europe, and was placed for a time under the ban of the law by Henry VI. of England, its chief protector, it appears to have met with no check or restraint in Scotland; and having been made the subject of special royal favour by James I., it has ever since continued to be cherished here with greater zeal than in almost any other country of Christendom. With its modern existence, however, apart from the practice of the art, we have here as little to do as with its extravagant claims to an antiquity nearly coeval with the art of building. We can trace the association of masons into guilds or corporations in some parts of Europe at the very dawn of medieval art. In Lombardy such a free guild of masons was established in the tenth century; and the craft is believed to have first obtained footing in England under the Saxon king, Athelstane, about the same period.657 In Normandy we only discover the rise of such an association in the middle of the twelfth century; but the practice of secret combination obviously emanated from an ecclesiastical source. The whole system of guilds originated, in part at least, in the necessity of preserving and extending such speculative and practical knowledge as may now be safely committed to the press. Such a security for the safe keeping of traditional knowledge was specially required in regard to architecture, which depends so entirely on combined operations, and needs the assistance of the chief branches of science which were carried to any perfection during that period. The whole decorative arts of the medieval era were subordinate to architecture, and it was essentially the handmaid of the Church. Ecclesiastics were at once its patrons and the chief practisers of its highest branches, so that the establishment of an order which embraced within its fellowship all the practical artificers as naturally sprung from the requirements of the Church as its various monastic fraternities. Hence, wherever any great ecclesiastical work was to be carried on, a guild of masons was organized, which no doubt soon embraced practitioners of every requisite branch of art. Accordingly we still find in Scotland that the oldest masonic lodges are at Dunfermline, Elgin, Melrose, Kilwinning, Arbroath, Glasgow, and other sites of remarkable early ecclesiastical edifices, while generally some parish churches or other minor ecclesiastical edifices still exist within the surrounding district, betraying traces of the same workmanship as the parent edifice. To the oneness of belief by which medieval Christendom was held together under its common head, and to the practical unity of the ecclesiastical corporation which constituted the Church, apart from the laity, may be traced the rise and gradual development of the successive styles of Gothic architecture. But to the operations of the masonic lodges within their several districts must be ascribed the local peculiarities and provincialisms which may be detected grouping around almost every great abbey or other remarkable ecclesiastical structure. The geographical and political isolation of Scotland, which gave to its Church a degree of independence unknown to most other countries of Papal Christendom, as well as its very partial share in the great movements of medieval Europe, including the crusades, all tended to give additional importance to those local influences which in other countries were more subordinated by external sources of change. To this source, therefore, we can hardly err in referring much of the peculiar character ascribable to Scottish Ecclesiology, which it is attempted here to reduce to some system.

The revived interest in the study of medieval architecture, added to the happy substitution of investigation for the older and more convenient practice of theorizing, have led to considerable attention being directed to the singular marks or symbols, apparently the works of the original builders, which are observable on all ancient churches. That masons’ marks are old as the building of the Pyramids is undoubted. They were discovered by Colonel Howard Vyse on forcing his way into the chambers of construction of the great pyramid, where there cannot be a doubt no human being had been before since the completion of its vast masonry. Similar marks have also been observed on Roman altars and on structures of an equally early era. The most, however, that can now be inferred from such is the invariable practice of each workman marking the stone he had cut, which remains in use in our own day to distinguish the work of different individuals. But much more than this appears to be deducible from the medieval masons’ marks. “The fact that in these buildings it is only a certain number of the stones which bear symbols; that the marks found in different countries (although the variety is great) are in many cases identical, and in all have a singular accordance in character, seems to shew that the men who employed them did so by system, and that the system, if not the same in England, Germany, and France, was closely analogous in one country to that of the others.”658 The observation and collation of these marks have accordingly become objects of interest, as calculated to aid in the elucidation of the history of the medieval masonic guilds. It is not, however, sufficient merely to detect the occasional identity of single mason-marks on different and widely distant buildings. The following, for example, includes, I believe, the entire set of mason-marks to be found on Roslin Chapel. Of these the first, Δ, is only to be found on the altars and piscinæ, and the two adjoining ones around the doors. A comparison of these with the mason-marks of Gloucester Cathedral, Malmsbury Abbey Church, Furness Abbey, &c.,659 will shew that several of the symbols are common to all these; but this can lead to no conclusion. Many of the subordinate lines added to regular figures are still recognised among the craft as additions given to distinguish the symbols of two masons when the mark of a member admitted from another lodge was the same as that already borne by one of their own number. If, however, the entire series, or the greater number of the marks on one building could be detected on another apparently of the same age, it would be such a coincidence as could hardly be ascribed to any other cause than that both were the work of the same masonic lodge. I should anticipate, for example, that such would be found to be the case, to some considerable extent, on the oldest portions of Dunfermline and Lindisfarne Abbeys, and Durham Cathedral. The united cooperation of a very few zealous labourers may soon bring such a question to the test, if sufficient care is taken to discriminate between the original work and the additions or alterations of subsequent builders. Meanwhile, when so much zeal is displayed in the collection of Roman potters’ stamps, medieval pilgrims’ signs, tradesmen’s and tavern tokens of the seventeenth century, and even the more recent provincial copper coinage, it may suffice to suggest that the collection of complete sets of mason-marks from ecclesiastical edifices,—discriminating those belonging to portions of different dates,—may furnish a clue to the influence of masonic guilds on the development of successive styles, or the prevalence of remarkable provincial peculiarities.

We obtain from Father Hay’s “Genealogie of the Sainte Claires of Rosslyn,” a curious account of the assembling of the needful band of artificers for the building of the collegiate church founded by William Saint Clair, Earl of Caithness:—

“His adge creeping on him,” says the genealogist, “to the end he might not seem altogither unthankfull to God for the benefices he receaved from him, it came in his minde to build a house for God’s service, of most curious worke, the which that it might be done with greater glory and splendor, he caused artificers to be brought from other regions and forraigne kingdomes, and caused dayly to be abundance of all kinde of workemen present: as masons, carpenters, smiths, barrowmen, and quarriers, with others; for it is remembered that for the space of thirty-four years before, he never wanted great numbers of such workmen. The foundation of this rare worke he caused to be laid in the year of our Lord 1446; and to the end the worke might be the more rare: first he caused the draughts to be drawn upon Eastland boords, and made the carpenters to carve them according to the draughts thereon, and then gave them for patterns to the massons, that they might thereby cut the like in stone.... He rewarded the massones according to their degree.”—Genealogie of the Sainte Claires of Rosslyn, p. 26.

From this curious notice it would seem that the Earl was himself the chief designer and architect to whose ingenuity and inventive skill we owe the remarkable and unique example of masonic art which still remains at Roslin. Nor is this at all improbable. He was devoted to building, in an age in which it became one of the most favourite pastimes, and indeed engrossing pursuits of the Scottish kings. The Saint Clairs continued, according to some authorities, from this early date to be recognised as the chiefs of the whole body of Scottish Free Masons, till in 1736 William St. Clair, Esq. of Rosslyn, resigned into the hands of the Scottish lodges the hereditary office of Grand Master, which, however, he continued to hold till his death. The evidence of the creation of this office in the person of the founder of the collegiate church of Roslin is defective, and the entire narrative of Father Hay must be received with caution, though professedly derived from original manuscripts. Of the existence, however, of the hereditary office of Grand Master in the younger branch of the St. Clairs, which terminated on the death of William St. Clair of Rosslyn in 1778, there can be no question; and of the early connexion of the St. Clairs with the masonic fraternity, there seems equally little reason to doubt. On this account, therefore, the set of mason-marks given above from the remarkable memorial of their masonic skill which still exists at Roslin, possesses peculiar interest. While, however, we find in Father Hay’s curious notice that artificers were brought from foreign kingdoms, that is not to be misunderstood as indicating that either the design or entire execution of this remarkable edifice is to be ascribed to a foreign guild. The same was done by Wykeham, in order to secure the perfect execution of his own magnificent designs, and in one or two of the mason-marks the additions may be traced which probably indicate the admission of a stranger using, with a difference, the symbol already belonging to some brother of the local guild. The very small number of varieties, however, is remarkable, though it of course only embraces one class of the numerous artificers employed. The conclusions indicated by the traditions of the craft, and the direct evidence which their works supply, seem equally opposed to the ideas too hastily adopted by some enthusiastic elucidators of medieval free masonry, that travelling lodges continued to perambulate Europe, devoting their artistic skill to supply the wants of the universal church, so that we might look for precisely the same details being repeated in contemporary works of the Norman architects of Sicily and of the Orkney Islands, or of Drontheim. We do indeed find in the eighth century the Pictish king sending for builders to rear a fitting edifice at Abernethy after the Roman manner, and, to the last, skilled artificers were doubtless sought far and near—with the ready facilities for foreign correspondence which the Church then exclusively possessed—whenever any work of unusual importance was to be executed; but long before the sons of St. Margaret had commenced their magnificent foundations, the corresponding demands for the aid of the free mason in every country of Christendom had removed all necessity for the maintenance of peripatetic missionary guilds. The order, however, flourished under this abundant patronage; nor did the localization of its guilds interrupt that mutual recognition of members of the privileged fraternity by means of which Gothic architecture continued for upwards of four hundred years to be a living art, expanding and developing itself under ever varying but progressive forms of fitness and beauty.

We have witnessed in our own day an attempt to resuscitate medieval architecture by a retrogression altogether opposed to the spirit of the old builders, in whose hands it grew like a thing of life that returns not upon the work of earlier years. Its results have been of value in securing the restoration of many crumbling memorials of the past; and in Scotland our best architects have yet much to learn in the same reverent spirit, ere we can hope to see our national historic monuments of medieval art preserved, instead of being defaced and obliterated by the superinduction of spurious French or Anglo-Gothic details—a restoration that “means the most total destruction which a building can suffer; a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed.”660 But a national style of architecture was never reproduced by such means. It must grow up like the oak, unforced and in its native soil; and, when thus originating, its living forms become the embodiment of the polity, social history, and religious faith of the nation. Yet architecture is on this very account essentially a practical art, and even in the most gorgeous medieval cathedral a sense of fitness, and ideas of direct utility, may be traced as controlling powers influencing the whole design. From this overruling utilitarian spirit sprang the element of picturesqueness, which we look for in vain in modern Gothic. The old cathedral or abbey has here a chapter-house, there a transept or cloister, a chantry chapel, vestry, or porch, introduced simply because it was required, though harmonized with all the skill of a perfect artist into an integral part of the architectural design. In the modern Gothic everything is balanced, proportioned, and reduced to strict rule and formality, but it is lifeless as the men of the old centuries to which it properly belongs. As to modern Protestant cathedrals, with “long-drawn aisles,” constructed for no possible end connected with the worship for which they profess to be designed, they are manifest absurdities, which proclaim the lifelessness of the art in which they have originated. The national peculiarities traceable in medieval architecture are among the most remarkable evidences that it was a living art. Like a transplanted flower, it was modified everywhere by the soil and climate: the classic elements which are seen pervading that of Italy; the substantial yet ornate but impure grandeur of that of Spain; the compact, consistent, harmonious completeness of that of Germany; the rich but lawless exuberance of the French Flamboyant; the stately progression of the beautiful English Decorated into the profusely overlaid, yet still strictly defined Perpendicular; and the massive but comparatively plain and unchanging Scottish Decorated—all manifest peculiarities which pertain to the several nations with which they originated. “The essential modifications of architecture in each age and country must depend in part on the natural materials, localities, and in part on the artificial forms, social, civil, and religious, on the acquired habits and manners of the peculiar nation for which it labours, and the changes in these must produce corresponding variations in architecture.”661 The revivalist who seeks to reproduce the creations of the past in defiance of these manifest laws by which they existed in harmony and just adaptation to their geographical or social adjuncts, will find his self-imposed task not much less hopeless than to reanimate the fossil Mastodon or Dinotherium. But meanwhile the geologist, without seeking to reanimate these extinct vertebrata, learns much regarding the past from the investigation of their colossal remains, and so too may the archæologist see into the living spirit of the medieval era by the earnest study of its creations, though he hopes better things of his own age than that it should expect perfection in those immature centuries, or seek for life in the beautiful sepulchres wherein they lie entombed.

The consecutive view given above of the progressive development of the various styles of ecclesiastical architecture, accompanied as it is with some few elements for the construction of a chronological series of examples, is sufficient, at least, to bear out the views advanced in reference to the independent character and individuality of Scottish Ecclesiology. It would be easy to multiply references to examples of the various peculiar features referred to, but what is far more wanted is the ascertainment of a larger number of well authenticated dates of existing work. Even of the cathedrals and great abbeys scarcely anything is known, though now that so many of the Scottish chartularies are published, and as a valuable adjunct to them, their seals are being systematically described, we may hope to discover, by a comparison with the armorial sculpture of our ecclesiastical structures, a sufficient number of dated examples by which to test the whole. Meanwhile, the following table is offered with great diffidence, and merely as some probable approximation to the true chronological arrangement of the Scottish styles, placing alongside of it the English classification of Rickman, as adopted with some later modifications, in the Fifth Edition of the Glossary of Architecture, to shew the extent of coincidence or disagreement. I shall be glad to find it speedily superseded by a system much more complete; but anything which supplies the elements of a recognised nomenclature and orderly classification will be of some use as a help towards cooperation among Scottish ecclesiologists. The styles distinguished here as First-pointed and Geometric are to some extent synchronous, depending perhaps on the native or foreign education of the ecclesiastics by whom the works were prosecuted;—a remarkable circumstance, and probably without a parallel in the history of medieval art. We find William de Bondington of Glasgow, for example, in the last year of his episcopate, adopting the ritual and customs of Sarum as the constitution of his cathedral.662 It need not therefore excite our surprise to find the portion of the nave executed under his superintendence bearing an equally close affinity to the Sarum model, then in progress. Scottish First-pointed differs very little from the Early English, whereas the Scottish Geometric has no parallel elsewhere, and in Scotland entirely superseded the other at a very early date. It is, therefore, manifestly indispensable to the prosecution of Scottish Ecclesiology, that what is peculiar to it shall receive a nomenclature of its own. It can only lead to uncertainty and confusion to continue to apply the term First-pointed 663 to such work as the east end of St. Magnus’s Cathedral, where not only the pier and triforium arches are semicircular, but even the arch of the great east window is filled in with a rose of twelve leaves, and being left unpierced above, it is practically a round-headed light. A much more elaborate treatment of the subject would be necessary than is possible within the limits of a single chapter, in order to shew the peculiar mouldings and other characteristic details. In the Scottish Decorated, for example, cylindrical and octagonal piers are by no means uncommon; both pier arches and windows are very frequently composed simply of two or three plain chamfer orders. Square-edged hood-mouldings and string-courses are also common; and in the more ornamental piers the double-roll, and the roll and fillet mouldings almost invariably predominate. In the windows also—among the most expressive features of every style of Gothic architecture—one harmonious feeling is observable throughout the endless varieties of tracery, giving to them a national aspect not less marked than the physiognomy of their builders. The most prevailing characteristics are well represented in the example figured above, from one of the beautiful series of St. Michael’s, Linlithgow. Similar windows, though varying in detail, occur at St. Monance, Fife, St. Mary’s, Leith, at Mid-Calder and Duddingston, in the Abbey Church, Haddington, in the collegiate churches of Seton, Crichton, and Roslin, in Melrose Abbey, and the ancient church tower of Dundee. They also existed in both the collegiate churches of St. Giles and the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh; and are even found amid the traces of declining art in the beautiful chapels of King’s College, Aberdeen, and Heriot’s Hospital, Edinburgh—the latter of which has been assigned, without a shadow of evidence, as the work of Inigo Jones, the architect having in reality been William Wallace, styled in the treasurer’s accounts and other authentic documents relating to its erection, by the old name of Master Mason. Such are some of the genuine characteristics of our native styles; but at Dunfermline, Dunblane, Corstorphine, or wherever the hand of the modern restorer has been, we find them displaced by perpendicular tracery, English mouldings and details, and the like evidences of irreverent ignorance.

MEDIEVAL ECCLESIOLOGY

SCOTTISH ECCLESIOLOGY.				ENGLISH.
Reign.	A.D.	Style.	Examples.	Reign.	A.D.	Style.
Kings of the Northern and Southern Picts,	400-843	Scoto-Italian.	St. Magnus, Egilshay.	Heptarchy.	457-800
Kenneth MacAlpin to Malcolm Canmore,	843-1057	Scottic.	Round Tower, Abernethy. Round Tower, Brechin.	Egbert to Harold II.	800-1066	Saxon.
Donald Bane,	1093	Romanesque, 1070-1170, prevailed about 100 years.	Dunfermline Abbey—Nave.	William I.	1066	Norman, or English Romanesque, prevailed about 124 years.
Edgar,	1097		Inchcolm Abbey—part of the Dormitories	William II.	1087
Alexander I.	1106		St. Rule’s Church.	Henry I.	1100
David I.	1124		Jedburgh Abbey.	Stephen.	1135
Malcolm IV.	1153		Kelso Abbey.	Henry II.	1154-1189
William the Lion,	1165-1170		Dalmeny Church. Leuchars Church.	Henry II.	1154-1189
William,	1170-1214	First-pointed, 1170-1242, prevailed about 70 years.	Glasgow Cathedral—Crypt and Choir.	Richard I.	1189	Early English, prevailed about 100 years.
Alexander II.	1214		Dunblane Cathedral—Nave.	John.	1199
Alexander III.	1249		Kilwinning Abbey. St. Blane’s, Bute—the Chancel.	Henry III.	1216-1272
Margaret, Maid of Norway,	1285	Scottish Geometric, 1178-1285, prevailed about 100 years.	Aberbrothoc Abbey.
John Baliol,	1292-1296		Paisley Abbey—Nave.	Edward I.	1272	Decorated English, prevailed about 100 years.
Interregnum,	1296-1306		Kirkwall Cathedral—east end of Choir.	Edward II.	1307
Interregnum,	1296-1306		Sweetheart Abbey, Kirkcudbright.	Edward III.	1327-1377
Robert I.	1306	Scottish Decorated, 1300-1500, prevailed about 200 years.	Dunkeld Cathedral—Nave Aisles.
David II.	1329		Melrose Abbey—Nave.
Robert II.	1370		Fortrose Cathedral.	Richard II.	1377	Perpendicular English, prevailed about 169 years.
Robert III.	1390		St. Monance Church, Fife.	Henry IV.	1399
Regency of Albany,	1407		Bothwell Church.	Henry V.	1413
James I.	1424		Lincluden College.	Henry VI.	1422
James II.	1436		St. Michael’s, Linlithgow.	Edward IV.	1461
James III.	1460		Trinity College, Edinburgh.	Edward V.	1483
James IV.	1488-1500			Richard III.	1483
James IV.	1488-1500			Henry VII.	1485
James IV.	1500-1513	Perpendicular, 1500-1513.	Melrose Abbey—Chancel.	Henry VIII.	1509-1546
James V.	1513	Ladykirk.

Chapter VIII — Ecclesiastical Antiquities

Notwithstanding the systematic eradication of every relic associated with the rites or dogmas of the old faith, carried on by the Scottish Reformers of the sixteenth century, ecclesiastical remains are still preserved in sufficient number to furnish out a much ampler list than the limits of this work can embrace. The recumbent effigy, for example, is to be met with in many districts of Scotland, sometimes mutilated and defaced, but not unfrequently still exhibiting evidences of refined taste and delicacy of manipulation pertaining to the best epoch of medieval art. Perhaps no work of the period is more characteristic of the change from the age of the tumulus builders than the recumbent effigy of the Christian knight. It is one of the most significant memorials of the mild influences of a purer faith on the arts and sepulchral rites of the race. The armour and weapons of war are indeed still there, but the sword is in its sheath; the position is that of repose; and not unfrequently the hands are clasped in the attitude of devotion, the symbol of prayer. The majority of these medieval monuments belong to the fifteenth century, and some of those which occur in Iona and the Hebrides are altogether peculiar in costume and style of art. There is little, however, to distinguish the greater number of the Scottish from the English recumbent effigies, unless one peculiarity be worth noting, seemingly characteristic of a national luxuriousness which is little applicable to the rude barons of the Scottish middle ages. The crested tilting helmet, which is the most frequent pillow of the recumbent English knight, is of rare occurrence in Scotland, being more generally replaced by a richly sculptured cushion. It is needless, however, to multiply illustrations of a point involving no more than a conventional formula of art.[664] Sepulchral brasses, though now almost unknown in Scotland, may once have been little less abundant than the recumbent effigy. The “Oxford Manual” mentions only one, that of the Stuarts of Minto, in the nave of Glasgow Cathedral; bearing the date 1605. To this solitary example, however, one or two additions can still be made. The “restorations” of the collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh in 1829, compassed, among other lamentable defacements, the destruction of the tomb of “The Good Regent,” including the brass engraved with the figures of Justice and Faith, and the epitaph from the pen of George Buchanan.665 The brass has fortunately been rescued, and is preserved in the possession of the Hon. John Stuart, one of the lineal descendants of the Regent, James Earl of Moray, by whom steps have been recently taken with a view to its restoration. A charter granted by the city of Edinburgh to William Preston of Gortoun, in 1454, in acknowledgment of his father’s invaluable gift of “the arme bane of Saint Gele,” preserves the record of at least one other brass that once adorned the same ancient church, though long since gone, with so many other of its most interesting features. It is described as “a plate of brase, with a writ specifiand the bringing of that relik be him in Scotland, with his armis.” A small mural brass still remains in part of the church of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, known as Drum’s Aisle, bearing two shields of arms—the one bearing the three banded bunches of holly leaves for Irvine; and the other three pales for Keith. It surmounted the recumbent effigy of Alexander Irvine, third of the ancient family of Drum, who fell at the battle of Harlaw in the year 1411, and of his wife Elizabeth Keith, daughter of the Lord Robert de Keith. The knight is in full armour, but crowned with a chaplet of flowers, and his feet resting on a lion; while the lady’s feet are supported by a dog. The monument has obviously been executed during their lifetimes, from the blanks still remaining on the brass, which tell, amid all the pomp of these anticipatory sepulchral honours, that no pious hand was found to grave the few simple additions requisite to have made of the dumb tablet a true memorial of the dead. The imperfect inscriptions are,—

Hic sub ista sepultura jacet honorabilis et famosus miles dns Alexander de Irvyn Secund qd^z dns de Droum de Achyndor et Forglen qui obit.... die mens... anno dni MCCCC..

Hic etiam jacet nobilis dna dna Elizabeth Keth filia quan dni Roberti de Keth militis Marescalli Scocie uxoris dci dni dni. Alexander de Irvyn quæ obit... dic mens... Anno dni MCCCC..

Principal Gordon, of the Scots College, Paris, describes in his “Remarks on a Journey to the Orkney Islands,” made in 1781, the monument of Bishop Tulloch, the brass of which—“a plate of copper full length of the grave”—was carried off by a party of Cromwell’s soldiers.666 More recent plunderers have removed, within the last twenty years, a brass which had escaped the hands of previous devastators of the monastery of Inchcolm, in the Frith of Forth. Nor is it altogether impossible that others may even now remain safe under the protection of more modern flooring, or superincumbent debris. The floor of St. Mary’s Church at Leith was removed in the course of extensive alterations effected on it in 1848, and was found to cover the original paving with inscriptions and armorial shields of early date. On the repair and reseating of Whitekirk parish church, East-Lothian, a few years since, a large stone slab, which now lies in the adjoining churchyard, was removed from its original site in the chancel, and disclosed a remarkably fine matrix of what appears to have been the full sized figure of an ecclesiastic, with canopy and surrounding inscription. Similar matrices are even now by no means rare. One of large size lies in the barn-yard of the Abbey Farm, in the vicinity of the ruins of North-Berwick Abbey. Another has been recently exposed within the area of the nave of Seton Church, East-Lothian. Others are to be seen at Aberbrothoc, Dunfermline, and Dunblane, the last exhibiting traces of a large ornamental cross. One of unusual dimensions, which lies in the chancel of the cathedral of Iona, is traditionally assigned to Macleod of Macleod. The representation of the full length figure of a knight in armour may still be traced, with his sword by his side, and his feet resting on some animal. It has been surrounded with an inscription on an ornamental border, and tradition adds, was completed by a plate, not of brass but of silver.667

Incised slabs are still more common. Some of those at Iona especially are characterized by peculiar beauty and great variety of design. Nearly the whole of the north and south aisles of the nave of Holyrood Abbey are also still paved with incised slabs, including those of various ecclesiastics, engraved with floriated or Calvary cross, and generally with the paten and chalice on each side, or with the chalice only, resting on the long limb of the cross. Roslin Chapel has a curious example of an incised monumental slab, representing a knight in full armour. In the church of Kinkill, Aberdeenshire, Sir Robert Scrimgeour, high constable of Dundee, who fell at the battle of Harlaw in 1411, is similarly portrayed at full length; and in the south aisle of the church of Foveran, in the same county, two knights in complete armour are represented on one slab, under an ornamental canopy. Examples also occur at Dalmally and other ancient ecclesiastical sites in Argyleshire and the Western Islands, but these are sufficient to illustrate this class of medieval sepulchral memorials.

Stone coffins are no less abundant, but also rarely marked by any peculiar features; the later Scottish sepulchral rites being no doubt for the most part such as were common to medieval Europe. One of the most interesting discoveries of this class was made during recent repairs of the nave of Dunfermline Abbey. In the centre of the nave, towards its east end, a stone coffin of the form and dimensions of those of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was found under the paving. On removing the lid it disclosed a singular leathern shroud, which remained in good preservation, although the body it was intended to protect had long mouldered into dust. The prepared leathern skin is double, and has been wrapped entirely round the body, like the bandages of a mummy; it is laced across the breast, and stitched with a strong leathern thong entirely up the back from the neck to the heels, and along the soles of the feet. It has been removed to the Dunfermline Museum, where it is preserved suspended in a glass case—in some respects a more eloquent memento mori than the Egyptian’s “imperishable type of evanescence:” a shroud which has escaped the mortality of the corpse within its folds. The coffin has been assigned by local antiquaries as that of Edward, the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore; but there is no evidence to justify multiplies the evil tenfold, the Rev. J. S. Howson, on comparing it with the numerous sculptured crosses of the district, so faithfully described by him in the Cambridge Camden Society’s Transactions, and finding that “the scroll-work on the bell-case, and the figure of our Saviour, are closely similar to the corresponding representations on the Argyleshire crosses,” jumps to the conclusion that they also must needs be Scandinavian.668 The very opposite conclusion would seem unavoidable, were it not that this idea of the supremacy of Scandinavian art in Scotland has superseded reasoning, and maintains its ground in defiance of evidence. History leaves no room to doubt that the Scandinavian invaders devastated and destroyed many native works, and greatly retarded the full development of the arts of civilisation of the Scottish Christian era. Scottish antiquaries certainly display a truly forgiving spirit in crediting them with the invention of what little escaped their sacrilegious ravages. I cannot avoid characterizing the supplementary observations on the Kilmichael-Glassrie bell-shrine in the Archæologia Scotica, which have furnished the basis of the later conclusions, as extremely foolish. A woodcut, copied from an edition of King Olave Tryggiason’s Saga, printed in 1665, and with a scutcheon of the debased form only introduced in the seventeenth century, is gravely produced as an ancient representation of the Norwegian king, in order that by comparing his crown with that worn by the crucified Saviour on the bell-case, its decided Scandinavian character may be seen. The crown is neither more nor less than the common one, surmounted by three fleurs-de-lis, which, had a native origin been sought for it, might have been seen along with the Maltese or Greek cross patée, referred to in the same article, on almost any Scottish silver coin from Malcolm Canmore to James IV., when it is for the first time superseded on our native currency by a close crown. It is no less common on contemporary English, and indeed European coins; and as an argument, one way or other in the present question, is utterly valueless. On equally inconclusive grounds the Greek cross patée is pronounced to be Scandinavian. In proof of the thorough consistency of its form with the usages of the early British Church centuries before the first Scandinavian convert had abandoned the Pagan creed of his fathers, it may suffice to observe that it closely corresponds to the beautiful gold cross found in a grave in the Cathedral of Durham, on the breast of an ecclesiastic, believed, at the time of its discovery, to be that of St. Cuthbert, which would assign it to the seventh century. It is sufficient for our purpose, however, that both its style and the circumstances under which it was discovered equally prove its great antiquity and its native workmanship, points perhaps hardly requiring to be discussed.669 The “well-known Runic knots” are next quoted, these being what we are familiar with on decorative borders of Irish MSS., some of which date two centuries prior to the first known descents of Scandinavian Vikings on our shores, and which are no less common on Anglo-Saxon MSS. and relics, on Anglo-Norman and Scottish Romanesque architecture, and indeed predominated in the prevailing style of ornament for a time throughout Europe. Lastly, we have a figure copied from an ancient “Runic monument,” representing a person ringing a large suspended belfry-bell, measuring—if any proportion is preserved—about three feet in height.670 This, therefore, can manifestly have no possible bearing on the history of the little Scottish hand-bell, or rather bell-case, which measures somewhat less than six inches high.

It is not difficult to shew that bells were in use in Scotland upwards of four centuries before the conversion of St. Olaf and his Norwegian Jarls. They were indeed introduced by the first Christian missionaries, and summoned the brethren of Iona to prayer, while yet the gloriosum cœnobium of the sacred isle was only a few wattled huts. The reference which Adomnan makes to St. Columba’s bell, when he had notice that King Aidan was going forth to battle, sufficiently indicates the use of it for that purpose:—“Sanctus subito ad suum dicit ministratorem cloccam pulsa. Cujus sonitu fratres incitati ad ecclesiam ocius currunt.”671 We have as little reason for supposing that the frail currach of St. Columba was freighted with a ponderous church bell, as that the first monastery of Iona was distinguished by a lofty belfry tower. But the little hand-bell of the primitive bishop would abundantly suffice to summon together the band of pioneers in the wilderness of Iona. If the annexed engraving does not represent the identical bell of the Scottish Apostle, it is one consecrated to him, and sufficiently primitive in its character to have called together the family of Iona to their orisons, beneath the osier groins of the first cathedral of the isles. It is the bell of St. Columbkill, now in the collection of John Bell, Esq. of Dungannon. The original, which measures nearly seven inches in height, was preserved for many generations in the family of the M’Gurks, from whose ancestors the parish of Termon-Maguirk, in the county of Tyrone, takes its name.672 This bell was held by the native Irish even of the present generation in peculiar veneration, and though usually called by them the Clog na Choluimchille, or bell of St. Columbkill, it also bore the name of Ꝺɩɑ ꝺɩoᵹ̇ɑɭꞇuꞅ, or God’s Vengeance, alluding to the curse implicitly believed to fall on any who perjure themselves by swearing falsely on it. This bell was used until very lately, throughout the county of Tyrone, in cases of solemn asseveration; but much of its essential virtue must have exhaled on its transference to the repositories of the antiquary. The Kilmichael-Glassrie bell, now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, appears to have closely corresponded to the simple iron clag figured above. Within the beautiful brass shrine figured on Plate VI. is a rude iron bell, so greatly corroded that its original form can only be imperfectly traced; yet this, and not the shrine, was obviously the chief object of veneration, and may indeed be assumed with much probability to be some centuries older than the ornamental case in which it is preserved. The name of Dia Dioghaltus, or God’s Vengeance, specially appropriated to the bell of St. Columba, is applicable to all the relics of this class, which we shall find were among the most venerated objects of the primitive Celtic church.

It remains to be seen if any such ecclesiastical implements or symbols of office ever pertained to the Scandinavian Church, though it is not improbable that they may have been in general use throughout the earlier Christian countries of Europe some centuries before Scandinavia abandoned the creed of Odin. In Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, at any rate, we have abundant evidence of their ancient prevalence, and of the great sanctity universally attached to them; and, indeed, in Ireland, from whence the bell of St. Columba, as well as so much else that pertains to the early Christianity of Scotland, appear to have been derived, the small consecrated bell is still comparatively common. In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy there are eighteen different examples, including several of an exceedingly primitive character. One of the most remarkable, though not the earliest, of these is the inscribed Cɭoᵹ ḃeɑnuɩᵹhꞇ̇e, or Blessed Bell, called by Dr. Petrie the Bell of Armagh, which may serve as an example of this singular class of ecclesiastical Celtic relics. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Welsh Itinerary, refers to the universal veneration with which these portable bells were regarded in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in Wales, remarking that men were more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the Gospels, because of some hidden and miraculous power with which they were gifted, as well as for fear of the saint to whom they pertained. The following account of this unique relic furnished to me by Mr. Bell of Dungannon affords a singularly lively illustration of the superstitions with which such relics have been regarded even in our own day:—

“The bell of Ballynaback, better known as the Clog beanuighte, was preserved in a family named Henning, whose residence is on the low road between Lurgan and Portadown, in the county of Armagh. Unlike other ancient Irish quadrilateral bells it bears on one of its sides an incised inscription, which renders it interesting, since the Church of Rome permitted only a cross or the image of the patron saint to be engraved on such ecclesiastical bells. It would be idle to attempt recounting the miraculous judgments visited on such as profaned or violated the oaths taken on the bell, or the wide-spread desolation which befell such as were anathematized by it; for, early in the twelfth century, as we are told by Meredith Hanmer, William of Winchester, by the authority of Celestine II., in a council held at London, brought in the use of cursing with bell, book, and candle, ‘which liked the Irish priests well, to terrifie the laytie for their tithes.’

“Paul Henning was the last keeper of the Clog beanuighte; and when any of his connexions died it was rung by him in front of the namna gul, the old women who, according to the Irish fashion, caoine and bewail the dead. It was an ancient custom to place the bell near any of the Hennings when dangerously ill. I visited Mrs. Henning, the widow of Paul Henning, on her deathbed. She lay in a large badly lighted apartment crowded with people. The bell, which had remained several days near her head, seemed to be regarded by those who were present with much interest. The vapour of the heated chamber was so condensed on the cold metal of the bell, that occasionally small streams trickled down its sides. This ‘heavy sweating’ of the bell, as it was termed, was regarded by every one with peculiar horror, and deemed a certain prognostication of the death of the sick woman, who departed this life a few hours after I left the room. The agonized bell, I was told, had on many previous occasions given similar tokens as proofs of its sympathy on the approaching demise of its guardians.”

The object of such profound veneration is now safely deposited in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy at Dublin. The inscription upon it—✠ Oꞃoɩꞇ ɑꞃ Chú mɑ Scɑ ch ṁ ɑɩɭeuo—has been thus read: Oroil ar chum ma scahan chun ecumn aileou,—A prayer for him who shaped my frame to sound Allelujah. Both the rounded form and the inscription on the Clog beanuighte, are evidence of its being of a later date than the simpler quadrangular form; and it is unhesitatingly assigned by Dr. Petrie as a work executed towards the close of the ninth century.673 The same quadrangular form of hand-bell is represented on some of the Irish stone crosses of the ninth and tenth centuries, and is also introduced in a curious group sculptured on the pediment of a remarkable little oratory called the Priest’s Church, at Glendalough, which Dr. Petrie ascribes to the middle of the eighth century.674 The following notice in the Annotations of Tirechan, in the Book of Armagh, is extremely interesting, as shewing the bell among the ecclesiastical gifts bestowed on Fiac, Bishop of Sletty, when St. Patrick conferred on him the episcopal dignity, and may therefore suffice to account for its possession by St. Columba as one of the most essential insignia of the pastoral office:—“Patrick conferred the degree of bishop upon him, so that he was the first bishop that was ordained among the Lagenians; and Patrick gave a box to Fiacc, containing a bell, and a menstir, and a crozier, and a poolire; and he left seven of his people with him.”675

With such indubitable evidence of the use of the consecrated bell as one of the most essential ecclesiastical implements of the first missionary bishops, we can be at no loss to account for the origin of the beautiful relic found on the farm of Torrebhlaurn, in the parish of Kilmichael-Glassrie, Argyleshire. The accompanying accurate engraving (Plate VI.) renders any minute description unnecessary. It is an ornamental square case or shrine, attached to the bottom of which is a thin plate of brass pierced with a circular hole in the centre. Inside this case, but entirely detached from it, is the rude and greatly corroded iron bell. When first discovered it appeared to have been carefully wrapped in a piece of woollen cloth then almost entirely decayed. The hole in the lower plate is large enough to admit of the insertion of the finger, and was perhaps designed to allow of the bell being touched as a consecrated and miraculously gifted relic, without removing it from its case. Dr. Petrie remarks on the quadrangular form of the Irish portable bells as an evidence of their great antiquity, and refers to the inscribed one in the Dublin Museum as a remarkable example of the transition to the later circular form in the ninth century.676 A bell of the oblong rounded form rudely fashioned out of a sheet of bronze, found at Marden, in Herefordshire, is engraved in the Archæological Journal.677 The simplicity of its form and construction abundantly justify its assignment to nearly the same early period.

At no very remote date several of these ancient consecrated bells were to be found in Scotland, and evidence of the most satisfactory kind proves the former existence of others dedicated to primitive Scottish saints, nor is it at all improbable that some of these may still be preserved. The accompanying engraving represents one example manifestly of the earliest and most primitive form. It was obtained some years ago in Perthshire, and now forms one of the many valuable Scottish relics in the collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq.; but unfortunately no clue exists to its original dedication or the local associations of its early history. This primitive bell measures four and a quarter inches in height, including the handle, and three and three-quarters, by one and three-quarters inches, at the mouth. It is fashioned out of a single plate of sheet-iron; and the ring which forms the handle externally projects internally, so as to form a loop, from which the clapper was suspended.

Though no representations of these singular relics of the Celtic church have been introduced on the sculptured crosses, they are figured on various early Scottish seals. The bell of St. Kentigern, the great apostle of Strathclyde, was an object of devout veneration at Glasgow for many centuries; and after forming a prominent feature in the armorial bearings of the archiepiscopal see, still figures in the modern city’s arms. There has even been thought to be sufficient evidence to justify the belief of the original bell having escaped the indiscriminate destruction of sacred relics at the Reformation, from an entry in the accounts of the city treasurer for the year 1578, of a charge of two shillings “for ane tong to Sanct Mungowe’s bell.”678 But it may be doubted if this could be the original bell of the western saint, which is figured on the ancient seal of the community of the city, used in the reign of Robert I., and also on the contemporary chapter seal, and described by Father Innes as on the burgh seal attached to a charter, now lost, of the year 1293.679 On the former of these its form is very distinctly shewn, completely corresponding to the earliest square portable bells with looped handles. Its introduction on these seals attests the great reverence with which it was regarded; and various references both in the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, and in the Liber Collegii Nostre Domine, Glasguensis, MDXLIX, to the Campana Beati Kentegerni, abundantly confirm the evidence of its sanctity. It is also repeatedly referred to in the Aberdeen Breviary, as in the anthem appointed for the day of the apostle of Strathclyde:—

Visitat alma pii vite septenta loca Petri
Presul campana cui seruit in ethere sacra.

An author of the seventeenth century affirms that the venerable relic survived even in the reign of Charles I.;680 nor is there anything inconceivable in this, when so many others of the same kind are still preserved. But it is not at all probable that the bell on which the citizens of Glasgow, in 1587, expended two shillings in repair was of so unpractical a form as their old burgh seal proves the original campana of their patron saint to have been. More probably it was a large bell in the tower of St. Mungo’s Cathedral, for the repair of which the specified sum might then prove amply sufficient, as appears from a somewhat earlier entry in the same Burgh Records: “Decimo Maii, 1577, to George Burell, for ane tag to þe towng of þe hie kirk bell, xx^d.”681 From the inscription on the present great bell of the cathedral it appears that it was presented by Marcus Knox, a wealthy citizen, in 1594, the old one, after repeated repairs, having at length, it may be presumed, entirely given way. The woodcut represents another of these ancient Celtic relics, which, though preserved along with other memorials of Ireland’s saints, in the valuable collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon, pertains to one of the primitive apostles of his own native land, the celebrated Scottish missionary bishop, St. Ninian or St. Ringan. The Clog-rinny, or bell of St. Ninian, is rude enough to have been contemporary with the Candida Casa of Whithern in Galloway, and to have summoned to the preaching of the missionary bishop the first of the tribes of North Briton converted to the worship of the true God.682

The honour attached to the custody of the most sacred relics occasioned in various cases the creation of special offices, with emoluments and lands pertaining to their holders, and the transference of these to lay impropriators on the overthrow of the ancient ecclesiastical system, has led to the preservation of some few of the relics of primitive Scottish saints, even to our own day. But for the rude shock of civil war which, in the last century, involved so many of our oldest nobility in the ruined fortunes of the fated Stuart race, more of these might still have been in existence. Both the “Sacra Campana Sancti Kessogii,” and the “Sacra Campana Sancti Lolani,” were included among the feudal investitures of the earldom of Perth—a sufficiently significant proof of the value ascribed to them. They are referred to so recently as the year 1675.683 Less reverential motives probably led to the preservation of the Clagan, or Little Bell of St. Barry, a favourite old Celtic saint who gives name to the district of Argyleshire where he is said to have ministered. This relic, which remained till the close of last century in the possession of the principal heritor of Kilberry parish, was somewhat larger, and probably of less hoar antiquity, than the primitive ecclesiastical memorials previously described. “The bell of St. Barry’s Chapel,” says the compiler of the Old Account of the Parish of South Knapdale, “is still in preservation at Kilberry Castle, and has been long prostituted to the ignoble purpose of summoning the servants of that family to their meals. It is inscribed with the saint’s name in the Latin language and Saxon character, but unfortunately without date.”684 I learn on inquiry, from J. Campbell, Esq., the present proprietor of Kilberry Castle, that the ancient bell of St. Barry no longer exists. In a letter with which he has favoured me, he remarks,—“I have heard my father say that it fell down and cracked. The metal was recast into another bell, which is here now. I have heard him mention the inscription, but do not believe there was any copy of it kept.” A remarkable stone cross, with the figure of our Saviour upon it, and numerous sculptured and incised tombstones, still remain around the site of the ancient chapel of St. Barry, the ruins of which were only demolished a few years ago. An inscription upon it bore that it had been plundered and burnt by Captain Pooley, an English rover, in 1513.685

More minute information relative to the preservation of another of the ancient Scottish saints’ bells, as the evidence of hereditary right to the privileges attached to its custodier, is supplied by “The Airlie Papers,” printed in the Spalding Miscellany. One of these is a formal resignation of the Bell of St. Meddan, by Michael Dauid, its hereditary curator, to Sir John Ogilvy; and the transference of it by him to his wife Margaret, Countess of Moray, of date 27th June 1447. It is followed by “the instrument of sessyn of the bell,” dated twenty-one days later, from which we discover the substantial advantages pertaining to the custody of this relic. The Countess was thereby put in possession of a house or toft near the church of Luntrethin, which pertained to the bell, of which it formed both the title and evidence of tenure. “The instrument of sessyn” further describes the formal process of investiture, the Countess having been shut into the house by herself, after receiving the feudal symbols of resignation of the property by the delivery to her of earth and stone.686

The Aberdeen Breviary commemorates another Scottish bell, pertaining to St. Ternan, the apostle of the Picts, and presented to him by Pope Gregory the Great. It was preserved, with other relics of the saint, at the church which was erected over his tomb at Banchory, Aberdeenshire; and legal deeds of the fifteenth century are extant to shew the importance attached to the custody “of the bell of Sanct Ternan, callit the Ronecht,”687—a name most probably derived from the Gaelic Ronnaich, a poet, rannach, a songster, in allusion to its melodious sounds, though such is by no means a usual characteristic of these primitive bells, their clogarnach or tinkling being anything but musical. The Old Account of the Parish of Killin, in Perthshire, furnishes the description of the bell of another favourite Celtic saint—that of St. Fillan, who flourished in the middle of the seventh century—not only preserved, but had in reverence for its miraculous powers, almost to the close of the eighteenth century:—

“There is a bell belonging to the chapel of St. Fillan, that was in high reputation among the votaries of that saint in old times. It seems to be of some mixed metal. It is about a foot high, and of an oblong form. It usually lay on a grave-stone in the churchyard. When mad people were brought to be dipped in the saint’s pool, it was necessary to perform certain ceremonies, in which there was a mixture of Druidism and Popery. After remaining all night in the chapel bound with ropes, the bell was set upon their head with great solemnity. It was the popular opinion that, if stolen, it would extricate itself out of the thief’s hands, and return home ringing all the way. For some years past this bell has been locked up to prevent its being used to superstitious purposes.”688

Pennant visited the locality, and describes the peculiar gifts of healing ascribed to the saint, but he does not appear to have known of his bell. Some portions of the ruined chapel exist, and the pool of Strathfillan remains as of yore, still distinguished by the peasantry as the Holy Pool, and even visited by some who have faith in its virtue; but if the bell is to be seen, it must be sought for among the treasures of some private collector. “It was stolen,” says the author of the recent Account of Killin Parish, writing in 1843, “by an English antiquarian about forty years ago.” Unhappily the old virtues of the bell had departed, or the saint no longer favours a faithless generation, else its potent clogarnach should long since have announced its return to Strathfillan.

On the Island of Inniskenneth, which is affirmed to derive its name from Kenneth, a friend of St. Columba, whom the prayer of the saint rescued from drowning—probably the St. Kenanach of Irish hagiology—there are the ruins of an ancient chapel of small dimensions, about sixty feet in length, and near to it the remains of a cross, with numerous tombstones both of early and recent date. Here, towards the close of last century, according to the Old Account of the Parish, an ancient bell, most probably that of St. Kenanach, and described by the Statist as “a small bell used at the celebration of mass,” was then preserved in the chapel.689 This example, it is possible, may still be preserved in private hands; and with so many evidences of the recent existence of these relics of the first preachers of the faith in Scotland, it is not unreasonable to conceive that others may also be in safe keeping among the heirlooms of the older Highland families, which a wider diffusion of a just spirit of reverence for our national antiquities may bring to light. Meanwhile, these notices suffice to shew that the beautiful bell found at Torrebhlaurn is by no means unique in Scotland. Probably none of the earlier Christian missionaries were without such a potent relic; and the only Scandinavian influence which history would justify us in connecting with them, is the diminution of their number and the spoiling and slaying of their owners, down to the comparatively late date of St. Olaf’s conversion, and his mission to the Pagan Norsemen of the Orkneys, armed with more carnal weapons than the bishop’s crosier and consecrated bell. With these venerable memorials of the first preachers of Christianity to the heathen Picts and Scots, may also be mentioned a more modern relic of the same class, a graceful little hand-bell, presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1783, but of which the previous history is unknown. It is decorated, in basso-relievo, on the one side with the temptation of Adam and Eve, and on the other with the crucifixion. It is no doubt also an old ecclesiastical bell, though belonging to a period long subsequent to the era of St. Kentigern or St. Fillan.

But another and still more interesting relic of St. Fillan, even than his bell, has descended safely to our own day. An English tourist of last century communicated to the Society of Antiquaries the following account of the crosier of St. Fillan, which, with the miracle-working bell of the Saint of Strathfillan, continued then to occupy the ancient scene of his ministration.

“At Killin, July 5, 1782, in the house of Malice Doire, a day-labourer, I was shewn what he called the Quigrich. It is the head of a crosier, formerly belonging to St. Fillan, who gave name to a neighbouring Strath. I entreat the Society to excuse the rudeness of the representation annexed, it being the hasty sketch of a traveller, particularly as it is only meant to lead them to the possession of the original. With it is shewn a copy of the king’s letters of appropriation and security, which I have carefully transcribed. The neighbours conducted me to the envied possessor of this relic, who exhibited it according to the intent of the royal investment. A youth of nineteen, the representative of his father’s name, and presumptive heir to this treasure, lay drooping in an outer apartment, under the last gasp of a consumption.”690

The royal investment referred to in the letter is granted by James III., in the year 1487, and sets forth that “Forasmekle as we have understand that oure servitour Malice Doire and his forebears has had ane relick of Saint Filane, callit the Quigrich, in keping of ws and of oure progenitouris of maist nobill mynde, quham God assolyie, sen the tyme of King Robert the Bruys and of before, and made nane obedience nor answer to na persoun, spirituale nor temporale, in ony thing concerning the said haly relick utherwayis than what is contenit in the auld infeftment thareof, made and grantit be oure said progenitouris, we charge,” &c.; and the royal letters accordingly go on to warrant the custodier of the precious relic to bear it through the country without let or hindrance, as his fathers were wont to do.

The owner of the Quigrich afterwards emigrated to America, carrying the ancient relic with him; and the following extract from a letter which I have recently received from the Rev. Æneas M’Donell Dawson, whose own immediate ancestors were for a time the guardians of St. Fillan’s crosier, will shew that it is still in safety, though unfortunately severed from nearly all those national and local associations which confer on it so peculiar an interest:—

“The celebrated crook of St. Fillan is still in Canada, and in the keeping of the very family to whose ancestor it was confided on the Field of Bannockburn, when the king, displeased with the abbot for having abstracted from it the relics of St. Fillan previously to the battle, from want of confidence, it is alleged, in the success of the Scottish cause, deprived him of the guardianship.

“This family, it appears, lost possession of the crosier for a time, having disposed of it for a sum of money to an ancestor of my mother’s family, who adhered to the ancient faith. Soon after this transaction, however, ceasing to prosper, and attributing their change of circumstances to their indifference to a sacred object that had been solemnly entrusted to them, they persuaded the purchaser, or rather the person who inherited the crosier from him, to part with it in their favour. I am not aware of the date of their removal to Canada, but I could ascertain it through the kindness of a gentleman resident in the same parish, who went to their house expressly to see the crosier, in order that he might be able to satisfy the friends with whom I was corresponding as to its identity. He learned also that they were in treaty some time ago with a Mr. Bruce of London—possibly the late Lord Elgin(?)—for, I must not say the sale of it, but its restoration to this country. £500 was the sum they named at that time as its ransom.”

A subsequent, but equally unsuccessful effort, for the recovery of the Quigrich, was made by a gentleman who possesses estates within the favoured district sanctified of old by the labours of St. Fillan, but equally unfaithful as the bell of Strathfillan, it has failed to return to its ancient locality. The accompanying view is taken from the sketch above referred to, the general accuracy of which is corroborated by the correspondent already quoted. The crosier is of silver-gilt, and weighs about seven or eight pounds. It is hollow at the lower end for the insertion of the staff. On the other extremity, which is flat, a cross is engraved with a star on each side of it, and a large oval crystal is set in the front of the short limb. The simple form of this remarkable relic amply suffices to confirm the great antiquity assigned to it.

The ancient crosier of St. Molocus, another favourite Celtic saint, has in like manner escaped the ravages of time, and the iconoclastic zeal of the reformers of the sixteenth century, and after being preserved for centuries in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral of Lismore, has recently come into the possession of the present Duke of Argyle. It is known in the district by the simple name of the Baculum More, or big staff; and consists of a plain curved staff, formerly decorated with silver at the top, but long since spoiled of its costlier ornaments. The right of its curatorship, and probably also of bearing it before the bishops of Argyle, appears to have been hereditary, and conferred on its holders the possession of a small freehold estate, which remained in the hands of the lineal descendant of the old staff-bearer till within the last few years. This estate was latterly held under a deed granted by the Earl of Argyle in 1544, the ancient crosier being preserved in verification of the right, till it was recently delivered up, in return for new titles granted, in order to enable the late owner, the last of his race, to dispose of the freehold, which could no longer descend to his heirs. The original charter of confirmation grants,—“Dilecto signiffero nostro Johanni M’Molmore vic Kevir, et heredibus suis masculis de suo corpore legitime procreatis seu procreandis quibus deficientibus at nostram donationem reuerten. omnes et singulas nostras terras de dimidietate terrarum de Peynebachillen et Peynehallen extenden. ad dimidiatem merce terrarum jacen. in Insula de Lismor, cum custodia magni bacculi beati Moloci,” &c.691

Two other ancient episcopal crosiers remain to be noticed, each of them associated with Scottish sees. The one here engraved was found, in its present imperfect state, along with a glove and other relics, in the course of some excavations in the choir of the cathedral of Fortrose, when a stone coffin was discovered, which doubtless contained the remains of one of the old bishops of Ross. This interesting relic was presented by Sir George Mackenzie to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1822, and is now preserved in their Museum. It retains traces both of colour and gilding, and though greatly decayed and imperfect, is still characterized by considerable elegance. It measures the segment of a circle of about five inches in diameter.

The other crosier referred to belongs to the ancient see of St. Magnus in the Orkneys, and likewise owes its preservation, like the relics of more primitive eras, to the medieval practice of depositing the symbols of the chief pastoral office beside the remains of the deceased bishop. During the progress of the recent judicious restorations in the choir of the cathedral at Kirkwall, in the month of August 1848, a modern flooring was removed, which concealed the bases of the columns and piers. Several ancient tombs were brought to light by this means, and in one place on the north side of the altar steps, a finely carved slab of stone was exposed. On removing this, a small vaulted chamber or cist was discovered, within which lay a skeleton greatly decayed, and beside it the crosier figured, carved in oak, and a chalice and paten, both roughly modelled, apparently in the common white wax frequently used in ancient seals. The chalice, though somewhat imperfect round the lip, is otherwise entire, but the paten is greatly injured, and both are little more than rude symbols of these most essential sacred vessels used in the service of the mass. The oaken crosier measures eleven and a half inches long as figured here, but it is notched at the lower extremity, evidently for the purpose of attaching it to a staff. The tomb has been supposed to be that of Thomas de Tulloch, circa 1422-1448—a date with which the style of ornament of the crosier very well agrees, but there is no sufficient evidence to enable it to be assigned with certainty to a particular individual. Nearly at the same time as these interesting episcopal memorials were brought to light, a very curious discovery was made of human remains inclosed in one of the pillars of the western or most ancient portion of the choir, at a height of nearly twelve feet from the floor. There was an indentation or cut in the skull, which, with the singular position of the vault, induced some of the northern antiquaries to hazard the conjecture that they had discovered the remains of their patron saint, the good Earl Magnus: a thing not altogether inconceivable. It was nearly at the same time that the tomb of William, the first resident bishop of the Northern Isles, was exposed, as already described.

The form of the ancient Scottish chalice, as indicated on early tombs, corresponds, as might be expected, to the general usage of the medieval Church. The wax model found in the supposed tomb of Bishop Tulloch at Orkney, indicates the same conformity to the prevailing fashions of the age. The peculiar arts, however, which modified the sepulchral and monumental sculpture, as well as the architecture of the primitive Scottish Church, doubtless also occasionally conferred equally characteristic forms on the sacred vessels and other articles of Church furnishing.

The chalice is figured on various early Scottish ecclesiastical seals, as well as on sepulchral slabs and other medieval sculptures. But an original Scottish chalice, a relic of the venerable abbey of St. Columba, preserved till a very few years since an older example of the sacred vessels of the altar than is indicated in any existing memorial of the medieval Church. The later history of this venerable relic is replete with interest. It was of fine gold, of a very simple form, and ornamented in a style that gave evidence of its belonging to a very early period. It was transferred from the possession of Sir Lauchlan MacLean to the Glengarry family, in the time of Æneas, afterwards created by Charles II. Lord Macdonell and Arross, under the circumstances narrated in the following letter from a cousin of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, and communicated to me by a clergyman,692 who obtained it from the family of the gentleman to whom it was originally addressed:—

“The following anecdote I heard from the late bishop, John Chisholm, and from Mr. John M’Eachan, uncle to the Duke of Tarentum, who died at my house at Irin Moidart, aged upwards of one hundred years:—

“Maclean of Duart expecting an invasion of his lands in Mull, by his powerful neighbour the Earl of Argyll, applied to Glengarry for assistance. Æneas of Glengarry marched at the head of five hundred men to Ardtornish, nearly opposite Duart Castle, and crossing with a few of his officers to arrange the passage of the men across the Sound of Mull, Maclean, rejoicing at the arrival of such a friend, offered some choice wine in a golden chalice, part of the plunder of Iona. Glengarry was struck with horror, and said, folding his handkerchief about the chalice, ‘Maclean, I came here to defend you against mortal enemies, but since by sacrilege and profanation you have made God your enemy, no human means can serve you.’ Glengarry returned to his men, and Maclean sent the chalice and some other pieces of plate belonging to the service of the altar, with a deputation of his friends, to persuade him to join him; but he marched home. His example was followed by several other chiefs, and poor Maclean was left to compete single-handed with his powerful enemy.”

Such was the last historical incident connected with the golden chalice of Iona, perhaps without exception the most interesting ecclesiastical relic which Scotland possessed. Unfortunately its later history only finds a parallel in that of the celebrated Danish golden horns. It was preserved in the charter-chest of Glengarry, until it was presented by the late Chief to Bishop Ronald M’Donald, on whose demise it came into the possession of his successor, Dr. Scott, Bishop of Glasgow. Only five years since the sacristy of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in that city, where it was preserved, was broken into, and before the police could obtain a clue to the depredators, the golden relic of Iona was no longer a chalice. Thus perished by the hands of a common felon a memorial of the spot consecrated by the labours of some of the earliest Christian missionaries to the Pagan Caledonians, and which had probably survived the vicissitudes of upwards of ten centuries. In reply to inquiries made as to the existence of any drawing of the chalice, or even the possibility of a trustworthy sketch being executed from memory, a gentleman in Glasgow writes:—“I have no means of getting even a sketch from which to make a drawing. Were I a good hand myself I could easily furnish one, having often examined it. It was a chalice that no one could look on without being convinced of its very great antiquity. The workmanship was rude, the ornamental drawings or engravings even more hard than medieval ones in their outlines, and the cup bore mark of the original hammering which had beaten it into shape.”

The oldest existing Scottish relic of this class is the “Dunvegan Cup,” celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in his “Lord of the Isles,” and still sacredly guarded in the Castle of Dunvegan, in Skye, along with other Celtic heirlooms of the chiefs of MacLeod. “The Horn of Rorie More,” says Scott, “preserved in the family, and recorded by Dr. Johnson, is not to be compared with this piece of antiquity, which is one of the greatest curiosities in Scotland.” Its dimensions are nine inches and three quarters in inside depth, ten and a half in height on the outside, the extreme measure over the lips being four inches and a half. The engraving on Plate VI. is from a private plate in the possession of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., executed from a drawing by Mrs. MacLeod. Another, but much less accurate or minute view of this curious relic is given in the Archæologia, from a sketch by Mr. Daniell.693 These will serve better than any elaborate description to convey a correct idea of its peculiar form. The material of the cup is wood, to all appearance oak, most curiously wrought and embossed with silver work. A series of projecting bosses appear to have been jewelled, and two or three of them still retain their simple settings. The ledge, the projecting brim, and the four legs which support the cup, are of silver, which with the other silver mountings appear to have been gilt. Around the exterior is an inscription in Gothic characters, which Sir Walter Scott deciphered nearly as follows:694—

Ufo: Johis: Mich: Mgn: Principis: De:
Hi: Manæ: Vich: Liahia: Mgryneil:
Et: Spat: Do: Jhu: Da: Clea: Ill: Dea: Ipa:
Fecit: Ano: Di: Ix: 93º Onili: Oimi:

It may be thus extended:—Ufo Johannis Mich Magni Principis de Hi Manæ Vich Liahia Magryneil et sperat Domino Jhesu dari clementiam illi deæ ipsa. Fecit Anno Domini 993 Onili Oimi. The inscription is a curious specimen of early Celtic Latinity:—Ufo, the son of John, the son of Magnus, Prince of the Isle of Man, the grandson of Liahia Macgryneil, trusts in the Lord Jesus that mercy will be given to him in that day. Oneil Oimi made this in the year of God nine hundred and ninety-three. Within the mouth of the cup, on each of the four sides, is the sacred monogram, i.h.s., which, coupled with the tenour of the inscription, leaves little room to doubt, notwithstanding its unusual form, that it had been originally designed for a chalice, and gifted by Ufo for the service of the altar. The family legends of the Macleods associate it with some old traditional chief or hero, Neil Ghlune-dhu, or Black-knee, but it seems to have been a family heirloom from time immemorial.

The use of wooden vessels as chalices was, for obvious reasons, abandoned at an early period, so that the calices lignei became in later ages a proverbial illustration of the obsolete simplicity of primitive ages. “We may now take up that old regrait,” exclaims Fountainhall, in moralizing on the immense wealth first acquired by the Church, about A.D. 600, “when ther ware calices lignei ther ware then sacerdotes aurei, but now when our chalices are of gold and silver, we have got ligneos sacerdotes.”695 Vessels of wood, even though mounted and jewelled, like the Dunvegan chalice, were very early disused in the services of the altar; and the mazer cup or maple bowl constituted one of the most prominent implements in the conviviality of the Middle Ages. The name indeed ceased at an early period to be exclusively reserved for those manufactured from the wood of the maple tree, from whence the mazer had derived its name, and was at length applied to all drinking cups of a certain class, of whatever material. Among the beautiful examples of medieval art recently exhibited at the London Royal Society of Arts, was a beautiful mazer bowl of silver-gilt, of fifteenth century workmanship, which belongs to Oriel College, Oxford. Of the same class also, probably, were some of the Scottish cups enumerated in a curious inventory of the treasure and jewels of James III., “fundin in a bandit kist like a gardeviant,” among which are the “foure masaris, callit King Robert the Brocis, with a cover,” and again, “the hede of silver of ane of the coveris of masar.” The same “Collection of Inventorys of Royal Wardrobe and Jewell-house,” from 1488 to 1606, furnishes some interesting minutiæ in regard to the royal plate and jewels, and the consecrated vessels for the service of the altar. Besides the mazers, there is “ane cowp callit king Robert the Bruce coupe, of silver owirgilt,”—another pleasing evidence of the reverence with which the name of the saviour of his country continued to be regarded. The royal plate and jewels are of an exceedingly curious and costly character, while among the “chapell geir” we find “ane chesabill of purpour velvot, with the stoyle and fannowne, orphis, twa abbis,” &c. Another of “crammosie velvot, furniset with a stole and a fannoun only;” another “of black velvot, with croce upoune it, broderrit of clayth of gold.” Altar cloths, broidered and jewelled; “ane challeis and ane patene gilt;” “ane caise of silver for the messbreid, with ane cover;” “ane litil cors with precious stanis;” “ane lytill box of gold with the haly croce, send be the Duk of Albany to the kingis graice;” “ane croce of silver, with our Lady and Sanct Johne, gilt.” Of silver, “ouregilt,” in Edinburgh Castle, “twa chandleris, ane chalice and ane patine, ane halie watter fatt,” &c.; “ane bell of silver;” “ane bassing; ane laver of fyne massy gold, with thrissillis and lelleis crounit upoun the samen,” &c. The list indeed, of which these are only a few illustrations, greatly exceeds what might have been anticipated at a period succeeding many years of national disaster and suffering. It is to be regretted that scarcely a solitary example of the medieval Scottish “chapell geir,” or of the royal mazer, or convivial bowl, remains to illustrate the usages of our ancestors. We learn, however, from these old inventories, that there was no lack of either, and also that the value attached to the mazer cup dates in Scotland, as elsewhere, from a very early period. This probably originated in part from superstitious feelings, arising from some special virtue attached to the wood of the maple tree. But its close grain, the beauty of its variegated surface, and its susceptibility of high polish, were doubtless the chief reasons for its continued use as the material for the pledge-cup and wassail bowl; and when it was replaced by other woods, or even by the precious metals, the old name was still retained. The woodcut represents a mazer of very simple form, and probably of an early age, made not of the maple but the ash, a tree famed of old for many supernatural qualities. It was found in the deep draw-well, in the ruined castle of Merdon, near Hursly, built by Bishop Henry de Blois, A.D. 1138.696 The ciphus de mazero frequently figures among the household effects of citizens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is no less commonly alluded to by the elder poets, as in Robert de Brunne’s version of Wace’s Brut, written in the latter part of the thirteenth century, where “mazers of rich price” are specified among the gifts bestowed by king Arthur on his foreign guests. The mazer figures also in the inventory of goods of the Sheriff of Nottingham, taken by “Lytell John,” as printed by Wynken de Worde, in the popular black-letter ballad,—“A Lytell geste of Robyn Hode;” and it is thus introduced in the fine old Scottish ballad of “Gill Morice,”

“Then up an’ spak the bauld baron,
    An angry man was he;
He’s ta’en the table wi’ his foot,
    Sae has he wi’ his knee,
Till siller cup an’ mazer dish
    In flinders he garr’d flee.”

The mazer cup was evidently regarded as a family heirloom, and as such inscribed with quaint legends and pious aphorisms, and sometimes decorated with rich chasing and carving, as Chaucer has so beautifully described in the “Mazer yrought of the maple,” mentioned in his Shepherd’s Callender. The quaint simplicity, both of the devices and inscriptions of many of the wassail bowls, furnishes curious illustration of the manners and ideas of the age to which they belong. Our forefathers had a pious, but withal a very convenient fashion, of uniting religion with their daily sports, and even, as it might seem, seeking to sanctify their excesses. Both Chaucer and Dunbar wind up their freest versions of the Decameron with a pious couplet, and in like spirit the old toper invoked the Trinity on the rim of his wassail bowl, and engraved the mystic saint Christopher within it. The woodcut represents a very beautiful mazer of the time of Richard II., now in the possession of Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq, M.P. It is made of highly polished wood, apparently maple, and hooped with a richly embossed rim of silver gilt, on which is inscribed, as shewn in the annexed fac-simile of a portion of the “edgle of sylver,” the following characteristic invocation:—

From the tenor of such legends frequently inscribed on these ancient cups, it has not been uncommon to describe them as sacred vessels, designed only for use in the service of the Church. Thus a maple cup, bearing the date 1608, was forwarded for exhibition at a meeting of the British Archæological Association in 1848, as a chalice;697 and another, apparently of the same character, made in the year 1611, was shewn to the members of the Archæological Institute in 1850, which it was also conjectured “might have served in some rural parish as a chalice.”698 Such cups, however, were by no means rare in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and though frequently inscribed in terms calculated to suggest such a sacred character, there will generally be found some accompaniment in the legend or devices no less characteristic of mirth and good fellowship. On the 4th January 1667, Mr. Pepys notes in his gossiping Diary, having “last of all, a flagon of ale and apples, drunk out of a wood cup, as a Christmas draught, which made all merry.” Fountainhall in his “Decisions,” records some curious notes of an action brought by Sir Alexander Ogilvie, afterwards Lord Forglen, in 1685, against Sir Alexander Forbes of Tolquhoun, for stealing a gilded mazer cup out of his house, which was afterwards accidentally discovered in the hands of a goldsmith in Aberdeen, with whom its careless owner had left it some years before for repair. From such glimpses as we recover of the history of the litigants, neither of the old Scottish baronets seem characters likely to have gifted chalices, even of maple or ashen wood, though probably well fitted to match with Secretary Pepys in discussing a “Christmas draught.” One quaint, but very beautiful allusion, however, is made by an old Scottish writer to the mazer cup, referring to it metaphorically, as to a sacramental chalice. The passage occurs in Zacharie Boyd’s “Last Battell of the Soule,” published at Edinburgh in 1629. “Take now,” says he, “the cup of salvation, the great Mazer of His mercy, and call upon the name of the Lord.”

A curious wooden cup, in the collection of W. B. Johnstone, Esq., bearing the date 1611, serves to illustrate the character of the pious legends graven on the mazers of the seventeenth century,—not unsuited in part for the decoration of a sacramental chalice, but also accompanied with other devices and allusions, which leave no doubt of the real destination of the mazer for the convivial board. Its height is nine inches, and its greatest circumference, a little below the brim, nineteen inches. The outer surface of the bowl is divided into ornamental compartments, within which are grouped the lion, unicorn, stag, ostrich, hedgehog, dog, and cock, with trees, flowers, &c. The ostrich is represented regaling himself with a horse-shoe!699 Around the rim, bowl, stem, and even on the lower side of the stand, the carver has indulged his moralizing vein, both in prose and verse. The inscription on the bowl reads,—

  THE FOUNTAYNE OF ALL HEALTH AND WEALTH AND JOYES,
    TO THIRSTY SOULES HE GIVETH DRINK INDEED;
  SUCH AS TURN TO HIM FROM THEIR EVILL WAYES
    SHALL FINDE SOUND COMFORT IN THEIR GREATEST NEEDE;
  BUT EVILL WORKERS THAT IN SINNE REMAINE,
  THEY ARE ORDAYNED TO ETERNALL PAYNE.
FOR EVERY ONE OF US SHALL BE REWARDED ACCORDING TO
OUR WORKES; THEREFORE REPENT UNFAYNEDLY AND AMEND.

Round the rim of the stand are the words and date:—THEY THAT SEEKE AFTER THE LORD SHALL PRAYSE HIM, THEIR HARTS SHALL LIVE FOR EVER. 1611.; and then on the underside of the stand the cup thus takes up the hortatory strain, in a mixed vein, in propria persona:—

MISSUSE ME NOT ALTHOUGH I AM NO PLATE;
A MAPLE CUPP THAT IS NOT OUT OF DATE.
DRINKE WELL, AND WELCOME, BUT BE NOT TOO FREE,
EXAMINE WHETHER THAT IN CHRIST YOU BE;
IF THAT YOUR FAITH BE TRUE, AND FIRM, AND SOUND,
THEN IN ALL GOOD WORKS YOU WILL STILL ABOUND.
SO RUN THAT YE MAY OBTAYNE.

There was perhaps a little quiet humour lurking in the mind of the carver when he inscribed these latter excellent and very practical maxims on the underside of the stand, where it is only possible to peruse them when the cup is empty! It will be seen that this maple cup bears a very close resemblance to the contemporary vessels of the same class referred to in the Journals of the Archæological Association and of the Institute. Their odd devices and quaint inscriptions are not unworthy of note by the historian as indicative of the old Puritan spirit manifesting itself in this simple guise during the reign of James, preparatory to its stern outbreak in that of his son.

These spurious chalices of modern date have led us somewhat beyond the legitimate bounds of the subject, though they cannot be considered quite undeserving of a passing notice. Only one other early Scottish relic remains to be noted,—a small brass box, closely resembling several which have been found at various times in England, and have been supposed to be pyxes, intended to hold the chrism, or by some as designed only for containing pigments or unguents. Two similar boxes discovered at Lewis are engraved in the Archæologia, and described as small bronze pyxes;700 and another found at Lincoln is figured in the Archæological Journal.701 The remarkably close resemblance of these to the Scottish example manifestly points to some common purpose for the whole; and the latter is of special value as supplying the means which are wanting in the others of making some approximation to the precise age to which they belong. It was found about the year 1818, near Dalquharran Castle, in the parish of Daily, Ayrshire, filled with coins of David II. of Scotland, Edwards I. and II. of England, and two counterfeit sterlings of the Counts of Flanders and Porcieu. It is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.

Few as are the examples of Scottish ecclesiastical relics which we can now refer to, they are more than we might reasonably anticipate in a country where the fanes and altars of the medieval church have lain in ruins for so many centuries, and even the existence of a single ruined church pertaining to its primitive Christian era may be still liable to dispute. Though such remains are of less esteem as sources of information relative to the periods to which they belong than the objects of earlier eras, they will not be regarded by the intelligent historian as altogether devoid of value in relation to the peculiar arts and customs or the degree of civilisation of ages, concerning which much obscurity has still to be removed.

Notes

510 A Eolcha Albain Uile, translated from the Codex Stowensis, No. XLI. Collect. de Reb. Albanicis, Iona Club, p. 71. Albanus, from the Celtic god, Alw—Gaelic, Aluin, bright, beautiful; Alw-ion, Αλουίων, Albion, i.e., the island of Alw; Britus, Pryd, Prydain, i.e., Pryd, god of Britain. Welsh Archæologia, vol. i. p. 72. Meyer on the Celtic Dialects. Report, 1847, Brit. Assoc. Advancement of Science, p. 301. Bryt or Pryd, the god of the Britons, the Prydyn ap Ædd Mawr of the Welsh Triads.

511 Skene’s Highlanders of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 19, 23.

512 Eumenius, Ritson’s Caledonians, vol. i. p. 71.

513 Ritson’s Caledonians, vol. i. p. 120.

514 Dr. Latham in treating of the Κέλται, sets down under the head of Phenomena of the System: “the Druids; the bards; the monumental remains of the character of Stonehenge—Máenhír, long stones;” and under the head of their Antiquities: “Coins, images, tumuli, and their contents.”—Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 530. But this is a sweeping system of generalization, which takes for granted various points still open to question, if not already disproved. The derivation suggested, (ante, p. 68,) for the term Cromlech, if the correct one, seems to indicate that the true origin and character of these sepulchral memorials were as little known to the ancient Celtæ as to the “Druidical” antiquaries of last century.

515 Ante, pp. 122-124.

516 Adomnan, b. 2, c. 33; Skene’s Highlanders, vol. i. p. 40.

517 “As far as regards the Irish tradition of the Fena having arrived from Spain and Africa, to deny it all foundation in history would be inconsistent with what we ourselves have said of the route of the western Celts. I do not hesitate to detect in this tradition a reference either to that migration or to one anterior, which seems to have led likewise by the African coast to Spain, as well as to this country, a nation of Scytho-Celtic (Finno-Celtic) race, including the ancient Iberi and the still extant Basque, nation.”—Dr. C. Meyer, Report of the British Association for Advancement of Science, 1847. It is scarcely necessary to add, however, that the Celtic character of the Basque, as assumed here, is now generally disallowed.

518 “The Celtic Scuta denotes a vagabond, a restless wanderer, one perpetually roving about. This word is the original of the Greek Σκυθα, Scytha, a Scythian; applied to the Scythians with a view to the restless roving disposition of the people. Analogous to this idea, the Persians called the same people Σακαι, Herod. l. 7, cap. 74. Ὁιδε Περσαι παντας τους Σκυθας καλεουσι Σακας. Sacæ. The Persian Sack is plainly a cognate of the Hebrew Shakak, discurrere, discursitare, &c. In confirmation of this etymon, it may be observed that the Scots borderers used to call themselves Scuytes and Skytes, as we learn from Camden. The Saxon-Scots readily adopted this name, being ignorant of its original import; but the Highlanders have always deemed it a term of reproach, and consequently retain their original denomination, Albanich.”—Abridged from notes to “The Gaberlunzie,” by Callander of Craigforth, 1782. Vide also “Illustrations of Northern Antiquities,” Glossary, v. Scouts, p. 520; and “Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary,” v. Scouth.
In connexion with this, it is of importance to note the observations of Major Rawlinson in reference to the indications of the aboriginal races of Asia afforded by the Cuneatic inscriptions. He conceives that the Sacæ or Cymri frequently mentioned on the inscriptions at Khorsabad, and who appear to have been generally introduced into the Assyrian empire about the thirteenth century before Christ, were probably of Scythian origin. He, however, thinks it impossible to identify this tribe immediately with the Gaelic Cymri. It appears more probable that, under the name of Cymri, the Assyrians included all the Nomade tribes with whom they were acquainted, without respect to ethnological family; but he suggests that the Celtæ subsequently applied this generic name specifically to themselves, as among the Moguls of the present day a particular tribe have taken the name of “Eluth” or “Ilyat,” which properly denotes a mere Nomadic population. The other tribes with which the Assyrians were chiefly brought in contact, were the Shetta or Khyta in Syria, and the Ludi in Lower Babylonia. The former tribe are well known from the inscriptions of Egypt, and the latter were probably the same people who are mentioned in Ezekiel under the name of “Lud,” in connexion with “Phut” and “Elam.” These tribes of Khita and Luda were both undoubtedly of Semitic origin.
We may confidently anticipate that these researches into the races and languages of the central region of Asia, from whence we believe the human family to have been gradually diffused over remoter countries, until the first colonists reached our own western island, will yet furnish much of the precise information we require relative to the earliest Asiatic migrations of the Celtæ, and the degree of civilisation possessed by them when they began the north-western movement that finally led them to the remotest countries of Europe, bordering on the Atlantic.

519 Beda, l. 3, c. 4. Ritson, vol. ii. p. 308.

520 Vita Niniani, Ritson, vol. ii. p. 144.

521 Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 387.

522 Dicuil’s work was discovered at Paris, and published there in 1807 and 1814.—Antiquities of Ireland and Denmark. Worsaae, p. 17.

523 Bannatyne Miscellany, voL iii. pp. 73, 74, (in the press,) translated by Dean Guild. 1554.

524 Adomnan, vol. ii. p. 43; Smith’s Life of Columba, p. 55.

525 Ynglinga Saga, Coll. de Rebus Albanicis, p. 65.

526 The Ancient Sculptured Monuments of the County of Angus, including those at Meigle in Perthshire, and one at Fordoun in Mearns, by Patrick Chalmers, of Auldbar, Esq. Bannatyne Club.

527 Archæol. Scot. vol. ii. Pl. VI. fig. 3; Pl. IX. fig. 3.

528 Sculptured Mon. of Angus, Pl. VI. fig. 3.

529 Ibid., Pl. XIV. fig. 1.

530 Sculptured Monuments of Angus, Plate XV.

531 Ibid., Plate V.

532 Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 90.

533 The Church in the Catacombs, p. 180.

534 Sculptured Monuments of Angus, Plates VII. and XVII.

535 Archæologica Scotica, vol. ii. Plate VI. fig. 2.

536 Newtyle and Meigle are villages within two miles of each other.

537 Archæol. Scot, vol ii. Plate V.

538 Monuments of Iona, by H. D. Graham, Esq., p. 16.

539 Annals of the Four Masters, translated by Owen Connellan, Esq., p. 8.

540 Skene’s Highlanders, vol. i. p. 53.

541 Antiquities of Argyleshire, Trans. Camb. Camden Soc., Part III. p. 177.

542 Ante, p. 321.

543 Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 259.

544 Sinclair’s Statist. Acc. vol. iv. p. 546.

545 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. iv. p. 538.

546 Report on the Silver Fragments in the possession of General Durham, Largo, commonly called the Silver Armour of Norrie’s Law.—Cupar, 1839.

547 Ante, p. 499.

548 Historical Essay on the Dress of the ancient Irish, by Joseph C. Walker, M.R.I.A. Dublin, 1788, p. 15, Plate II. No. 4.

549 Archæol. Jour. vol. vi. p. 105.

550 Archæol. Jour. vol. vi. p. 255.

551 Ante, p. 327.

552 Ante, p. 317.

553 New Statistical Account, vol. vi. p. 57.

554 New Statistical Account, vol. xi. p. 146.

555 Ibid., p. 38.

556 Ante, p. 443.

557 Minute of Soc. Antiq. Scot., June 2, 1828.

558 Archæological Journal, vol. v. p. 220; vol. vi. p. 74.

559 MS. Letter from R. Hunter, Esq., 4th April 1850.

560 Haco’s Expedition, Rev. J. Johnston, 1782, p. 109.

561 Chronicon Manniæ, Antiquitates Celto-Normanicæ. Copen. 1786, p. 44.

562 Ibid. pp. 24, 25.

563 Regist. Episc. Moraviensis, p. 456.

564 It is not impossible that the latter name may have originally referred to the Runes on its beautiful monument. The probability, however, is lessened by the earlier forms of the name, as Ryval and Ruthwald. The reader of chartularies cannot have overlooked the endless variations of local names.

565 Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, p. 55.

566 Hibbert’s Shetland, pp. 531, 547.

567 Journal of Archæol. Asso. vol. i. p. 48.

568 Ecclesiastical Notes of the Isle of Man, &c., p. 46.

569 Camden’s Britannia; Gibson’s Ed. p. 1458; Gough’s Ed. vol. iv. p. 510; Archæol. Scot. vol. ii. pp. 490, 505; Archæol. Journal, vol. ii. p. 75; Ecclesiol. Notes, p. 24, &c.

570 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. xiii. p. 350. A local correspondent informs me that the inscription is now quite illegible.

571 Archæologia, vol. xxviii. p. 327.

572 Report of R. S. of Northern Antiquaries to Brit, and Amer. Mems., 1836, pp. 88,89.

573 Archæologia, vol. xxviii. p. 327.

574 Archæologia, vol. xxx. p. 38.

575 Ante, p. 400.

576 Archæologia, vol. ii. p. 131, Plate IX; vol. xiv p. 113; vol xix. p. 379.

577 Archæologia, vol. xxxii. p. 321.

578 Archæologia, vol. xxviii. p. 346.

579 Journ. Archæol. Assoc., vol. ii. p. 328.

580 I am indebted for these to Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., to whom the notes were supplied by Mr. Rendall.

581 A drawing of this interesting relic, which I had an opportunity of examining, was unfortunately lost, along with a valuable series of notes and sketches made by Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., during his residence in the Orkneys, as the officer in command of the Admiralty Survey. I have since failed in an attempt to obtain access to the original.

582 Mr. Rendall’s own notes are followed in the text, with only such additional information as the notes and sketches of Lieutenant Thomas have supplied. They differ considerably from the description given in the Archæological Journal. In this grave, for example, Mr. Rendall remarks, “no remains of iron were found.” It appears probable, therefore, that some confusion exists in the previous account. I may add, the brooches are described as represented, one-half the original size, in the Journal. They are in reality only one-half the diameter,—an error of frequent occurrence in describing the figures of objects of antiquity in archæological works.

583 Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, p. 53.

584 After repeatedly writing, I have, in most cases, failed in obtaining any reply to my inquiries respecting these relics. They have probably already experienced the usual fate of private collections of objects of national antiquity: and have been thrown aside and forgotten or lost so soon as the novelty of first possession was over.

585 Norste Mindesmarter. Christiania, 1823, pp. 46-48, Plate II. figs. a, b, c.

586 Ante, p. 530.

587 Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 70.

588 Sir Walter Scott, in his Notes to the “Lord of the Isles,” remarks that the brooch of Lorn “was long preserved in the family of Macdougal, and was lost in a fire which consumed their temporary residence.” This though true in fact conveys an erroneous impression. The brooch was indeed lost under the circumstances referred to, but being recovered from the ruins, it passed into other hands, and was only restored to the representative of the Macdougals by General Campbell of Lochnell, at the Argyleshire county meeting in 1825.—MS. letter, John Macdougal of Macdougal, Esq., Captain R.N., to E. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., March 1828. The engraving on Plate III. (ante, p. 49) is from a drawing taken from the original, which was forwarded for that purpose by Captain Macdougal. Pennant engraves a fine early copy of it, executed, as he conceived from the workmanship, in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It differs very considerably from the original brooch in the minuter details.—Pennant’s Tour, vol. iii. p. 14.

589 Pennant’s Tour, vol. i. p. 104, Plate XIII.

590 Ante, p. 139.

591 Hist. of Galloway, vol. ii. App. p. 67. New Stat. Acc., Kirkcudbrightshire, vol. iv. p. 103.

592 This game still survives among the juvenile sports of Scotland, played with cherry stones, or paips, Ang. pips, and called nieves, i.e., fists, from their being held in the closed hand. Some of these games with paips may perhaps claim a classic origin. Ovid alludes to one played with nuts,—Nux Elegia, ver. 72. Hence the phrase nuces relinquere, to put away childish things; to become a man.

593 Archæologia, vol. xxiv. p. 203.

594 The account in the text differs as to the number of pieces, as well as in some other and more important points, from that given in the Archæologia, (vol. xxiv. p. 212.) Sir F. Madden, however, only describes those which were acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., to whom I owe these particulars, possesses eleven pieces, consisting of two kings, three queens, three bishops, one knight, and two warders. Ten of these he selected from the whole, previous to their possessor, Mr. Roderick Ririe, offering them to the Trustees. The remaining one was afterwards obtained from a person residing in Lewis. Sir F. Madden is also mistaken in speaking of their having been long subject to the action of salt-water. They were found at some distance from the shore; a sudden and very considerable inroad having been made by the sea. A minute of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, referring to the exhibition of these chessmen, 11th April 1831, describes them as “found buried fifteen feet under a bank of sand.” Mr. Sharp has in his possession the original receipt given to Mr. Ririe by the jeweller in Edinburgh, with whom they were deposited, which describes them as “fifty-eight figures, thirty-four pieces, and a buckle of ivory or bone.”

595 The queen figure, of which a back view is given in the engraving in order to shew the peculiar form of the head-dress, holds in the left hand a horn similar to that which one of the queen figures now in the British Museum bears. In cutting this figure the carver has exposed the core of the tooth, and the side of the chair here seen is formed of another piece of ivory attached to it with pins of the same material. This is so neatly done that Mr. Sharp’s attention was called to it for the first time when I was drawing the piece.

596 Singer’s Wayland Smith, p. lxxiii.

597 “L’Empereur et Roy de France, Sainct Charlemagne, a donné, au Thresor de Sainct Denys un jeu d’eschets, avec le tablier, le tout d’yvoire.”—Hist. Abbey of St. Denis, 1625.

598 Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, p. 148.

599 Stuart’s Costume of the Clans, Introd. p. xxxiv.

600 Archæologia, vol. xxiii. Plate XXVIII. p. 317.

601 Glossary of Architecture, fifth edit. vol. ii. Plate LXXIII.

602 Vide, in addition to figure shewn here, Archæol. vol. xxiv. Pl. XLVIII. figs. 3, 4.

603 Liber Sancti de Melros, p. 76, No. 88.

604 Vide Laing’s Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Scottish Seals. Nos. 283, 593, 825, 828, 843. Edin. 1850.

605 Archæologia, vol. xxviii. p. 290.

606 It was exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, by the late Captain Campbell of Inistore, in 1833, but I have been unsuccessful in several attempts since to ascertain in whose custody it now is, in order to obtain access to it for the purpose of making a drawing from the original.

607 Vide Papers relative to the Geographical Description, &c. of Scotland, by John Adair, F.R.S., 1686-1723. Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 347.

608 Archæol. Journal, vol. iii. pp. 243, 244.

609 Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 170.

610 Archæol. Journal, vol. iii. p. 121.

611 Bibl. Du Roi, No. 7266. Ibid. vol. vi.

612 Collection of Inventories, p. 49.

613 Laing’s Ancient Scottish Seals, Nos. 1103, 1105, 1106.

614 Hibbert’s Shetland, p. 457.

615 Hibbert’s Shetland, p. 530.

616 Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 8vo, pp. 242, 245.

617 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. xix. p. 44.

618 Itinerar. Septent., p. 164.

619 Fordun, vol. iv. p. 12.

620 Beda, L. 5, c. 21.

621 Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, &c., 8vo, p. 410.

622 Itiner. Septent., p. 165. Pennant says, height from ground to roof eighty feet, and, including the spire, one hundred and three feet.—Tour, vol. iii. p. 162.

623 The drawing of the Brechin doorway is carefully made to scale, and the measurements have been taken for me by an experienced practical builder, so that they may be relied upon for accuracy.

624 Archæologia, vol. ii. p. 85, Plate v.

625 Martin’s Western Isles, p. 154.

626 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xix. p. 417.

627 Sim. Dunelm. p. 201. Hailes’ Annals.

628 Liber Cart. Sanct. Andree, p. 43.

629 Raine’s North Durham, App. p. 38.

630 Registrum Episcopatis Aberdonensis, Pref. xii.-xvi. Keith’s Bishops, Append.

631 Sinclair’s Statistical Account, vol. xvii. p. 443.

632 Not having had an opportunity of personally inspecting this interesting but little heeded Scottish relic, I have had to depend on the kindness of a local correspondent for the description of its present state. It appears to be early and exceedingly plain Romanesque work, with some later and many modern additions. Both in style and singularity of proportions it bears very considerable resemblance to the simple little Romanesque chapel of Kilcolmkill, in the parish of Southend, Argyleshire.

633 Regist. de Dunferm. Pref. xxv.

634 Wyntownis Cronykil, b. vii. chap. x.

635 Regist. de Dunferm., p. 184.

636 The reference is no doubt also to so large a portion of the original structure having been left entire, including the present nave: “Licet ecclesia vera post consecracionem ipsius per nobilioris structuræ fabricam fuit augmentata quia tamen proponitis quod antiqui parietes ejus pro majori parte in pristino statu perdurent. Vobis auctoritate præsentium indulgemus ut eisdem parietibus in pristino statu perdurantibus nonnullis vos compellere valeat ad eandem Ecclesiam propter hoc denuo consecrandam,” &c.

637 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, vol. i. p. 128.

638 Barbour’s Bruce, book vii. l. 1037; Dr. Jamieson’s Edition, vol. i. p. 211.

639 Memorials of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 127. Notices of both chapels repeatedly occur in the Chamberlain’s Rolls; but with an obvious confusion of the two—explicable perhaps on the supposition that the chaplain was bound to serve both altars. A curious notice of a meeting held in the chapel of the Castle of Edinburgh in 1447 occurs in the Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, vol. i. p. 367, No. 351.

640 Macbeth, Act IV. Scene 3.

641 The dimensions of the choir of St. Rule’s Church, as it now stands with the chancel demolished, are, extreme length externally thirty-one feet eight inches, breadth twenty-five feet, breadth of chancel arch within the inner pillars nine feet, present height of the chancel arch, the base of the pillars being covered, twenty-one feet four and three-quarter inches, present height of external wall thirty feet. The windows are small, round-headed, and quite plain, with a deep internal splay, and an external one of little more than one-fourth of the whole thickness of the wall. They measure in the daylight, or place for inserting the glass frame, six feet five inches high, and one foot eight inches broad.

642 The marks of three successive roofs are traceable on the east wall of the tower.

643 Wyntownis Cronykil, book vii. chap. 7.

644 It might perhaps better coincide with the newer English nomenclature to characterize the Romanesque as First-round, the succeeding style as First-pointed; and then the Scottish style resulting from the two, as Second-round; and the peculiarly national style into which it was finally developed as Second-pointed. The great objection is the necessity of speaking in either case of Round-pointed, or of Pointed-round arches.

645 However the proposed nomenclature of English ecclesiologists may answer their native style, it is impossible to adapt it to Scotland. First-pointed is undoubtedly preferable to Early English, when we can shew still earlier Scottish. Middle-pointed, however, is a most inconvenient and unsuitable term to our Scottish Decorated, where many of its most characteristic forms are circular; and Third-pointed becomes a misnomer, where, as in the nave and transept of South Queensferry the only pointed arch is a small plain benatura on the east side of the door, which is placed on the south side of the nave. The windows are square-headed, and the door round-headed. The roof has been open timber work.

646 Regist. Monast. de Passelet. Preface.

647 Vitæ Episcoporum Dunkel., p. 16.

648 Historie of the House of Seytoun.

649 The choir of the cathedral, now utterly demolished, appears to have been the work of Bishop Alexander de Kyninmund, 1356-1380. An interesting indenture relating to its progress is printed in Regist. Episcop. Aberdon. A.D. 1366, vol. ii. p. 59. The same collection contains two Papal bulls, granting indulgences to contributors towards the building of the nave, A.D. 1379, 1380. The succeeding bishop Henry de Lichtoun completed the nave, and built the west towers.

650 Vitæ Episcoporum Dunkel. p. 13.

651 Wyntown, b. ix. c. vii.

652 Maitland’s Hist. of Edin. p. 270.

653 Tytler, vol. ii. p. 427. Hume of Godscroft’s House of Douglas, p. 118.

654 Archæol. Scot. vol. i. p. 375.

655 The armorial shields on the pillars include the Royal arms, those of France, of the Queen Dowager Mary of Gueldres, who died in 1462, of the celebrated Bishop Kennedy, of Alexander Napier of Merchiston, comptroller of the household, and vice-admiral of Scotland,—Temp. James I. and II., (erroneously ascribed by me in the Memorials of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 162, to the Countess of Lennox,) of Thomas de Cranston, Scutifer Regis to James II., &c.

656 Drummond of Hawthornden’s History of the Jameses, p. 61.

657 Antiq. of Free Masonry in England. J. O. Halliwell, Esq.—Archæol. vol. xxviii. p. 444.

658 “On certain marks discoverable on the stones of various buildings erected in the Middle Ages.” By G. Godwin, Esq.—Archæol. vol. xxx. p. 117, accompanied with plates of masons’ marks.

659 Archæol. vol. xxx. Plates VI. VII. IX. X.

660 Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 179.

661 Hope’s Historical Essay on Architecture, p. 458.

662 Registrum Episcopatus Glasguensis, vol. i. p. 166.

663 It is so described in the “Ecclesiological Notes on the Isle of Man,” &c., an interesting and intelligent note-book, (p. 96); but no reader would ever guess from the description, that excepting in some of the minor details, it bears no resemblance to any known specimen of English First-pointed work.

Footnotes:

664 A pretty large list of Scottish monumental effigies might still be made. Descriptions of monuments furnished to me by the Rev. J. H. Hughes, and George Seton, Esq., include nearly sixty, many of which contain two recumbent figures, and to these considerable additions might be made, while many more empty niches suffice to shew where others once have lain.

665 Memorials of Edin. vol. ii. p. 169.

666 Archæologia Scotica, vol. i. p. 260.

667 Graham’s Monuments of Iona, p. 19. Plate XXXIII.

668 Transactions Cambridge Camden Soc. vol. i. p. 177.

669 Akerman’s Archæological Index. Plate XIX. fig. 6.

670 Archæol. Scotica, vol. iv. p. 122.

671 Smith’s St. Columba, p. 45.

672 The word Termon implies church lands, and is also used in the sense of a sanctuary.

673 Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 8vo, p. 252.

674 Ibid., pp. 247, 251.

675 Menstir, a reliquary; poolire, a leathern bookcase or satchel. Vide Dr. Petrie’s illustrations, ibid., pp. 336-342.

676 Eccles. Architecture of Ireland, 8vo, p. 252.

677 Archæological Journal, vol. v. p. 329.

678 Burgh Records of Glasgow. Mait. Club, p. 104.

679 Regist. Epis. Glasgu., Plates II. and V.

680 Davidis Camerarii de Scotorum, &c., Paris, 1631. Note in Liber Col. Nost. Dom. Glasgu.

681 Burgh Records of Glasgow, p. 100.

682 Among the valuable ecclesiastical bells in Mr. Bell’s collection are those of St. Ringan, St. Ruadan, St. Columba, St. Patrick, and the celebrated Bearnan brighde, or gapped bell of St. Brigid, so called from the gap or injury which tradition affirms it to have received when flung by St. Patrick in the midst of the venomous reptiles which he was banishing from the green isle!

683 Inquis. at Capit. Dom. Regis Retornatum Perth., NN. 708, 880.

684 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc., vol. xix. p. 318.

685 MS. Letter from J. Campbell, Esq. of Kilberry Castle.

686 Airley Papers, Spalding Miscellany, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118.

687 Regist. Episc. Aberdon., vol i. pp. 327, 328; Spalding Miscellany, vol. iv. Pref. p. xxii.

688 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 377.

689 Sinclair’s Stat. Acc., vol. xiv. p. 208.

690 Archæol. Scot., vol iii. p. 289.

691 The Charter is printed in full in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ Scoticæ, No. xxxv. p. 150.

692 Rev. Æneas M’Donell Dawson.

693 Archæologia, vol. xxii. Plate XXXIII.

694 I have ventured on two slight alterations of Sir Walter Scott’s reading of the original inscription, which seem indispensable for making sense of it. What he calls “the puzzling letters Hr,” there can be little doubt is the Celtic Hi, or island. The concluding words of the first part, which Sir Walter renders illdra. ipa, and then extends to illorum opera, somewhat to the confusion both of derivation and grammar, become by the simple substitution of an e for an r—letters nearly similar in the old Gothic character—ill. dea. ipa, fully admitting of the rendering above suggested. Not having seen the cup myself, I must leave the date for determination by some future observer; but from the character of the lettering it is probable that it will prove at least a century later, the ix. being more likely an m, which would assign it to the memorable year in which Malcolm, Margaret, and Edgar died. Vide note E., Lord of the Isles.

695 Fountainhall’s Historical Notices, Bann. Club, vol. ii. p. 498.

696 Archæol. Journ., vol. iii. p. 361.

697 Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. iv. p. 403.

698 Archæological Journal, vol. vii. p. 81. Vide also vol. vi. p. 189.

699 This quaint version of an old popular error forms the crest of more than one Scottish family, but there is no indication of its being introduced on the mazer as a heraldic device, or symbolic reference to its original owner.

700 Archæologia, vol. xxxi. p. 437.

701 Archæological Journal, vol. vi. p. 71.

Chapter IX — Miscellaneous Antiquities

The numerous relics which illustrate the arts and manners of the Medieval Period have already furnished English and foreign antiquaries with copious materials for large and valuable treatises on single selected departments, nor is the field of Scottish medieval art greatly less productive. It is not, however, designed in this closing chapter to do more than select a few characteristic examples of a very miscellaneous character, which are worthy of a passing glance in a treatise on Scottish Archæology, though they pertain to a branch of the subject which can only be satisfactorily dealt with in detached monographs. Of medieval personal ornaments it would be vain to attempt the most cursory enumeration in a closing chapter; but their value as elements of medieval history is altogether different from those of the primitive periods heretofore referred to. Whatever exhibits to us the artistic skill, the ingenuity, and the personal habits of a past age, cannot be without interest to the historian; but we manifestly stand in a very different position in relation to those accessories of history when dealing with comparatively recent and literate ages.

One branch of medieval art—the fictile ware—naturally possesses peculiar attraction to the Archæologist, as the offspring of the primitive arts already minutely considered. So far as may be judged of Scottish medieval pottery from the few examples preserved, it does not greatly differ from contemporary English fictile ware. One curious specimen found in 1833 at Perclewan, in the parish of Dalrymple, Ayrshire, is described as “a pitcher of earthenware like that represented in prints in the hand of the woman of Samaria, at the well of Sychar.”702 It is glazed, as is most usual with medieval pottery, of a greenish colour, and is curiously decorated on the front with the face and hands of a man in relief. From the description it appears to bear a close resemblance to a fictile vessel found at the bottom of an old well, discovered under the foundation of houses in Cateaton Street, City, London, taken down in 1841.703

Several fine specimens of medieval pottery were dug up a few years since on the estate of Courthill, in the vicinity of Dalry, Ayrshire, and are now in the possession of the proprietor, Andrew Crawford, Esq. Nearly at the same time a remarkable antique sword was discovered at Courthill. The blade, which was of iron, was so greatly corroded that only a fragment of it could be removed; but the handle is of bronze, in the form of a dragon, and is described as characterized by considerable elegance.

Fragments of pottery, of a similar character to the most abundant class of early English medieval pottery, were dug up at a considerable depth, during the progress of excavations on the Castlehill of Edinburgh in 1849, for constructing a large reservoir, but they were unfortunately too much broken by the workmen to admit of any very definite idea being formed of their shape. The annexed woodcut is from an example in my own possession, which was dug up a few years since in the ancient tumular cemetery in the neighbourhood of North-Berwick Abbey, East-Lothian. It measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, and about five and a half inches in greatest diameter, and is covered, both externally and internally, with the usual greenish glaze, common on contemporary English pottery. Various similar specimens appear to have been discovered in the same locality, but in most cases only to be destroyed,—such coarse earthenware being naturally regarded as scarcely worth the trouble of removing. The example figured here represents a small but very curious specimen of Scottish fictile ware, in the collection at Penicuick House, of the precise age of which we have tolerably accurate evidence. It was found on one of the neighbouring farms in the year 1792, filled with coins of Alexander III., and of Edward I. and II. of England. It measures only three and three quarters inches in height; and is perforated at nearly uniform intervals with holes, as shewn in the engraving. It is of rude unglazed earthenware, and is unsymmetrical, as represented here.

Another class of relics found in considerable numbers at North-Berwick, as well as in various other districts, are small tobacco pipes, popularly known in Scotland by the names of Celtic or Elfin pipes, and in Ireland, where they are even more abundant, as Dane’s pipes. The woodcut represents one of those found at North-Berwick, the size of the original. To what period these curious relics belong, I am at a loss to determine. The popular names attached to them manifestly point to an era long prior to that of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Maiden Queen, or of the royal author of “A Counterblast to Tobacco,” and the objects along with which they have been discovered, would also seem occasionally to lead to similar conclusions, in which case we shall be forced to assume that the American weed was only introduced as a superior substitute for older narcotics. Hemp may in all probability have formed one of these. It is still largely used in the East for this purpose; but Mr. C. K. Sharpe informs me that even in his younger days it was common for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss gathered on the neighbouring moors, which they declared to be much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use before the American weed was heard of. I leave the subject, however, for further investigation, only adding one or two examples of the circumstances under which these Elfin pipes have been found. The ancient cemetery at North-Berwick is in the vicinity of a small Romanesque building of the twelfth century, and close upon the sea shore. Within the last fifty years the sea has made great encroachments, carrying off a considerable ruin, and exposing the skeletons of the old tenants of the cemetery, along with many interesting relics of former generations, at almost every spring tide. Notices of similar discoveries of the Elfin pipe occur in several of the Scottish Statistical Accounts under various circumstances, but some of them certainly suggestive of their belonging to a remote era: e.g.—

“Many of the ancient British encampments appear in the parish [of Kirkmichael, Dumfriesshire.] Upon some of these being opened ashes have been found, likewise several broken querns or hand-mills, and in one of them, upon the farm of Gilrig, with a partition crossing it, and which seems to have been occupied during later times, there was dug out a sword having a basket-hilt, but so much covered with rust that it was impossible to form any accurate opinion respecting its antiquity. There was also seen a number of pipes of burnt clay, with heads somewhat smaller than that of the tobacco-pipe now in use, swelled at the middle and straiter at the top.”704 Again,

“Till lately, one of those remarkable monuments of antiquity, called standing stones, stood at Cairney Mount, (parish of Carluke, Lanarkshire,) but the hope of finding a hidden treasure induced some rude hand to destroy it. It is supposed to have stood at the side of a Roman road passing from Lanark across the bridge of the Mouse beneath Cartland Crags.... A celt or stone hatchet; Elfin-bolts, (flint and bone arrow-heads); Elfin pipes, (pipes with remarkably small bowls); numerous coins of the Edwards, and of later date, have been found in the neighbourhood.”705 An example is also noted of the discovery of a tobacco pipe in sinking a pit for coal at Misk, in Ayrshire, after digging through many feet of sand.706

Some of the Scottish and Irish Elfin pipes are even smaller than the example figured above, and seem still better adapted for the recreations of “the good people” to whom their origin is popularly ascribed. Others are ornamented with patterns in relief, and many of them, though not generally of the very smallest size, are stamped with figures or devices. One example in the possession of Mr. C. K. Sharpe, found at a depth of many feet on the Castlehill of Edinburgh, bears the impress of the initials

TB;
L

and of upwards of seventy specimens in the collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon, some are stamped R D, and on others are the letters G Λ, C L,

o
oHo,

and I P.

The annexed woodcut represents a still more curious relic, apparently pertaining to the same class of objects, though greatly more primitive in form and construction. It appears to be a tobacco pipe fashioned in red sandstone in the form of an animal’s head, and with the perforation for inserting the straw or reed by which it must have been completed, made obliquely through one of the eyes. It was found in digging a drain at the village of Morningside, at the base of the Pentland Hills, where numerous traces of primitive population have been brought to light, and was presented to me by Dr. David Skae, Physician of the Royal Asylum there. It is figured here about two-thirds the size of the original.

In the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries there is a curious collection of Irish “Danes’ pipes,” precisely similar in form to those found in Scotland. A variety of examples of the same kind, found both in England and Ireland, are also figured in the Dublin Penny Magazine,707 along with certain “clay pipe-stoppers, evidently appendages to pipes with small bowls,” but which those who can still remember the obsolete fashions of the past generation have no difficulty in recognising as the periwig curlers of much more recent times than the Danes, if not the Elves! The conclusion arrived at by the writer in the Dublin Penny Magazine is, that these Danes’ pipes are neither more nor less than tobacco pipes, the smallest of them pertaining to the earlier years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when the rarity and value of tobacco rendered the most diminutive bowl sufficiently ample for the enjoyment of so costly a luxury. From this he traces them down to the reign of Charles II., by the increasing dimensions of the bowl. It is not improbable that these conclusions may be correct, notwithstanding the apparent indications of a much earlier origin, which circumstances attendant on their occasional discovery have seemed to suggest. The following description of a curious Scottish memorial of the luxury would, however, seem at least to prove that we must trace the introduction of tobacco into this country to a date much nearer the discovery of the New World by Columbus than the era of Raleigh’s colonization of Virginia. The grim old Keep of Cawdor Castle, associated in defiance of chronology with King Duncan and Macbeth, is augmented, like the majority of such Scottish fortalices, by additions of the sixteenth century. In one of the apartments of this later erection, is a stone chimney, richly carved with armorial bearings and the grotesque devices common on works of the period. Among these are a mermaid playing the harp, a monkey blowing a horn, a cat playing a fiddle, and a fox smoking a tobacco pipe. There can be no mistake as to the meaning of the last lively representation, and on the same stone is the date 1510—the year in which the wing of the castle is ascertained to have been built.708

The arms and armour are no less characteristic of the medieval than of earlier periods, and are not without minuter national details well worthy of note. There was indeed from the very commencement of the Scottish medieval period in the eleventh century, to the final disarming of the Highland clans in 1746, two completely diverse modes of warfare and military accoutrement prevailing in Scotland. The old Celtic population, occupying for the most part the Highland fastnesses, retained many of the usages of their forefathers under partially modified forms, and even in the decoration of their weapons and defensive armour preserved the ancient style, which is still traceable on the Pictish monuments of Scotland. Many of the circular Highland targets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries present exactly the same interlaced knotwork as may be seen on bosses and limbs of early crosses, and even on relics belonging to the last Pagan era. A mere glance, however, at a few characteristic examples must suffice here; and among these none is more noticeable than the old claymore with reversed guard, which is sculptured on so many of the ancient tombstones of Iona and of the Western Isles. In the portrait of James I. of Scotland, which accompanies the old folio edition of the Scots Acts, the king bears a weapon of this description. It occurs, however, on tombs of a much earlier period, and is now very rarely to be met with. One good small example is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and another larger and very fine specimen, the handle of which is here engraved, is in the valuable collection of W. B. Johnstone, Esq. The claymore is figured in the sculptures both of Iona and Oronsay with a considerable variety of details. In some the blade is highly ornamented, and the handle varies in form, but all present the same characteristic, having the guards bent back towards the blade. A curious variety of this peculiar form is seen in a fine large two-handed sword preserved at Hawthornden, the celebrated castle of the Drummonds, where the Scottish poet entertained Ben Jonson during his visit to Scotland in 1619. It is traditionally affirmed to have been the weapon of Robert the Bruce, though little importance can be attached to a reputation which it shares with one-half the large two-handed swords still preserved. The handle appears to be made from the tusk of the narwhal, and it has four reverse-guards, as shewn in the cut. The object aimed at by this form of guard doubtless was to prevent the antagonist’s sword from glancing off, and inflicting a wound ere he recovered his weapon, and in the last example especially it seems peculiarly well adapted for the purpose. Among the curious collection of ancient weapons in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is a sword the blade of which measures thirty-two and a half inches long, and has a waved edge, returned a short way over the back. It was discovered among the ruins of Bog-Hall Castle, near Biggar, Lanarkshire; while the handle, which is made of the section of a deer’s horn, and is still more remarkable than the blade, was found at a great depth in a morass, on the property of Sir Thomas G. Carmichael, Bart., in Tweeddale.

The later two-handed sword, though still so familiar to us, is perhaps the most interesting in an archæological point of view, of all the military relics pertaining to the Medieval Period. The huge, ponderous, and unwieldy weapon, seems the fittest emblem that could be devised, of the rude baron of the thirteenth century, who lived by “the good old rule” of physical force, and whose hardy virtues—not unsuited to an illiterate age—are strangely mistaken for the evidences of a chivalry such as later ages have not seen. Calmly reasoning from this characteristic heirloom, as we have done from those of remoter and less known periods, we discern in it the evidence of just such hardy, skilless, overbearing power, as history informs us was the character of the medieval baron, before the rise of the burgher class readjusted the social balance by the preponderance of rival interests. The weapon figured here is a remarkably fine and unusually large specimen of the old Scottish two-handed sword, now in the possession of George Seton, Esq., representative of the Setons of Cariston. It measures forty-nine inches in the blade, five feet nine inches in entire length, and weighs seven and a half pounds. But the chief interest of this old relic arises from the well-authenticated family traditions which associate it with the memory of its first knightly owner, Sir Christopher Seton of that Ilk, from whom some of the oldest scions of the Scottish Peerage have been proud to trace their descent. He was married to Christina, sister of King Robert the Bruce, whom he bravely defended at the battle of Methven. He was shortly after taken prisoner by Edward I., and basely hanged as a traitor. “So dear to King Robert was the memory of this faithful friend and fellow-warrior, that he afterwards erected on the spot where he was executed a little chapel, where mass was said for his soul.”709 Besides this fine example of a Scottish two-handed sword, may be mentioned that ascribed to Sir William Wallace, preserved at Dumbarton Castle; that of Sir John Graham of Dundaff, (slain 1298,) in the possession of the Duke of Montrose; another “Wallace sword” at Kinfauns Castle; and other specimens at Talyskir, in the Isle of Rasay; at Abbotsford; and in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.

Among the most recent additions to the same collection is another remarkable weapon, which possesses undoubted historical value, and may be associated with more confidence with the great victory of Robert the Bruce than most of the relics that bear his name. It consists of the head of a battle-axe, of iron, coated with bronze, which is figured here. It was discovered in draining the morass at Bannockburn in 1785, and is considerably broken on the edge, evidently from its use upon the mailed panoply of the gallant knights who fought in that hard-stricken field. It measures eight and a quarter inches in length, and four and three quarters in height, from the point to the insertion of the haft.

Numerous other remarkable specimens of ancient Scottish arms and armour are preserved both in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries and in other public and private collections; but a mere reference to these without copious illustrations could be of little avail to the antiquary. The Scottish Museum includes a variety of specimens of the old quarrel-head, or Wallace Bolt, as it is generally termed; ancient swords, lance and spear heads, cross-bows, daggers, dirks, hunting knives, and the old Highland Lochaber-axe, with the more modern fire-arms, and other military accoutrements, including the singularly complicated purse-clasp, described by Sir Walter Scott as that of the celebrated outlaw Rob Roy, with four pistols ingeniously concealed in it for defence of the contents of the purse. Still more recent relics preserve associations with the victors of Prestonpans and the vanquished of Culloden Moor. But such objects belong perhaps fully more to the poet than to the archæologist, and are too frequently employed to add a fictitious interest to collections, the real use and value of which have yet to be appreciated.

Some remarkable pieces of ancient artillery also figure in Scottish history, one or two of which have escaped the perils of siege and the waste of time, though the most of them live only in the quaint records of Scottish chroniclers, like the famed Seven Sisters, cast by Robert Borthwick, the master-gunner of James IV., which did their last Scottish service on Flodden Field. A better fate has attended the still more celebrated Mons Meg, whose unwieldy proportions probably proved her safety, by inducing the impetuous king to leave her behind, when he carried the flower of Scottish chivalry to that fatal field. The ancient barrier gateway of Edinburgh Castle, built most probably soon after the siege of 1572, was surmounted with a curious piece of sculpture, occupying a long narrow panel, which is chiefly filled with representations of artillery and munitions of war, and among these Mons Meg plays a prominent part. The old-fashioned narrow wheel carriages of the sixteenth century having given place to more substantial modern artillery waggons, the highly ornamental but narrow gateway was demolished in the beginning of the present century, and one-half of its sculptured panel, figured here, now surmounts the entrance to the Ordnance Office in the Castle. At the left side is the famed Mons Meg—or, as she is designated in the list of ordnance delivered to Monk, on the surrender of the Castle in 1650, “The great iron murderer, Muckle Meg”—mounted, in all probability, on her “new cradill, with xiii stane of irne graith,” which, as we learn from the Treasurer’s accounts, was provided in 1497, not long after her safe return from the siege of Dumbarton Castle. This remarkable piece of ordnance is not cast like a modern cannon, but built of wrought iron hoops and bars, or staves, and with a narrow fixed chamber in the breach for containing the charge. It appears to be of enormous strength; but after doing good service for upwards of two centuries, both in peace and war, it burst on the 29th October 1680, when firing a salute in honour of James, Duke of York, on his arrival in Edinburgh; an occurrence which, as Fountainhall records, failed not to be regarded as an evil omen. This mode of fashioning artillery with separate staves and hoops is the oldest method of which we have any account, and was probably universally employed on the first introduction of gunpowder in constructing what our old Scottish poet designates, in the earliest known allusion to field artillery, crakys of war. This curious reference of the old metrical historian, Barbour, is to the first expedition of Edward III. against the Scots in 1327, and consequently may be accepted as fixing the precise date of the introduction of artillery into Scotland:—

“Twa noweltyeis that dai thai saw,
That forouth in Scotland had been nane;
Tymmris for helmys were the tane,
That t’other crakys wer of war,
That thai before heard never er:
Of thai tua things thai had ferly
That nycht thai walkyt stalwartly.”

Among the specimens of ancient pieces of ordnance in the Scottish Museum is a curious pair of cannons, built in a similar manner to Mons Meg, with hoops and staves of iron, bound with copper, measuring each twenty-nine inches in length, and designed for mounting on one stock. This double cannon was formerly stationed on the walls of Wemyss Castle, Fifeshire, and is said to have belonged to the celebrated Scottish admiral, Sir Andrew Wood of Largo. Double guns of the same description, mounted on one carriage, are figured in the beautifully illuminated MSS. of Froissart, believed to have been executed about the beginning of the fifteenth century. They are also shewn on wheel carriages among the Scottish artillery at the battle of Pinkie in a very curious print belonging to the Bannatyne Club, entitled, “The Englishe victore agaynste the Schottes, by Muskelbroghe, 1547.” Another piece of ancient artillery in the Scottish collection consists of a still more complicated group of cannons of similar construction, four being mounted on one carriage, and the whole united by an iron rod at the breach. They are evidently designed to be fired at once, so as to discharge a broadside on the enemy; and however tardy and inconvenient the reloading of these pieces may have been, the first broadside from a park of such artillery must have had no slight effect on an advancing foe.

The second half of the curious sculptured memorial of ancient Scottish artillery in Edinburgh, divorced from the group which includes Mons Meg, on the demolition of the barrier gateway in 1800, lay long neglected and buried in rubbish. It was at length rescued from impending destruction, and safely lodged in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It includes a singular group of ancient ordnance and warlike appliances; chamber pieces or patereros, with chambers or moveable breeches—frequently used separately for throwing small shot; bombards, chiefly employed for throwing great stones; a curious hexagonal cannon of large proportions, constructed, it may be presumed, of separate bars; hand-cannons, or the earliest class of portable fire-arms; with lintstocks, shot, barrels of powder, &c. Along with these are also large guns of symmetrical form, which may be presumed to represent brass cannon, as the art of casting cannon was introduced at a much earlier period than the date suggested for the rebuilding of the barrier gateway, though it is by no means improbable that the sculpture may have belonged to a still older structure. Cannon are said to have been cast even in the middle of the fourteenth century;710 and a brass cannon is still preserved at Toulouse, made in the year 1438.

One other class of relics, singularly characteristic of medieval customs and civilisation, includes the instruments both of punishment and of torture, of which Scotland may lay claim to the questionable boast of having some peculiarly national examples. At a period when criminal punishment avowedly assumed the character of retaliation and revenge, and when torture was recognised as a legitimate means of eliciting evidence, Scotland was not behind the other countries of Europe in the full use of both. The execution at Edinburgh, in 1436, of the murderers of James I., the poet king, and especially the horrible scenes attending on the death of Sir Robert Graham and the Earl of Athole,—crowned, in fearful mockery, with a red-hot iron diadem as king of traitors,—sufficiently illustrate the ferocious spirit which went hand in hand with medieval chivalry. One of the most curious historical relics of this class is the Scottish Maiden, employed, so far as we know, for the first time in the execution of some of the inferior agents in the assassination of Rizzio. By this instrument were beheaded the Regent Morton, Sir John Gordon of Haddo, President Spottiswoode, the Marquis and Earl of Argyle, and many more of the noblest and best blood in Scotland. The Earl of Argyle is reported to have said, with a grave humour worthy of Sir Thomas More: it was the sweetest maiden he had ever kissed. It now forms one of the most remarkable national relics in the Scottish Museum, having, it may be presumed, performed its last office as the instrument of death. It is impossible to look without feelings of peculiar interest upon this ancient Scottish guillotine, so directly associated with the great of past ages; though the vindictive spirit which sought at times to give an added ignominy to a violent death cheated it of the blood of the gallant Kirkaldy, of Montrose and Warriston, as well as of others of lesser note, who figure in the Scottish chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Boots and Thumbkins are two instruments of judicial torture, especially associated in Scotland with the sufferings of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles II. Neither of them, however, were invented so recently. Torture, which the Roman law permitted only to be used in compelling the evidence of slaves, bore no such limitation in medieval Europe; and the name of the Question, commonly applied to it, abundantly shews the direct purpose for which it was employed. Examples of this barbarous mode of seeking to elicit the truth are frequently to be met with in the earlier Acts of Sederunt of the Court of Session: as in a case of suspected perjury, 29th June 1579, where the King’s Advocate produces a royal warrant for examining “Jhone Souttar, notar, dwelland in Dundee, and Robert Carmylie, vicar of Ruthwenis, witnes in the action of improbatioun of ane reversioun of the lands of Wallace-Craigy; and for the mair certane tryall of the veritie in the said matter, to put thaim in the buttis, genis, or ony uther tormentis, and thairby to urge them to declair the treuth.” One pair of thumb-screws in the Scottish Museum, of unusually large size, is said to have been the instrument employed by the authorities of the ancient burgh of Montrose for eliciting confession; and a ruder pair, of peculiar form, in the Abbotsford collection, is figured in the illustrated edition of the Waverley Novels.711 Sir Walter Scott has given fearfully vivid life, in his “Old Mortality,” to the tribunal of the Scottish Privy Council, where such horrible appliances were last in vogue. Happily they too are consigned to the cabinet of the antiquary, telling of times which are, we may hope, as truly left behind as the aboriginal Stone Period, with its primitive arts and superstitions, and its simple sepulchral rites.

The Scottish JOUGS and BRANKS are old instruments of punishment, popularly associated, for the most part, with judicial visitations of a more homely and less revolting character than those previously referred to, though not altogether free from sterner associations. The jougs, which consist of an iron collar attached by a chain to a pillar or tree, form the corresponding Scottish judicial implement to the English Stocks: applied, however, not to the legs or arms, but to the neck. They are still to be met with attached to the porch of our older village churches, or occasionally to some venerable tree in the surrounding churchyard, their application having been most frequently reserved in the olden time for the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. The woodcut represents a fine old pair of jougs, the property of Sir William Jardine, Bart., which were found imbedded in a venerable ash tree, recently blown down, at the churchyard gate, Applegirth, Dumfriesshire. The tree, which was of great girth, is believed to have been upwards of three hundred years old, and the jougs were completely imbedded in its trunk, while the chain and staple hung down within the decayed and hollow core. The more usual form of the jougs is simply a flat iron collar with distended loops, through which a padlock was passed to secure the culprit in his ignominious durance. Along with this may be mentioned a singular and probably unique relic of old Scottish judicature, preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, to which it was presented in 1784. It consists of the brass collar of a Scottish slave of the eighteenth century. The collar is inscribed in accordance with the terms of the following verdict, which shews that the case was not singular; and having been dredged up in the Frith of Forth, it seems sufficiently probable that the unhappy victim may have chosen death in preference to the doom from which there was no other release.

“At Perth, the fifth day of December 1701 years, the Commissioners of Justiciary of the south district, for securing the peace of the Highlands, considering that Donald Robertson, Alexander Steuart, John Robertson, and Donald M’Donald, prisoners within the Tolbooth of Perth, and indicted and tried at this court, are by verdict of the inquest returned, GUILTY OF DEATH; and that the Commissioners have changed their punishment of death to perpetual servitude; and that the said pannells are at the court’s disposal. Therefore the said Commissioners have given and gifted, and hereby give and gift, the said Alexander Steuart, one of the said prisoners, as ane perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva, recommending him to cause provide an collar of brass, iron, or copper, which by his sentence or doom, (whereof an extract is delivered to the magistrates of the said burgh of Perth,) is to be upon his neck with this inscription: Alexr. Steuart, found guilty of death for theft, at Perth, the 5th of December 1701, and gifted by the Justiciars as a perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva; and recommending also to him to transport him from the said prison once the next week; and the said Commissioners have ordained and hereby ordain the magistrates of Perth, and keeper of their Tolbooth, to deliver the said Alexander Steuart to the said Sir John Areskine of Alva, having the said collar and inscription conform to the sentence of doom foresaid.”712

From another deed of gift, it appears that Donald M’Donald was bestowed in like manner on John Earl of Tullibardine.713 No doubt the other two were similarly disposed of by gift, if not by positive sale—so very recently was slavery a part and parcel of Scottish law: feudal customs, and the singular ideas incident to the peculiar social state of the Highlands, having remained little affected by all the changes wrought on the Lowland Saxon and the Southron, until the final overthrow of the clans on Culloden Moor abruptly broke the traditions of many centuries.

The BRANKS is another Scottish instrument of ecclesiastical punishment, chiefly employed for the coercion of female scolds, and those adjudged guilty of slander and defamation. It may be described as a skeleton iron helmet, having a gag of the same metal, which entered the mouth and effectually brankit that unruly member—the tongue.714 It is an instrument of considerable antiquity, and has probably not unfrequently been employed for purposes of great cruelty, though in most examples the gag is not designed to wound the mouth, but only to hold down the tongue. In the Burgh Records of Glasgow, for example, under date of April 1574, “Marione Smyt and Margaret Huntare” having quarrelled, they appear, and produce two cautioners or sureties, “þat þai sal abstene fra stryking of utheris in tyme cuming, under þe pane of X lib., and gif thai flyte to be brankit.”715 One very complete specimen still preserved at St. Mary’s Church, St. Andrews, is popularly known as the Bishop’s Branks, and is usually said to have been fixed on the head of Patrick Hamilton and of others of the early Scottish martyrs who perished at the stake during the religious persecution of James V.’s reign. This tradition, however, is not borne out by history in the case of Hamilton, and is probably the addition of a later age, though the instrument may possibly have supplied both Archbishop and Cardinal Beaton with a ready means of restraining less confirmed recusants, and thereby nipping the new heresy in the bud. But the real origin of its present title is to be traced to the use of it in much more recent times, by Archbishop Sharp, for silencing the scandal which an unruly dame promulgated openly against him before the congregation. A view of the Bishop’s Branks is given in the Abbotsford edition of The Monastery, where it is described as formerly kept at St. Mary’s Church. It still remains there, in the custody of the sexton, and is regarded with such general interest as is likely to secure its preservation. The annexed woodcut is drawn from another example, which was discovered in 1848 behind the oak panelling in one of the rooms of the ancient mansion of the Earls of Moray, in the Canongate, Edinburgh. The term Branks, it may be added, is also used in Scotland to designate a rude substitute for a horse’s bridle and bit, formed most frequently of a halter and stick. Some few years since the frightful instrument represented below was preserved in the old steeple at Forfar, where it bore the name of the Witch’s Branks or Bridle, and is described in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Forfar as the bridle with which the wretched victims of superstition were led to execution. The field, it is added, where they suffered is pointed out to strangers as a place of curious interest. The witch’s bridle was carried off from Forfar to add to the antiquarian treasures of the late well-known collector Mr. Alexander Deuchar of Edinburgh. The date 1661 is punched on the circle, along with what seems to read Angus s.716 The object aimed at in applying so dreadful a gag to those who were condemned to the stake as guilty of witchcraft and dealing with the devil, was not so much the purposed cruelty which its use necessarily involved, as to prevent the supposed possessors of such unearthly gifts from pronouncing the potent formula by means of which it was implicitly believed they could transform themselves at will to other shapes, or transport themselves where they pleased, and thus effectually outwit their tormentors. It furnishes a melancholy index of the barbarism which prevailed in our own country at so very recent a period, that educated men could be found to give credit to such follies, or that even among the most illiterate and rude, executioners could be enlisted to apply to a woman an instrument the very picture of which is calculated to excite a shudder.

It would not be difficult to add to these common instruments of punishment and of torture others equally characteristic of the spirit of the age, though not brought into such general use. Registers of various kirk-sessions recently printed by the Abbotsford Club, the Spottiswoode Society, and others of the Scottish literary book clubs, disclose much curious evidence of the petty tyranny and cruelty too frequently exercised by these courts in the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline, most frequently by means little calculated to promote reformation or good morals. In these, however, as in the traces of earlier manners which we have sought to recover, the historian finds a key to the character of the age to which they belong, and indications of its degree of advancement in civilisation, such as no contemporary historian could furnish, since it supplies elements for comparing and for contrasting the present with the past, no less available than the rude pottery and the implements of flint or bone which reveal to us the simple arts of aboriginal races. The great difference in point of value between the two classes of relics is, that those more recent indices of obsolete customs supply to us only an additional element wherewith to test and to supplement the invaluable records which the printing press supplies, while the latter are the sole chronicles we possess of ages more intimately associated with our human sympathies than all the geological periods of the preadamite earth.

Footnotes

702 New Statist. Account, vol. v. p. 279.

703 Journ. Archæol. Assoc., vol. iii. p. 63.

704 New Stat. Account, vol. iv. p. 71.

705 Ibid. vol. vi. p. 581.

706 Ibid. vol. v. p. 430.

707 Dublin Penny Magazine, vol. iii. p. 29.

708 Carruthers’ Highland Note-Book, p. 154.

709 Tytler, third edition, vol. i. p. 229; Robertson’s Index, pp. 135-138. The outer wood-casing of the handle is modern, and incorrectly made in imitation of a small single-handed sword. That of the old two-handed sword was invariably nearly straight, so as to admit of the hand moving freely along it. The two-handed claymore figured on p. 682 is probably one of the very earliest examples of the transition to the later unwieldy weapon. The handle measures fourteen inches, and the blade three feet three and a half inches, in length.

710 Archæologia, vol. v.; Ibid. vol. xxviii. pp. 383, 385.

711 Abbotsford Edition, vol. ii. p. 24.

712 From a copy in the possession of Alexander Macdonald, Esq.

713 Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Perth.

714 To brank, to bridle or restrain. Vide Jamieson’s Scot. Dict.

715 Burgh Records of Glasgow, p. 7.

716 Sir J. G. Dalyell’s Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 686.

Chapter X — Conclusion

In the two previous chapters, as well as in that devoted to medieval ecclesiology, some of the later exemplars of Scottish arts and civilisation have been glanced at, coeval with many authentic historical documents, to which the researches of the antiquary can only add supplementary illustrations. These, however, though legitimately included in the compass of archæological investigations, do not strictly come within the plan of this work, except in so far as they suffice to illustrate the remarkable contrast, both in character and historical value, of the antiquities of the Primitive and Medieval Periods. Viewing Archæology as one of the most essential means for the elucidation of primitive history, it has been employed here chiefly in an attempt to trace out the annals of our country prior to that comparatively recent medieval period at which the boldest of our historians have heretofore ventured to begin. The researches of the ethnologist carry us back somewhat beyond that epoch, and confirm many of those conclusions, especially in relation to the close affinity between the native arts and Celtic races of Scotland and Ireland, at which we have arrived by means of archæological evidence. Of the six Celtic dialects known, either as living languages or preserved in books, the Irish and the Scottish Gaelic most nearly approximate, the former being to a great extent only a cultivated and more artificial modification of the other. The Manx dialect, though belonging to the same subdivision, differs much more considerably from both, representing, it may be assumed, the northern Celtic tongue prior to the intrusion of the Scoti into Ireland, or their later colonization of Dalriada. Again, the three several dialects of the Celtic idiom of the ancient Britons, the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Armorican, differ essentially from all these; thus clearly indicating the early separation which took place between the Southern Celtic Britons and the Picts, and the modification of the peculiar characteristics of the latter by local influences in which the former bore no share. In all these respects the conclusions of the ethnologist receive not only confirmation but much minute elucidation from archæological research. But we have found from many independent sources of evidence, that the primeval history of Britain must be sought for in the annals of older races than the Celtæ, and in the remains of a people of whom we have as yet no reason to believe that any philological traces are discoverable, though they probably do exist mingled with later dialects, and especially in the topographical nomenclature, adopted and modified, but in all likelihood not entirely superseded by later colonists. With the earliest intelligible indices of that primeval colonisation of the British Isles our archæological records begin, mingling their dim historic annals with the last giant traces of elder worlds; and, as an essentially independent element of historical research, they terminate at the point where the isolation of Scotland ceases by its being embraced into the unity of medieval Christendom.

The subdivision of historic periods here indicated is by no means peculiar to Scotland. The isolation of the elder nations was universal prior to the diffusion of Christianity. Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Judea, Greece, Carthage, and even Rome, each stood solitary amid its vastest conquests. It was reserved for the Popedom—that great fact of medieval history—to create a unity by means of which the isolation of the nations came to an end without the sacrifice of their individuality. But that also was no final stage in the world’s history; and though the shadow of Papal supremacy still lingers as a medieval relic which has outlived its use, time has developed nobler elements of unity, in harmony with the true spirit of modern nationality. In nothing is the practical character of modern scientific discovery and mechanical skill—the steam-engine, the railway, the electric telegraph—more apparent than in its antagonism to this antiquated isolation of the nations. Between the modern and the primeval periods, the medieval era interposes as the long stage of transition in which the transforming influences of the new faith were changing the whole social fabric, and moulding it into higher forms. But as these things of the past have made way for the time which is, so too must it give place, as a transition time and the precursor of a still brighter future. The world itself is a transition stage, and all sublunary things are but the preparatives for a mightier futurity. Viewed as a part of the great cosmical history of which geology has recovered so many chapters, the labours of the archæologist seem to add but a few stray leaves. The strata of the earth’s crust, deep as we can penetrate, or lofty as we may climb, are filled with the evidences of the organic life of preadamite orders of being; but it is only in the latest diluvial superficies that we detect those traces of our own race, which thus so unmistakably announce that man is but of yesterday. If, however, the isolated individuality of the elder nations of the world’s history confers on each of them an interest which we seek for in vain in those of the medieval era of transition, man also has a peculiar individuality which gives a value to the most perishable relics he casts behind him in his brief lifetime. To the geologist one perfect example is a certain type of its species, and hence a complete geological collection is a conceivable thing; but it is not so with the labours of the archæologist. He aims at recovering a clue to the esoteric no less than to the exoteric indices of past generations, and sees in each varied relic the product of human thought, invention, and intelligent design. Each human being of all the past ages, born into time as an immortal being, had a personality and a destiny which give to whatever traces may he recoverable of him an interest for all time. Minutest variations may be the fruits and evidence of a mental labour never repeated, and each device of fancy or caprice may contain a clue to the character of the individual mind,—a reflex, as it were, of the individuality, of the psychical physiognomy of its originator. If we except, indeed, the treasures of the numismatist,—which are, strictly speaking, a branch of written history,—there are no true duplicates in the collection of the archæologist. His researches are conducted in a boundless field, since their novelty is as inexhaustible as the phases of human thought. Nor can the archæologist forget, while thus reviewing his own study as a branch of human knowledge, and seeking for it its just place among the Sciences, that he is little likely to overestimate the dignity of a pursuit which embraces within its aim the primal history of man.

The geologist, devoutly scanning the records of earlier Creation, traces onward the development of higher organizations, not as an embryonic life, passing by some innate or self-generated law of vitality from the fœtal and immature to more perfect and higher states of being, but as successive ideas of the Divine Creator thought out into a recorded actuality; while each, by its embryonic organization, or by its manifestations of the lower nature of a preliminary and imperfect dispensation, reveals the mind of the Creator, and purposely foreshadows the “better things to come.” Literal types are these, but shadows also pointing onward from the first days in that uterine week of Creation when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep, and the formless and the void became instinct with successive orders of being, until at length man was made in the Divine image, and God rested from his work. Into the original moral condition of that most perfect fruit of Creation thus born in the fulness of time, it is not our province here to enter. Archæology, in a peculiar sense, deals with man mortal, not immortal—with man not as he was made at first, “upright,” but as the seeker out of “many inventions;” and as such he too appears to us, like the elder offspring of Creation, in an embryonic state, from which we follow him upward step by step until we recognise in the present an harvest of all the past. The Archaic Period presents, indeed, as one of its most peculiar characteristics, the abundance of native gold, but the true GOLDEN AGE OF MAN lies before him, not behind. Some nations do appear from the very dawn of history possessed of a singularly developed civilisation. Such, however, was indispensable to the existence of any history not purely mythic or archæological; while in the very oldest of these we discover also the traces of a still earlier embryonic period through which they have passed.

A general system of Archæology remains as yet a desideratum. Egypt stands alone in its strange old civilisation, as if, Minerva-like, it had sprung forth at once a maiden nation, endowed with arts, polity, and an organized social system; but even its unwritten history, we have seen, retains the traces of an ante-historic Stone Period—a childhood in common with the world’s younger commonwealths. Heretofore, however, the infancy of nations has been, for the most part, contentedly left in the wrappages of their first swaddling myths. Of Asia our knowledge of its primitive archæology is only by means of the merest fragmentary and isolated data, which can piece into no coherent system. India and China reveal much that illustrates the maturity of an elder and superseded period, but nothing as yet that takes hold of the beginnings of things. Nineveh and Babylon have recently yielded up strange and most interesting records of the past; but the more minutely we investigate these, the less reason we find for imagining that they pertain to the infancy of Asiatic nations. The primeval archæology of Asia remains yet to be explored. It must not be sought for among the deserted scenes of barbaric pomp and oriental magnificence, on the banks of the Tigris or the Euphrates, but in the northern steppes, and on the less hospitable heights, and the outlying valleys which skirt the seats of elder empire. There truths of the deepest importance in relation to the history of man still lie recorded in undeciphered annals. There only can we hope to find the types which have been repeated, with endless variations, by the later wanderers, not only into Europe, but throughout the diverse regions of the New World. When this branch of knowledge has been thoroughly explored, we shall possess a new argument for the unity of the human race, not less conclusive than any which the ingenious learning of the philologist has supplied. Of another chapter in the progress of man, bearing more directly on the elucidation of the antehistorical period of Europe, that of the north-western migration from central Asia, a comprehensive general system of archæology has yet much to reveal. We owe to the Asiatic researches of Humboldt a clear understanding of the systems of mountain chains, both of Europe and Asia, which have exercised so important an influence on the distribution of the entire Fauna of the two continents. A remarkable simplicity of structure is discernible in the arrangement of the continuous lines of greatest elevation, which strikingly coincides with the traces we can recover of the route pursued by the successive nomadic waves of population which have passed from Asia to Europe. These chains of abrupt elevation, which appear to have served as natural tracts, within the defined limitations of which the nomade races were urged onward by as natural a law as the river is borne seaward in its channel, are composed of four great systems of mountains, almost uniformly directed from west to east, and parallel with the greatest length of the continent. These are the Altai, the Thianshan, the Kuenlun, and the Himalaya. A glance at the map of Asia, and especially at the admirable physical charts prepared by Mr. Alexander Keith Johnston, shews with singular precision the courses of continuous migration, the localities where mountain barriers arrested for a time some portion of the migrating nomades, as in the eddies of a stream, and the vast yet isolated steppes in which they may be assumed to have settled down for ages, and become the centres of later migratory offshoots, tending ever to the north-east. Tracing again the influence of the geographical features of the old world at the imaginary line of separation between Europe and Asia, we discern the physical causes of known historical facts. We see the inevitable course of the old patriarchal tribes, from the table-land of Iran, and the great Asiatic peninsulas beyond, directly to Asia Minor and the narrow Straits of the Dardanelles, while the table-land of Syria and Arabia is shut in to the western shores of Palestine, the seat of Tyre and of Judea. Northward of this the Caspian Sea seems placed as it were to exclude the wanderers for a time from their final settlements. South of it a narrow shore appears to be the appointed channel by which one early stream passed along the continuous line of the Kuenlun chain to the base of the Caucasus, and from thence reached the ancient scenes of Pelasgian colonization. But it is by the wider gorge, to the north of the Caspian Sea, that the great nomadic tide must have flowed, while we see there the Ural chain stretching southward to limit the European portal of colonization, and to arrest and detain the wanderers who pursued a more northerly course. Herein, therefore, may be discovered the geographical elements in which important ethnological distinctions have had their rise, while at the same time the archæologist discovers in it an additional motive for pursuing his researches into the primitive antiquities of the great northern Asiatic steppes, where the true key to the sources of European primeval archæology, we cannot doubt, is yet to be found.

Of this comprehensive system of antehistorical research the Archæology of Scotland forms the merest fractional item. It is indispensable, however, for the integrity of the whole; and as I believe that it is not at Babylon or Nimrud, but in the northern steppes of Asia, that the primeval history of the elder continent must be sought, so also it is not in the annals of Greece or Rome, or in the antiquities of the adjacent kingdoms, modified by their arts and arms, but in Ireland, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries, that we may hope to recover the unadulterated first chapters of European history. The precise conclusions to which we have been led, in relation to Scottish Archæology, are such as amply accord with this idea. The Celtæ, we have seen reason to believe, are by no means to be regarded as the primal heirs of the land, but are on the contrary comparatively recent intruders. Ages before their migration into Europe, an unknown Allophylian race had wandered to this remote island of the sea, and that in its turn gave place to later Allophylian nomades, also destined to occupy it only for a time. Of these antehistorical nations Archæology alone reveals any traces. Hitherto both the historian and the ethnologist have ascribed their remains to the later Celtæ, the first historical race of Northern Europe, introducing thereby confusion and cumulative error into all reasoning on their data. These elements of history can only be rectified and properly adjusted when the primitive archæology of the various countries of Europe has been sifted and treated in detail, and when each subdivision has been traced to its origin, and most probably to its Asiatic source. We need not doubt that an abundant phalanx of workers will ere long be found enlisted in this interesting field of research. The mere gathering of curious rarities commanded but a limited sympathy, while their possession was the sole end to be attained, and the gratification of an impassive acquisitiveness superseded the search for truth. The fossil encrinite or the “witch bead”717 was equally singular and valueless, so long as it was merely an incomprehensible lusus naturæ. But when it came to be recognised as the index to the history of a whole genus of radiated polyps, both recent and fossil, it was taken from the novelties of the curiosity-hunter, and permanently classified among the illustrations of natural science. It were easy to shew why it is that we have been slower in turning to account the no less manifest illustrations of the history of the Bimana, first order in the class of mammals. Some of the sources of this tardy recognition of their value have already been glanced at; but it is sufficient that we are now learning to discover their true use, and are at length aiming at the recovery of a just view of man as a rational and immortal creature, by means of the perishable trappings which he throws off behind him, in his passage across this probationary stage of being. We are all conscious of passionate longings after a knowledge of the past, no less than of an instinctive desire to search into the future. Man “looks before and after,” he feels himself no isolated being, but one link in a vast chain, the ends of which stretch away immeasurably into the past and the future; and while he discovers in the preadamite periods of creation a preparatory dispensation, he recognises in his own period a more perfect one, not because he conceives it to be final, but because he knows it to be probationary, and the preliminary to that which is perfect. Thus, by thoughts in which the antiquary dwells on the yet undeveloped designs of the Ancient of Days, does he perceive a new dignity and sacredness in pursuits which not the ignorant only have heretofore deemed puerile and worthless, recognising in them the means of recovering lost links in that chain by which such mighty truths depend. He looks upon the shadowy past by the clearer light of the future; and while the revelation of “life and immortality” adds a new force to his convictions of the unity which pervades creation, and is manifested in Providence, it also stimulates with a more lively energy his desire to lay hold upon “the evidence of things not seen.”

Footnotes

717 Witch beads, Fairy beads, St. Cuthbert’s beads, are all names by which the Entrochi, or joints which compose the stem of the Encrinite or Stone Lily, are popularly known in various districts of Scotland and the north of England.

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